Page 644 of The Tempted

Chapter Thirty-eight

I followed the guard through the cell block and immediately noticed the differences between here and Rikers. First, this place was fucking huge and housed twice as many inmates and double the amount of correction officers. The inmates here didn’t give two fucks about anything, most of them knew they’d die here and the few that weren’t doing life sentences, would probably die before they busted out. They were rowdy and taunted the officers as they walked me to my cell. The guard behind me stopped at one of the cells on the way, slipped the inmate a book and took one back in return. I glanced over my shoulder and watched as he opened the book, dipped his eyes to the page he opened it to and smiled before closing it again.

No wonder they carted my ass here.

This place was fucked.

The guards were on the take and the one's inmates didn’t have in their pockets were the ones who were fucked. I had no doubt that Victor ran this place, both the inmates and the fucking men who were supposedly guarding them. He probably makes a pot of sauce in his fucking cell on a Sunday.

The officer in front of me stopped and turned to his left as he reached for his keys.

“Delivery,” he commented as he unlocked the cell, stepping aside as I turned to the man behind the bars. My eyes zeroed in on the perfectly white canvas sneakers before they traveled the length of the blue jumpsuit and landed on the aging face of Victor Pastore.

His hair had grayed since the last time the newspapers snapped a picture of him but it was immaculately styled, not a silver stain out of place and slicked back with a half a ton of hair gel. He was thinner than when he went in and his normally tan complexion was still olive in skin tone but much paler, even paler than when I insisted Jack bring me to meet the man all those months ago when we first went head to head with Jimmy Gold.

Victor stood, shoving one hand in his pocket, mimicking the way he used to unbutton his designer suit and hide one hand in his pants pocket as he walked. He had that walk, the media used to love to catch him leaving the court house because his stance alone sold papers and made ratings. He was cocky, arrogant and a goddamn legend people worshipped.

It didn’t matter he was a gangster and his record spoke for his crimes, he was a good guy to the people he loved and his neighborhood. He didn’t let the power go completely to his head, sometimes he managed to keep it humble, which these days was unheard of.

His reputation made it hard for people to believe the man in a thousand-dollar suit, playing stick ball in the street with the neighborhood kids, spent the night before robbing a truck and killing the driver, leaving is body on the side of the road. The stories were endless and my personal favorites were the ones told about the Vic from years ago when Michael Valente Senior was his underboss—those two were a force to be reckoned with. Yeah, those were my favorite, when the mob was still the mob and Vic and Val ran New York with old school values.

After, Val died, Victor wasn’t the same man he became harder as his quest for revenge consumed him. Jimmy was elected his underboss. I’m not really sure how that works, if it’s something Vic chose himself or if his organization sat down and took a vote. I’m going to say there isn’t democracy in the Pastore Organization. There is Vic and then there’s everyone else under him enforcing his final rule.

I looked over my shoulder at the guard who slipped him a paper brown bag, wondering for a moment what determined if you got a book or a bag full of goodies from Santa Claus over here. Yeah, Vic ran shit, even behind bars he had the correction officers enforcing his command.

“Thank you,” Victor said, opening the bag and peering inside before nodding in satisfaction and turning his eyes back to mine. “I’ve been expecting you,” he smirked, glancing over my shoulder at the two guards. “I’ll take it from here boys,” he said, dismissing them.

“You got it, Vic, be back in an hour to bring you to church,” the first officer promised as I stepped inside and he closed the cell door.

I dropped the few belongings they gave me onto the bottom bunk and turned around, raising an eyebrow at Victor.

“Church?”

“Man needs God when he’s locked away for the rest of his life,” he explained. “He repents his sins and hope that changes where he ends up after he takes his final breath,” he continued.

“I bet he does,” I murmured, knowing those words would stick with me for the rest of my life. They were the words of a man who spent his whole life defeating the odds and now staring at him, his luck finally had run out.

A man up until a few weeks ago I was destined to become.

“Jack came up about a week ago to catch me up to speed with our situation,” he said, as he bent down and stripped his thin mattress of its sheet.

“Glad, he found time for a visit,” I gritted. “Look, Vic I’m not really sure what the plan is or if there even is one—

He turned around, his gray eyes pinned me with a hard stare.

“There’s always a plan,” he interrupted. “We’ll have you out of here by the end of the week as long as you play by my rules,” he paused, cocked his head the side and started again. “Heard there’s a certain someone on the outside waiting for you.”

I drew my eyebrows together as I crossed his arms and deciphered his words, wondering which enemy he was referring too, not surprised that he would have intel on that sort of thing.

He smiled, revealing perfectly straight teeth as he winked at me knowingly.

“Your choice woman has my friend up in arms,” he teased.

“I bet he had a mouthful to say,” I mumbled.

“He voiced his concerns,” he said as he tied one end of the sheet around one of the metal bars. “Take it from me, it’s hard on a man when he looks at his daughter and realizes she’s all grown up and you’re not the only man in her life anymore.”

He walked to the other end of the bars and tied the other corner of the sheet around a bar, covering the bars, before he turned back around and wiped his hands clean.

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