Uncontrollable Temptations (The Tempted Series Book 3) (16 page)

I gave you one of my scars.

Her words a soft whisper taunting my thoughts like a demon beckoning my conscience. The moment Anthony implied there was a possibility that Reina was playing me, I became a prisoner trapped in my warped mind.

I long ago decided there was no God, not for me. There was no mystical maker of Heaven and Earth. There was just
my
maker, the one that held all the control. My maker is my mind and it fights the rest of me for control. Perhaps your brain is supposed to control the rest of your body, it signals everything else inside of you but when your brain is working against you, sending all the wrong signals, fucking with your existence, it becomes your enemy.

I know that my head is my worst enemy. No drug lord, or rival club, not even a cock-sucking mobster like Jimmy Gold, could compare. It’s my mind that tortures me, it’s my mind that reaps victory over me, it’s my mind I will never conquer. I can go to war with the toughest motherfuckers and bring them to their knees, I can take their lives but I’ll always be the loser because the demons inside my head will always have the last word. It’s those same demons that rob whatever goodness wanders into my life.

I’m living my life stuck on pause. My meds are the pause button. They keep me running, allow me to still be a player, but I’m stuck. I’ll always be stuck. And when I start to think I can be more than idle, that I can live again, my maker hits rewind, dragging me down the black hole where I question everything. Looking for the bad, forgetting all about the goodness that others get. It pulls me back to the day I punched holes in the walls searching for bugs. My mind crucifies me to the day I lost my son, when my mind became my maker.

My maker summoned me last night, brought me to his purgatory and locked me up with the demons that danced around shouting doubts and accusations at me. Infiltrating thoughts of Reina, my sunshine, being nothing but a fucking hail storm.

I stared at the table that centered the sanctuary where the Satan’s Knights congregated over church, my fingers closing tightly around the baseball bat I held in my hands. My knuckles turning white from my grip on the bat.

I was devastated when I found him, I lay down and wrapped my arms around him, never wanting to let go. I held on until I felt the heat.

I lifted the bat over my head and brought it down against the freshly restored table, the wood splintering against my calloused hands. I closed my eyes, pictured the memory she painted for me and for a second I was transported into her world—a tiny part of her world that she held on tightly to. She had found enough trust in a poor slob like me to share it. She gave me her truth and all I’ve given her is my dick and a shitload of lies.

Purgatory.

Maybe Hell.

Satan was beckoning, dragging me down.

Let me go, I pleaded with my maker.

Release me.

I swung the bat again. Danny’s face clouding my vision, Reina’s voice in one ear, Bianci’s in the other.

I could hear the sirens from a distance and the firemen calling out for survivors. I hadn’t had a chance to process that Danny was essentially a stranger to me, he was still the man I loved and he was gone. I couldn’t leave him.

Her voice smooth as silk as her words whispered against my ear, reminding me that Reina was a woman who laid down her life for the man she loved.

You need to find out if she’s involved in this shit before we go any further.

Anthony’s voice retaliated against Reina’s.

In the distance I heard a familiar voice scream out, and it took a moment for me to acknowledge I was the one screaming. My screams echoed against the walls and I struggled to follow the muffled sound.

Let me repent, I pleaded to my maker.

I slammed the bat against the table over and over again, my voice becoming more pronounced through the fog. Reina’s voice faded away, Anthony’s did too, and I was left with my own cries, clear as the light of day, begging for mercy.

“Release me and let me repent,” I cried, as I dropped the bat and fell into the chair at the head of the table. I covered my face with my hands and rocked forward, gasping for air.

“Jack…” Blackie cautioned, startling me. I lifted my head from my hands and stared at him with remorse. “Brother, what’re you doing?” He threaded carefully, bending down to pick up the bat and place it on the table.

“Wishing for sunshine,” I answered simply.

I lifted my gaze to the table, leaned forward and ran my hands along the freshly splintered wood—a result of my own hand. I stared at the gash I put into the table I fought so hard to hold on to. Damaged it was just like the man that sat at the head of it. We were both ruined.

“I’ll get one of the guys to sand it down,” he offered.

Of course he would, it’s what he did, time after time. I had no doubt he’d have this mess cleaned up, making it like it never happened and I’d go back to living life on pause, waiting for the darkness to come. It’ll come. It always does.

I gripped the edge of the table, using it for leverage as I stood on my wobbly legs, holding on until I could control my balance. I turned toward Blackie and spotted Bianci standing in the doorway, concern and shock painting his features.

“Didn’t know I was crazy did you, Bianci?” I laughed bitterly, as exhaustion weighed heavily on me. I ran my fingers through my hair as I stumbled through the room. Anthony moved to grab my arm but I moved out of his reach.

“You wanted to know if Reina was involved in this shit,” I accused.

“For your own sake,” he quickly replied.

“She’s not,” I clipped. “I didn’t even have to coax it out of her, she handed me her truth. She found Danny and instead of getting the fuck out of there she lay down beside him on the floor and wrapped her arms around him, hanging on to him until the bitter end. I don’t know what she knows about Danny’s life with the bureau or if she even knew he was involved with the likes of Jimmy and the G-Man but she doesn’t know I’m his brother. She’s not playing me and she’s not fucking lying,” I said, gripping the door knob as I turned and looked over my shoulder at the two men that stared at me blankly. “I’m the only one fucking running lies and playing games,” I declared, grimly.

It was ironic that I was defending Reina’s honor and credibility to them when I was the one doing all the two-timing, letting her believe I was just some stranger that was attracted to her when all the while I had a fucking file tucked in my nightstand, containing all I needed to know about the woman that had gotten under my skin.

“What are you even doing with her if it’s not about Danny?” Blackie asked.

I lifted my eyes to my brother’s and gave him my own truth, the one he knew long before I did. I was losing control, slipping deeper and deeper into Reina.

“I don’t know anymore,” I admitted, turning to Anthony. “Now, you asked me to find out if she was connected and I’m giving you my word she’s not. This shit with Reina, it dies now, not going to have either of you filling my head with shit I don’t need,” I stated. “You got a meeting to set up,” I added, piercing Bianci with a stare before diverting my eyes back to Blackie. “And you’ve got a table that needs fixing before we go sell our souls to a bunch of drug dealers.”

I stepped outside the door, leaving the both of them standing in the wake of my destruction.

“Jack goes off the deep end it’s your ass I’m hunting for, Bianci,” I heard Blackie warn as I walked away.

Too late, brother.

Way too late.

I needed to rest both my body and my mind and then it would go back to normal. Or at least the only normal I knew—the one that kept me on pause. My maker would be back, dangling sunshine in my face, pulling me back into the darkness. It was a dance we mastered, one he led. A game of Russian roulette, sometimes I wish I had pulled the trigger.

I opened the door to my room at the compound and kicked off my boots before dropping onto the edge of the bed. I reached over and opened the drawer to my nightstand and pulled out the manila envelope I had containing Reina’s secrets, all her scars, the ones I hired someone to dig up and tell me.

You want more from me? You want my scars? You got to earn them.

I ripped the envelope in half and tossed it in the wastebasket beside the bed.

I gave you one of my scars.

I climbed into my bed, dropped my head to my pillow and closed my eyes.

“I will earn them, Sunshine,” I vowed, before surrendering to the sleep my whole body craved.

It took three days for Blackie to be added to the list of approved visitors allowed to see Victor. After Vic was sentenced it had taken me five months to be added to the list. Three days. That just proved that Vic’s connections ran deep from inside. You could take the man from the streets but you’d never be able to take the streets from the man.

He may have traded his designer suits for his prison blues but the man still kept with his appearance, freshly shaved, his graying hair combed back, he still was a man who demanded respect—locking him in a cage wouldn’t change that. I don’t know what kind of operation Vic was running from his cell but he was up to something. He had prison guards turning their heads, inmates at his beck and call and Lord only knows what sort of deal he had with the DA’s office. That was a connection he had for years.

Victor could follow through with his end of the bargain—there was no doubt in my mind about that. By the end of our visit with him he assured Blackie that he’d grant him the peace he craved. Although I wasn’t certain it would be enough because Blackie blamed himself for his wife’s death. But he was desperate, willing to usher the blame he harbored onto the G-Man because he couldn’t live through the guilt of it anymore.

Blackie got high on the hope that this whole thing would erase some of his agony. He had us meeting with a club up north that distributed high quantities of heroine. There was no driving back home from the prison. We regrouped and headed back on the road for the meet with the Corrupt Bastards MC. We went from breaking bread with the don to cutting H with a bunch of drug lords. But we accomplished what we set out to do and now it was a waiting game.

It was just a matter of time before Jimmy paid a visit to Vic. He played on Vic’s wife being alone, drowning in debt created by legal fees and the collapse of Vic’s empire but Vic never took the bait. Not until now. Now, when Jimmy came up, Vic would tell him that Grace would lose their house, and it was up to Jimmy to make a quick score. He’d let him believe that his back was up against a wall and had no choice but to agree with Jimmy peddling drugs through the streets. Vic would play the desperation card and lead him straight to us.

We’d be waiting for the motherfucker.

We brought back a sample for Jimmy and it was locked away in a safe I kept at the Dog Pound. Just a little taste for him and his men to start feeding the streets. The idea was for him to supply the dealers and small-time distributors with the heroine, get them hooked on the product and at the same time have Jimmy turn a quick profit. He was a greedy bastard so his dick would get wet the minute he made a couple of dollars, give him a chance to turn thousands into hundreds of thousands and forget about it. He’d be putty in our hands.

Once he was demanding higher quantities, the product would become scarce, leaving him with no other choice but to purchase an obscene amount of heroine. That’s when Victor’s part of the plan comes into play and all those dirty cops and crooked lawyers he had in his back pocket for years, would pinch Jimmy sending him up the river to a bloodthirsty Vic.

Five days dealing with all this shit, five fucking days out on the road with Blackie and on the heels of a manic episode. I needed a break from it all.

I needed a dose of purity.

Sunshine, I needed my sunshine.

If I was a halfway decent guy with a shred of compassion, I’d leave her alone. I’d cut ties and forget that there was goodness in the world like Reina. The game changed, the pieces on the board moved, and I no longer needed Reina for information on Danny. I didn’t need closure on my brother’s death and if I did, it wouldn’t be found in her. I should do the right thing. I should cut her loose.

Just let her go.

But I couldn’t.

I was a selfish bastard who wanted to own her, to claim her, to fucking brand her.

The flashing red and blue lights blinded me, alerting me that the cops were surrounding her apartment complex. I pulled my bike as close as I could to the building and killed the engine as my eyes scanned the surroundings.

The blue and whites stood guard outside the building, allowing only official personnel inside. Some of the residents were shouting at the cops, demanding to be let back inside their homes, spewing derogatory slurs at the men in blue.

I glanced around at the people that lined the courtyard, eyes searching for Reina, but came up short. Then I looked up at the building, counted four floors up and zeroed in on the third window from the left.

The window was cracked, the blinds slanted and the light on in the apartment poured through. She walked past the window, her shadow teasing me and without another thought I walked toward the building. I lifted the caution tape, ignored the cop that hollered after me and stalked through the entrance. The place was swimming with detectives and canine’s sniffing for whatever the fuck they were searching for.