Page 217 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

“Sei bellissima,” I told her.

You look beautiful.

“You look like mine,” she responded with a slow, wicked smile. “I don’t suppose we have time to consummate the union?”

“Not yet. Later, I’ll fuck you until even your teeth ache. Now, we aren’t getting on a plane. We’re going to end Rocco Abruzzi’s reign over Napoli.”

She blinked at me, her mouth a little moue of shock.

For a second, I wondered if this was too much. If my ice queen lawyer had returned and her desire to be good would stop her from supporting my plan.

Before I could curb my words, she smiled like a fox in the face of a hound, clever and sly with bad intentions. “Can I help?”

The wind caught my laughter and sent it flying around us. “Si, Donna, you can help if you wish.”

So, I told her our plan.

We had men, some of them recruited from Rocco’s own community who were tired of the fear and his fury, and Damiano’s loyal crew. Thanks to Leonardo Esposito and our own investigations, we knew where some of Rocco’s loyal capos liked to hang out on a Sunday night, and our men were waiting for them there.

Pietro Cavalli visited his long-term mistress in Ravello.

Paulie Gotti visited a local tanning salon to top off his color.

Tony Martinelli took a cigarette on his back patio after dinner to get away from his wife and seven children.

The rest would be at the reception for my fake wedding with Mirabella.

We’d known Rocco wouldn’t reveal the truth of our misdirection to the guests because he wouldn’t want people to know he’d been duped. I wasn’t sure how he was going to pull it off, but Leonardo had texted to say he told everyone we were shaken from the bomb and currently reaffirming our love physically.

If Italians believed anything, it was passion.

No one would blink an eye.

“Are you going after Rocco yourself?” Elena asked, standing to join me at the helm.

I steadied her when she almost lost her balance and put her between my body and the wheel, bracketing her with my arms to secure her. My nose dipped into her hair to steal a drag of that sweet scent.

“Yes, he deserves to be ended by my hands.”

She was quiet for a long time after that. I fought the urge to question her, to ask if she thought I was a monster for orchestrating the killing of so many men.

Eventually, she turned her face into my suit jacket over my heart and pressed a kiss there. “I’m glad.”

“You are?”

Her sigh was lost in the wind, but I felt her shoulders move with it. “Yes. Italy is corrupted by the mafia. How can we expect him to go to prison for anything he’s ever done when he can just buy off the magistrates and police? I thought America was different, and then Dennis turned out to be corrupted. I know it’s much worse here. Death is the only option for someone like Rocco. He tried to kill you and a totally innocent girl today in a car bombing just because he was threatened by your power and by her love of another woman? He sold my sister to Alexander. It might be wrong to want him dead, but not as wrong as his actions have been against the ones I love.”

“When I first saw you in that red dress at the San Gennaro party, I thought you looked like a heathen goddess of sex and war,” I told her. She laughed, the sound moving through her and into me like an electric current. “I still think of you like this.”

“I would have thought you found me an ice queen back then,” she admitted, putting her hands over mine on the wheel.

Her plain gold wedding band caught the light and winked at me.

“No, only a futureDonna.”

My words were punctuated by a strange noise.

Something like apfft, a whip snapped through the air.