Eternal Temptations (The Tempted Series Book 6) (28 page)

The first thing I noticed was his clothes. He wasn’t dressed like the other men. His charcoal gray suit looked as if it was tailor made for him. He opted to wear a black turtleneck under the suit, no button down, collar popping shirt for the handsome stranger before me. He did however engage in the fad of gold chains. My eyes zeroed in on the crucifix dangling from the thick, gold rope chain hanging around his neck. I lifted my eyes to his face and was greeted by a smile I’d never forget.

His eyes drifted toward the two drinks that sat in front of me to the empty stool beside me.

“May I?”

“Sure,” I said, twirling back around to face the bar as he slipped onto the stool and signaled for the bartender.

He ordered a Martini, dry with extra olives as I toyed with the paper umbrella and brought my drink to my lips for another sip. The song changed, Tavares filtered the nightclub with their hit, ‘More Than a Woman’.

“What’s your name, beautiful?” He asked, casually draping an arm over the back of my stool.

“Grace,” I said, mesmerized by the way he stared so intently at me.

“Grace,” he repeated, testing the name on his tongue, grinning once he decided he liked the way it sounded.

“And who are you?” I stammered, taking another sip, hoping to calm my nerves. This man had the power to undo me with a simple glance.

“Me? I’m the man who’s going to marry you one day,” he said pointedly.

I nearly spat my drink out.

“That’s pretty presumptuous don’t you think?” Or cocky depending on who you ask, I added silently.

He grinned at me as he lifted his hand and ran his index finger down my cheek.

“Watch and see, Gracie,” he promised, dropping his hand but keeping his gaze locked on me. “The name is Victor, Victor Pastore.”

It is so easy to forget those first blissful moments when you meet the person you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with. Instead, we harbor the resentment life has brought upon us and lose touch of the magic that brought two unsuspecting strangers together.

Sitting across from the man I love for the final time I wonder how I ever let myself become so jaded by the trials and tribulations we stumbled upon in our years together. Why did I let the heartache trump the happiness? Why couldn’t I hang on to all the times he made me smile, all the times I looked into his eyes and knew I was his one and only. Why wasn’t the love we created enough to outweigh the torment of the mob?

I foolishly thought we had years to figure it out, to mend the broken parts of our love. I never expected thirty years to go by in a flash. I never expected a judge to slam down the gavel and sentence him to life in prison. I never expected for him to become fatally ill. I never expected to be sitting here wishing for more time.

I glance down at his hands and my heart breaks at the comparison. His hands are twice the size of mine just as they were thirty years ago but instead of his olive skin matching mine, there is a stark contrast. His skin pales compared to mine.

“I dreamt of you last night,” he breathes. I peel my eyes away from our hands and lift them to his. “I always dream of you but last night was one of my favorites,” he struggles, breathing heavily. “Give me a moment,” he requests.

“You don’t have to speak,” I tell him.

“But I do,” he argues. “It’s now or never, Gracie.”

I nod sadly, glancing down at our hands again, watching as his thumb draws circles over my palm.

“It was the grand opening of my first night club,” he starts, smiling nostalgically.

“Eternity,” I recall. I teased him mercilessly over the name he chose for his first venture as a night club owner. Victor knew the scene, appreciated it and at the time figured it was a great way to hide the illegal money coming in.

“You remember,” he says.

I laugh slightly.

“How could I forget? I was eight months pregnant with Adrianna,” I reply. We argued that night, I didn’t want to go, figuring I looked ridiculous sitting in a night club with a glass of seltzer and a big belly, but Victor insisted I be there.

There is no one I want by my side but you. This is our night, Gracie.

“You were the most beautiful woman in the whole place,” he whispers. “I made Jimmy stand by the bar with you all night in case you went into labor.”

“I remember you kept checking in on me,” I whisper, a small smile playing on my lips as the memories vividly take over my mind, transfixing me back to a time when we were the happiest in our lives. “You were so worried my water would break,” I chuckle. “I think you were afraid I would ruin the fancy floors you had spent a fortune on.”

“Probably,” he agrees, pausing for a moment. “I wish you would’ve gone into labor that night, at least I would’ve been there for you when you gave birth.”

He frowns but keeps his eyes firmly planted on mine.

I prayed so hard that he would make it in time to see our daughter being born but God didn’t hear me that night and Victor showed up an hour after Adrianna took her first breath.

“That was the first time I disappointed you,” he continues. “The first of many.”

“Victor…” I cut him off, but he shakes his head as he releases my hand and lifts his finger to my lip.

“If I could turn back time, if I could have one more chance, I’d be there. I’d never leave your side, Gracie. I’d change all the things I did wrong,” he says. “I’d always show up, I’d always put you first, and we’d have no regrets, not a single one. As God as my witness I’d give it all up—the mob, the power, the money—maybe I’d be a bus driver. We would still live in the first house we bought after we got married. I’d trade everything I am, everything I ever was if it meant one more chance to make all your dreams come true. I’d be a different man.”

Again, I part my lips to speak, but he shakes his head and smiles faintly back at me.

“Let it be,” he whispers.

Tears fall from the corner of my eyes as we sit quietly cataloging every detail of one another’s aging face to memory. The resentment of the mob fades away and in that moment we are just Grace and Victor, two unsuspecting strangers in a night club—meeting their eternal love for the first time.

He smiles at me, the lines in the corner of his eyes pinched with the years of our story embedded in his skin, and it all became so clear. Victor was my one and only. The only man I was ever meant to love, the man put on this earth specifically for me. Our life may not have been what we expected, but it was beautiful and it was real. When the end approaches everyone has regrets, maybe they wish they would’ve done things differently, but now as the end of our story nears, I know all the answers to the questions I’ve been asking myself lately. I wouldn’t change a single thing. If I knew everything I knew now back then, I still would’ve put that white dress on and made that trip down the church aisle to the man waiting to marry me.

I let go of Victor’s hands, pushed back my chair and gripped the edge of the table, I rose to my full height. His eyes narrow in confusion as I hold his gaze and round the table. He leans back in the chair and tilts his head as I lean down and take his face in my hands.

“I can’t let it be,” I murmured, as he pushes back his chair and grabs my hips, pulling me down onto his lap. I drop my hands from his face and wind my arms around his neck.

“I wouldn’t change a damn thing about you, Victor Pastore.” I smile, leaning my forehead against his. “Everything you are is everything I fell in love with. If given the chance, I’d do it all again and I wouldn’t change any part of our story except one thing…”

He closes his eyes as he splays his palms against the small of my back. I wait for him to look into my eyes before I continue.

“I’d change the ending,” I cry, tracing my thumb along his lower lip. “There’d be no ending.” I pause, wiping away the lone tear that travels down his cheek. “This won’t end, Victor, this love I have for you, it’ll never die,” I promise.

“Close your eyes, honey, let me paint you one last picture,” I cry.

He did as I asked, closing his eyes tightly. I swallow down the lump lodged in my throat, trying desperately to pull myself together as every chamber of my heart cracks and splits wide open.

How do you say goodbye to the love of your life?

You don’t.

You give him something to hang on to as he waits for you to join him.

“I’m wearing a turquoise silk jumpsuit, the very same one I wore when you first laid eyes on me. I look the same as I did that night, the lines from my face are gone, my hair is brown, but there is a lost look in my eyes as I wander around. I don’t know what I’m searching for but I know the moment I see you with your hand extended toward me, it’s you, you’re exactly what I’ve been searching for.”

He keeps his eyes closed as tears spill from the corners and I do my best to wipe them away, eventually I resign, allowing them to fall, for they are the tears of the love we will one day find again and I welcome them, adding my own to them.

We will meet again.

“You’re wearing that same charcoal suit, with the black turtleneck and gold chain. Your lines have faded, your hair just as dark as it was that first night, and when you smile at me, it’s a smile full of promise. You ask me my name and I tell you, waiting for you to repeat it back because this is a familiar dance we’re taking,” I continue, stopping a moment to clear my throat.

“I ask you who you are and butterflies take flight inside me as I await your answer. You grin at me and I learn you’re cocky, you're confident, and more than that you believe wholeheartedly the words you’re about to utter.” My voice trails off as I watch his lips part.

“Me? I’m the man you’re going to spend all of eternity with,” he whispers as his eyes flutter open, applying the final touches to the picture I was painting, reminding me this was
our
picture.
Our
life.
Our
love.

“That’s right,” I reply, holding his face as I lean closer to him. “Forever and always, my love.”

“I love you, Gracie,” he rasps. His hands travel up my sides, slowly, knowing it’s the last journey they’ll ever take over me. Finally, he takes my face and I close my eyes as his lips brush across mine.

Soft and endearing.

Painfully heartbreaking.

Lovingly, Victor kisses me one last time. Thirty years of love, three decades of memories and all the lessons we’ve learned melt into that one kiss affirming the one thing that may have once been lost to us—the beautiful love we created will never die.

We’ve found eternal love in a sea full of illicit temptations.

“I’ll see you soon,” I whisper against his lips, pulling back a fraction to stare into his handsome face one last time.

“Goodbye my love, until we meet again,” he says softly.

And we would meet again.

He’ll be the man in the charcoal suit.

I’ll be the woman in a turquoise jumpsuit.

He’ll grin at me and I’ll take his hand and together we’ll be.

Always together.

It takes a special breed to kill. For me, there has always been a ritual I take part in before I commit the act. In the early days, Val and I would get pissed drunk on a bottle of Dewar’s before we took our guns to the streets. When I became the boss my hands rarely ever got dirty, but I had trust issues, never willing to leave room for error, I always took care of the bodies. I’d drive seven hours to the middle of nowhere, blasting Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ with a shovel beside me and a corpse in the trunk of my Cadillac.

The ritual changed as I got older. I took to God before I slit a throat or pulled the trigger; I prayed for the unsuspecting soul that would meet his maker and while I was at it I threw in an Our Father for myself. It was a crap shoot, really, asking our Heavenly Father to relieve me of all the crimes I committed and those I had yet to, but still, if there was a chance he did then why not take it?

It was selfish of me and in some sense I felt like a coward.

You see, I didn’t think twice before murdering someone. I did it with ease and with confidence. Hell, I did it with grace, each hit becoming more of a work of art than the one before. Even as I dug the holes and covered the bodies with the Earth’s soil I had no regrets. I was cocky and arrogant in murder just as I was in everything else. It wasn’t until I went home with blood on my hands and saw Grace asleep in our bed that I questioned my actions.

I wasn’t afraid of dying; it came with the power, with the suit and the gun. I was afraid of leaving this earth and never seeing my Gracie again. Saint Peter will wait for my beautiful bride, not I, my ass was headed straight to the depths of Hell.

There was no way my sweet, innocent Gracie would ever meet Satan.

Grace and I were over. We ended when my bride of thirty years kissed me one final time and walked out of that visitor’s room in Otisville. It ended when my shackled legs shuffled onto the bus that dragged my ass here.

There is nothing left to my existence, nothing to look forward to, all that’s left is the last hit. I had a vision for my last kill, a premeditated hit that would be just as dramatic as the first one I ever committed. I contemplated reenacting my first hit but my connections were gone and getting my hands on a gun and a bottle of bleach was goddamn impossible.