Page 70 of The Tempted

Chapter Twenty-Four

She loved me. Nikki fucking lovedme. I stared up at the ceiling with her body draped across mine feeling as if I was suffocating. I gently slipped out from under her careful not to wake her and got out of bed. I pulled on my shorts and looked over at the angel sleeping in the bed that I had loved her in. She loved me.

I swiped my hands down my face suddenly feeling desperate for air. I needed to get out of here and clear my head. I was teetering on the edge deceiving myself by toying with the idea that I could be good enough and worthy of her love. If that wasn’t a joke, I didn’t know what was. I grabbed my T-Shirt quickly pulling it over my head before escaping the bedroom and the desire to give into my feelings. My legs quickly carried me down the stairs and I grabbed the keys that were on the table heading out the door without looking back or giving it a second thought.

I told myself that I wasn’t running away that I just needed a breather a moment to collect my thoughts and pull myself away from the fantasy that I could be the man deserving of Nikki’s love. She had a way about her maybe it was the way she looked at me making me feel like I was something even when I knew I was nothing. I started up the car and pulled out of the retirement community not giving two shits about the speed limit or the annoying bumps that got in my way.

I drove with no direction or destination in mind as I rolled down the windows of the car and let the fresh air engulf me. I tried to erase her face from my memory the way she looked at me when she told me that I’d always have her so sincere as she pleaded with my soul to believe the words she was speaking.

I came back to New York to bury my mother feeling more alone than ever before and found Nikki, who brought me out of the darkness that was bestowed upon me. Before my mother died, I was content with who I was figuring it didn’t matter if I was a closed off self-centered prick and whoever didn’t like it could go to hell. Then I was reunited with Nikki. I watched on as she dated that jerk off all along thinking she deserved so much better than him she deserved someone who wanted to make her his purpose.

She had become my purpose. She was the reason I stayed in New York she was the reason I put any effort into trying to be a good employee of Victors. She was the reason I pulled myself together and got us the hell out of Temptations. She was the reason I began to smile again. She was the reason I started to live again. She made me want to make a life for myself, not just sail through life being just another nameless face. I wanted people to know me for my accomplishments and not my failures. I wanted people to know that I was the man that made Nikki Pastore happy simply by loving her with everything in me.

I pulled the car over to the side shifting it into park as I leaned my head against the steering wheel. In just a few weeks, Nikki had taught me to love without condition to speak without bad intention to give without reason and most of all care without an expectation. I loved her and it didn’t matter if she loved me back it was a gift, but the real gift was that I had been given the opportunity to love her. If I had learned, anything through the death of both my parents it was that life was short and a life without love wasn’t a life worth living.

My parent’s lives may have been cut short but in the short time, they had been given their lives had been full, full of love for one another and for me. I had been foolish enough to think that my life stopped when theirs did that they were the only two people in existence that could love me. I was wrong. I could love again, I could live again and I could do it all with Nikki she could be my purpose.

I lifted my head from the steering wheel and gazed out the window into the darkness. I didn’t have to be alone anymore. I could turn my life around and let myself be happy I just had to be man enough to do so.

I didn’t want to be alone anymore I wanted to crawl back in bed with Nikki where I belonged. I put the car into park and made a sharp U-turn deciding that I was going back to Aunt Gina’s and I was going to wake up my girl and man the fuck up by looking her in the eyes and telling her that I loved her.

“Wake the fuck up little girl,” someone shouted nudging me awake with strong hands. I thought I was dreaming at first and reached for Mikey but my hands grasped a sheet instead of his warm body causing my eyes to flutter open. I lifted my head and screamed in fear, taking in the man hovering over the bed dressed all in black. He was wearing a ski mask and the only feature of his I could make out were the cold green eyes that stared back at me.

“Get the fuck out of the bed and put your clothes on,” he barked, kicking the mattress for extra measure.

I clutched the sheet to my body as my eyes did a quick scan searching for Mikey.

“Looking for your boyfriend?” he laughed coldly. “He left you high and dry,” he cocked his head to the side. “Maybe not dry.”

“You’re disgusting,” I shouted as tears stung my eyes wondering why Mikey would leave me here alone or if this bastard was just fucking with my head. What if he did something to Mikey? He reached for my arm tugging me out of bed resulting in me falling onto the floor. “Get your fucking hands off of me, you filthy pig,” I said through clenched teeth the tears I was holding back falling down my cheeks.

“I bet you like it filthy…,” he said bending down to grab my clothes before throwing them at me. “You’ve got exactly ten seconds to get your clothes on or I’ll drag you out of this house naked your call, but don’t underestimate me,” his tone gravely as he pulled his gun from behind him and aimed it at me.

I was going to die. God only knew where this man was going to take me, but wherever it was would be where he’d kill me. There was no one to save me. Mikey was gone, and I didn’t know if he had left me by choice or if he was in danger. I was going to pay the price for every choice my father had ever made. I robotically began to dress and not because I was willing to be the obedient hostage, but because I didn’t want to be shot dead in the nude. I had seen photos of my father’s associates after they had been killed. The press didn’t care what you looked like when they put you on the front page they just cared about selling papers.

I stood quickly knotting the back of my romper and slid my feet into my sandals just in time for the gunmen to press the barrel of the gun to my temple.

“Walk,” he ordered as his fingers dug into my hip. “If you say one word I swear to god I’ll shoot you dead.”

I obeyed biding my time hoping that someone would come home and see this man abducting me at gunpoint. Tears streamed down my face as he roughly pushed me down the stairs my grip on the banister keeping me from tumbling down them. He tucked his gun into the front of his pants and pulled my hands together.

“What’re you doing?” I asked my voice cracking with fear as I watched his gloved hands bind my wrists together with a zip tie. I flinched in pain as the plastic tightened around my dainty wrists marking my skin.

“Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?” he said taking a fistful of my hair and yanking my head down. “Don’t let me gag that mouth of yours with something and ruin all the surprises I have in store for you.”

I bit my cheek to hold in my screams as he dragged me by my hair out the door. I tried to lift my head and search for someone to help me, but he pulled my head down so that I was forced to look at the concrete as we walked. He released his hold on my hair my head throbbed from the constant pulling and opened the back doors to a black van.

“Get in,” he said kicking me behind my knees so that my legs buckled. I crawled into the back of the dirty van immediately hit with the stench of urine and fought back the urge to gag.

“Where are you taking me?” I cried desperately as he slammed the doors to the van shut.

The engine of the van started my body shifting along the dirty floor as my captor drove off speeding over the speed bumps. I cried out my sobs vibrating off the metal walls of the van reminding me I was alone. It was a horrible feeling knowing that you were the only person who could save you from your own doomed fate. I tried to pull myself together realizing I needed to come up with a plan. I wasn’t going to succumb to defeat. I might die, but I wasn’t going to die without a fight. I kicked my legs against the cage that separated me from the man who had held a gun to my head.

“Do you know who the fuck my father is?” I screamed, using my upper body strength to lift my legs and kick the cage with all my might again. He didn’t say a word and just continued to drive unaffected by my tantrum.

“My father is going to kill you. Do you hear me? You’re going to die. Just let me go before it’s too late. I don’t even know what you look like so it’s not like you have to worry about him finding out. Just leave me here… Please!” I screamed through my tears before falling back against the cold floor in defeat. Nothing I could say would change his mind. I was at his mercy and there wasn’t a damn thing I could say or do to change that. I closed my eyes and prayed to God, he’d make it quick.

Please don’t let me suffer.

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