Page 25 of Spider Demon's Kiss

“I know.”

“Huh,” I said thinking about that. “Matteo did say something else.”

“He was just full of interesting thoughts today.”

“Yeah. He said that maybe I should invite Kuroi to have dinner with someone from the family first. You know, to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“What could go wrong?” Lorenzo said with a laugh.

“Exactly. So, what do you think?”

“What? With me? I would love it. It’ll also give me a chance to figure out if he’s the one who tried to kill you.”

“I don’t think he’s trying to kill me,” I said dismissively.

Lorenzo looked up at me amused.

“Who would have thought, Dante Ricci, blinded by a pretty face? Ha!”

I didn’t respond. First off, my wolf didn’t like my brothers thinking they could comment on my husband’s looks like that. Let’s have some respect. Bat-shit crazy or not, he was still my husband. They were gonna have to understand that.

Second, they weren’t wrong. I could feel a blind spot developing for Kuroi. Anyone else do to me what he did and I would have ended their life right there. I wouldn’t have justchoke the life out of them, I would have tossed them off my balcony.

It was more than needing things to work out between our two families that kept me from killing him. The man was a live wire that I wanted to touch.

Drawing out things at work as long as possible, eventually I headed home. Driving in my rental, I could feel my wolf wanting to come out. He got like this whenever I was nervous. But I didn’t get nervous. So, I didn’t know why he was acting this way.

Parking and heading into the lobby, I was reminded what I was walking into by Franko’s replacement.

“Good evening, Mr. Ricci,” he said opening the elevator for me.

“Evening.”

When the elevator door closed behind me, I forcefully inhaled. I couldn’t breathe. I never felt like this. What was going on?

Hearing the bing as the door opened, I realized that whatever I was feeling was a little too much. I needed to get into my room as fast as I could and come up with a way to handle things.

Stepping out of the elevator, I instinctually looked around.

“Hey Honey, you’re home!” my husband said from the kitchen.

I knew I should have kept going, but I couldn’t. The man was wearing a 1950s checkboard dress full with pearls, an apron, and a dish of casserole in his hands.

“What’s on your face?” I said before I could stop myself.

“What do you mean?” He said smiling at me in full white face like one of those Kabuki performers.

I laughed. Maybe it wasn’t a laugh. It might have been more of a dismissive humph. In either case, it was then that my legs started moving and I continued to my room.

You would think, as skinny as he was, my new husband wouldn’t be able to throw a casserole dish like he did. But he could. And his aim was spot on.

Not only did he manage to hit me with it from across the room. But the dish caught me on the one spot that could drop a person if caught exactly right. I was on the ground before I knew it.

Lying defenselessly, I half expected to be turned into Swiss cheese. Not this time. This time, he pulled the apron strap from over his head and wrapped it around my throat. You had to give him points for improvisation.

I mean, someone had to. I was too busy trying to stay alive. If I didn’t get up, I was sure that I was never going to again. This time he really was trying to kill me. At least I wouldn’t have to listen to my father say he told me so. Or listen to Ma tell Kuroi embarrassing stories about my childhood.

Strangely, it was the thought of Kuroi sitting in my childhood living room hearing stories about me from Ma that kept me from giving up. I think there was some part of me that wanted that.

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