Page 21 of Black Widow's Kiss

“Not a big deal? Dante, Ricci’s only get married once. You hear me? Once! And now, the person I admire more than anyone in this world is married, and I wasn’t there to bear witness to it?”

“Bear witness to it? What are you talking about, Matteo. It’s not a big deal.”

Staring at Matteo, I saw his eyes get glassy. What was going on? I had once watched him nearly beat a man to death. I had watched our father almost beat him to death. And not even then did he cry. I was starting to think that I might have done something wrong.

“Okay,” Matteo said pulling himself together. “Then can you at least tell me who my new sister is?”

My chest tightened like a drum. His new sister? The idea that I could be with a man wasn’t even imaginable to him. I didn’t know if I could do this.

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“More complicated? How can it be more complicated?”

There was no way of escaping this, especially with my new husband having moved in with me. I glanced down at the papers on my desk not able to meet his eyes.

“Look, what you did was bad. I had to stop a war. Who knows how many people would end up dead if I didn’t make this move.”

“What are you saying?”

“What I’m saying is that I didn’t marry a she. It’s a he.”

Shock overwhelmed my brother. Every second that went by without him speaking made my trigger finger nervous.

“What are you thinking, Matteo?” I asked wondering if I was gonna have to get physical.

“I…”

“You what?”

“I don’t understand,” he said looking genuinely confused.

“Look, it turns out that Yuki wasn’t available. I think she was promised to someone else or some shit. And since we needed to make this work, the only option was Kuroi.”

Matteo flinched in surprise. “Kuroi? You mean, the fuckin’ Black Widow? What the fuck, Dante?”

“Don’t believe that Black Widow bullshit. I’ve met him. He’s a perfectly reasonable guy.”

As proof I could add that he didn’t even cut an artery when he stabbed me multiple times the night before.

“Reasonable guy? Dante, haven’t you heard. That guy’s a psycho! Yeah, he’s not bad to look at if you’re into that sort of thing.” Matteo paused. “Dante, are you into that sort of thing?”

Fuck! That was a point blank question. I had managed to avoid this type of question my whole life. Marry one man and the shit just hits the fan.

“You know me, right, Matteo? You know me. I am willing to do whatever it takes to protect this family. We need this connection.”

“We don’t need it that much.”

“Matteo, we need it! You don’t know what type of shit your acting out put us in!”

“You being forced to marry someone you don’t want to would never be worth it. It was one thing when I thought it was Yuki. I could see the two of you really working together. But Kuroi? The guy’s a psycho. Nothing is worth that. I mean, if you’re not into it,” he said suggestively.

“What’s done is done. Do you hear me? And secondly, now that he is my husband, I can’t have you goin’ around disparaging him like that. Do you hear me? You disrespect him, you’re disrespecting me.”

Matteo looked at me shocked.

“I said, do you hear me!”

“Yeah, of course. Whatever, Dante,” my brother said looking very confused.

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