Chapter Two
I left New York after the murder of my father, never believing I’d drag my ass back to the concrete jungle—I never wanted to. Then my mother was in a bad car accident and Victor Pastore showed up just in time to hold my hand as I pulled the plug on the life support. At the time I detested the man, blamed him for my father’s death and even my mother’s. If my old man didn’t die protecting Victor, we never would’ve moved away and she wouldn’t have been on that highway when a truck crashed into her car.
He brought me back to the streets I grew up on, the same streets he and my father ran together for nearly two decades. I never planned on sticking around and only came back to bury my mother beside my father. After the dirt settled over my parents, Victor propositioned me, trying to ease his conscience and offered me a legit job running one of his new nightclubs, Temptations.
I knew jack shit about running a night club. I was a carpenter, a man who worked with his hands and wore construction boots. I wasn’t cut from the same cloth as my father or Vic. Designer suits weren’t my thing and ties were just a noose around my neck. But then I laid eyes on Nikki, Vic’s youngest daughter, the girl who had called me Mikey ever since she was an awkward teenager with braces and frizzy hair. Actually, she called me Mikey before that, when she was just a kid following me and her sister around like a shadow.
There was nothing fucking awkward about the chain-smoking sexpot with perfectly straight teeth and lips that teased a man even when her mouth was closed. She no longer wore pigtails and fancy dresses that her mother forced upon her. She wore clothes that hugged her body, showing off her narrow waist, an ass you wanted to sink your teeth into and breasts you wanted to lay your head on. Her legs, let’s not talk about her legs and how every time I stared at them I wanted to wrap them around my waist. Fuck that, I wanted them around my neck. She had traded her ballet shoes for stilettos. I swear every pair of shoes she owns scream ‘come fuck me’.
I’m cool with that.
Since I’m the one fucking her and those sexy shoes are digging into my back night after night she wraps her legs around me.
Yeah, you guessed it, I took Vic up on his offer for the sole purpose of getting to know the girl I left behind and the woman she had become. She had a boyfriend at the time, some douchebag named Rico, who at first glance I knew he was a no good motherfucker. I had no proof though, and Nikki needed to learn that shit for herself. She needed to be the one to realize the scum that Rico was. So I did my thing, flirted with the girl I wanted, got under her skin and made her realize I wasn’t going anywhere.
The whole time I was making moves on Victor’s daughter, he and his goons were training me to be America’s Next Gangster. Well, not really, I mean they weren’t training me to whack someone. Anthony took me to some shooting range owned by a bunch of bikers and taught me how to fire a gun. The thing was I didn’t need anyone to teach me, I had my father’s blood running through my veins and that shit came as natural as breathing. I was a sure shot, just like my old man. I bet he’d be proud.
Victor wanted me to protect myself, so the piece I started carrying was just a precaution, a weapon I’d only fire if someone tried to fuck with me now that I was working for him.
Along with the loaded gun, they fitted me for the custom designer suits he and my father donned back in the day. I was a reflection of both Victor and Val, and my Timberland boots would not make the cut.
As the transformation continued, Nikki’s relationship crumbled and our friendship changed. She became my girl without becoming my girl if that makes any sense. She didn’t know it at the time, but after the night she and I hit the club scene, I realized who she belonged to.
It was the grand opening of Temptations, Nikki’s twenty-first birthday and my first night as the disco dancing gangster when everything changed.
What’s a grand celebration without a fucking shootout?
Not a Pastore function that’s for sure.
It came to light that Rico was working Nikki the whole time, a ploy to get close to Victor and avenge some fucking shit. It was time to put my training to use and protect Nikki, shooting at anything that got in my way from getting her the fuck out of the war zone my new job had become.