Uncontrollable Temptations (Tempted #3)(37)

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.





Chapter Sixteen





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.