Page 296 of The Tempted

Epilogue

I followed the hearse past the gates of Green-Wood cemetery with Reina on the back of my bike clutching my leather jacket. I pulled up along the site of the plot, killed the engine of my bike as the gravediggers helped the undertaker move the casket to its final resting spot.

I took Reina’s hand from my chest, stretched it outward and glanced at the rock on her finger. She wanted to be my wife but wasn’t in a rush. Of course she wasn’t, she was twenty-eight—I was the one who was pushing forty. She wanted to have a kid, and I suggested we start working on that as soon as possible. She wanted to have big family dinners on Sundays and didn’t care if it was at our house or the clubhouse just as long as everyone was all together. She wanted season tickets for the Yankees and she demanded I take her riding two nights a week.

I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed her softly, a reminder that I promised to give all those things to her. I was a man of my word. She climbed off the bike first, taking my hand in hers as I dismounted before giving her hand a squeeze. I looked over her shoulder at the bikes that followed me here and two cars.

My club, all of my brothers, except for one stood next to their bikes. Behind them was Anthony Bianci’s car and behind his car was Connie’s. Reina and I walked the length of the recession to the final car and I knocked on the passenger window.

Connie rolled down her window and looked up at me.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Jack,” she offered.

“Thank you,” I said, crouching down to the window and peering over her to the driver’s seat. “Thanks for coming, Rob,” I said, acknowledging my ex-wife’s husband.

“Very sorry,” he replied with a nod.

I glanced into the back seat and saw my daughter.

“Come on, Lace,” I beckoned. “You’re with us.”

Reina dropped my hand and opened the door for my daughter. Lacey climbed out of the car and I took her hand in mine before reclaiming Reina’s. With my two girls at my side I climbed the hill to lay my brother to rest.

We circled the coffin as the priest opened his bible and made the sign of the cross. Believers followed suit and copied the priest’s actions while I bowed my head and kept my hands at my sides. I wasn’t sure about my beliefs and if they rested with God. I didn’t know if I was his son or if I was who my cut labeled me, a Satan’s Knight.

“We gather here to commend our brother Daniel Parrish to God our Father and to commit his body to the earth…” the priest began.

After Reina was home safe and sound; Blackie was admitted into the hospital albeit in a coma. I returned the medical examiner’s call and claimed my brother’s remains. I honored him as I knew him, as Daniel Parrish, my brother. The boy I teased as a child, the young man I tried to look after and do the right thing by after our parents died. The brother that held my son when he was born and called my daughter, Princess Lacey as he gave her piggy back rides…the brother I missed.

I stood back and watched as the brothers I chose circled Danny’s coffin, each one of them resting a hand against the mahogany.

A moment of silence for my fallen brother.

“Ay,” Pipe said, breaking the silence, the men dropping their hands from my brother’s coffin.

Anthony and his wife were next to pay Danny his final respects.

Bianci, an unlikely brother I never expected to find.

Life was full of surprises.

I smiled at Adrianna, who was finally starting to show off her tiny belly.

Life was good when you had the right people in your life.

Grace Pastore stepped in front of me as her daughter stepped aside.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” she said as she embraced me. “Vic sends his condolences,” she added.

She pulled away, and I saw the same thing I saw in her eyes when she showed up at my clubhouse:

I’ll take care of yours, because you’ve taken care of mine.

“Thanks, Grace,” I said softly.

I went to take Reina’s hand again, but she moved to the coffin, resting a hand against the wood and bowed her head.

“Thank you,” she whispered, before bowing her head and touching her lips gently to the top of the casket. I shoved my hands in my pocket and gave her a moment. I realized how grateful I was to Reina for hanging onto my brother when his soul left this earth.

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