Page 47 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

“Dio mio, Elena,” my sister breathed, tears instantly thick in her voice. “My love, I cannot tell you how happy I am to hear that. You must be over the moon.”

“I am,” I agreed before quickly ordering my coffee from the barista with my hand over the phone. Then I moved away and said to Cosima, “It’s just…strange. I feel like my life is empty still. A year ago, I would have been thrilled. I can’t help wondering what would have happened if Daniel and I got this news together before he met Giselle.”

“Oh, my love, please don’t let your mind go there. Aren’t you the one who has always told me the past cannot be altered and to focus on the future?”

“Yes,” I agreed on a sigh, the knot in my chest slowly loosening under the careful tending of her calm attention. “I know I should be over it, but it’s easier said than done. It’s not just Daniel who lied to me and broke my heart. Somehow, Giselle’s disloyalty is even worse. Betrayal from someone who is supposed to understand your pain and should stand by you no matter what feels impossible to move on from.”

“You and Giselle haven’t been tight in so long…I know what she did is not forgivable, but the fractures in your sisterhood gave room for her relationship with Sin to grow. By the time she knew you were the girlfriend, she was too in love to change the outcome. I know it hurts, but they’re really happy together. Happier thanyouwere with him, my Lena. Don’t waste any more time on a man who isn’t spending time thinking about you.”

I swallowed convulsively past the lump in my throat, struggling to digest her words. Not because I disagreed with them, but because I didn’t.

The way Daniel had acted after he returned from their affair in Mexico… it was as if he was a different man, one I didn’t know very well at all despite being with him for four years.

I hadn’t made him happy, not likeher.

And God, that burned like frostbite emanating from my arctic heart.

“One day,” Cosima said so softly, so quietly, as if she was afraid to spook me. “I know you’ll find a man who makes you forget every fear you’ve ever had, who soothes all the ragged wounds you’ve had to endure in your life, who makes you feel more alive than you ever have before.”

“Like Alexander and you,” I said with a tight smile, happy at least she had found that.

No one deserved that kind of love more than the most loving woman I knew.

“Like Alexander and me,” she agreed. “Don’t be afraid of a rough start, either. Sometimes, you are too quick to judge. Give things time to develop. Lord knows I hated Xan before I fell for him.”

A hiccough moved through my chest as I remembered the real reason for my call.

A man I’d thought was hateful who I was beginning to question might not be so awful after all.

“Cosima, you know I’m happy to finally repay even one iota of what you’ve done for our family,” I began, acknowledging the fact that she and Sebastian had provided for our family since they were teenagers, that they had been the ones to move us to America and get us out of that Neapolitan stink hole. “But I need to know, what is your relationship with Tore and Dante?”

The pause that followed was filled with words in a language I didn’t understand. I was thrown back to childhood when Seamus had relentlessly taught all of us English, my siblings catching on quickly, but my own mind lagging behind.

I was tired of the language of secrets.

“I need to know,” I pushed. “I’m representing him, Cosi. I need to know the facts.”

“You want to know,” she argued, but she wasn’t angry, just weary. “You’ve always wondered, but now, you finally want to know the truth. Even if it’s horrible.”

“Yes,” I whispered, my eyes unseeing as I stood in the middle of the bustling coffee shop imagining what horrors my sister had endured for our family. “Tell me.”

“I won’t tell you the whole story over the phone, Lena, but I’ll come to visit. It’s been a while, and this is something I should tell you in person. But as far as Tore and Dante are concerned…they’re my family. I know you have bad memories of the Camorra and you hate everything they represent, but those two men are two of the best I’ve ever known, and they’ve proved that to me too many times to count. I trust them with my life and my heart, and I’d trust them withyours.”

“What really happened that day at Ottavio’s?” I demanded, leaning forward as if I was in front of her, bearing down on her to squeeze more of the truth from a woman who was as porous as a stone. “Is Dante trying to protect you by not giving his alibi?”

A brief hesitation so quick it shot past like a shooting star.

Then, so solemnly it felt like a vow spoken by a monk at prayer. “Dante is always trying to protect me.”

Does he love you?I suddenly wanted to ask, the question burning up my chest like gasoline-lit tinder.

Does he love you? Does he love you? Does he love you?my inner voice screamed.

But I didn’t say anything.

I wasn’t sure why, but it might have had something to do with the fact that I couldn’t deal with the knowledge of another man showing me some level of attention only to find one of my sisters far superior.

Not that Dante liked me.