Page 224 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

Elena appeared in the doorway with her gun held to a guard’s temple. “He was about to ambush you.”

“And you got to him first.” I was impressed and more than a little aroused by the fact. “Lottatrce mia.”

She grinned at me as I moved forward to take him from her. “Point that weapon at Rocco for me.”

She did.

I twisted my torso and landed a massive, cheek-crunching punch to the other man’s face, then watched implacably as he fell like a log to the floor.

“Now…” I shook my hand out a little, spraying blood to the floor. “Rocco, did Agostino mention anything about atraditorein my organization?”

His eyes widened, a manic smile seizing his bloated face. “Not so clever as you think you are, Salvatore.”

“Cleverer than you at least.” I rounded the desk and carted him up onto his tiptoes with a hand around his throat, squeezing tight. “You’re going to die now, Rocco, and I want you to know why. It’s not because I am better than you because you’re right, I’m not. You and I are both villains, men with corrupt souls and greedy minds. I don’t deny my darkness. But I also don’t deny the light. You think you can force a girl into marriage just because she loves a woman instead of a man you chose for her? You think you should kill a man because you’re jealous of him? Beat someone because they disagree with you?

“I’m not better than you because I’m pure as snow, Rocco. I’m better than you because I may be a villain, but I’m not a monster. I have a heart, and I know how to use it. But again, that’s not why I’m going to end up the victor here. That’s not why I’m going to shoot you straight through your thick skull.”

I bent closer, my mouth so close to his that the old, bigoted fool flinched and made me cackle. “I’m going to kill you because I want to live more than you do. Because I’ll do anything it takes to stay alive and keep my woman at my side. I’d skin you alive and feed pieces of you to your entire crew to show them just how much I mean it when I said the reign of Rocco Abruzzi is dead and the Salvatores are taking over Naples again.”

“You greedyfuck!” Rocco shouted.

I slapped him. Open palm with all my rage behind it. His head cracked to one side, his skin gone red immediately like instant Jell-O.

“You hit like a girl,” he spat, blood-tinged saliva falling to the desk.

“I hityoulike a bitch because you are one,” I told him matter-of-factly. “You think you can force Mira into marriage, Cosima Lombardi into sexual slavery, and threaten Elena?”

“You can’t,” Elena cut in, her voice true and ringing like church bells throughout the room.

It drew my gaze.

She stood just to the side and behind me, her gun aimed straight at Rocco. Her eyes were as cold and gray as the metal in her hands.

“Lena, don’t,” I ordered.

But I knew as I said the words that she wouldn’t listen. This was the truth of why she’d demanded to come with me.

She wanted revenge herself.

The gun fired, the recoil smashing back into her hands. She didn’t even flinch.

I looked at Rocco who was staring at her in stupefied horror, clutching his chest with his undamaged hand. At first, I thought she’d missed, but then Rocco’s chin tucked to his chest and his hand fell away from his torso, revealing a bubbling hole in his right side.

Straight through his lung.

His breath wheezed in and out, trying to gather enough air to speak.

I knew he wouldn’t die for a long time with a wound like that and I was glad.

Elena wasn’t meant to be a cold-blooded killer.

She was better than me in soul and spirit. I didn’t want the stickiness of my depravity to transfer wholesale to her.

So I blocked Elena’s view of Rocco, leaned close to his laboring face again and whispered, “May your soul burn for eternity in hell if you betray the Omertà and the Family.”

Rocco gasped. “Figlio di puttana.”

Son of a whore.