Page 20 of Spider Demon's Kiss

It didn’t make sense. Of course, nothing made sense with that crazy fucker. One thing for certain was that I couldn’t turn my back on him. I was also going to have to pay Sato’s men a visit for what they did to Franko, the attendant at my building. The man has a family and needs to make a living.

He can’t come into work every day scared that doing his job will get his fingers broken. Now, not only do I have to pay his hospital bills and for his time off from work to get him to comeback, but his Christmas tip has to be as much as a small car. Christ, how much will being married to Kuroi cost me?

“I heard Sato’s men attacked your doorman last night,” Matteo said when I entered my office to find him there.

I paused quickly assessing what was going on. I hadn’t had the chance to tell the rest of my family about the wedding. I was too busy recovering from an attempt on my life.

And last night after leaving the hospital, I was preoccupied with how I was going to break it to Sato that Kuroi and I wouldn’t be living together. That was, of course, before I got home to find him already there and looking like the most fuckable thing I’ve ever seen.

“There was an incident. I’m taking care of it,” I informed my brother before heading to my desk. “What are you doing here?”

“Pa sent me to check on you. He didn’t have enough time to see you at the hospital,” Matteo said playing the subtle game with a level of skill I didn’t think he had.

“There was no need to stop by. It was a brief stay.”

“A brief stay because you ran that beautiful car of yours into a tree. What possessed you to do that? The Dante I knew would need to get shot to do something like that.”

Hearing his reference to getting shot, I looked up at Matteo. Was this a new level to his subtle game?

“Why’d you say that?” I asked suspiciously.

“Say what?”

“That I would need to get shot to crash my car.”

“Because you would. You loved that car. You acted like you would take a bullet for that car,” he explained as I looked for any hint that he might have been behind the neck pinch I felt before I crashed.

“I didn’t love the car that much,” I told him when I didn’t spot anything.

“So, what happened?”

Not liking where his questioning was going, I settled at my desk and began my day.

“What happened was that I crashed.”

“But why? We had someone check in on the doctor but she wasn’t saying.”

“We?”

“Yeah, you know, Pa and me.”

“So it’s you and Pa now. After everything he put the both of us through, that’s still where your loyalty lies? After all of the cleaning up I’ve had to do with your messes?”

“Hey, I never asked you to do the things you’ve done,” he said defensively.

“You never had to. That’s what it means to be a pack. We look after each other. It would be good for you to remember that.”

“I remember that,” Matteo said backing down a little.

“Good,” I said turning my attention to my computer hoping he would see himself out.

“But, speaking of cleaning up my mess. Pa and me were wondering what happened with that idea you had about marrying one of Sato’s people?”

Did he know? He had to know something. If they knew what hospital I was in, it wouldn’t be hard for them to figure out what else is near there and then piece together why I was there.

Shit! I was going to have to tell everyone. And there was no way I was gonna avoid telling them that the head of the Ricci pack had just married a man.

“Yeah, it’s been settled,” I said casually.

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