Page 3 of Black Widow's Kiss

The thought of what he had done flowed over me. “Shit! How the fuck am I gonna get us out of this?”

The answer came to me as fast as I asked it.

Two years ago, when I took over the reins for the family, I had a visit from Sato. The Yakuza hadn’t yet gotten their foothold on New York’s heroin trade and the old man was grasping at straws. The word was his bosses were considering recalling him in the permanent sort of way. So Sato was fighting for his life.

The man had vision, I’ll give him that much. He saw the downfall of the Lyon’s coming a mile away and he proposed an alliance. But he didn’t just want our word. Those crazy son-of-a-bitches never did anything half way. He wanted family ties. He offered me his daughter in marriage.

My response was, “Fuck, no!”

I’ll admit, it was not my finest moment. To be fair, I was going through some things at the time. I was under a lot of pressure to take over and I saw marriage as the off switch to my pressure release valve.

Sure, I saw myself marrying someday. But, for me not to murder anyone who looked at me funny, I needed certain outlets. That required the right kind of marriage with a woman who turned a blind eye.

It turned out that Yuki was exactly who I needed. I hadn’t met her at that time. I think he said she was still in Japan. But seeing her at a ribbon cutting ceremony as their family’s representative, I knew I had made a mistake in refusing her.

At the ceremony, I didn’t see her look into a man’s eye once. It was all bows and humility. Japanese culture is very different from ours. I see that now. Turns out, she would have been the perfect wife. And now, it looks like she will be.

Insulted as he was by my rejection, Sato didn’t shut the door on his idea. The man’s life was a stake. He couldn’t afford to start a war over honor. So, two years later, here we are.

Number one, Matteo has made us indebted to the Yakuza. Number two, their global trade would cement the Ricci’s hold on the city. And number three, I still didn’t have a wife. It was just the wrong time before. Sato would understand that, right?

Wasn’t being patient a Japanese thing? That’s why they made those designs in the sand, wasn’t it? Shit, I didn’t know. If I was gonna marry Yuki, I was gonna need to know this stuff.

“You cannot marry into the Yakuza,” Pa declared from the head of the table at Sunday dinner.

‘How the fuck did he know about that?’ I wondered looking around at the assembled Ricci boys who filled theirplates as if my getting married was old news. There was only one of my brothers I trusted with this, Lorenzo. And like usual, he wasn’t here.

“You’re marrying a Yakuza?” Matteo asked with a smirk. “When the fuck did this happen?”

“Ever since my shit for brains brother killed a made man and I had to clean up his mess,” I spit melting his smirk.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” I said looking at my remaining three brothers as they quickly averted their eyes.

“The Yakuza can’t be trusted,” Pa proclaimed like the oracle on the mound.

“Yeah, Pa? Then what do you suppose I do?”

“Go to war. Or will you shame me as son who is afraid to fight?”

“He’s not afraid to fight, Pa,” Matteo said again showing me glimpses of a new man. “Dante would fight the best of them. He’s just fighting them in a different way.”

Was Matteo finally getting it?

“Only a coward runs from war,” Pa declared.

“And only a fool runs into one,” I told him not backing down.

“They will humiliate you. They will humiliate this family, and we’ll end up exactly where we started.”

The heat of fury blinded me. Slamming my fist in front of me, I shattered my plate sending food everywhere.

“Dante!” Ma yelled thinking she could control things like when I was five.

“No, Ma! I’ve had it with this shit,” I said getting up.

“Dante, sit down!” Ma insisted.

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