The Tempted Series: Collectors Edition

by Janine Infante Bosco

  “Get out of my way,” I ordered my men who barricaded the staircase.

  “Jimmy sent the video,” Riggs explained in a huff, handing my phone to Pipe. Bianci took Pipe’s place in blocking me from moving and Pipe hit play. I heard Jimmy’s voice again and I lost it. I wanted him in front of me and lurched for the phone as if I’d be able to pull him out of it. Riggs grabbed the back of my cut and Bianci stood in front of me, using his weight to push me back.

  “Jesus Christ,” Pipe said, as Jimmy’s voice sounded stating his demands and threats.

  “I will kill him and I’m going to smile as I do it,” I hissed.

  “Chapel, now,” Pipe said, sternly.

  “There’s no fucking time,” I said.

  “Oh, so you have a plan? Because you’re right we don’t have a lot of fucking time and without a plan we’re fucked. So pull your fucking shit together and grab your gavel,” he shouted.

  I didn’t have a plan, all I knew, all I cared about was killing Jimmy. I would be his judge and his jury and deliver him his sentence. But Pipe was right; I had the endgame and no way of getting to it.

  I relented and followed the men into the chapel. I didn’t sit in my seat at the end of the table, I just leaned against the wall and looked at their faces. Each set of eyes pierced me, waiting for me to dictate some sort of direction, some sort of plan of action but I had nothing. I couldn’t get my head straight. All I saw was Reina and Blackie.

  “We have twenty-four hours to give him what he wants,” Pipe informed everyone.

  “We can’t get the drugs,” I said, kicking off the wall I was leaning on.

  Pipe stared at me with confusion in his eyes. “I don’t follow, you just told us that was the plan from the beginning. You were going to supply him with the drugs and set him up. What’s the fucking problem?”

  “The problem is that Blackie had the connection to the drugs with a club up north. He’s been controlling the deal with them. There isn’t enough time to go on a run, and even if there was what are we supposed to carry the product in, our saddlebags?” I retorted.

  “Can I ask a question?” Mike said, gaining all of our attention. “Instead of focusing on giving this dickhead what he wants shouldn’t we be trying to figure out where he has Reina and Blackie? My girl was taken, and all I gave a fuck about was finding where she was and getting her back,” he added.

  “If we don’t have something to bargain with when and if we find them, nothing stopping him from killing them,” Bones countered. “At least if we have the drugs we can try to arrange a meeting for the exchange.”

  “We need the drugs,” Pipe agreed.

  “You need to find where they are and fuck the drugs,” Mike insisted.

  “What if we don’t choose one method and go with both?” Wolf questioned, but it sounded like he was asking himself and not the group. I looked to him, watched as he narrowed his eyes and worked shit out in his head.

  Come on, give me something.

  Anything.

  “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket type of thing?” Bones asked, but Wolf didn’t answer. He was too wrapped in his train of thought to even hear him.

  “We work on getting the drugs but while we’re doing that we try to uncover his location. If we can get him or one of his men to leave wherever he’s holding them and meet us, we can follow him back to where they are,” Pipe offered.

  “It all comes down to the drugs,” Bones replied. “He’s not going to meet unless it’s to get the product.”

  “Or make money,” Anthony supplied. “He’ll do anything for money, so if he needed to do a score he’d leave or send one of his earners,” he continued, lifting his eyes to mine. “No guarantees, brother but I think I have a way to him.”

  I stared at him questionably until he broke our stare and turned his head, contemplating his plan.

  “Work that shit out, whatever you need us to do, just say the word,” Pipe assured Anthony.

  “That leaves the drugs,” Wolf said, and the room grew silent again.

  “I know where we can get the drugs,” Riggs said, breaking the silence and turning his gaze to mine. “But if we do this, we might as well sign our own death certificates,” he added, giving me the first glimpse of his serious side.

  “I’d rather sign my own death certificate than either of theirs,” I replied.

  Last words.

  We all utter them right before the end.

  Before the mayhem takes over.

  They were the last words I said that mattered.

  My words became my vow to the woman I loved and the man I called my brother.

  A promise from me to them.

  My life or theirs.

  Always theirs.

  “That’s him,” Bianci said, as he leaned over the steering wheel of his truck and stared at the man crossing the street. The man he was referring to looked a hundred pounds soaking wet, if that. He stumbled through the crosswalk, scratching his arms profusely barely making it to the other end of the street.

  There was no way this man was who Bianci claimed he was.

  “Are you sure you got the right guy?” I asked, staring in disbelief at the junkie roaming the streets desperate for his next fix and tried to picture Anthony’s wife with him.

  “Oh, that’s him,” Bianci confirmed. “Adrianna, showed me pictures of him when they were together, you can’t even imagine the difference,” he muttered. “Luca resembles him,” he said, lifting his eyes to mine as he spoke of his son. Bianci wasn’t the biological father of Adrianna’s son, no, Vinny, the crackpot on the corner owned that honor.

  Not too long after the kid was born, fresh out of rehab, Vinny tried to hit Adrianna up for money. Bianci threw the guy a beating and in the end Vinny didn’t take a dime from Adrianna. He signed his rights over to her and told her his son was better off without him. It was men like Vinny that made the choice easy for men like me to want to keep the streets of New York clean. Vinny was a man controlled by temptation, a good guy who had created a beautiful boy, but instead of being a father to his kid he chose drugs. There are people in this world who can’t fight against temptation, people who surrender their lives to it.

  It worked out because Anthony loves Luca. He is his son in every way it counts. But as a man who buried a child, I couldn’t understand how a man willingly gives up the chance to hold his son and guide him through life. How was it that a man could hand over his son just to get high? The world was fucked. We were fucked. And people like Jimmy were the reason.

  “Let’s go,” Bianci announced, turning off the car and reaching for the door handle. We climbed out of his SUV and made our way to Vinny. The closer we moved toward him, the harsher the reality of who Vinny had become stared us in the face. Vinny’s eyes latched with Anthony’s, widening in fear as what little color he had left, drained from his face. He moved to run, but I was quicker and blocked his escape.

  “I just want to talk, Vinny,” Anthony said, reaching for him.

  “I stayed away, I swear,” Vinny whined, as I hooked my arm through his and brought him against my side.

  “I know, I know. Come on, we’re going for a drive,” Anthony informed him, taking hold of his other arm. Together we escorted him back to Anthony’s truck. We pushed him into the back seat and I slid in beside him, pulling my gun from the back of my pants and aiming it at his head.

  “What the fuck?” Vinny cried, staring into the rearview mirror as Anthony climbed into the front seat and lifted his eyes to meet his in the reflection.

  “The man pointing the gun to your head is hanging on by a thread. He will not hesitate to shoot you. You’ll be dead before I can ask him not to, so listen close and give me what I need,” Anthony warned, and I pressed the barrel of my gun forcefully to his temple, for extra emphasis.

  “I gave you everything I had, man, there’s nothing left,” Vinny said.

  “Shut up and listen to what he has to say,” I bit out, hitting the locks on the door
with my free hand. Anthony reached over the console and pulled an envelope from his glove box before twisting his body around so he was face to face with Vinny.

  “There’s twenty thousand in there,” he stated. “It’s not much but it can change your life. It can get you a warm bed and hot meal. It can get you clean clothes and put you on the path to a better life. It’s enough money to carry you while you get yourself clean,” Bianci continued. “Give me something good to tell Luca when he asks about his real dad,” Anthony pressed on.

  “Real cute kid,” I added, hating I was using a man’s kid as bait.

  “Do you have a picture of him?” Vinny asked.

  Bianci grabbed his phone off the passenger seat, his fingers quick to retrieve a photo of the boy both men obviously loved, and turned the screen to show Vinny. He took the phone, staring into the eyes of the child he created and smiled down at the photo, his eyes glistening with tears. I exchanged a look with Bianci, hating that we were playing with this man’s emotions and using his kid as leverage.

  “I need you to organize a meeting with your dealer,” Anthony began.

  “I can’t,” he said, handing him back his phone. “He wants me dead. I owe him a lot of money,” he explained.

  “How much money?”

  “Fifteen grand,” he revealed.

  I reached for the envelope and dropped it onto his lap.

  “There, now you have the money to settle up and five grand extra to get yourself together. If you do the right thing I personally will give you another twenty grand to get into rehab and get yourself well,” I said, feeling Bianci’s stare slicing into the side of my head. Dispersing forty grand to a junkie may be stupid but I was desperate and desperate people did stupid things.

  Anthony grabbed the prepaid phone we brought along with us and handed it to Vinny.

  “Call your dealer, tell him you have his money and you’re looking for a fix,” Anthony instructed. “Then tell him to meet you at the corner of 23rd Ave and Cropsey,” he added.

  “And then what? If he knows I set him up he’s going to kill me,” he stammered.

  “He won’t know you set him up because one of my guys is going to grab you too,” I told him. “It’ll be just another drug deal gone wrong,” I explained.

  “Make the call, Vin,” Anthony pressed.

  He stared at the phone, biting his lip as trembling fingers hovered over the keypad.

  “Make the fucking call,” I demanded, as I took the safety off my gun and let the barrel of it dig into his temple. “Make the fucking call,” I repeated.

  Vinny let out a whimper before his fingers dialed the number and hit send.

  An hour later we were parked on Cropsey Avenue watching closely as Vinny stood on the corner, shivering and waiting to meet with his dealer.

  “You offered him twenty grand more than we agreed,” Bianci stated, eyes focused on Vinny.

  “Technically, I offered him five grand more than we agreed,” I argued. “We didn’t factor he had a debt with the dealer,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “Twenty-five grand isn’t a lot of money for him to get his shit together with,” I added.

  “It doesn’t matter, you won’t be giving it to him anyway,” he said. “The five grand he has left over will be gone by morning and he’ll be back on this corner looking for more,” he said, turning to me briefly. “It’s a vicious cycle man, and Vinny’s lost to it. It’s only a matter of time before we’re burying the poor bastard.”

  His phone rang bringing him back to the moment, and he lifted it to his ear.

  “What’s up, Mike?” he asked.

  “Okay, yeah, I see you,” he said, pointing to the street corner diagonally across from us where a van was parked and we watched as Mike turned the headlights off.

  Five minutes went by, followed by five more. I was about ready to grab Vinny off the street and beat him senseless for lying to me when a fully loaded Expedition pulled around the curb and stopped in front of him. A man wearing a hooded sweatshirt jumped out of the driver’s seat and rounded the truck walking toward Vinny and instead of greeting him, he slapped him hard across the face. Another man stepped out of the truck and they took turns beating Vinny.

  “Shit,” Anthony hissed, his hand moving to the handle instantly. I grabbed him by the back of the shirt and reeled him back before he did something stupid.

  I took hold of my phone, dialed Pipe and waited for him to answer. “Now. Go!”

  The back doors of the van opened and even with their ski masks on and their guns cocked, the four men were recognizable to me. Adrenaline pumped through my veins and regret filled my conscience as gunshots sounded on the silent streets of Brooklyn, my brothers fired back, grabbing the two drug dealers and Vinny. Mike turned the headlights of the van on and pulled it up to the corner. One of my boys opened the back doors of the van and threw Vinny inside. I watched as they stripped the dealers of their weapons, phones and products before shoving them inside the back of the van with Vinny and closed the doors.

  Bianci turned, handed me the keys to his truck before reaching for his door.

  “I’ll call you when I’ve got the meet set up,” he said, opening his door and climbing out.

  “Bianci,” I called, causing him to glance over his shoulder at me. “Stay safe, brother,” I said sincerely.

  “You too,” he replied, before turning around. He switched places with my club, jumping into the van with Mike. The plan was for Mike and Anthony to work the dealers and get them to meet with Jimmy by lying to him and telling them they needed more product. If all went according to the plan, Jimmy or one of his guys would meet with Vinny’s dealer and we’d grab the motherfucker and torture him until he told me where Reina and Blackie were. But things rarely go accordingly for guys like us, so, we had a back-up plan.

  Pipe jumped into the front seat.

  “Keys,” he demanded.

  “I’m driving, move over,” I ordered. We switched spots as Bones, Riggs, and Wolf climbed into the back seat.

  “What time is it?” I asked, turning the key in the truck.

  “Don’t look at the clock, man, just keep moving until it’s over,” Pipe said, pulling his mask over his head and lifting the flask he hid in his back pocket to his lips. “Fucking hell,” he hissed, as the liquid burned his throat.

  “Just keep moving,” I repeated, peeling away from 23rd Ave and Cropsey.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Cain’s old man was standing outside the shooting range, smoking a cigar as he waited for us to arrive. I pulled up right in front and we jumped out of the truck.

  “Pop,” I greeted the old man, as he flicked the ashes of his Nicaraguan cigar.

  “How bad is it?” he asked, not leaving any room for pleasantries.

  I looked over my shoulder, watching as Riggs opened the lift-gate of the truck, before walking around the side and glancing at the watch on his wrist.

  “Jimmy Gold is holding Blackie and my woman hostage,” I said, diverting my eyes back to the aging father of my predecessor.

  He raised his eyebrow and questioning eyes found mine.

  “Well, I’ll be damned, never thought the day would come when you took an old lady,” he commented.

  “Yeah that makes two of us,” I declared. After things ended with Connie I had no intentions of tying myself to one woman. My heart was closed off, no room for anything or anyone, but Reina came into my life and being with her made me want to make room in my heart for the things I thought I didn’t deserve.

  And now she was gone, and I was racing against a clock to get her back.

  It was a horrible feeling, knowing that the person you belonged to was somewhere unknown, being held at the mercy of your enemy. I was torn between my love for her and the hatred I had for myself. If I had just let her be. If I had just stayed away. If only I wasn’t tempted by the sunshine.

  “Clock’s ticking, Prez,” Pipe reminded me. “Gotta keep moving,” he added, pulling me from my self-loathin
g trance.

  “Go,” Pops said. “I’d like to meet the girl who made that dead heart pump again,” he murmured, before pointing to the wooden crates piled up against the wall of the warehouse. “Everything you asked for and more,” he informed me.

  “Thank you,” I said, turning to the boys and tipping my chin toward the crates. “Let’s load them up,” I ordered as I walked to the crates, lifting the lid off of one of them and staring down at the AK47 nestled away amongst the straw.

  “There’s six of those, a couple of Glocks and I stocked you with some nine millimeters’ and a bunch of forty-five’s. They’re loaded, and I threw in a couple of magazines,” he paused for a second. “You boys are ready for war,” he said, shifting his eyes to my patch and staring at the one that declared me president of the Satan’s Knights, a role his son once called his own.

  “Cain’s watching over you,” he said simply, lifting his eyes to mine. “Got faith he’ll see you through this,” he stated.

  I patted Pops on the back, digesting his words, and hoping like hell they were true. Satan’s Knight’s needed all the guardian angels they could get. I turned around and loaded the last crate into the truck.

  Keep moving.

  I got back behind the wheel of the truck, honked the horn at Pops before backing out of the lot and meeting Riggs’ eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “How’s the ink on those death certificates?” I asked hoarsely.

  “Just about ready to dry,” he replied.

  “Bones, gas up the bikes, Wolf and I will load the cage with the ammo,” Pipe said, as we pulled up to the clubhouse. He stepped out of the truck, turned back to me before he closed the door and asked. “You good?”

  “Yeah,” I responded, pulling the key from the ignition. “Going to check on Lacey and meet you out here in five.”

  When I walked into the clubhouse I was greeted with the scent of food cooking, a foreign aroma for the Dog Pound. That wasn’t the only change though and as my eyes perused the common room in search of my daughter I spotted them all. There was a tablecloth draped over the pool table and folding chairs arranged around it. The bar that was usually a sticky mess was spotless and lined with sterno racks. Lauren Bianci was filling aluminum trays with water and placing them on the wire racks over a flame. Maria Bianci walked behind her daughter carrying a steaming tray of something and placed it on one of the sterno racks before turning around to take another tray from Adrianna’s hands.