Illicit Temptations (Tempted Series Book 1) (2 page)

The blonde’s head lifted from my lap, breaking me from my morbid thoughts. I fisted her hair in my hands, peering at her through blurred vision. The whiskey was finally hitting the spot gifting me with the sweet oblivion I craved. I fisted her hair in my hands, lifting my hips to thrust my cock down her throat when I heard ringing in my ears. I paused mid thrust, sure, that my head was completely fucked and then I heard the ringing again.

“What the fuck!” I slurred, realizing that my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me and that the doorbell was ringing I sat up untangling my fingers from the blonde’s hair, the blood rushed to my head and I struggled to focus as the room spun.

“Can’t you ignore it?” She purred beside me suddenly making my head throb in agony at the sound of her voice. A loud crash sounded from somewhere in the house, forcing me to pull my shit together.

I threw my legs over the edge of the bed and reached for my jeans. I pulled them up my legs stumbling a bit as I drew the zipper up. I heard muffled voices beyond my bedroom door and reached for the baseball bat that was under my bed.

“Val get your ass out here!” I heard a deep voice bellow from the other side of the door. It was a familiar voice I just couldn’t place it in my current state.

“Who’s Val?” Whined the broad now sprawled out across my bed. I lifted the bat over my head ready to swing as the intruder kicked in my bedroom door. The woman shrieked in fear as two men dressed in black from head to toe stormed into my bedroom. Then it hit me, I knew these guys had known them my whole life, yet I had no fucking idea why they were here in my bedroom or how the fuck they got in the house I shared with my mother.

I peered at the two guys with one eye open. The first one was middle aged. I think his name was Jimmy, yeah that sounded right. Jimmy Gold it was all coming back now. The guys called him Jimmy Gold because of the obsessive amount of gold chains he wore around his neck. He made Mr. T look like a pauper. It seemed only fitting that when his front tooth was knocked out in a bar fight years ago he replaced it with a gold tooth.

“Looks like our boy is doing okay…” Jimmy said with a grin eyeing the naked woman in my bed. He wiggled his fingers at her flashing her a golden smile.

“Michael!” The blonde shrieked bringing up the sheet to cover her naked form. A little delayed if you ask me, but I had to hand it to her at least she remembered my name since I couldn’t place hers for the life of me. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Feisty little thing, aren’t you,” Jimmy crooned.

“Sweetheart the party’s over.” said the younger man who stood beside Jimmy as he bent down to retrieve my blonde’s discarded dress that sat in a ball on the floor. He rose to his full height, throwing the dress onto the bed before turning towards me. I stared at the man standing before me who was once the closest thing I had to a brother, Anthony Bianci was five years older than I was and at one point I looked up to him wanted to be just like him not so much anymore. He crossed his arms against his chest not saying a word, the look in his eyes too familiar, remembering the last time I saw that look. After my father died, he looked at me with the same pitiful stare just as he was now. Well, fuck him too. I didn’t need anyone’s pity. My jaw ticked, and I broke our stare off, turning around to glance at my naked conquest.

“You better get dressed and head out. I’ll call you a cab,” I said, patting my pockets in search of my phone. I lifted my head when I heard another set of feet padding across the threshold. I caught a glimpse of the Italian leather shoes first, letting my eyes slowly travel the length of the man standing in the entryway of my bedroom. Unlike the other two men who were dressed casually, this man wore an expensive charcoal suit. I leaned against the wall using it as an anchor as I came face to face with the man who had been like a second father to me the man who my father died for Victor Pastore. He has aged in the ten years since I had seen him last. His dark brown hair that he wore slicked back was streaked with gray now especially along the sides. There were lines along his eyes and more across his forehead. His eyes looked older, tired even, as if they had seen more than they bargained for.

“Val…,” he whispered hoarsely. I couldn’t formulate a single syllable. I didn’t know if it was because I was too drunk or if I was too shocked to see the man, I’d written off years ago stand before me. Maybe it was because I was choking on the anger seeing him again evoked in me. “It’s good to see you son.” He said. I ran my tongue along my bottom lip, trying to decide on what to say to him if I could say anything at all, it wasn’t going to consist of pleasantries and shit that’s for sure.

“Is this really happening right now?” The blonde shrieked. “If you assholes haven’t noticed I am naked.”

“Oh darling, we noticed,” Jimmy said with an amused grin. I peeled my eyes away from Victor to look at Jimmy as his eyes traveled the length of her.

Victor turned around as well, acknowledging my bedmate. “Sweetheart, we are sorry for the interruption. Why don’t you go on and get dressed and Jimmy here will give you a ride home.”

She looked horrified at the suggestion gaping at Victor as if he was out of his mind. I watched her rip the sheet from my bed, wrapping it tightly around her exposed body she climbed off the bed. It only took her seconds to storm into the adjoining bathroom, slamming the door behind her. That hot willing mouth that was wrapped around my cock just minutes ago let out a stream of curses from behind the wooden door. I sighed, running my hand through my messy hair. My bloodshot eyes glared at Victor.

The silence in the room was deafening as he opened the button on his suit jacket sliding one hand into his pants pocket as he stared down at his Italian loafers. A million questions raced through my head despite being inebriated. I wanted to know why he was here. Why now? My mother and I hadn’t heard from Victor Pastore in years since right after my father was brutally murdered and we moved from New York to Pennsylvania. Not one single phone call, nothing. Holidays and occasions came and went and Victor had never reached out to us. My father died for this man and he never even had the decency to check on the family he left behind. So why now?

“Son, I’m sorry about Maryann,” he said hoarsely lifting his head his eyes meeting mine. He shook his head. “I wish you would’ve called me after the car accident. I would’ve been here sooner.”

I stared at him for a moment. “You would’ve been here sooner?” I repeated his words back to him. “Why the fuck would I call you?” My voice sounded broken even to my own ears. It didn’t matter how angry I was a part of me still wished this man would’ve lived up to the promises he made the day we buried my father.

I was sixteen when my father was murdered. The newspapers called it a
“Mobbed Up Massacre”
. My father was shot
twelve times total they said. He lay dead in the street in front of Rosalie’s Bakery for hours before they
finally brought his body to the morgue. They roped off the scene of the crime with yellow tape that stood there for days. I recall seeing the tape the day of his burial when the limousines drove passed the bakery on the way to the cemetery.

The media loved the rivalry between crime families and they ate that shit up printing whatever it was to sell their paper, not caring if my mother or I saw the gruesome photos of my father. His death made the newspaper every day for a week after, labeling him the second in command, the Underboss to the Pastore crime family. Each day another photo was printed. The one image imbedded in my brain is the one of his body lying in a pool of his own blood. I remember thinking to myself how he looked like someone’s prey lying there covered with a sheet as a police officer outlined his body with chalk.

I cut the articles out of the paper and for years, I’d look at them memorizing the tiniest of details. The officer held the chalk in his left hand. He wore a watch on his right wrist. I could tell you so many details about the detective in that picture, but could only tell you one thing about my father. He was wearing his favorite black loafers because they were all that was visible as they peeked out from beneath the sheet.

Aside, from the photos I had also memorized the articles. They said my father made the ultimate sacrifice to protect Victor. He shielded Victor with his own body, allowing the rival family to riddle his body with bullets. In the days that followed his death, I often found myself wondering if my father thought of my mother or me before he stepped in front of the gunfire. Did we cross his mind at all? Or was he too wrapped up in being Victor’s right hand man he completely forgot about his only son and the woman who would love him until she drew her last breath.

The police didn’t arrest Victor this I know because I was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast when he showed up to our house. His face was drawn, his eyes bloodshot the man who was always so put together looked disheveled as he broke the news to my mother and me that my father was dead. When I close my eyes and allow myself to think of that day, I can still see my mother falling to her knees. Her anguished cries haunt me from time to time. Her fists pummeled against Victor’s chest, as she screamed
“NO!”

I stared into Victor’s eyes as he held my mother in his arms trying desperately to calm her down but failing miserably. I was numb as I stared at him standing in our kitchen alive while my father’s lifeless body lay on a slab in the morgue. It hadn’t seemed fair to me, I guess that’s why his death didn’t hit me right away.

We had to keep the casket closed because one of the bullets had gone through his face. At the wake, I sat beside my mother, holding her hand as she wept while I stared at his coffin disbelieving that he could be inside the mahogany box before me. My eyes glued to the array of flowers that lay over the coffin, mainly on the banner that adorned the spray of flowers that read “Beloved Father”. It felt as if I was living in a nightmare, never feeling real maybe because I didn’t see him lying in the coffin.

I never accepted it as my reality, not even when they lowered his body into the dirt. It wasn’t until Victor pulled me aside after the burial and promised in not so many words to take the place of my father to be the man I could turn to in life because the only one I’d ever known was no longer with me. It settled in then that my dad was gone. The irony of it was that the man promising to take his place robbed me of a father.

Now here he stood all these years later never living up to his promise. The bathroom door opened, and the blonde came charging into the bedroom. She stopped right in front of me shoving my chest with the palm of her hand
. “Forget you ever met me Michael-- Val whatever the fuck your name is anyway.” Ah, it was good to know she was just as confused as I was in the name department.

“How about that ride sweetheart?” Jimmy offered dangling a set of car keys in the air.

“Eat shit and die.” She replied, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she glared at Jimmy before making her way out of the room. Jimmy and Anthony’s eyes followed her taut ass as it left the room no doubt appreciating the view. The front door slammed a few moments later, signaling that my chance at getting that happy ending I was shooting for was shot to hell. Jimmy turned around. “Boy sure knows how to pick them.” He grinned wickedly. “How much she set you back?”

“I don’t pay for sex,” I ground out, clenching my fists at my sides. Anthony slapped Jimmy on the back, tearing his attention from me and back towards him.

“Jim why don’t you and I step outside and give Vic and Mike a few minutes to catch up,” He said in an even keeled tone. Some things never change that was Anthony always controlled never flustered. Even when we were teenagers, he was the quiet one choosing only to voice his opinion when he felt strongly about something, usually being the one who made the most sense of things for me.

“Is that good with you boss?” Jimmy asked Victor. I didn’t wait for his answer. I could picture him nodding his head curtly dismissing them as only he could. Instead, I turned and walked into the bathroom. I gripped the edge of the sink, lifting my head to peer at my reflection in the mirror. I struggled to focus my eyes, willing myself silently to get my shit together. Maybe drinking myself into a stupor wasn’t the brightest idea I’ve had, but I needed to be numb. In just a few hours, the sun would rise and I’d sign the papers that would take my mother off life support. At least I’d be able to say goodbye. A privilege I never had when my father left this earth.

I turned the knobs on the faucet and dipped my head splashing the cold water on my face. On top of dealing with pulling the plug on my mother, I now had to deal with the past. I had to deal with Victor when all I wanted to do was spit in his face and send him back to wherever the fuck he came from. There was a time when he was Uncle Vic a time when my parents and I would spend every Sunday at his house. My father and he would talk business over brandy and cigars while my mother, and his wife Grace cooked up a storm. There would be enough food on their table to feed the entire Pastore organization yet none of them was privy to Sunday dinner. That was just for the Valente’s and the Pastore’s. I’d sit at the dining room table sandwiched between Victor’s two daughters.

Adrianna was my age we had been raised as cousins since we were in diapers. Our mother’s joked that on the day of our First Holy Communion, we looked like a bride and groom. Adrianna dressed in a white dress that was a replica of a wedding gown and myself in a white suit. For years, they would kid around secretly hoping that we would one day wind up together. Neither she nor I ever had the heart to break it to our moms that it would never be. At sixteen years, old Adrianna had fallen helplessly in love for the first time only I wasn’t on the receiving end of that love. No her young heart belonged to Anthony.

Victor and Grace’s youngest daughter Nicole was six years younger than Adrianna and I. She was a little spitfire always trying her hardest to be older than she was to fit in with us. She was a pain in the ass. A pain in the ass that insisted on calling me Mikey. I hated it. I could still hear her singing her nickname for me. I’d cringe much like I did just now thinking about it. Only back then, she’d smiled at me flashing me a smile full of metal. I was weak when it came to that kid, so I let her carry on calling me that ridiculous name. It was that smile of hers that got to me, braces and all. I was sixteen and Mikey was the name of a boy, a child even not a man. Still, I let Nikki call me Mikey. Hell, if I saw her tomorrow, and she decided to call me Mikey my twenty-six-year old self would answer. I’d groan, but I’d let her do whatever she wanted. What can I say? I had a soft spot for that kid.