Tempt Me

I still remember. I can’t forget…

There was so much blood everywhere.

All over her.

Running from her head, right down to her body. Redness and blue. Those were the colors I remember. The red blood, and the blueness of her lips.

Then cold… her body was so cold and limp. Lifeless. Like a doll.

My baby girl may have lain there dead like that for a good hour before I made it home. She lay there in the kitchen with our son crying behind her, enclosed in the safety of the safe room I made for them.

She never made it inside with our boy.

Today marks two years and ten days since it happened, and I still have the image of her playing in my mind. Her sitting there against the wall, slumped against it, the baby crying and the tension of death thick in the room.

I still try to guess what could have happened. Why she never made it in, why she never escaped with the baby. Every time I think of it, I come to the same conclusion: I should have been there.

It was my fault, and as I sit here trying to forget and move on like I’m supposed to, and like I should have, I can’t.

I wasn’t there when my family needed me the most. I was too busy saving everyone else and falling into the enemy's trap.

No matter how many I kill to get vengeance, it won’t be enough. Even cutting off the head of her killer wasn’t enough.

I can’t avenge her death. And every time I remember what happened, I feel like I failed her and our son.

I brought her into the darkness of my world. The bad boy and the good girl. I did that knowing one day, I’d have to step up and take charge of the family business. I was already in too deep when I married her. Underboss following Frankie’s death. I should have left her alone.

Warm fingers flutter over my chest, and I’m brought back to reality. I didn’t realize I was staring out into the nothing of the night, not quite seeing anything.

I blink and return my focus to Aurora. She smiles and runs her fingers over my jaw.

“You’re miles away,” she states, moving a lock of her long brown hair over her shoulder.

It’s the hair. That’s why I’m with her.

I know I’m an asshole, but I don’t care. I’ll pick my own medicine to help me do what I have to.

This is what I do to try to ease the guilt from my mind.

Aurora slides up the bed and starts undoing the buttons on my shirt. I should go home, but I can’t just yet. Today has been shit, and I need this. I need to escape. After all, isn’t that one reason people come to The Dark Odyssey?

The escape.

The escape into fantasy.

I don’t have any fantasies, but I’ll take the escape. I’ll take the respite and the freedom my brothers and cousins provided when they set up this place. A sex club where you can live out any fantasy and be with any woman you choose. With the wild masquerade lingerie parties they hold here, it’s all kinds of wild. A mating ground and the playpen for the billionaires. They all come to seek out a play mate.

I don’t have to try. I’m Vincent Giordano, and I’ve never had to try for anything. Never lacked for a woman at my side, and I never will. I come here, and there’s always a never-ending supply of them eager to please me, and I take it.

Falling into pleasure is better than rage.

“What do you want me to do to you tonight?” Aurora asks, running her fingers over my chest. She circles over my tattoo of the Japanese character for fire, and her smile widens.

I look up at her and slide my arm behind my head. This woman is a beauty. I’ll get lost in her tonight, and then I’ll go back to reality and be the leader I’m supposed to be.

“How about I allow you to be creative?” I tell her.

She slides off the bed, and her little red negligee floats about her thighs. “You like when I strip for you… and give you a lap dance. We could start there and see how creative I can get.” She runs her hands over her massive tits and grins.

Good… this is my distraction.

It was a good idea to come here tonight. I need to forget my current debacle because I’m like a time bomb waiting to explode.

It’s a good thing I didn’t find Mark. You don’t screw with mobsters and not expect to get burned.

“Yes, you do that,” I say to her, and she nods. She’s a good girl—that’s why I pick her when I come here. She follows instructions well and knows what I want.

And… she looks a little like her. Like my Sorcha. It’s the hair. She used to wear her long brown hair down just the way Aurora has it, with the long graceful waves kissing her elbows.

Aurora makes a show of smoothing her hands up to her tits again and circles her nipples, which strain against the lacy fabric. Her hands go up to the straps, and she pushes them down her slender, silky smooth arms.

I watch, and I’m aroused, but I don’t have that intense desire to take her. Not the way I did with Sorcha.

It’s always a fuck with these women.

After Sorcha’s death, I reverted to the guy I used to be in many ways, changed in others. I fuck to forget, especially when I can’t kill.

That’s what I’m doing tonight.

Her massive tits bobble when she pushes her negligee down her body and allows it to float down her legs. She’s wearing a thong, and her perfect mind works just the way I want it to, so she knows to turn slowly so I can see her ass. The red line of the thong running down the middle of her cheeks only enhances the vision of her.

She gives me a saucy grin and grabs her tits again, squeezing. I smile back.

“Come here,” I say. Just then, the fucking phone rings.

She stops when I answer straightaway.

That’s what I’m like now, and I’m not thinking about the job when I do that. It’s my son I’m thinking of. Timothy.

“Yes,” I say in a hurried voice.

“Boss, it’s me.” It’s Tony, one of my men. I bare my teeth and seethe.

My prior rage rushes right back, and I straighten up knowing what his call means, especially when I told him hours ago not to call me unless he had good news for me. Good news as in he found Mark, that piece of shit who thought he could fucking get away with stealing from me.

I told them all that. My brothers included.

“What do you have for me?”

“We found Mark. Salvatore and Gabe found him, but …there’s a complication.”

“What the fuck is it?” I ball my fist and tighten my grip on the phone. Mark is a simpleton, a fucking simpleton. He shouldn’t have been this hard to find, yet we’ve spent the last three days looking for him.

“His daughter was there, and… she’s seen too much.”

“You fool,” I snap.

“Boss, there was nothing we could do about it. We caught up with them at the docks. Near the warehouses.”

Fuck… fucking Mark. What did he think he was going to do? Swim away from us? And with his daughter?

I didn’t even fucking know he had a daughter. Men like him make me sick. You have family and behave the way he does…

Stupid fucktard. I’ll teach him a lesson tonight he won’t forget. I stand, and Aurora starts putting her clothes back on. I look away from her and gaze around the suite. I need to calm down. I don’t want to do any killing tonight, but duty calls, and I won’t allow this to drag into tomorrow.

I call Mark a simpleton, but he’s actually managed to screw with me in a way no one has.

This is what happens when you trust too much. You get screwed over. This is what happens when you give a man a chance when he looks desperate.

The problem with giving people chances is you facilitate their behavior. You make them worse, and others suffer for it.

I suffered big time.

I reach for my biker jacket and check for my gun. Aurora tenses when she sees it.

“Boss, are you still there?” Tony asks nervously.

“I am. Take them to La Volpe Rossa.” That’s where we question people. Pa had the place set up just for that. It also makes a good torture chamber for the less cooperative. I think I may need to make full use of the place tonight.

“Okay, got it.”

“I’m on my way.” I hang up and shove the phone in my pocket.

I start doing up my buttons and shrug into my jacket.

“Will… you be coming back?” Aurora asks. She presses her lips together nervously and folds her hands.

She looks so different when her true nature comes out, what she truly wants. She wants me. She wants this to be more. I know she puts on that act of being sassy and confident, like she’s okay with us just fucking around. But I know she’s not.

“No,” I answer. Disappointment clouds her bright baby blues.

“What about tomorrow? Can I see you then?” She reaches up and touches my jaw. It’s supposed to be a tender gesture of affection, but I feel nothing, and she mustn’t feel for me either.

“Maybe…” I step away from her, and her hand falls to her side.

This is the part where I should end this. It’s nothing. Not for me, and it can’t be. I don’t feel what she wants me to feel for her, and I won’t go down that road again.

I am danger. I am death.

Death is what follows me. I was born with death encoded in my DNA. It follows me, and I exact it.

“Vincent, I like seeing you. We have fun together.” She gives me a nervous smile and her eyes beg me for what I can’t give her. “Please try to—”

I hold up my hand and stop her. “Don’t. Don’t fall for me sweetheart. I can’t be with you that way.”

The light of hope in her eyes goes out and a dimness takes its place.

A stab of guilt tugs at my dead heart but I push it away. It’s something I can’t entertain, definitely not right now.

I turn and leave without another word.

I jump on my bike full of rage when I think of Mark and what the fuck this night will bring.

Like a beast I ride with animalistic fury, death on my mind.

I already know I’m not going to like what’s to come from the minute I pull up outside La Volpe Rossa.

The place looks like an ordinary Italian bistro. It’s massive and could hold about two hundred people. The interior and exterior are stylishly decorated too, like the other restaurants that line Main Street, but what goes on behind those doors is anything but ordinary.

Pa bought the building and built it up over twenty years ago. Before that, it was a rundown dry cleaner with the signs falling off, and home to all kinds of vermin.

Now, it’s a Michelin-starred restaurant listed as one of Chicago’s finest. The top section is for the elite. For bosses in our alliance to hold meetings. Some of the most top-secret alliances and plans have taken place in here, and in true La Costa Nostra style, they’ve been secret as fuck.

The bottom, the basement, has seen me there far too often over the last few months. I’m there almost as much as I am home or at The Dark Odyssey. Some dumb shit is always rubbing me the wrong way, or maybe it’s just that I’ve gotten more vigilant and I’m not as tolerant as I used to be.

I’m older. I’m forty-four, and I’m not the lighthearted boss I was when I first got the title.

The men outside look tense, like they always do when they see me. It’s respect and fear mixed together. Most of them are long-time patrons who knew my parents right from Italia. Some work for Pa, others are associates in some other way.

They bow their heads when I approach, and I do the same.

I walk in through the glass doors that swing inward when I push them open. I’m greeted with the aroma of food that reminds me that I haven’t eaten since lunch. There’s only a handful of people in here tonight.

Good.

I’m already too worked up to be around a crowd and probably should have gone through the back. I’m furious as fuck about Mark’s daughter tied up in this. In all honesty, there’s only one way I should handle the shit of the situation. Too many have already suffered because of his selfishness and recklessness.

I go through the Staff Only door and walk down the corridor past the kitchen, where the chefs are joking around about who’s doing the late shift.

They don’t see me.

That’s good too. The rage inside me wants to unleash. It’s times like these when I’m irrational and I can’t get a handle on myself. Unfortunately, sometimes the people I care about the most get bruised from my wrath.

One chef, Chef Romi, has known me since I was a kid. I don’t want to make a guy like him scared of me tonight.

The air changes when I near the end of the corridor. It’s like the line of demarcation, warning that what’s to come next is violence.

I take the stone steps down, listening to the slow drip of a broken tap outside. We need to get that fixed. I swear on nights like these, though, it’s part and parcel of the danger that lurks in the dark. Mobsters at their finest.

Mobsters and monsters. Sometimes we’re the same thing. I don’t think I’m much different.

Salvatore meets me at the door as I go down the last set of stairs. I’m in the basement now. He doesn’t look good. He looks as tense as I feel, and I know it’s to do with the girl. I wish she weren’t here too. This kind of thing hasn’t happened in a while, but it’s always messy when there're witnesses or people who get caught up. Wrong place or wrong time.

“Hey, they’re down there,” Salvatore says with a sigh.

“They give any more trouble?”

“No, they’re just scared.”

I’m glad he and Gabe have been on the case with me. The whole damn problem started at Renovata, my investment company, but Mark dragged everyone else in too when he thought it was a good idea to try and steal from the family business.

My damn fault again.

Mark has worked for me for the last eight years. I thought he was the best person to trust when it came to handling my business accounts. That just gave him access to fuck with our lives.

All the man did was make me look bad in the worst way. Now I have my brother looking at me with a question in his eyes. I know what it is even before he asks.

“Ava Knight, age twenty-six, magazine editor. Journalist. Press. Media. What are you going to do with the girl, Vin?” he asks cautiously.

That info was him laying the cards on the table. Laying down things I would have found out and known they put us at risk of exposure.

“She’s seen too much,” he adds.

Seen too much, but what does she know?

I wonder if Ava Knight knows what her father did.

Does she know how much he owes?

How long he’s been stealing from me and taking me for a fucking fool? I think this grates me the wrong way because the records showed that he stole from me when I was at my lowest. Right after Sorcha was killed in cold blood. The man used that as a gateway to rob me to fund his little habits.

That’s not what tonight’s about though. That’s small fry in comparison to the recent shit. Mark deserves death at least, for the dumb fucked-up shit he did that could have gotten people killed.

Salvatore looks at me waiting for an answer that I can’t give just yet.

“Vin,” he prods, then his eyes go wide. He must think I’m going to kill her. “Vin, think before you do anything. Hurting women isn’t our way.”

It was me who instilled that concept into him, and the rest of them. Me… not even Pa. I’ve been the eldest for close to ten years now, and it’s me who made sure all the boys knew the code we live by.

I get it though. I’ve changed. That’s what happened. I’ve changed, and everyone knows it. When Sorcha was killed, I became the beast.

A heartless, merciless, soulless creature.

That’s why my brother is giving me the reminder.

I look at his face and think of how similar we look. He’s not like me though. He hasn’t been through the same things as me, so he won’t understand that rage is what courses through my blood, as it does my mind.

I look away from him and move to the door of the room holding my captives, leaving him staring after me with worry in the dark hue of his eyes.

Pushing the door open makes it creak, and I’m greeted with the sound of a woman sobbing.

It’s the girl.

My gaze lands on Mark holding her as they sit in the corner of the dank room. The lighting is dim, but it’s bright enough to see them. Mark with his salt and pepper hair pressed against his daughter’s long brown hair that’s a matted mess. Fear oozes from them. It’s so thick it could be tangible.

The fear is visible when he looks up and sees me. At least I can give this motherfucker some credit for looking ashamed. Ashamed, and from what I can see, stoned.

Stoned from drugs he bought with my money.

I’m not a saint, and I won’t claim to be anything other than the mobster I am, but fuck, the first rule we know to follow as Giordanos is to keep our heads out of shit. This man has not only turned cops toward me but the fucking feds, again.

Bastard.

I hate feds more than I ever did because they were involved in the whole plot to destroy me which resulted in Sorcha’s death.

“Get up and fucking come here,” I order him, and I’m glad he has the good sense to do as I say.

He shuffles out of the girl’s arms and is visibly shaking. I look to her, and my frown deepens when I see her tear-stained face.

She’s beautiful, has the kind of beauty that’s striking and makes you want to stop and stare. It’s pure beauty, and the innocent plea in her eyes makes me think she couldn’t have known what her old man’s been up to.

At least I don’t think so. She looks at me, and more tears stream down her blotchy cheeks.

My eyes drift down what I can see of her body, curled in as she hugs her knees to her chest.

She shouldn’t be here. Something about the way she looks at me gets me though. Her stare seeps into me and touches something deep down. Something locked away. I don’t know what that something is… it’s not my soul, and I can’t take the time now to acknowledge it. Eight years I’ve known Mark, and I never thought to look a little deeper into his family.

I never had any cause to, and other than the standard checks to make sure my staff are suitable for my business, I don’t dig deeper than that.

I snap my gaze back to Mark and reach for my gun in my back pocket. Ava cries harder when she sees it.

“Kneel!” I shout. My voice carries across the room.

Mark drops to his knees, and I look at him.

Mercy is the thing that cripples us.

I will not give it tonight. People don’t take the act of mercy to mean what it should—they see it as weakness for a guy like me.

“So, how are you going to pay me back? Two million dollars, Mark, and my name gone out the door just like that. You gambled away two million dollars of my money and tied me up with drugs and prostitution,” I begin.

I’m not looking directly at Ava, but out the corner of my eye I see her flinch at the snapshot of the revelation of the truth.

“I’m sorry, Vincent. I’m so sorry. Please… I’ll pay you back,” Mark says with a nod, like he really believes he can pay me back.

I actually laugh, although I feel like starting my damage with his knees. Blow off his kneecaps and work my way up. I laugh, and it’s not laughter or humor. It’s a crude sardonic sound that pours from me.

“How the fuck are you going to do that? I want it now!” I lash out and knock him over with the back of my gun. Ava screams, and it throws me off. It’s another reason why she shouldn’t fucking be here. “You motherfucker, evil bastard. You know you can’t fucking pay it back. I’m your boss. I don’t pay you that much, and obviously, you no longer have a fucking job with me. What do you really expect me to do here?”

Mark wiggles back on his arms crying like the motherfucker he is.

“Please, Vincent. I had some problems… I wasn’t thinking straight,” he sputters.

I cock the gun and fire one bullet that hits the wall. I can’t take this shit. “You have problems? You fucking bastard. You started stealing from me when I had problems.” I’m talking like I still don’t have those same problems. “That’s when this started. What do you want me to do? John was beaten to near death because the Montagues thought it was him who was stealing from them. But it was you. He’s in the hospital now with two broken legs. Wife and children at his side. How is that fair? Dino nearly lost an eye and got a bullet in his arm because the Stevensons thought it was him who was stealing from them. But it was you. Should I continue?”

I prod because there’s fucking more. The two million is just the start. That was what he took from me personally.

To date, the total amount of money Mark has had in his fucking hands is two and a half million. Motherfucker.

“I’m sorry,” Mark wails, but I can’t take it. Not another second more of his sorrys.

I fire a round of shots at the wall and grab his throat. I hold the gun to his head and growl, “I should kill you dead!” I get ready to cock the gun again.

“Noooo!!!” Ava wails. I don’t know how she moves so fast. She rushes over and throws herself on me, at my feet.

I don’t know anyone who would dare do that. She doesn’t know me, or know of me, and she doesn’t seem to care that the look of me is warning enough to stay away.

I glare at her as she starts begging, and this…. this is another reason why she shouldn’t be here.

“Please, have mercy! Please, please, have mercy on him.”

Fucking fuck… she’s begging for the very thing I’ve learned to hate.

Mercy.

I have her father by the throat in one hand, looking like he’s ready for the end. And she’s at my feet begging me. She looks up at me, and I see her eyes properly for the first time, couldn’t have seen them before from all the way over here. Not in this light.

They’re bright green, but there’s a slight hint of brown around the rim of the iris that blends into the green. Rare and striking.

Our eyes lock, frozen in time, and I look beyond the terror and see pain. I recognize it. It’s pain as dark as mine.

Pain filled with suffering. Pain mixed with guilt. Pain mixed with terror. It’s not the terror from the situation at hand.

It’s older.

What I see in her eyes is older. Maybe that’s the something I felt moments ago. It’s back now, and it beckons me to stop. Stop what I’m doing.

I’m shocked to shit when I feel my grip loosen around Mark’s neck. I continue to stare, and while I’ve loosened my hold on Mark, the gun’s still cocked.

She sniffles and gulps air, breaking the trance. “Please, I beg of you. Don’t kill him.”

“He can’t pay,” I counter. I don’t know why the hell I say that. We all know that fact.

She glances at her father and pants, then she returns her gaze to me.

“Take me…” she stutters, her voice a hush.

“No!” Mark cries before I have time to process her words. I look from one to the other and tighten my grip on Mark once more.

“Take me instead. I’ll do anything,” she says with more insistence.

My gaze intensifies on her. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

“Ava, no, don’t!” Mark wails.

I glower at this bastard. It shouldn’t have come to this. I squeeze his neck hard, and he gasps for air, trying to catch his breath.

“Take me!” Ava screams, taking my hand, surprising me again. The gun isn’t far from her. “Take me instead. Please don’t hurt him. Don’t kill him. Please.”

She’s serious.

Fucking hell, what the hell am I supposed to do with that offer?

I look to her and know what she means.

Take her instead of killing her father….

I don’t know what to be furious with more. I’m not a good person, but maybe I’m not evil enough yet to kill a man because he owes me millions and damaged my name when his daughter is pleading with me for his life. Begging me for mercy. Maybe I’m not evil enough to avoid showing her mercy.

It’s not him. It’s her. It would be her I would be giving this lenient act.

I can’t leave here with nothing though.

I lower the gun and look her over. Now her eyes show a different panic as she realizes what I’m doing.

It’s like she can’t believe it. I can’t either. I can’t believe my rage isn’t emptying a round of bullets in Mark’s gut.

“Salvatore!” I call out, and Salvatore comes through the door.

He freezes when he sees them at my feet.

“Vin,” he says my name tentatively.

“Take her to the house,” I order him like he’s my servant. He might be second in command to me, but he’s not my slave.

He won’t question me here though. He wouldn’t in front of people like this. The look he gives me is enough, but he knows not to fuck with me.

Mark starts shouting the minute Salvatore takes Ava.

“What are you going to do to him!” Ava screams. It mingles with Mark’s agony-filled shouts. “Wait, no,” she cries, pulling against Salvatore’s arm.

She may be ballsy, but her petite frame is no match for anybody.

“Get her out of here,” I tell Salvatore.

“No!” she cries.

“Look, lady, you better shut the fuck up, or your old man gets it now.”

That silences her, but she’s still looking at me.

“Come on, doll,” Salvatore says and has to practically lift her up to get her to go with him.

She’s crying as she goes, but I can’t worry about that.

I have to think about what I’m doing. This is the first thing to truly test me in years, and it’s a big test.

I look back to Mark as he shakes and cries so hard my own hand shakes.

What the hell am I going to do with this fucking prick? And his daughter… what am I going to do with her too?

Am I seriously going to accept her offer?