Page 14 of Black Widow's Kiss

I looked at the Doc and laughed.

“I see. How about I just release myself when I’m feeling up to it. We’ll go with that option,” I said not giving her a choice.

“As you wish,” she said with a look that said, ‘You had a panic attack’ written all across her face.

Fine. Whatever she needed to believe to allow me to get out of here.

“Could you send in my brother when you go,” I said done with her.

“I’ll send him right in,” she said politely before showing herself out.

“What’s the verdict,” Lorenzo asked immediately entering.

“I think I was poisoned,” I told him rolling the thought around in my mind.

“Kuroi! But how? The kiss!”

“The kiss,” I concluded not giving any life to the other thing the doctor had suggested.

“He poisoned you with the kiss,” Lorenzo concluded with a laugh. “Well, that would explain the look on your face after it happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“You looked drugged. It was like you didn’t even know where you were. Then you just took off.”

“Yeah, that’s probably what happened,” I said slowly remembering the kiss.

Was that what happened? Things were coming back to me and any look I had on my face wasn’t from a drug. I didn’t go around kissing men. At least not in front of people who knew me. And doing what I did the way it happened and with him…

What was it about Kuroi? Was it his lips? His eyes? Oh right, the way he looked at me. It was like he slipped into me and became the puzzle piece that had been missing my entire life.

But, if I were poisoned, didn’t it have to be from his kiss? Could this have been the way he killed all of his lovers? The kiss of death? And wasn’t it minutes after that I passed out?

“What are you gonna do about it?” Lorenzo asked bringing me back. “And, did you know Sato was planning on doing that? Marrying you two right there like that? It was nuts!”

“If I knew what he was planning, you think I would have gone there like that?”

“I don’t know. For a moment there you did seem pretty into it,” Lorenzo joked.

“Fuck no! That was a complete mind fuck what he did.”

“Then, I don’t get it. Why’d you go through with it? Why didn’t you just stop it?”

That was a good question. Why didn’t I? And that was when I remembered the look in Kuroi’s eyes.

“I did it because our family needed it,” I lied.

Lorenzo threw his head back in admiration.

“You’re a bigger man than me, Dante,” my little brother said with a snort.

“And don’t you fuckin’ forget it,” I joked.

“So, what are you gonna do now. You can’t, like, live with him or anything, can you? He already tried to kill you once.”

That was a good question. The living arrangements weren’t something that Sato and I discussed. When I thought I was marrying Yuki, of course I imagined us living together. That would have been one of the benefits of the marriage. But now… shit.

What would living with Kuroi even be like? If he had tried to kill me, the fact that he failed would mean he would try again. How long could I sleep with one eye open?

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