Page 720 of The Tempted

“You don’t know defeat do you, brother?”

“Defeat is for the weak,” he announces, bowing his head for a moment before lifting his eyes to mine again. “Rocco wasn’t my plan, Anthony always was, he was the man who I wanted to take control over my business. He was my plan, but he was also my daughter’s plan. I had to choose between Anthony being the man who ruled my empire or the man who guarded my daughter from that same empire. Plans change, Jack, you know that better than anyone.”

“Ain’t that a fact,” I sigh, leaning forward on my elbows as I pin him with a hard stare. The man could read people and I knew when he looked back at me he saw the sincerity in my eyes.

“I got you, Vic, and I got your girls as long as I’m breathing I’ll always make sure they are. Business will always be business but family is family. I can’t make any guarantees on the streets but you have my word your girls will always have a place in the Satan’s Knights family.”

I extend my hand across the table, watching as his eyes divert from mine to my hand and back. He slides his hand into mine, his grip just as firm as all those years ago.

The first handshake when he had my back.

And now the last handshake when I promise to always have his.

Dead or alive.

Heaven or Hell.

“You’re good people, Parrish,” Victor says.

“You’re not so bad yourself you guinea bastard,” I joke, giving him one final firm shake before dropping our hands. Victor chuckles, tipping his chin toward me as I brace my hands on the edge of the table and push out my chair to leave.

“See you on the other side, brother,” I rasp, standing on my feet.

“I’ll have the scotch waiting for you, Parrish.”

I could see it—me and him knocking back a couple of shots before we tangoed with the devil and paid for our sins in the afterlife.

Until then, brother.

I turned, starting for the correction officer guarding the metal detectors when I heard Vic cough. I don’t stop, I just keep walking, reaching the guard before I turn around and peer back at him. He was hunched over the table, coughing into his hand. One of the C.O.’s was behind him, helping him to his feet but he brushed him off.

I turned and strode out of the visitor’s room before he lifted his head and found me staring at him, leaving his pride intact—for it was all he had left.

I walked away from the prison and made my way to my bike, feeling as though Vic was already gone. I fitted my helmet to my head, about to straddle my bike when I heard my phone go off. Reaching into my jacket, I pulled out my phone and glance at the screen to see Cobra was calling me.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Prez, we got trouble,” he replied.

Of course we do.

“What kind of trouble?”

“The kind that requires a lawyer and your ass at the seventy-ninth precinct.”

“Going to be awhile before I get my ass anywhere. I’m leaving Otisville now. Where the fuck is Blackie?”

“Don’t know. I called him too but he ain’t answering,” he replied.

“What about Wolf and Pipe?”

“Yeah, they’re being cuffed as we speak.”

“Fucking hell,” I seethe before ending the call and thumbing through my contacts to get Blackie on the horn. Motherfucker knows better than to ignore my calls.

He picked up on the fourth ring proving my point.

“Yo,” he answered.

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