Page 27 of Black Widow's Kiss

With a reminder for which door was the bathroom, I headed in and slumped onto the basin. Looking up into the mirror, I wondered how I was still alive. My face was mostly blood. It looked like I had bathed in the shit.

How the fuck did I get myself into this? Was Kuroi really out to kill me? I couldn’t tell if he was doing a piss poor job of it or if he was toying with me.

And what did “How would you know?” mean? How did I know he was a crazy fuck? Because he threw a casserole dish at me. Or, was he suggesting something about what would happen if we had sex? How crazy good could fucking him be?

“I got these,” Lorenzo said bringing me back to the present.

I looked at the t-shirt and sweat pants in his hand. Was he kidding?

“It’s the only thing I have that would fit you.”

He was probably right. Not only was he shorter than my six foot four inches, he didn’t have my build.

“Sit down. I’ll do it,” he insisted when he saw that I was gripping onto the basin for dear life.

I slowly straightened my back and unbuttoned my shirt. When I took too long, he took over and pulled my shirt down past my shoulders.

“What the fuck?” he said seeing the stitch job I did on Kuroi’s love tap the night before.

I looked away embarrassed and he didn’t say anything else about it. Instead he pushed me toward the toilet and had me sit down on the closed lid.

Having Lorenzo clean me off felt familiar. Growing up there were five of us, but it was more like there was me, and then there was Matteo, Giovanni, and Marco. Giovanni and Marcowere too young to know any better, but Matteo used that to his advantage. The three of them would ambush me usually with Matteo hitting me in the head with one of the younger one’s toys.

Just because it was made for kids didn’t mean it couldn’t draw blood. When I wasn’t knocked unconscious, Matteo would pay for it, of course. But when I would gush like I did tonight, it was in everyone’s best interest that I be patched up as quickly as possible.

That was when Lorenzo stepped in. Lorenzo sewed his first butterfly stitch when he was ten. We all considered him neutral territory. It allowed him to get good at it. Because if Matteo drew blood, it was just a matter of time before I gave Matteo a limp for a month. It was amazing how that boy never learned his lesson. He has a thick head to this day.

“I have Chinese if you’re still hungry,” he told me as he finished up.

“I could eat,” I told him knowing I still wasn’t strong enough to go anywhere.

Changing into Lorenzo’s clothes, I joined him at the table.

“Did I interrupt something?” I asked noticed how put together the things on the table were.

“What could you interrupt?”

I stared at my black box of a brother realizing he wasn’t gonna give anything up. So instead I joined him at the table and dug in. Food was just what I needed. I ate until I couldn’t move.

“You can stay in the spare room.”

“I don’t need to stay in your spare room,” I said feeling pissed off at his suggestion. What did he think, that I couldn’t take care of myself?

“Dante,” he said looking at me with sympathy, “I know why you did it. And it’s commendable. You’re doing more for Matteo than I would. But, the man you married is trying to kill you.”

“He’s not.”

“You’ve been married to him for three days and have been stitched up as many times.”

“I was in the hospital for a car accident.”

“… Five minutes after marrying the man known as the Black Widow because everyone he’s with dies from a heart attack. I can’t remember, what caused you to run into that tree, again?”

Lorenzo was being an asshole about it, but he wasn’t wrong. Unless it was a panic attack that caused me to hit that tree, I had to accept that it had to do with Kuroi’s kiss. That made it three times.

But, if Kuroi was trying to kill me, why hadn’t he just done it that first night. He had a knife. He knew where to aim it. Why hadn’t he tried to break into my room when I was supposed to be asleep and finish me off?

Even tonight. Who makes a casserole and tries to murder someone with the dish? There has got to be more to what’s going on than him being a raving maniac with impeccable fashion sense.

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