Page 650 of The Tempted

The priest dropped his hand, looked to me and side stepped until he stood before me and dipped his finger back in the Holy Water. My eyes widened as he lifted his hand and I felt the cool water touch my forehead, surprising me I didn’t go up in flames when his finger touched my skin.

“God forgives you, son,” he repeated.

I stared back at him, forgetting the response I was supposed to say and watched as he dropped his hand before closing his bible.

A moment later he was gone.

The officer followed him out the door and left Vic and I sitting in the first makeshift pew of the prison’s chapel. I wondered if every inmate finds God or just the fucked up ones.

The door opened, forcing me to tear my eyes away from the wooden crucifix and stare in horror at the man who walked into the room. He was ugly, scary looking as all hell, he was the devil. A man who used to be covered in some of the finest ink had skin that was so worn and badly burned that it was almost translucent and the parts that weren’t were sutured with pink puckered flesh.

The left side of his face resembled the villain Two Face from the Batman comics.

I had to look away because staring at him for too long made me feel sick.

Jimmy was so badly scarred the only thing that made him recognizable to the people who knew him was the gold tooth he flashed when he opened his mouth to gasp. His eyes moved back and forth between me and Vic, finally deciding to stay glued to the man he once called his boss.

I forced myself to keep my eyes on him, ingraining his appearance to my memory, then I remembered what my brother’s said Jack did to his finger and I looked down.

The Bulldog took a saw to his pinky finger and sliced through the bone just as Jimmy had done to his blood brother Jack.

Five fingers on one hand.

Nine on the other.

I realized why Jack didn’t kill him that day.

Suffering is worse than dying.

And this motherfucker suffered.

Now it was time for him to die.

It was time to put him down like the fucking dog he was.

“We meet again, Jimmy,” Victor crooned, as he ran his fingers over the leather cover of his bible.

“Guard!” Jimmy shouted.

“They won’t save you,” Victor said, calmly as he took a step toward Jimmy. “No one can.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to speak but really, what could he say? He was sorry? Cry for help? There was no one there to hear his pleas. And God was before him, ready to bring him into the land of eternal temptations.

But before God had the chance to take him I was going to. I slid my hand into my pocket as Victor circled Jimmy.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this reunion, to see your face, to look you in the eye and tell you who the boss is,” he seethed. “Always wanted the title didn’t you? You didn’t give a damn what you did or who you killed to get to the top. That was your first mistake…wanting what was never yours. The second was killing Val, that man was my brother, someone you never could hold a candle to. The third was fucking with my children, bringing that guy around Nikki, using her to get me out of your way. I won’t even start about the heartache your hand caused Adrianna. If you hadn’t killed Val, I never would’ve sent Anthony to prison. But I’ll take the blame for that one,” he paused, as he opened the bible.

It’s now or never.

I closed my hand over the screw and took three steps closer to Jimmy.

“You kept going, leaving a path of destruction behind you. You’ve drawn blood and left scars, you’ve killed and you’ve stolen…now it’s time for you to ask God for forgiveness,” he said.

I closed my eyes, and I was back in that basement, standing in front of Reina, pleading for her to hang on to Jack as she reminded me of the girl with the sad eyes waiting for me.

Leather and lace.

“Forgive me, father for I have sinned,” Jimmy cried.

---