Uncontrollable Temptations (The Tempted Series Book 3) (38 page)

Best fucking sight I ever saw.

“Well?” She whispered, smiling playfully back at me.

“What do you want?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes at me and slapped my shoulder. “Come on, Jack, you know what I want,” she exclaimed.

“No,” I shook my head. “What do you
really
want, Reina?” I asked, staring into her eyes hoping she realized I wasn’t playing around. I truly wanted to know what she wanted because I wanted to give it to her. Every goddamn thing.

“Is this a trick question?” She replied nervously.

“No, it’s a simple one,” I insisted, lifting myself up and leaning back against my haunches. “Wanna know what you want out of life, Sunshine. I want to know what it is so I can give it all to you,” I said sincerely.

“I’ve got everything I want,” she whispered, taking her lower lip between her teeth and biting down so hard she probably drew blood.

“You wanna get married?” I blurted.

      
Her eyes became wide as saucers and I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.

“What?” She croaked.

I cocked my head to the side watching as she stared at me silently. I ran my finger along the curve of her breast as I decided what to say, how to put everything I felt into words, how to give her everything.

“Did it once before,” I started, taking my eyes off her breasts and finding her eyes. “And for all the wrong reasons. Still, got two beautiful gifts from it and I could only imagine what gift I’d get if it was for the right reasons,” I added. “I’m no young stud,” I continued as she brought her hand to her mouth to cover her smile. I reached down and pulled it away from her face, leaning down to press a kiss to that smiling mouth. “Let me finish,” I insisted.

“I’m sorry,” she said, eyes shining back at me.

“I’d do it all again, with you, only you,” I said softly.

“Me,” she whispered.

“You,” I affirmed.

“I love you, Jack Parrish,” she said as she reached up and brought my lips down to hers.

“Love you too, Sunshine,” I said against her mouth before I tickled her all over with my growing beard, starting with the place she desired it most.

The End

I followed the hearse past the gates of Green-Wood cemetery with Reina on the back of my bike clutching my leather jacket. I pulled up along the site of the plot, killed the engine of my bike as the gravediggers helped the undertaker move the casket to its final resting spot.

I took Reina’s hand from my chest, stretched it outward and glanced at the rock on her finger. She wanted to be my wife but wasn’t in a rush. Of course she wasn’t, she was twenty-eight—I was the one who was pushing forty. She wanted to have a kid, and I suggested we start working on that as soon as possible. She wanted to have big family dinners on Sundays and didn’t care if it was at our house or the clubhouse just as long as everyone was all together. She wanted season tickets for the Yankees and she demanded I take her riding two nights a week.

I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed her softly, a reminder that I promised to give all those things to her. I was a man of my word. She climbed off the bike first, taking my hand in hers as I dismounted before giving her hand a squeeze. I looked over her shoulder at the bikes that followed me here and two cars.

My club, all of my brothers, except for one stood next to their bikes. Behind them was Anthony Bianci’s car and behind his car was Connie’s. Reina and I walked the length of the recession to the final car and I knocked on the passenger window.

Connie rolled down her window and looked up at me.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Jack,” she offered.

“Thank you,” I said, crouching down to the window and peering over her to the driver’s seat. “Thanks for coming, Rob,” I said, acknowledging my ex-wife’s husband.

“Very sorry,” he replied with a nod.

I glanced into the back seat and saw my daughter.

“Come on, Lace,” I beckoned. “You’re with us.”

Reina dropped my hand and opened the door for my daughter. Lacey climbed out of the car and I took her hand in mine before reclaiming Reina’s. With my two girls at my side I climbed the hill to lay my brother to rest.

We circled the coffin as the priest opened his bible and made the sign of the cross. Believers followed suit and copied the priest’s actions while I bowed my head and kept my hands at my sides. I wasn’t sure about my beliefs and if they rested with God. I didn’t know if I was his son or if I was who my cut labeled me, a Satan’s Knight.

“We gather here to commend our brother Daniel Parrish to God our Father and to commit his body to the earth…” the priest began.

After Reina was home safe and sound; Blackie was admitted into the hospital albeit in a coma. I returned the medical examiner’s call and claimed my brother’s remains. I honored him as I knew him, as Daniel Parrish, my brother. The boy I teased as a child, the young man I tried to look after and do the right thing by after our parents died. The brother that held my son when he was born and called my daughter, Princess Lacey as he gave her piggy back rides…the brother I missed.

I stood back and watched as the brothers I chose circled Danny’s coffin, each one of them resting a hand against the mahogany.

A moment of silence for my fallen brother.

“Ay,” Pipe said, breaking the silence, the men dropping their hands from my brother’s coffin.

Anthony and his wife were next to pay Danny his final respects.

Bianci, an unlikely brother I never expected to find.

Life was full of surprises.

I smiled at Adrianna, who was finally starting to show off her tiny belly.

Life was good when you had the right people in your life.

Grace Pastore stepped in front of me as her daughter stepped aside.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” she said as she embraced me. “Vic sends his condolences,” she added.

She pulled away, and I saw the same thing I saw in her eyes when she showed up at my clubhouse:

I’ll take care of yours, because you’ve taken care of mine.

“Thanks, Grace,” I said softly.

I went to take Reina’s hand again, but she moved to the coffin, resting a hand against the wood and bowed her head.

“Thank you,” she whispered, before bowing her head and touching her lips gently to the top of the casket. I shoved my hands in my pocket and gave her a moment. I realized how grateful I was to Reina for hanging onto my brother when his soul left this earth.

I felt her arms wrap around me and I lifted my eyes to hers.

“You going to say goodbye?” She asked softly.

“Yeah, give me a minute?”

She stood on her tip toes and pressed her lips to mine.

“Take two,” she whispered, before leaving me to my privacy.

I remained frozen once I was alone, unable to take those few steps to say goodbye. I suppose it was mainly because I had already said goodbye to Danny all those years ago when he visited me at Ryker’s and bid me farewell.

But still, a part of me wished for one last meeting. One last tackle, one last joke, one last wet willy.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have that encounter again. I don’t know if Danny and I are destined to go to the same place once life is over but one could hope, right?

“See you on the other side, brother,” I said.

Just one last encounter.

“Jack?”

I turned around, startled by the voice and looked back at Connie.

“I’m sorry to interrupt but Rob has to go back to work, and I wanted to give this to you before I left,” she explained, holding up a white envelope.

“What is it?” I asked, taking what she offered and turning it over to see it was sealed.

“When you went away Danny paid me a visit,” she began, pausing a beat. “I don’t know what’s inside. It was sealed when he handed it to me but he told me to give it to you if something should ever happen to him.”

I dropped my gaze to the envelope before taking a deep breath and slipping it into my back pocket.

“Thanks, Connie,” I whispered.

“Welcome,” she replied, before reaching out and giving my shoulder a squeeze. She moved to step around me but stopped in her tracks and lifted her eyes to mine. “I know it wasn’t your fault,” she whispered, her eyes glistening back at mine. “I’m sorry I ever made you feel like it was.”

She dropped her hand from my shoulder and I felt a load lifted from me as she walked away. The grief we shared no longer taunting me.

I turned on my heel and walked down the hill, glancing over to my left, watching as Connie looked back at me and smiled before she climbed into the car and closed the door.

When one door closes, another opens.

I wrapped my arms around Reina’s waist and dragged her back against my chest.

“You ready to get out of here?” I asked huskily against her ear.

“Yes, but we have to stop off at the store first,” she informed me.

“Later,” I growled, taking her earlobe between my teeth and giving it a nip.

“No, fuck that, I’ve waited long enough,” Riggs declared, crossing his arms against his chest. He was hanging out with Bianci too long, even held the same stance as the man. “We had a deal. I help you get the pie goddess back and I get a cherry pie,” he snarled.

“Pie’s going to have to wait,” Pipe said, walking up to us, bringing down the phone he held to his ear as a smile spread across his face.

“You better have a good fucking reason,” Riggs muttered.

Pipe turned his gaze to Riggs.

“Best fucking reason,” he assured him, before glancing back at me. “Blackie’s awake.”

Right there, in the middle of Green-Wood Cemetery, my belief in God was restored.

Thank you, I silently told my real Maker.

Thank God.

I’m writing this letter to you alive, well, and completely of sound mind. However, if these words ever find their way to you that means I’ve died. I’m okay with that because it also means I died trying to make things right between us.

I’ll start by explaining the one thing you never gave me a chance to explain to you. The day I told you I was going into the bureau was the day our brotherhood died. I was young and foolish to believe you stopped being my brother when you found your club.

I became a federal agent for two reasons. The first was because I loved the aspect of being someone who traveled the world undercover. I probably watched too many cop shows because once I became an agent I realized it wasn’t so glamorous living two lives—one as an agent and one just as a man. In fact, it was pretty lonely because anyone I let into my life never knew the truth of who I was, they only knew one facet of me.

The second reason was to spite you but you knew that already. It sounds horrible, but it’s the truth. I felt betrayed by you and I felt left out. You were always talking about your brothers and this unbreakable bond you shared—but I was your brother and we were supposed to have an unbreakable bond.

I chose the law because you were an outlaw. I chose the law because I thought you chose your club. I chose the law because I thought I wasn’t the brother you wanted.

And even though I may have made the wrong choice, I learned to live with it and found purpose within the bureau. I wasn’t lying to you when I came to Ryker’s to see you, I did change my name to head the RICO unit but also because I didn’t want to be associated with you.

But not for the reasons you think.

Not because I was ever ashamed of you.

But to save you.

Being an agent had its perks, and I uncovered a lot of things, half of the things I learned I wish I hadn’t but I would never regret finding out the one piece of information that led me to apply for the RICO unit in the first place.

It was a Cutlass, the car that ran over Jack Jr. and the guy driving it was high as a kite and that’s why he kept going. He was high on heroine and he was an employee of the notorious G-Man. I changed my name to Gregorio because it was the same name as his and with that common thread I thought it would get me in with the G-Man, make him more inclined to bring me into the fold.

My plan was to get G-Man off the streets because even in prison he still had a crew on the outside pushing the drugs, but he wasn’t working alone. I started to learn bits and pieces of his operation, realizing he had been working with another mobster for years, slowly laying the foundation for their partnership to take over the streets of New York. They had a laundry list of murders under their belt as the mobster worked his way up the ladder. His name is Jimmy Gold, maybe you’ve heard of him?

You see, I thought if I cleaned up the streets, I’d bring some sort of justice to my nephew’s death. I’d save my brother from the grief he’s allowed to control his life and maybe, just maybe, fix the bond that became broken between us.

Anyway, I’m in real deep and I think they’re starting to catch on that I’m not who I say I am. But that’s the chance you take when you live a double life.

I hope you’re well. And if I should leave this earth I hope you know how very thankful I am to you for making me the man that I am. You didn’t have to step in after mom and dad died, but you did.