Chapter 11
Kuroi
When you can’t get out of your head, bury your head in your work. I don’t know who said it, so I’m claiming it as a Kuroi original.
I wasn’t expecting Dante to wake me up this morning. I thought I was giving him what he wanted by getting out of his room. Wasn’t that the deal we had made, that I would only be in his room a few times a week?
I had slept there a couple nights in a row. Didn’t he want me to give him some space? If he did, why hadn’t he just gone to work this morning?
And, he had practically banned me from his office. This morning he invited me to join him? This had to be his way of taunting death. So, if he ended up dead now, wouldn’t he had just been asking for it?
Instead of allowing my sleep-deprived brain to spiral on this, I did what I did best. There was someone who needed finding. I had found people before. My father’s organization was uniquely equipped for that and I had full access to it.
My first stop was to the woman who the Yakuza had made rich for her services. The foothold my father’s organization had been able to secure in New York was heroin import. It sounds dangerous and exciting, but it’s actually quite boring.
We weren’t responsible for growing or refining it. We didn’t even transport it from Afghanistan to the Afghan airport. We simply got it onto cargo planes and cleared it through customs in the United States. Once in, we funneled it to local distributors who were happy to have our services.
The growers and transports thought of us as their wholesalers. The distributors thought of us as their bank. We extended lines of credit to those who couldn’t pay up front and they got a set time for repayment. How was this any different from importing rugs?
What this meant was that my father’s organization had two specialties, routing money and clearing customs. We had dozens of people we could rely on for each. The person with the information I would need today was our chief customs specialist.
Whether it was product or people, she could get it through U.S. customs. She wasn’t the only person in her position that we had access to, but she was the best. Not only could she clear the path through checkpoints for anything we needed, she had access to the national database of everything and everyone entering or leaving the country.
“Vincent Ricci,” I told her sitting across from her in her office at the airport.
I liked dealing with her. Unlike so many others, she had no fear. I was told that she grew up in the abandoned subway lines under New York City. She was a mole person.
I could only guess what she saw as a child. But it was enough motivation to claw her way out and never have to live that way again. As far as my father can tell, she doesn’t even spend what we pay her. She probably just sleeps on it for security.
That’s fine with us. Large purchases were how people in her position got caught. Make a security blanket out of the cash for all we care. We just needed results and she gave it to us.
“Leaving or arriving?” she asked staring at me with her vacant mole person eyes.
“Arriving. We think he’s already here.”
“For how long?”
“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.
He had pulled a gun on me. If he was willing to kill me to save his brother, that was definitely a plus in my book. I would have done the same thing, only Matteo wouldn’t have seen it coming.
Redirecting the taxi to the address on the paper, we pulled into an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx. It was the type of place I imagined Dante growing up. The streets were lined with modest two-story homes with postcard sized yards. And there were more than one stoop with guys wearing white tank tops and gold chains.
The house at the address Vincent Ricci had put on his immigration form looked like every other house on the block. He hadn’t included who he would be staying with. But if he was staying here, the person had lived here for a while.
Could it be Vincent’s sister? Had Dante mentioned anything about having an aunt? I wasn’t sure but Italians were known for having large families. His father had to have more siblings. Dante was one of about five kids. The same had to be true about their father.
What must it have been like growing up in a family like Dante’s? I didn’t know much about him before our marriage, but the Ricci’s were a prominent mafia family in New York. Everyone knew the basics. Dante was the respected oldest son. Matteo was the psychopath. And the rest of them kept out of the spotlight.
If any of them, I had always imagined ending up with Matteo. Dante was right, though. Ten minutes alone and we would have killed each other. We almost already did.
But looking into Matteo’s eyes, I always saw a crazy bisexual looking back. He would be the type to pin you to the bed and fuck you until you lost feeling in your legs. Of course, he might also kill you for suggesting he was gay. So…
Could that be what happened with the chief custom specialist’s brother? I don’t doubt that it started with Matteo confronting him about what happened with his friend’s sister. But no one takes it that far with a made man.
And, he could have just killed him. Instead, he dragged him behind his car rubbing it into my father’s face. What could possibly trigger that level of insanity other than gay panic?
What had she said about there being someone who whispered into her brother’s ear? What did that mean? If that was true, who would have suggested something like that? And why? Could they know the firestorm it would ignite?
As I sat thinking about it, an older Italian man descended the stairs of the brownstone I was watching. He was frailer than I pictured Dante’s uncle to be. He resembled Lorenzo if any of them. And dressed in a tan suit that wouldn’t grab anyone’s attention, he stepped onto the sideway with a smile on his face and a skip in his step.
This was Vincent Ricci. I had no doubt.
Feeling good about myself, I texted Dante on the way home.
‘I’ve been good. I think I deserve a reward tonight,’ I wrote with my skin tingling waiting for a response.
‘Have you? Haha. Did you find out something about Uncle Vinny?’
‘Treat first. Answers later.’
There was a pause before he replied,
‘What do you want?’
‘You know what I want.’
I considered replying with a winking emoji but I wasn’t in the sixth grade so I didn’t. He, however, replied with two emojis, a leather paddle and an open hand. The text that followed read, ‘Choose one’.
Heat washed through my body and my heart thumped.
‘Both,’ I replied.
‘Choose one’.
I sent him a single tear emoji.
‘Oh, you will. Choose one.’
My cock got so hard it hurt. How was I supposed to choose between the two? I wanted everything he had to give me.
‘You said if I was good, I could have both,’ I protested.
‘CHOOSE ONE,’ he replied sending shivers through me.
‘Yes, sir,’ I wrote slipping out of my rebellious boy mode into that of an obedient submissive.
I still didn’t know which I wanted. The thought of his large bare hand stinging my ass made me weak in the knees. But imagining the sound as the leather paddle snapped my ass…
I replied with the paddle emoji.
‘I will be home at 6:30. You will be prepared and you will do what you’re told.’
My mind swirled with anticipation for what would happen next. I would be home an hour before he would. I had time to prepare. How, though?
Hurrying to the closet in the guest room where I kept my clothes, I fingered through everything until one thing stood out. It was a floor length cloak I had bought when I was feeling particularly dramatic. Designed to encircle the wearer completely, what said obedient submissive better than dressing like a Catholic priest?
Deciding to wear it with nothing underneath and it turned to open in the back, that just left my hair and makeup. Staring in the mirror at what I had to work with, all I could see was the devil. But that was off theme. I needed to look like a Catholic school boy or something close.
With only forty minutes left before the night began, I took a shower and washed my hair. That’s when it hit me. Dante had never seen me with my bush of hair slicked back. With it, I passed as what I was, Japanese. What could be more obedient and submissive than that?
Using my thickest hair gel, I pushed it through my hair until every curl was gone. Next, I applied mascara until my wide eyes slanted and the creases in my eyelids faded. I wasn’t prepared for who I saw in the mirror when I was done.
Kuroi was gone. Sitting before me was the boy my father would have had if not for my mother’s blackness. Would my father have loved this version of me? Would he have given this son to his business partners to use and dispose of?
Iwould never know because this would never be me. But tonight I could pretend. And the boy who stared back in the mirror was ashamed of all of the bad things he’s done.
He wanted to be punished. He desperately needed to cleanse his soul so he could be good again. He wanted so badly to be good.
Whipped out of my thoughts by the elevator door opening, I turned toward the bedroom door feeling my chest clench. It wasn’t me who would go out there to meet Dante. It was Shiro. I knew how Shiro thought and behaved because it was the opposite of how I would.
Leaving the makeup mirror, I adjusted the cloak around me and approached the closed bedroom door.
“Kuroi?” Dante called in a stern voice.
I took a breath and opened the door.
“Kuroi isn’t here. He sent me to take his punishment.”
Dante’s eyes widened seeing me. He looked confused but only for a moment.
“Did you agree to this, because Kuroi has a lot coming to him?” Dante asked tilting up the paddle that he held by his side.
Past the handle, it was a foot long and three inches wide. All of it was covered in leather. Seeing it, my balls tingled. My breath hitched.
“Yes, sir.”
“You will take his punishment for him?”
“I will take everything he has coming,” Shiro said bowing his head.
With my head lowered, I couldn’t see what Dante was doing.
“Did Kuroi tell you to do whatever I said?”
“Yes, sir. I am to do anything you tell me.”
“What is our safe word?”
“Cherries.”
“Stand up,” he ordered.
I did. Meeting his eyes, I found a glimmer in them that I had never seen before. I wasn’t sure what to think. I just knew I wanted more of it.
“Where’s your phone?”
“My phone?” I asked caught off guard.
“Or, Kuroi’s phone. Where’s that?”
“It’s…” I looked back at the guest bedroom wondering if I had left it in my pants pocket. “… In there.”
“Get it.”
Confused where he was going with this, I did what I was told. Taking small steps like the priests did in old kung fu movies, I retrieved my phone and returned. Dante scanned the room.
“Prop it up on the kitchen island. Vertically,” he directed.
Following his instructions, I leaned it against the fruit basket getting excited that he wanted to record this.
“Now, bend over so your face fills the screen.”
“What?”
“What was that?” Dante asked angered.
“What, sir?”
He calmed.
“You heard me.” He repeated it slowly. “Bend over so that your face fills the screen.”
I stared at Dante not sure what was going on. My beating heart slammed against my chest. Terror creeped into my thoughts, but I did as he said.
With my forearms flat on the counter and my stomach pressed against the edge, my cloak parted revealing my ass. Stepping behind me, he lightly brushed the leather against my naked skin. I thought he was about to let loose when he said,
“Now, facetime your sister,” he said in a low, dark voice.
I lay shocked. He couldn’t be serious. I wasn’t Kuroi. I was Shiro. And Yuki didn’t know anything about this side of me. She was na?ve and innocent. I couldn’t call her like this.
“I said call Kuroi’s sister! You know the number, right?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied embarrassed for Shiro.
“Kuroi told you to do whatever I told you to, didn’t he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then do as I say and call Yuki now.”
I didn’t know what was going on, but I did it. I reached forward, called Yuki and prayed that she didn’t answer.
“Hello?” She said before jerking back at the site of Shiro filling the screen.
“Hello, my name is Shiro and I was told to call you.”
As soon as I said it, I felt the paddle connect with my bare ass harder than I could have ever have imagined. The sound was deafening. Hearing it, Yuki reacting in horror.
I was shocked at what was happening. I was embarrassed. In all of the years I had played these types of games, I had never experienced anything like this. But before I could react, I felt the paddle again.
Hearing the second, this time Yuki was calm. Her stoicism was back.
“Are you being disciplined, Shiro?” she asked as if asking me what I had had for breakfast.
“Yes, ma’am. I am.”
Dante let loose again. The sting was so intense my legs danced. Still, my face never left the screen.
“Are you learning to submit to your superiors?” she asked taking a harsher tone.
“Yes, ma’am. I am.”
Dante struck again. I closed my eyes trying to absorb the sensation.
“Don’t close your eyes. Look at me,” she ordered as if she were a part of this.
I did as I was told.
“Good. Now,you will be obedient…”
Another strike.
“You will be submissive…”
Another strike.
“And you will do what you are told to do.”
Another strike.
“Yes, maam.”
“Don’t let this have to happen again,” she said ending the call.
As soon as she did, Dante leaned over me pressing his clothed body against mine. Feeling his large hard cock pressed against my hip, and the paddle resting on the back of my leg, he whispered in my ear.
“You’re gonna be my good boy, aren’t you?”
The rumble of his low voice sent shivers through me. I should have been mad at him. He had humiliated me in front of my sister. But all I could do was yearn for his cock in my ass.
“Yes, sir!” I crooned.
“Say it louder.”
“Yes, sir! I will be a good boy from now on!”
I could hear his teeth drag across his bottom lip.
“That’s my boy,” he replied before slapping the back of my thigh with the leather. As my head flipped back in agony, he unbuttoned his pants, pulled out his monster cock, found my hole, and fucked me.
Like with his choice of who to call, he was merciless. Slamming me into the counter as he drilled me, he whispered in my ear.
“You’re so beautiful. You’re the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I want you. I want every bit of you. You’re perfect. I could never find anyone better than you.”
This was too much. It was all too much. Ripped out of this world, I spiraled into a new one. In it was only me and him. Humiliation, pain, love, they were physical objects that pushed through me. Whipped from one emotion to the next, my achingly hard cock flinched a final time before I screamed and sprayed.
Hearing me, Dante grabbed my hair. Forcing my legs apart, he crouched and really let lose. I was a rag doll in his hands. Pressed onto the counter, I wasn’t going anywhere. And when he had worn a man-sized hole in me, and I could no longer hold on, he bellowed and filled me with his juices.
His grip on my hair had been the only thing holding me up. Releasing me and falling into an exhausted stupor, Dante collapsed onto me. No longer held up, I melted onto the counter. Dante’s heavy breaths engulfed me. It smelt like his kiss.
Not there long, Dante pushed his hand under my chest wanting to wrap his arms around me. I wanted it too, but I had nothing left in me. I was too fucked to move.
Content to feel him on top of me, I didn’t have to settle. As soon as he caught his breath, he stood up, lifted me into his arms, and carried me to his bed. Resting my head onto his shoulder, I watched my cloak drag behind us. Placed onto the mattress, I was quickly unrobed.
Still too fucked to budge, I watched as Dante undressed. His tattooed chest rippled as he moved. His stomach was a washboard.
Lowering his unzipped pants, he next removed his underwear. Although he wasn’t hard, his cock was still quite full. It would be the perfect size to suck. That I could fit down my throat. I wouldn’t get the opportunity to, though, because once he was naked, he climbed onto the bed beside me and pulled me into his arms.
I don’t know why, but it was then that everything that had happened released something within me. As he gently cradled me, I suddenly started to cry. It wasn’t me crying, of course. It was Shiro. I felt nothing like that. Usually I felt nothing at all.
But, apparently Shiro was a candy ass. He was everything I wasn’t. And as he bawled pathetically, Dante held him tight. With his large hand cupping the back of my head, he buried me into him.
Why was Shiro the only version of me that my father could love? What was it about Kuroi that was so easy to pass around? These were just questions for me, but Shiro blubbered about it. So pathetic. Thank God I was nothing like that. How embarrassing would it be if I was?
Dante continued to hold Shiro until he couldn’t cry any more. It was only when his inferno tantrum was done that I could relax. Listening to my husband’s powerful heartbeats, I felt safe. And buried in his strong arms, I slowly drifted off to sleep.
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