Page 597 of The Tempted

“So, is this why you’re not answering my calls?” I questioned as I stalked across the room to the bar, slapping my keys on the table as I grabbed a hold of his hair with my free hand and lifted his head.

I turned his cheek and forced his bloodshot eyes to meet mine.

“Why?” I whispered.

He stared at me quietly, licking his lips before he brought his hand to his nose and sniffled.

“Why what?” he asked, turning back around using a credit card to push the left-over coke into a line.

No, God…I had to stop him.

I had to do something.

I thought my purpose was to show him a new way, to show him there is more to life than grief but it was clear my purpose in Blackie’s life was to save him from himself. I stepped around the bar and bent my head, blowing the coke across the wooden bar with a big burst of air from my lungs.

I never feared Blackie until that moment.

Until he looked at me and I swore I saw the devil in his eyes.

And then I realized I wasn’t looking at Blackie anymore but I was now face to face with Satan’s knight, the Devil’s soldier.

“Don’t like it, girl? Don’t like what you see?” he asked as he pushed back his chair and stumbled onto his feet, gripping the back of the stool to steady himself.

“What’s the matter?” he taunted. “Got no love for the drug addict? No love for the man I truly am? This…,” he gritted, pounding his chest with his fist. “This is me, Lace, this is Dominic Petra the man you hold on a fucking pedestal.”

I shook my head and bit down on my lip to stop the tears from spilling because this wasn’t about me, this was about him. This was his war.

I was just an innocent victim of it.

“No it’s not,” I insisted. “The man I hold in such a high regard is the man who wants to better himself, the man who has been dealt a shit hand in life but plays his cards until the bitter end, hoping the dealer will throw him aqueen.”

“That man is a myth, something you dreamt up inside that pretty little head of yours,” he hissed, lifting his hand to his head. “He don’t exist.” He pointed to me and then himself. “Neither do we anymore,” he ground out. “Go dream a different dream, girl.”

He knows I exist.

You can’t hide me anymore.

I was standing in front of Blackie, watchinghislips move, listening tohisvoice but I couldn’t understand whymymaker was controllinghim. Every word that came from his mouth was something my mind would say to drag me down.

These weren’t Blackie’s words.

They were the words of my maker.

I dropped my head into my hands and fought for control.

For clarity.

For Peace.

And then it occurred to me I struggle every day to tame something I have no control over. Being an addict, that’s a choice, something you can control. I have watched him for two months choose himself over drugs but today he chose to be an addict. Today he chose to lose.

I dropped my hands and lifted my head to stare at him with vengeance.

Vengeance for not believing in himself, for not seeing what I saw, for not loving himself enough to love me.

“People have problems they can’t control, real issues that inebriate them and then there’s you who every single problem you have has been self-created. When are you going to stop doing this to yourself?” I shook my head. “Why won’t you let yourself be happy?”

“Who says I’m not happy?”

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