Page 84 of Black Widow's Kiss

I was the Black Widow. I killed everyone who dared love me. And I remembered one other thing. Maybe not the first time it happened or even the second, but the other times I remembered there being a scent in the room the night before they died.

It was faint. It was always faint. It was more of an instinct than anything else. A registration that lingered just below my consciousness. It was the same scent I smelled… tonight.

“You!” I said, it hitting me like a sledgehammer. “It was never me. It was you!”

She stared at me unfazed, unyielding.

“But, how? Why?”

“You are mine,” Yuki said casually. “Father gave you to me.”

“I… What?”

“You will come home because father gave you to me and you belong home.”

“Like… your doll?”

My mind spiraled trying to understand everything she was saying. Had she killed all of my lovers out of jealously? Or, was it possession? Did she believed that she owned me? That no one else was allowed to have me?

I stared at Yuki, who stared back unflinching and calm. She believed this. She thought that I belonged to her. And when father gave me away…

“You whispered in his ear,” I said remembering what the customs officer said about her brother.

She had said that there was someone who put the idea into his head that the Italian girl was into that stuff. It would have had to have been someone who had access to him and who he would trust.

The brother had worked directly with my father. That meant that he was frequently at the compound. And if Yuki told him something, he would at least consider it.

“Why would you tell that man something like that? Couldn’t you see where it would lead?”

Yuki blinked. It was slow and icy. It told me everything.

“You did know. This was your plan. You wanted war. But why?”

Her still demeanor couldn’t mask the feral scream with which she thought it. Unable to contain herself for a second longer, she told me.

“If he can take away something that’s mine, then I can take away something that’s his.”

I fell back into the couch stunned. For so long I had thought I was a monster. No, I was worse than a monster because monsters didn’t kill what they loved.

The worst part was that I could never remember doing any of it. That meant that I could never be trusted. I could never allow myself to love anything, and I couldn’t trust myself if I did.

But now I understood. It was the one person who I thought loved me that I couldn’t trust. I was never really a person to her. I was always just her doll. Her possession. And when her father took it away from her, she plotted to take down his organization as revenge.

“How could you?” I asked allowing the tears to roll down my cheeks. “I thought you loved me.”

She said nothing. Her silence ripped my heart from my chest. I was nothing to anyone. No one had ever cared about me, and no one ever would.

It was then that Dante burst out of the bedroom. Like a bull he charged toward Yuki. Seeing him coming, she attempted to back away but couldn’t avoid his grasp. His large hand encircled her delicate neck and squeezed.

“Dante!” I yelled.

“What’s this?” he bellowed holding his toothbrush in front of her.

Terror washed across Yuki’s face as her gaze locked on the toothbrush.

“What it is?” he shouted.

“What going on?” I replied panicked.

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