Black Widow's Bite

Summoned by the Don

She met the soldiers who did the security check on her car at the gate. Once they cleared her car, she parked near the front of the house and walked up to the front door.

“You packing?” Swifty, one of Ermano’s highest ranked soldiers, and one of her closest friends since elementary school, questioned as he blocked her entrance. They always did this song and dance but never in Mano’s house. She wondered why he was here and knew her godfather wouldn’t have called him here without reason.

“Yeah. Aren’t you?” she lifted her pant leg. “Do you want it?”

“No. I was hoping you’d say no so I could frisk you.” He smirked, “could lead to something good.”

“Been there, done that and it was the most boring f**k of my life.” She said it loudly, her voice carrying through the foyer.

“Hey!” he immediately looked around in horror as Ermano’s footsteps carried in their direction. “We never f****d. Ever.”

She grinned malevolently at him. “Don’t you remember? I thought it was going to be so special, but you didn’t last two minutes, and it was my first time. We were both fifteen.”

She laughed as he clapped his hand over her mouth.

“Jesus Christ, you’re trying to get me shot.”

“Did you touch my goddaughter so young?” Ermano’s voice rang out from behind Swifty.

“No, sir. I did not. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to try. She thinks she’s funny making jokes.” Swifty’s brown eyes were begging her to set the record straight.

The one thing Ermano “Mano” Amato prized most on his team was Giada and he had warned most of the men on the team if they broke her heart, they’d die slow painful deaths.

She stared at him for several seconds and noted the little bead of sweat at his hairline. She winked, “he’s right, Mano, he didn’t touch me. I heard the girls talking at the club about how small his p***s is and I’m not willing to sacrifice my first time to someone who has a micro-dick.” She grinned broadly as he desperately wanted to offer a retort, but it was a lose-lose.

If he offered to show his d**k, it meant he wanted her and he was dead. If he said nothing, he was agreeing to having a small d**k and the guys around the house were going to mock him for months. She noted a couple of guys poking their heads out from a room down the hall and they were holding their sides. She would definitely join in on the laughter and she smacked his shoulder as she walked past him and slipped under the arm of her godfather. She knew her reputation preceded her and there wasn’t a man in any level of this organization who believed she was innocent, not even her godfather.

“You enjoy rattling his cage,” Ermano pulled her into a hug. He studied her features, “you sleep or work?”

She returned his hug by pulling his oversized hand into hers and lifting his ring to her lips, pressing a genuine kiss to his knuckles. He rubbed his fingers over her hair, and she answered him, “Work. I did a run with the team last night after my shift at the club. They needed a driver. I was game.”

“They pay you?”

“Of course, they paid me,” she grinned, “as if I’d work for free.” She took a seat opposite his desk and noted the dark circles. “You look preoccupied, Don Amato. What can I do to help?”

“My son is coming home.”

She was surprised. Cipriano “Cap” Amato was Ermano’s only son and the prevailing rumors were he was a womanizer who was even colder and crueler than his father.

Ten years ago, Giada had woken the morning after her escapade with Cap in the bathroom and came up with a new plan. Eavesdropping on her parents bickering in the kitchen about how Gil was going to accompany Mano on an extended trip down to Virginia and maybe all the way to Florida. Giada immediately realized the best way to get what she wanted was to divide and conquer.

Questioning her father what was wrong with Cap he couldn’t put his big boy pants on and take the lead on such important business had put a bug in her mother’s bonnet. Her mother had immediately jumped on the option for the younger man and his underlings to go in place of Gil and Mano. It didn’t take long for Gil to convince his best friend it was time for El Capo to prove himself. Cap was sent down the coast and she was able to start slowly infiltrating the company, while avoiding the man completely.

He never made the connection between Gil’s kid and the woman in the bathroom, and she was thrilled with it.

Since then, they hadn’t had many interactions. His father kept him busy all along the American coastline up until five years ago when he’d up and left to follow his mother to Sicily. The woman battling cancer wanted to go back home to die. According to her father, Cap was still pissed his father didn’t accompany her to live out her final days in her home country. She died almost as soon as she’d landed, and Cap remained under the guise of building the family in Europe. Everyone knew though he was pissed at Ermano for not being there.

Unlike Cap though, she knew Ermano’s wife forbade him from coming bluntly telling him she didn’t want him with her when she died. Giada had a smidge of guilt over this considering she was the one who told the woman while driving her back and forth from the medical appointments, karma was a b***h and maybe it was why she was sick. She went one step further and told her if she had any desire to reach heaven maybe it was time she repented for torturing her godfather for the last thirty plus years. She knew even if the woman tattled on what she’d said, nobody would believe her. Everyone hated Cap’s mother, including Ermano.

So she’d gone home, told them she had cancer and was dying and wanted to go home and didn’t want him there. She asked his forgiveness and begged to die in peace. Ermano allowed the woman to have her final wishes.

Cap however didn’t know of the private conversations and believed his father abandoned his mother in her time of need, stating it was cruel to let her die alone. He hadn’t forgiven his father, even after all this time.

Cap had taken the hints of discord in his family and hid far away and took his anger too far. He’d made mountains out of molehills. It was no secret he was building his own empire to try to steal the family right out from Ermano. It had served her well. In the last ten years, not only had she helped fortify the family, but there was also no way he could swoop in and steal it. She would make sure of it.

While he built a piddly little billion-dollar empire in Europe, she had created an international enterprise worth hundreds of billions of dollars trading everything from guns to drugs to protection and murder for hire services.

She’d fostered more relationships, brokered more treaties, and attended every meeting, making sure she kept the ear of the Don. While Cap used his distance to try to make his own family, she was stealing his. If and when he came back to take over his father’s role as Don, he was going to find without her at his side, he would lose it all. His prejudices were going to bite him in the ass.

Personally, her thoughts were, in this business, you need to put such s**t aside to provide a united front against enemies. She knew she wasn’t blood related. Her father was not of Amato blood, but he and Mano had been best friends since birth with Mano’s mother and Giada’s grandmother coming to America from Italy together as teenage girls. She felt strongly she bled Amato blood because she’d put in the time, something Cap had not done. He was a selfish bastard who put himself first and family last.

She blinked as she realized Mano was waiting for her to respond. “I’m sure you are pleased,” she kept her thoughts from popping out of her lips.

“He needs to learn to take over the American operations. He is bringing his team with him, but his security is not up to date with the current situation here. I want you to be his driver for the next few weeks. Your dad’s shoulder has healed enough he can take over my driving. You drive for Cipriano.”