Uncontrollable temptations
By Janine Infante Bosco
Contents
Dear Reader,
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Epilogue
Dear Jack,
Bonus Epilogue
Playlist Uncontrollable Temptations:
Other Book in The Tempted Series
Other Books by Janine
About the Author
© Copyright
Acknowledgements
Dear Reader,
As always I want to start off by thanking you for reading my work. It’s so humbling to me that you’re taking a chance on my words and my characters, a feeling that won’t ever get old. So, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Uncontrollable Temptations is the third story in the Tempted Series, and is something like I’ve never written before. It’s dark and gritty just like the world Jack Parrish lives in. It’s about a man wishing he had control over his actions but is inebriated by his mind.
This story came to me from Jack’s point of view, and I debated making it strictly come from him. However, there were certain things that you needed to see and understand through the heroine’s point of view to get a better feel for Jack, things he couldn’t see about himself.
I’ve brought back the characters from the first two books in this series and introduced you to a whole new group of men…The Satan’s Knights. Please keep in mind while reading that these men are not scholars, they aren’t meant to speak grammatically correct. Go with it, even when you see the word, ain’t, (I know it’s not really a word) and I promise you it will all come together. You’ll realize it is the authenticity on how they speak to one another, how they think and how they live. It’s their way.
Please be advised this story is for mature audiences.
Please be advised that while I try my hardest to give you a realistic story, it still is fiction.
And most of all…enjoy because you are now #PropertyOfParrish
Love,
Janine
Dedication
To my husband Paul
I kept moving because you inspired me too.
These characters are everything they are because of your encouraging words.
Prologue
Thirteen years ago
There was no God, no higher power I prayed to hoping to relieve me from my sins. No one would grant me penance for all the wrong decisions I’ve made. There was only the devil, and I tangoed enough with him in my twenty-five years to know I was at his mercy. There was nothing I could do but eat the crow he threw at me. I’ve swallowed a lot of shit in my life, losing my parents, my wife cheating on me, my brother turning his back on me and becoming a federal agent. But there is one thing you don’t swallow, one thing you never get over, one thing that stays with you, forcing you to question everything you know in life—that is losing a child. No parent should outlive their child. No parent should have to pick out a casket for their baby. And no parent should have to sit in a funeral home as a man dressed in a cloak prays over their son’s lifeless body.
I wanted to believe the man who offered his condolences to me and my ex-wife, to trust his God would take care of my boy. I wanted to relish in the comfort of knowing a loving man would hold his arms wide open to embrace my sweet boy and welcome him into eternal life. I closed my eyes as his words cut through me. He spoke of a promise that someone would be there to take care of the innocent boy I created. Someone to guide him with a steady hand and be there for him when was he scared and missing his mama.
Someone to take care of him better than I had.
I leaned forward, dropped my head into my hands, unable to stare at him lying there in that box. He looked so peaceful it was almost as if he was sleeping, just a little boy holding his Harley Davidson teddy bear as he took a nap.
Only—he wouldn’t wake. Not for me to chase the monsters under the bed or see the dawn of a new day.
Not this time.
I’d never look into the eyes of my son and see the innocence of a child staring back at me.
I pulled my head back and lifted my eyes glancing at my brothers standing on either side of my son’s coffin. Our president on the left and the vice president on the right. They weren’t my brothers by blood—I had one of those too. I had raised him after our parents died but like everyone else in my life, I lost him. Still, I thought he would’ve shown up, hoped he’d put our differences aside and stand beside me as I lowered my son into the cold earth.
I used to think having a brother meant I’d always have a friend, someone always there to have my back, but I didn’t understand what having a brother truly meant until I became a patched member of Satan’s Knights Motorcycle Club. Those men were my brothers, men that never left my side or my boy’s side. They were the men who would always have my back and they would be the men standing beside me as I say goodbye to my child. We didn’t need blood. We had loyalty. We had respect. We had the stuff that held people together when blood didn’t.
I knew it was just something they did out of respect and they would do it for any of the brothers, but seeing them stand guard over my boy brought me a sense of comfort. They didn’t think it was my fault.
They didn’t blame me for the things I couldn’t control.
There were two people that blamed me for everything. My mother, who was dead, and my ex-wife, who sat beside me sobbing.
My mother hated me. When she looked at me she saw her father reflected in my eyes. I wish she would have looked at me and seen that I was just a boy that couldn’t control himself. Maybe if she had, she would’ve been the kind of mother who sought help for her damaged child. Instead, she inflicted more pain on me, made me believe I was the devil reincarnate and not someone who needed help. Maybe if she had, then my son would be alive.
What is wrong with you? You’re crazy!
I could still hear her shouting at me, taunting me, until I started to doubt myself. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me, but the more someone tells you you’re crazy, the more you start to wonder if you really are.
After she died no one called me crazy. Not the same way she had.
You’re a crazy motherfucker, Bulldog!
You’re fucking crazy, brother.
Sure, I did some fucking things that would have my brothers thinking I
might have had a screw loose somewhere but they didn’t look at me and ask what was wrong with me. They just made me think I was a badass motherfucker who didn’t give a shit. They wiped away the doubt my mother instilled in me and gave me back the confidence she stole from me.
I turned and watched Connie rise to her feet, her body trembling as she started for the coffin. I wanted to reach out to her, to wrap my arms around her, desperate to grieve with her. She was the only one who knew exactly how I felt.
But she hated me. She blamed me.
Please, get help!
There is something not right with you, Jack.
I’m begging you.
I leaned back in my chair, watching her boyfriend wrap a steady arm around her waist as she kneeled before our son and sang him a lullaby. I blinked, tears falling from the corners of my eyes as her voice traveled through the quiet chapel.
“Sleep, baby, sleep. Your daddy’s away. Sleep, baby, sleep. And mommy will pray.
Sleep, baby, sleep
Your daddy’s away
Sleep, baby, sleep
And mommy will pray”
I wiped away my tears with the back of my hand as her voice hitched as she sobbed. I hated seeing her cry, always did. We were one another’s first love. I watched her turn from a girl to a woman and then made her a mother. We were twenty years old when our daughter, Lacey, was born. Twenty-one when we married, twenty-two when Jack Jr. was born, twenty-three was the year it all fell apart and twenty-four was the year it ended. Now, twenty-five, we’re burying our baby—both of us dead inside.
Connie leaned over the coffin, peppering Jack’s face with kisses as she cried and pleaded with him to take her with him. Her boyfriend wrapped both arms around her, prying her away from the coffin. She turned in his arms, buried her face against his chest and let out an anguished cry that tore through my heart. She lifted her head, her angry eyes meeting mine, and she stilled.
“This is all your fault,” she shrieked. “My baby is in that box because of you.” She slapped her boyfriend’s hands away and stepped closer, her green eyes lifeless as they pierced through me.
She used to look at me lovingly.
She used to look at me sympathetically.
She glared at me now with hatred.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
And I was. Because she was right. Jack was dead because I was too proud to accept the things I couldn’t control. My son paid the price because I was too ashamed to get help.
The demons in my head stole my son.
But I allowed them to.
He was a fucking Fed, a fucking federal agent out to destroy me. If that wasn’t a slap in the fucking face, nothing was. I gave him everything. I tried my best to do right by him. And this is how he repaid me? I put that spoiled prick through school, busted my ass so he could get ahead in life.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” Lacey asked, looking frightened.
I lifted my arms above my head and swung the hammer against the Sheetrock.
“Go inside, Lacey,” I muttered, dropping the hammer at my feet and stuck my arm in the gaping hole. I pulled at the Sheetrock with my free hand, widening the hole.
Where the fuck was it? Where did that bastard put the fucking bug?
“Daddy, you’re scaring me,” she cried.
I was sure it was there. I just needed to find it.
He wasn’t going to bring me down. No fucking way.
“Jack?” Lacey sniffled, wiping at her eyes with the sleeves of her shirt. “Daddy, I don’t know where Jack is.”
I lifted the hammer over my head and took another swing, this time at a different wall. I beat the Sheetrock again and again until the hole was wide enough for me to stick my head inside. I felt out of control, like I was grasping at straws but I was so sure he played me. I didn’t just imagine it. Did I?
I was fucking desperate.
I needed to know I wasn’t crazy.
My brother was a Fed.
I was an outlaw.
He was out to get me.
I slid down the wall, my body falling to the floor with a thump and pulled my knees to my chest.
I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t.
“Daddy,” Lacey screamed, her shrill voice pulling me away from my manic state, forcing me into reality. “Come quick,” she sobbed.
I lifted my head and scanned the room for my daughter.
“Lacey?” I called out.
She didn’t answer me.
Tires screeched across the asphalt, a crash sounded and then there was silence.
I stood, walked toward the front door and noticed it was wide open. My steps quickened, my heart raced and then it crashed the moment I stepped outside. My daughter stood frozen at the curb, staring in shock at my two-year old son lying perfectly still in the middle of the street.
I ran down the porch steps, unable to breathe not knowing which child to tend to first. I tripped over the curb, fell to my knees and crawled to my son.
I frantically checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
“No, no, no,” I whispered hysterically, searching around for help. The car sped away, taking off down the street, no regard for my boy. I looked back toward my daughter.
“Lacey, call 911!”
She didn’t move. She was in shock. She just watched her baby brother get hit by a car.
She watched him die.
I closed my eyes and gathered my boy in my arms, rocking him softly. I stared up at the heavens and screamed for help.
Please God, hear me. Hear my cry for help.
Chapter One
Present Day
I ran my fingertips along the distressed wooden table as I walked around it, taking my seat at the top. This thing had seen better days, been around a long fucking time. My predecessor, Cain, had brought it into the compound when he first took the gavel. A piece he and his old man had built with their own hands. The guys busted my balls, time and again, to get rid of the thing, bitched about getting a splinter whenever we held church. I couldn’t part with it though. It was all I had left of the man who brought me into this club and gave me purpose.
Cain was the toughest motherfucker around but he had a soft spot for me. He was troubled himself, so he didn’t care too much that I was damaged goods. I used to think he took pity on me and that was why he made me a prospect. Truth was, it was unethical for a man in my condition to be a part of something as big as the Satan’s Knights. When it came time to patch me in, some brothers voted against it, they called me a liability. Cain didn’t give a fuck and encouraged the vote to go my way. It wasn’t until the man was on his deathbed that I learned he was my advocate because he saw a younger version of himself in me. He saw the good in me and not the shit that everyone else did.
I lifted the picture frame from my dresser and stared into the eyes of my boy. That’s all I had these days, a fucking lifeless photograph, a captured moment to get me through the rest of my life. No more memories to be made, experiences to be had, nothing but a picture that would wear one day. I would never see my boy look up at me again; never do all the things a father should do with his son.
I grabbed the orange prescription bottle from the dresser and turned toward my bed. I took a swig of the bottle of scotch I had nearly finished and sat at the foot of the bed. My loaded gun right beside me. I stared at the RX label and the one word that could have changed everything.
Lithium.
If I had listened to Connie, and yielded to the warnings, we’d still have Jack. I was too proud to get help; too worried people would think I was a pussy. I was a fucking biker that walked a thin line between right and wrong. I wasn’t some bitch who needed a shrink.
But I was.
I was a manic depressive.
I wasn’t the devil my mother thought I was. I was sick. I was a sick man who never sought treatment for his illness. The same illness that left me in a m
anic state the night my boy got hit by a car. I should’ve been paying attention to him. I should’ve been on medication.
But I wasn’t.
And he was dead.
It should’ve been me.
I dropped the prescription bottle, watched as it rolled across the carpeted floor and stopped once the door flew open and rolled back toward me. A leather boot stopped it from rolling and I lifted my hazy eyes to take in the man who had now picked up my medicine.
“Get out, Cain,” I growled, looking away and taking another swig of my bottle, my hand closing around the gun as I did.
He stood tall, around six foot three, and was a wall of muscle. He took a few shaky steps in my direction, grabbed onto the dresser to steady himself before his bloodshot eyes pierced me with a glare. He was fucked up. Not an unusual occurrence. Cain liked his drugs, didn’t limit himself to a particular one, shot anything you put in front of him through those veins of his.
We were a lot alike, both of us needed help but only one of us wound up getting it.
“You take your pills today?” He asked, as he leaned against the dresser and crossed his arms against his cut.
“I don’t need no babysitter,” I slurred. “Think I told you to leave, brother.”
“Think I’m the boss around here and I don’t take orders from anyone,” he retorted angrily, pausing for a moment. “What the fuck you doing, Bulldog?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Gonna ask you again, you take your pills?” He questioned hastily, walking toward me and grabbing the photo of my son.
I saw red.
I reached for my picture. He pulled back.
“Give me my fucking son back,” I hollered, lifting my gun and aiming it at him.
“Can’t give you your boy back, Jack. Wish like hell I could,” he replied calmly. He turned around and righted the frame, delicately fixing it so it rested on top of my dresser where it belonged. He turned around and stared back at me. “One more time Jack. Did you take your pills?”
“Yeah,” I ground out, dropping the gun to my side.
Uncontrollable Temptations (The Tempted Series Book 3) Page 1