Page 71 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

I caught Dante watching me sometimes when I sparred with Marco, who was short enough that we were more evenly matched, or when I spoke to Chen as I stretched about the recent economic downtown. He watched me with this look in his eye I couldn’t quite figure out, but it looked something like pride. I didn’t speak to him, avoiding any alone time with him as if it was essential to my safety, and in a way, it was. But I could admit to myself that I watched him too, and what I found continued to fascinate me.

They clearly respected Dante, deferring to him in a myriad of different little ways I cataloged with more interest than I should have. They mimicked his movements sometimes, shifted their positions throughout the room in correlation to him like planets around a singular sun, and followed his orders without blinking an eye. They teased him often, fought him hard when they sparred, and seemed relaxed in his company, but an alert attentiveness in the soldiers spoke of their willingness to do more than just his bidding, an intensity that spoke of their readiness to dive in front of a bullet for him.

It was heady to observe their dynamic.

Not just observe like a witness, like the fly on the wall I’d been most of my life, but to participate in it.

They enfolded me into their morning routine like sugar into egg whites, beating us together until, at the end of eight days, I felt like a homogenous member of their five a.m. practice sessions.

From there, I did my ablutions, grabbed a banana from the bowl in the kitchen, and had Adriano take me to work, where I focused mostly on other cases while we waited to find out when the trial date would be set for Dante. Until we knew, we didn’t have access to the witness sheet, and therefore, it was difficult to know how to defend Dante against whoever they would find to replace Mason Matlock. The only evidence they seemed to have of Dante’s racketeering and illegal gambling was a low-level bookie in New Jersey who’d been arrested eight months ago and rolled over on Dante to reduce his sentencing time as well as a wiretap they’d taken of Dante speaking to a known sports gambling shylock in the Bronx about betting for the 2018 World Series years ago.

It wasn’t much, and it would be nothing if we could squash the murder charges.

I worked through the weekend to avoid spending time at the apartment with Dante even though he was often as busy as I was, working in his office deep into the night, always on the phone or entertaining a variety of men and some women who all had that trademark wet black mafia look in their eyes.

I was taking the Thursday and Friday off from work then working remotely for three days the next week anyway for my surgery, so I told myself it made sense to work longer hours than usual, staying at the office until ten o’clock every night when Adriano would arrive to drive me back to the apartment.

It wasn’t that I was avoiding him or the feelings he seemed to stir to life beneath my frozen skin.

I was just busy with work, as always.

The Wednesday night before my surgery, I stayed even later at the office, the small silver clock on my desk in the bullpen glowing with the number 11:17.

Seventeen was an unlucky number for Italians, signaling death, and even after years of stifling my cultural history, I shivered at seeing it on the screen, instinctively reaching for the cross I’d once worn at my neck.

It was as good enough a cue as any to end the night there. I’d finished my research on a hit and run for a client who had claimed there hadn’t been a stop sign at the corner where the accident had occurred. Fortunately, the company PI, Ricardo Stavos, had located the vandals in Brooklyn Heights who had stolen it, which meant when we finally went to court in two weeks, we had a solid chance of getting him off with a heavy fine and license penalty given the victim had only suffered a fractured collarbone.

I laughed resentfully as I stood from my uncomfortable chair to stretch the kinks out of my body from sitting at my desk for hours. As a girl, I’d dreamed of being a lawyer, imagining myself like a superhero in a Prada suit, then when I’d first moved to America, I’d been caught up in the idea of glamor and prestige as one of the city’s top attorneys.

The truth was fair less dazzling. Very few lawyers ever made it into the papers for their work or won cases that made a serious change to the dynamics of society. Most people were in it for the power, the money, or the nepotism. We all worked endless hours, ate at our desks, and eschewed normal social conventions like dinner dates and Sundays at Central Park for work, work, and more work.

It was an endless toil.

And in a way, it perfectly mimicked my life.

I’d had my nose to the grindstone since I was ten years old and realized if I wanted a chance to get out of the stinking hole of our poverty in Naples, I had to hone my mind into my mightiest weapon, the only one in my arsenal.

It was no wonder I was always tired. It was as if I just needed a night of good, deep sleep, but I still felt exhausted even when I woke up. It was more than physical exhaustion or mental. The brunt of it was emotional weariness, all of my hope and optimism worn smooth by the continued battering of life’s antagonistic waves against the shores of my heart.

All I wanted was to go back to Dante’s apartment, crawl into that huge, decadent bed, and sink into the silky sheets with a glass of wine and the latest edition ofThe Economist.

Not exactly exciting, but after a day like I’d had, a week, a year, it was all I wanted. My needs were small and simple because I never let them become blown out of proportion by dreams.

“Burning the midnight oil?” Ethan asked as he sauntered into the room in a beautiful blue suit, his voice slurred slightly with drink. “Why did I know I’d find the invulnerable Elena Lombardi still at her desk?”

I ignored him as I packed up my things. In my experience, men like him wanted any kind of attention, so if you starved him of it, he’d leave you alone.

The drink made him bolder. He sauntered forward, slammed his hip into the side of the desk, and hissed before saying, “You should relax a little. ’S not like you’re next in line for the partner track.”

I sighed heavily. “Maybe if you spent less time out drinking with your buddies and more time at work, you’d have a chance at it someday too.”

“I have more than a chance,” he countered, his flushed faced furrowing. “My father is Horace Topp. I’m just paying my dues here in this pit with the rest of you.”

“The rest of us who actually work for our success,” I countered superciliously, giving him a wide birth as I walked around him to the door.

I was tired and human, and he was irritating. I could only resist his idiocy for so long.

He lunged forward, surprisingly quick for his drunkenness, and grabbed my wrist. “You’re a real bitch, you know that? You should be nice to me. I could do you a favor or two if I was properly motivated.”