Page 66 of Spider Demon's Kiss

“We don’t know. Maybe a few days.”

She nodded her head and lost herself in the data flashing on the screen.

“The search will take a while.”

“Should I wait for it?”

“I would rather you didn’t. I’m surprised your father authorized you being here. Your presence could raise questions.”

“Just do the search,” I demanded knowing she was right.

I drew attention by design. I was also easy to remember. The last thing my father needed was for someone to recognize me as his son and to wonder why I was here talking to who I was.

An hour later, she asked, “Vincent Ricci arriving from Rome, Italy two days ago?”

“That sounds right. Does it say where he’ll be staying while in New York?”

With a few more strokes, she had an answer.

“Can you write it down for me?” I asked her eventually receiving it on a slip of paper. “Thank you.”

As I got up she stopped me.

“My brother didn’t deserve what he got.”

Pausing, I looked at her confused. “Your brother?”

“Ricci,” she said referring to the name she had written down. “Matteo Ricci killed my brother. He didn’t deserve that.”

I hadn’t made the connection. Her brother was the one Matteo had killed and had dragged behind his car in Yakuza territory.

“He didn’t,” I agreed.

“They say he went crazy on that Italian girl, but it wasn’t his idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone told him to do it. Or, at least they put the idea in his head.”

“How do you know that?” I asked suddenly intrigued.

“He told me before…” she drifted off unable to acknowledge her brother was gone. “He didn’t say who, but someone told him that she liked it rough.”

“She would have had to have liked it very rough according to what I heard.”

“My brother could get carried away. But I’m telling you, it wasn’t his idea. He didn’t even know who she was until someone whispered in his ear. Now he’s dead. Ricci needs to pay for what he did.”

Did she know that my father had collected on the Ricci debt by marrying me to Dante? She had to have known. Who in the organization didn’t know? That meant that she was questioning my father’s judgment regarding my marriage being enough.

“You really have no fear.”

“What is left for me to be afraid of?”

“Me,” I told her before leaving her office and closing the door behind me.

Having taken a taxi to the airport, I caught another one back into town. Staring at the address as we drove, I wondered what I should do with it.

Matteo believed that Vincent Ricci was in town to kill Dante. If that was true, he needed to be taught a lesson. But was it true? I didn’t know Matteo so I didn’t know if what he said could be trusted.

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