Black Widow | 18+

4 | Alleyways

Anton

Artemisia Pericelo was going to be the fucking death of me one day, and for all I used to think it in a metaphorical sense, I had a sickening feeling that in the future the statement would become literal.

I remember the first time we slept together, and there was nothing sweet about it in the slightest. It was hungry, desperate, an unleashing of the tension that had been building for three months straight.

A lot of people wanted me dead, but for some reason she never killed me before I got to know her.

"It's because I didn't have enough dirt on you," she mused, turning on her stomach and looking up at me with those deceptive eyes. "I couldn't blackmail your men if they had any trace of me."

Everything about Artemisia was complicated, even down to the combined hue of those fucking eyes that I got lost in.

The blue would fade and the green would strengthen, then the green would fade and she would have these flickers of gold around her irises. They would change in the light, like some mythical creature.

Like a goddess.

Artemisia to me was a goddess, and her name suited her to a T.

For all women had no place in my operation at the moment, there was nothing more attractive than a woman who could command a room with the sound of her voice alone, and then you added what Artemisia looked like into the mix and it became a whole other story.

The thought had hit me last month the day after Leandro had first gotten in touch with me about Manuel, wanting to use The Black Widow as the assassin.

I wanted Artemisia next to me to run my empire, and later New York.

I knew about her past with the Cosa Nostra, so I wanted to use it to my advantage. I had always wanted Artemisia to be solely mine, but there was never a time where I could show her my unwavering loyalty until now.

But now, well, she was too caught up in a world of emotions and substance abuse to even recognise it.

-

"She warming up to him?" I asked David as we sat in the office, Leandro had left hot on Artemisia's trail which made my jaw clench and my hand ball up into a fist.

"No," David laughed sadly, "too much history there."

"We really didn't have a choice," Luiz muttered as he poured himself a drink, "but Leandro's clean up job wasn't just because of his father getting in his way."

My body tensed for a moment, and I thought about the possibility of it. Leandro killing his father and the men around him, not just because of 'irreconcilable differences' but because of what had happened to Artemisia.

No, she could never find that out.

"He never let it go," Domenico sighed, looking over at Luiz who stared at a photo. What seemed to be a little girl looking out onto a lake.

"Well, maybe he should. Would hate for this to become about more than just a hit." I said calmly, but I was met with the knowing gaze of Domenico who's jaw clenched just as the door opened and an exasperated-looking Leandro walked in.

-

Artemisia

I could admit that I'd lost myself in the past five days. Losing myself in a plastic world of synthetic pleasure and empty compliments always seemed to do the trick.