Uncontrollable Temptations (The Tempted Series Book 3) (2 page)

“This is all your fault,” she shrieked. “My baby is in that box because of you.” She slapped her boyfriend’s hands away and stepped closer, her green eyes lifeless as they pierced through me.

She used to look at me lovingly.

She used to look at me sympathetically.

She glared at me now with hatred.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

And I was. Because she was right. Jack was dead because I was too proud to accept the things I couldn’t control. My son paid the price because I was too ashamed to get help.

The demons in my head stole my son.

But I allowed them to.

He was a fucking Fed, a fucking federal agent out to destroy me. If that wasn’t a slap in the fucking face, nothing was. I gave him everything. I tried my best to do right by him. And this is how he repaid me? I put that spoiled prick through school, busted my ass so he could get ahead in life.

“Daddy, what are you doing?” Lacey asked, looking frightened.

I lifted my arms above my head and swung the hammer against the Sheetrock.

“Go inside, Lacey,” I muttered, dropping the hammer at my feet and stuck my arm in the gaping hole. I pulled at the Sheetrock with my free hand, widening the hole.

Where the fuck was it? Where did that bastard put the fucking bug?

“Daddy, you’re scaring me,” she cried.

I was sure it was there. I just needed to find it.

He wasn’t going to bring me down. No fucking way.

“Jack?” Lacey sniffled, wiping at her eyes with the sleeves of her shirt. “Daddy, I don’t know where Jack is.”

I lifted the hammer over my head and took another swing, this time at a different wall. I beat the Sheetrock again and again until the hole was wide enough for me to stick my head inside. I felt out of control, like I was grasping at straws but I was so sure he played me. I didn’t just imagine it. Did I?

I was fucking desperate.

I needed to know I wasn’t crazy.

My brother was a Fed.

I was an outlaw.

He was out to get me.

I slid down the wall, my body falling to the floor with a thump and pulled my knees to my chest.

I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t.

“Daddy,” Lacey screamed, her shrill voice pulling me away from my manic state, forcing me into reality. “Come quick,” she sobbed.

I lifted my head and scanned the room for my daughter.

“Lacey?” I called out.

She didn’t answer me.

Tires screeched across the asphalt, a crash sounded and then there was silence.

I stood, walked toward the front door and noticed it was wide open. My steps quickened, my heart raced and then it crashed the moment I stepped outside. My daughter stood frozen at the curb, staring in shock at my two-year old son lying perfectly still in the middle of the street.

I ran down the porch steps, unable to breathe not knowing which child to tend to first. I tripped over the curb, fell to my knees and crawled to my son.

I frantically checked for a pulse.

Nothing.

“No, no, no,” I whispered hysterically, searching around for help. The car sped away, taking off down the street, no regard for my boy. I looked back toward my daughter.

“Lacey, call 911!”

She didn’t move. She was in shock. She just watched her baby brother get hit by a car.

She watched him die.

I closed my eyes and gathered my boy in my arms, rocking him softly. I stared up at the heavens and screamed for help.

Please God, hear me. Hear my cry for help.

Present Day

I ran my fingertips along the distressed wooden table as I walked around it, taking my seat at the top. This thing had seen better days, been around a long fucking time. My predecessor, Cain, had brought it into the compound when he first took the gavel. A piece he and his old man had built with their own hands. The guys busted my balls, time and again, to get rid of the thing, bitched about getting a splinter whenever we held church. I couldn’t part with it though. It was all I had left of the man who brought me into this club and gave me purpose.

Cain was the toughest motherfucker around but he had a soft spot for me. He was troubled himself, so he didn’t care too much that I was damaged goods. I used to think he took pity on me and that was why he made me a prospect. Truth was, it was unethical for a man in my condition to be a part of something as big as the Satan’s Knights. When it came time to patch me in, some brothers voted against it, they called me a liability. Cain didn’t give a fuck and encouraged the vote to go my way. It wasn’t until the man was on his deathbed that I learned he was my advocate because he saw a younger version of himself in me. He saw the good in me and not the shit that everyone else did.

I lifted the picture frame from my dresser and stared into the eyes of my boy. That’s all I had these days, a fucking lifeless photograph, a captured moment to get me through the rest of my life. No more memories to be made, experiences to be had, nothing but a picture that would wear one day. I would never see my boy look up at me again; never do all the things a father should do with his son.

I grabbed the orange prescription bottle from the dresser and turned toward my bed. I took a swig of the bottle of scotch I had nearly finished and sat at the foot of the bed. My loaded gun right beside me. I stared at the RX label and the one word that could have changed everything.

Lithium.

If I had listened to Connie, and yielded to the warnings, we’d still have Jack. I was too proud to get help; too worried people would think I was a pussy. I was a fucking biker that walked a thin line between right and wrong. I wasn’t some bitch who needed a shrink.

But I was.

I was a manic depressive.

I wasn’t the devil my mother thought I was. I was sick. I was a sick man who never sought treatment for his illness. The same illness that left me in a manic state the night my boy got hit by a car. I should’ve been paying attention to him. I should’ve been on medication.

But I wasn’t.

And he was dead.

It should’ve been me.

I dropped the prescription bottle, watched as it rolled across the carpeted floor and stopped once the door flew open and rolled back toward me. A leather boot stopped it from rolling and I lifted my hazy eyes to take in the man who had now picked up my medicine.

“Get out, Cain,” I growled, looking away and taking another swig of my bottle, my hand closing around the gun as I did.

He stood tall, around six foot three, and was a wall of muscle. He took a few shaky steps in my direction, grabbed onto the dresser to steady himself before his bloodshot eyes pierced me with a glare. He was fucked up. Not an unusual occurrence. Cain liked his drugs, didn’t limit himself to a particular one, shot anything you put in front of him through those veins of his.

We were a lot alike, both of us needed help but only one of us wound up getting it.

“You take your pills today?” He asked, as he leaned against the dresser and crossed his arms against his cut.

“I don’t need no babysitter,” I slurred. “Think I told you to leave, brother.”

“Think I’m the boss around here and I don’t take orders from anyone,” he retorted angrily, pausing for a moment. “What the fuck you doing, Bulldog?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Gonna ask you again, you take your pills?” He questioned hastily, walking toward me and grabbing the photo of my son.

I saw red.

I reached for my picture. He pulled back.

“Give me my fucking son back,” I hollered, lifting my gun and aiming it at him.

“Can’t give you your boy back, Jack. Wish like hell I could,” he replied calmly. He turned around and righted the frame, delicately fixing it so it rested on top of my dresser where it belonged. He turned around and stared back at me. “One more time Jack. Did you take your pills?”

“Yeah,” I ground out, dropping the gun to my side.

I didn’t need anyone
to remind me of what I needed to do day after day. The hole in my heart was the reminder, my
own personal alarm clock that alerted me every morning to take my medication.

“Good,” he replied, before tipping his chin toward my gun. “You got something happening you want me to rally up the boys for?”

“One-man job, Boss,” I said, shrugging my shoulders and glancing down at the pistol in my hands.

“Why’d you call me here?” Cain asked.

“I need the shit,” I said, lifting my eyes to meet his. He knew what I was asking him but still his eyes questioned mine. “Don’t make me say it.”

“You can’t bring yourself to say it then you ain’t meant to have it,” he retorted.

“The H,” I slurred. “You had your fill, right? Sure you can spare some for a brother in need.”

He stared at me for a moment before taking hold of my arms and turned them over. My gun dropped from my hand as he tugged my sleeves up and exposed my forearms.

“Not a track, not a mark,” he declared, dropping my arms before rolling up his sleeves. “You want this?” He asked angrily, referencing the tracks that trailed up his arms, a reminder of all the years he shot heroine through his veins. “You got a daughter I reckon you haven’t seen in close to a year. You going to let the next time she sees her daddy be at his funeral?”

“I didn’t ask for your input,” I said, through clenched teeth.

“I don’t give a fuck,” he replied. “Wake the fuck up, man. Yeah, it sucks you lost your boy. It’s a pain no man should ever have to live with but you got a little girl who needs her daddy.”

“She has her mama,” I muttered. “My son has no one. He’s in that ground all by himself,” I stated, my voice trailing off and my throat closing.

“So, that’s the plan? You going to join your boy in his grave?”

That was the plan. He knew it and so did I. The thing was I had no problem pulling the trigger on someone else but I was too much of a coward to take my own life. I tried several times but every time I closed my eyes and lifted the gun to my mouth I saw my daughter’s face.

“Look at me, Bulldog,” he whispered. “You’ll never see your boy grow into a man but do you want to miss out on that beautiful girl of yours too? She’s a looker, Jack, going to have bastards like us banging down her door to get a piece of her. With you gone, no one will be there to filter through the shit and find her the one that deserves her heart.”

I ran my fingers through my hair and diverted my eyes to the ceiling. My tears blurred my vision as his words sliced through me, inflicting doubt where I was sure there was none left.