Grace stepped around the bar holding paper plates and red solo cups which she handed off to my daughter and Nikki, delegating them the task to set the pool table.
My compound had turned into a fucking Sunday dinner at Vic’s house.
“Dad?” Lacey lifted her head, dropping the plates on top of the pool table and walked toward me. “Have you heard anything?”
“No baby, I haven’t,” I replied, peeling my eyes away from the prospect that emerged from the kitchen wearing an apron and carrying a tray of antipasto. “You ladies have been keeping busy,” I muttered.
“It was Grace and Maria’s idea,” she explained. “They said when you guys bring Reina and Blackie home you deserve a meal. Well, that’s what Grace said—Maria said you all should starve for being scoundrels. Though they both agreed that Reina and Blackie would be hungry so they decided to do all this to welcome them home,” she informed, signaling with her arms around the room, speaking just as animated as the Pastore women.
I smiled half-heartedly, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Nikki walked up to us and pounded her fist against my chest playfully.
“Can I grub a cigarette, Bulldog?” she asked, flashing me a smile, reminding me of a time when I took her and Mike to a safe house and she robbed my Marlboros from me. I reached into my vest and pulled out my pack and handed them over to her.
“You’re my hero,” she exaggerated, pulling one from the pack. “If my mother looks for me tell her I’m slicing a salami or something,” she whispered, before sneaking out the door.
“Nikki’s going to dye my hair,” Lacey said, looking after her as she stepped outside.
I looked down at my daughter, her voice becoming muted as she rambled on about highlights and ombre something or other. I could see the fear reflected in her eyes and my heart clenched knowing I was the reason behind it. My mind drifted to Vic, and I finally understood the sacrifices he made and why he did so. I reached for her and brought her against my chest, holding onto her tightly, wishing I could erase all the harm I’ve ever caused her.
“Dad,” she said, pushing against my chest and lifting her eyes to mine, morphing from my little girl to a young woman wise enough to know her father was splitting at the seams. “I see that look in your eye and it scares me. Scares me more than any man charging into my house, more so than Blackie telling me I need to hide in a closet because they’re coming for me.”
She bit her lower lip and fought against the tears that glazed her eyes.
“They say we associate things with our childhood; scents, songs, even toys.
They’re supposed to help us remember when our minds grow old with age and we are trying to hang onto our youth. I saw that look in your eyes my entire childhood and I’ll never forget it. I hate that look because it’s a reminder that for the last thirteen years, since Jack died, you didn’t want to be here anymore. I remember looking into your eyes and wondering if that day was the day you wouldn’t come back to me, if you’d lose the struggle and end up with Jack,” she paused for a moment and I blew out a breath, one I didn’t realize I was hanging onto. “You always came back,” she smiled sadly, and then the tears fell from her eyes. Her admission broke every last piece of my heart. “I told myself it was because you realized I was still here and I still needed you, that you knew how much I loved you and how it would break my heart if I lost you,” she cried.
“Lacey…” I whispered, my voice hoarse as I tried to find the words to soothe my daughter. In that moment, Cain’s face appeared to me and my mind wandered to a time when he talked me off the ledge.
Look at me, Bulldog.,
You’ll never see your boy grow into a man but do you want to miss out on that beautiful girl of yours too? She’s a looker, Jack, going to have bastards like us banging down the door to get a piece of her. With you gone, no one there to filter through the shit and find her the one that deserves her heart.
“Dad?” she said softly, and I shook my head, shaking Cain and the memories away so I could focus on Lacey. “I know you miss Jack, but I’m still here,” she whispered. “And I need my dad. I’ll always need you so please promise me you’ll come back to me.”
“I love you, Lace,” I whispered, pressing my lips to her forehead before I enveloped her into a tight embrace. “And I promise you a pack of wild horses couldn’t stop me from coming back to you. We’ll make good memories, I swear it.”
I had let my mind control me for too long, robbing me of a chance at giving my daughter the childhood she deserved. I’d swear on a stack of bibles that when this shit was over I’d make things right with her. She’d look at me and know that I needed her just as much as she needed me.
The door opened behind me and my club members walked inside.
“Bulldog,” Pipe called.
“Yeah…” I said, pulling away from my daughter, dropping one more kiss to the top of her head and brushing her tears away with my thumb. “Dry those eyes, your old man will be back,” I whispered.
Nikki stepped back into the clubhouse, spritzing herself with body spray to cover the cigarette smell and walked over to Lacey. She ran her fingers over her hair as she glanced at me, treating me to a wink.
“Come on, let’s see about dying these locks,” she said.
Lacey looked at me and I nodded at her before diverting my eyes back to Nikki.
“Thank you,” I said hoarsely, to the girl who knew my daughter’s pain better than anyone. She lived it once upon a time.
“Thanks for the stogie,” she replied, tugging on Lacey’s hands and making a beeline for the stairs.
Riggs emerged from the chapel and started handing out bullet-proof vests to all of us as he strapped his own tightly around his body.
“Ink’s dry, brother,” he alerted me, tipping his head to the vest in my hand. “We gotta move,” he added.
“Riggs, can I talk to you?” Lauren Bianci asked.
I removed my cut and slipped my arms through the vest, tightening it around my chest and lifted my eyes curiously as Anthony’s little sister stood in Riggs’ path.
“Can it wait?” Riggs snapped. “Don’t really have much time to fight with you people on whether it’s called sauce or gravy and I’m not in the mood to argue about my life choices, the ones you mob folk seem to love to criticize. So, no Lauren, not now,” he said, fitting his helmet to his head and turning toward me. “I’ll be outside,” he stated, before leaving Lauren to stare after him.
“Keep moving,” Pipe said, slapping me on the back.
I nodded, glancing around the clubhouse one final time, taking in the family me and Victor Pastore created. It definitely was an unconventional one at best, but there was no other word to describe what had resulted from our alliance.
I’d have to thank him one day.
“You got something going on with Bianci’s sister?” I asked Riggs, as we straddled our bikes.
He kicked up his kickstand and clutched his handlebars before eyeballing me.
“God no,” he said incredulously. “She probably just wants a piece of the old Italian sausage,” he said in broken English, giving me his best impression of an off-the-boat Italian.
I shook my head, not believing him for a second but I didn’t press him.
Keep moving.
There were four of us on bikes. Bones, along with a prospect, drove a cage. It felt wrong, glancing in my side-view mirror and not seeing Blackie riding alongside of me. It reminded me of what I was fighting for, what we were risking our lives for. The brotherhood we signed up for and the loyalty we had for one another was something that a grainy image on a video would never tarnish. I lost one brother to Jimmy Gold, I’d be damned if I lost another. I had done my best to avoid a glimpse of the clock but as we past the bank I couldn’t help but stare up at the digital clock that brightened up the dark sky.
It was time to take back what was mine.
I never banked on Riggs being the man that would’ve arranged for us to get t
he drugs we needed to bring Reina and Blackie home but then again—never underestimate the quiet ones. All right, so maybe quiet isn’t the word I’d use to describe Riggs. He’s more of a laid back, pot smoking child disguised as a man but there was no denying he was a wiz with a computer. His room at the clubhouse looks like he had hijacked a Best Buy truck. He was the guy who wire-tapped the neighbors for shits and giggles.
I’m not complaining though, it’s his love for electronics and prying into others’ business that led us to the Red Dragons MC stash house. He wasn’t kidding when he said we’d be signing our own death certificates. The Chinese were no fucking joke, especially when it came to their supply. According to Riggs and his intel; the Dragons kept an apartment on Mott Street in Little Italy or now known as Chinatown. Little Italy used to span blocks and now was cut down to Mulberry Street. The surrounding streets were ruled by the Chinese, perfect for anyone who wanted Lo Mien and a Cannoli.
And perfect for us because with Vic’s connections on Mulberry Street we could park our bikes and the cage allowing us to surprise the Chinese when we broke down their door and shot up the apartment where their girls were cutting their product.
Pipe put a bullet in the head of the Dragon guarding the hallway. Bones blew the head off the one at the door and Wolf shot at anything and everything once we entered the apartment. They kept the girls naked, ensuring they wouldn’t slip the product into their clothing and rob them. They didn’t plan on us being the ones who stole from them.
“Get down on your knees,” I bellowed, through the mask that shielded my face from their view. “NOW!”
Riggs grabbed one of the girls, put her in a headlock and pressed his gun to her side. “Pack the motherfucking drugs in the bags.”
I moved my gun around the room as Pipe and Wolf shoved the kilos into a duffel bag.
“Close your fucking eyes or I’ll blow your fucking head off,” I hollered to the girl staring at me dumbfounded. “Do it!”
As the duffel bags filled, Bones zipped them and dropped them into the hallway. It took ten minutes before we grabbed as much heroine as we could. Was it $250,000 worth? I don’t know but it was our only shot.
“We gotta get the fuck out of here,” Bones shouted.
I grabbed two bags and started for the stairs, Pipe and Riggs following close behind me with the rest of the drugs.
“Wolf,” I called up the stairs.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Keep moving,” Pipe yelled.
“Not without Wolf,” I shouted back.
Wolf emerged from the top of the stairs, his face splattered with blood.
“Let’s go,” he ordered, bounding down the stairs.
“You killed them?” Riggs asked him, pulling his mask over his head and revealing his shocked face to us. I guess that wasn’t part of Riggs’ plan.
“No, I played fucking Chinese checkers with them,” he hissed, throwing the strap of one bag over his shoulder as he swiped his sleeve across his cheek, removing the drops of blood that painted his face.
We ran as fast as we could away from the faint sounds of motorcycles and sirens. Away from the Red Dragon’s territory and into Vic’s old stomping grounds. We loaded up the cage with the bags and Bones jumped into the back as the prospect took off and headed back to the clubhouse. The rest of us took to our bikes and peeled the fuck away from the war we just started.
The ink was dry. Our fate was signed, sealed and delivered. The Red Dragons would be gunning for us.
Reina.
Blackie.
Keep moving.
Clock’s ticking.
Come on Bianci, give me something, anything…fucking call and tell me where they are.
Lacey, I made a promise to my daughter. Get back to Lacey.
There was one card I hadn’t played, one card I kept to myself and with the faces of the people who needed me most, flashing in and out of my mind, I made a choice.
Plans change.
Things go astray.
Time to change things up.
Keep moving.
Chapter Thirty-three
I was way past feeling the pangs of humiliation. There was no reason to hang onto your pride or self-esteem when you were about to die. It’s like going in for surgery, the planned kind, not the emergency one to graft your skin, prepping your body to look its best before you’re admitted, knowing the doctor and his surgical team will see every inch of you. You worry about controlling your bodily functions while you’re under anesthesia and if the doctor will see that scar? Oh my God, they’re going to see my ass. I should’ve gone to the tanning salon because a burnt ass is better than a white ass, right? And then just like that, you realize none of that shit matters anymore because you’re coding on the table and the doctor doesn’t give two fucks if you tanned before you were admitted, all he cares about is keeping you alive.
Shameless.
That’s the word.
I wasn’t shamed by my appearance, or the smell that radiated from me. It didn’t matter I had peed my pants more than twice or that my breath reeked. It didn’t matter that Blackie had thrown up, seized and nearly choked on his own vomit and was still laying in it. We had seen each other through the humiliation, becoming immune to the embarrassment and accepting that this was death at its worst.
I wasn’t even sure Blackie was breathing anymore. That last needle they injected into his neck was a sedative strong enough to put down an elephant, at least that’s what fuck-face one said to fuck-face two. I couldn’t wait to die because ghost Reina would haunt the shit out of those two assholes.
I tried not to think of Jack, tried not to think of what could’ve been, but every time I dozed off that’s all I dreamt of. The life that could’ve been. The first thing we would’ve done was repair those holes in the wall, no need to remember Jack Junior that way anymore. We’d honor him a different way. Maybe we’d go to a Yankee game every year on his birthday or maybe we’d sing happy birthday with a cake, but Jack wasn’t going to torture himself over his son’s death anymore. I’d teach Lacey how to cook and maybe we’d have dinner on a weekly basis. I would surprise Jack at his clubhouse the night’s duty called, waiting for him in his bed. He’d take me riding on his bike and I’d bake him cherry pies.
Maybe we’d get married or maybe we wouldn’t. It’s only a piece of paper anyway and I didn’t need a legal document that said I was Property of Parrish. I was his, and he was mine. I wonder if we’d have kids. I never thought about kids and Jack probably didn’t want anymore. Lacey was eighteen already, he was free to live any way he wanted to, his responsibilities were nearly over. Still, I couldn’t help but picture the little beauty we’d create together. She’d have my blonde hair and her daddy’s soulful eyes. Then, and only then, would Jack really know sunshine. I was just a fill-in for the little girl who’d one day bring him happiness and joy, something he never enjoyed with his other children because he was too consumed by his grief.
The door opened and this time I didn’t even lift my head to see which of the three stooges strolled past the threshold of Hell. Did it really matter at this point?
“He’s alive,” fuck-face one declared, bending down to check Blackie’s pulse.
“Christ, it stinks in here,” Jimmy said.
That made me smile. Shameless.
Satan kneeled before me, lifting my chin with his finger and forced me to look into his eyes. If I had any saliva left in my mouth, I’d spit right in his face. Ghost Reina would haunt this fuck too.
“How you doing pretty girl, ready to give Jimmy some answers?” he asked, referring to himself in the first person. Weird.
“What do you want?” I hissed.
“I want you to tell me what you’re doing with Satan’s Knights. Are you like that pussy Danny and don’t know which side of the fence to play?” he demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“They think I don’t know what they’re planning. They tried
to pull the wool over my eyes but I know everything. I know that Danny was a lying cocksucker, using his last name to get in with G-Man, but I didn’t know he was an informant for the Satan’s Knights,” he said, as he paced in front of me. “I thought you were just some broad he was fucking when I saw your pictures, but I didn’t calculate you would run back to Jack and give him everything I worked so hard to destroy. It takes a lot of work to make a federal agent disappear. It takes even more work for his cases to vanish along with him,” he rambled.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t even know that Danny was a Fed, you moron. I thought he was some big shot investment banker. And I didn’t know he had a brother” I shrieked, sweat dripping from my eyelashes. The bastard must’ve turned the heat up again.
“A brother?” he asked, perplexed. “What does him having a brother have anything to do with this? Are you trying to fuck with my head, girl?”
“Jack and Danny are brothers,” I said, through clenched teeth. I watched as his eyes narrowed and his fists clench at his sides.
Shit, I said the wrong thing. Fuck! But in my own defense I’m pretty sure I was becoming delirious.
“Brothers,” he repeated.
I swallowed hard, eyes wide as I watched him carefully. I could practically see the wheels turning in his head.
“And as far as whatever cases he had, I sure as hell wasn’t privy to that shit since I didn’t even know his real occupation. But even if I had been, I wouldn’t have grabbed whatever proof he was collecting against you because I was in the house when you set it on fire.” Yeah, even in the state I was in, I could read between the lines. Jack had confirmed that the fire wasn’t an accident and that he would make the man responsible pay. “You made sure nothing was left, nothing left of Danny or his business and nearly nothing left of me,” I seethed, as I stared him in the eye. “I hope the flames bite you in the ass when you’re in Hell. I hope they torment you like they did me, and I pray to God that you suffer slowly.”
The Tempted Series: Collectors Edition Page 84