Fight Or Flight (Tempted Series Generation 2.0) Read online

  Fight Or Flight

  The Second Generation of The Tempted Series

  Janine Infante Bosco

  Fight Or Flight

  Edited By: Virginia Tesi Carey

  Proofread By: Back2TheWall Edits

  Formatted: Property Of Parrish Productions LLC

  Cover Design: Sarah Kil Creative Studio

  Photographer: Lindee Robinson

  Cover Model(s): Daria Rottenberk & Daniel Smith

  This book(s) is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents of the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblances to persons, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  In memory of:

  Lance Cpl. Guillermo S. Perez, 20

  Pfc. Bryan J. Baltierra, 19

  Lance Cpl. Marco A. Barranco, 21

  Pfc. Evan A. Bath, 19

  U.S. Navy Hospitalman Christopher Gnem, 22

  Pfc. Jack Ryan Ostrovsky, 21

  Cpl. Wesley A. Rodd, 23

  Lance Cpl Chase D. Sweetwood, 19

  Cpl. Cesar A. Villanueva, 21

  Thank you for your sacrifice.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Bonus Epilogue

  Excerpt From Reckless Temptations

  The Second Generation of The Tempted Series

  Also by Janine Infante Bosco

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  One

  Brooklyn

  “Hitting a dead-end doesn’t mean you’ve come to your end, it just means you need to turn around and take a different detour, baby.”

  Those are the words my mom whispered to me right after she broke the news that she was sick, and she muttered those exact words this morning as she peeled away from the curb of our Connecticut home. Four months ago, my mom was sure cancer was just a bump in the road. She thought she could fight it, that she could beat it and live. Watch me graduate from high school and go to college. She thought she would be around to walk me down the aisle and rock my babies in her arms, but she was wrong.

  She never even stood a chance. Her cancer is inoperable and at her last oncology visit, the doctor told her she had only weeks to live.

  Weeks.

  Cancer isn’t a detour. It’s not even a dead-end.

  It’s a sinkhole and soon it will swallow my mom whole and leave me an orphan. But my mom…she’s still smiling and holding onto a hope that doesn’t exist. It’s the very reason we’re in New York—a trip we were supposed to take when I graduated high school. We planned to shop on Fifth Avenue and take in a Broadway show. Maybe go to Times Square and possibly a tour of the Empire State Building. Mom loves Italian food, so we’d definitely have to fit in a pitstop to Little Italy too.

  But we won’t be doing any of those things on this trip. We’re not even visiting Manhattan. Instead, we’re in some shithole place called Staten Island. Google says it’s the borough of parks and the former home of the Great Kills landfill. It’s also where my mom thinks she’s going to find my biological father, Eric Nicholson, a man who wanted no part of me.

  The thing is, I’m a minor and when my mom dies, there’s no one to take care of me. My mom’s parents died a couple of years after I was born, and she doesn’t have any other relatives. My only shot is my sperm donor of a father. If he doesn’t take me in until I turn eighteen, child services will, and I don’t know which is a worse fate. Personally, I think I’d rather be tossed into a failing system than dumped on the doorstep of a man I don’t know.

  Mom says he’s a good guy, though. They met when they were teenagers and at the time, they both lived in Texas. My grandparents were wealthy and Eric was the son of a housekeeper—not theirs, though. Mom and Eric had a best friend named Robert Montgomery and Eric’s mom, my paternal grandma, Lorraine, worked for the Montgomery’s. They were very generous employers and sent Eric to the same school that my mom and Robert attended. The three of them were thick as thieves, but my mom and Eric fell fast and hard for one another.

  Sadly, as fast and hard as they fell, their relationship never took off. Mom says that’s because he believed he wasn’t good enough for her. According to her, he had this preconceived notion that the son of a housekeeper could never be worthy of a trust fund princess.

  Lorraine and Eric left Texas and years later my parents coincidentally bumped into one another in Manhattan. Mom says it was fate and soon after she found out she was pregnant with me.

  But they never spoke after that night.

  Not once.

  She sent him a letter after I was born, but she never received a reply. I don’t know if she ever tried contacting him again—if she did, she didn’t tell me, and I’m glad for that. I think if I knew he had turned her down more than once, this would be so much harder.

  “Well, this can’t be right,” she says as she brings the car to a stop and leans over the console to stare out my window. Following her lead, I turn my head and glance at the saloon type bar called Big Nose Kate’s. “Brook, honey, are you sure you put the right address into the navigation?”

  Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I tear my gaze away from the horseshoes outlining the concrete steps and stare at the row of motorcycles parked on the gravel driveway.

  “Oh, I put the right address in,” I confirm, looking back at her. “I thought you said this guy Robert was rich, that he was some big oil tycoon type person.”

  That’s not right, she said Robert’s father was an oil tycoon. She never mentioned what he did exactly.

  When she doesn’t answer, my gaze wanders back to the bar and I squint to get a better look at the emblem painted on the front door. It can’t be.

  “Is that a reaper on the door?” I ask, completely baffled.

  What the hell is this place?

  Ignoring me, she turns off the car and braces both hands on the steering wheel as she draws in a deep breath. I watch as she slowly lifts her head and stares out the window at the group of bikes.

  “Motorcycles,” she whispers.

  Arching an eyebrow, I continue to study her.

  “Yeah,” I agree slowly. “Lots and lots of motorcycles. I hope you have your pepper spray.”

  Paying me no mind, she pulls down the visor and lifts her hand to touch the scarf covering her bald head.

  “I should’ve worn the wig,” she murmurs, frowning.

  A sense of sadness immediately washes over me. My mom isn’t the type to be self-conscious or even vulnerable. She never cries woe is me and since her diagnosis, she’s been a
pillar of strength. I’m sure there are times she does in fact cry, but those moments are private and not for my eyes.

  When her long locks started to fall out, she smiled and said it was only hair. It would grow back. And when it didn’t, she got all dressed up, put on her makeup and went wig shopping. Monday thru Friday she’s a brunette and on the weekends, she’s a blonde because she says the weekends are for fun and blondes definitely have more fun.

  Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I try to wrangle in my emotions. I want to scream so badly and maybe even hit something—yeah, I really want to hit something. She shouldn’t be worried about her looks or what my sperm donor will think when he sees her. As far as I’m concerned, she’s too good for him. Far too beautiful.

  And you know what else? I want to cry. I want to burst into a fit of tears because my mom is dying and instead of spending all our time making memories, we’re sitting in front of a bar, preparing to grovel before a man who doesn’t deserve either of us.

  “You’re beautiful,” I whisper as she drops her hand from her head and turns to meet my gaze. “And screw him if he doesn’t see that.”

  “Brooklyn—”

  “No, I mean it,” I interrupt. The tears I have been trying to hold back slip from the corners of my eyes and my mom quickly reaches out to brush them away. “I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to do this. We don’t need him, we never did. Let’s just go home and forget all about Eric Nicholson. He doesn’t want me and you dying won’t change that, so please, can we just get out of here?”

  I reach for her wrists and peel her hands away from my face. Choking on a sob, my eyes silently plead with hers.

  “Oh, baby, I know this is all very scary,” she cries, tears streaming down her sunken cheeks. “I shouldn’t have taken things so lightly, but I didn’t want our last days to be full of tears and worry. I wanted us to laugh so after I’m gone, it’s my smile you remember and not the chemo treatments or the wigs. But, honey, this is serious, and we are running out of time. I know it sounds selfish, but I can’t leave this earth not sure where my little girl will land. So, please, Brooklyn, please give him a chance. He’s our only hope.”

  She draws me closer, pressing her forehead to mine as she stares deep into my eyes, her voice a soft whisper as she utters the next words.

  “I’m sure your dad had his reasons for not responding to the letter.”

  I don’t mean to act like a petulant teen, and I know it’s the last thing my mother needs or deserves, but I can’t help myself. Something inside me snaps when she refers to Eric as my dad. I inch away from her.

  “He’s not my dad, he’s some guy that made it possible for me to exist. That’s not a dad, and we’re both kidding ourselves if we expect him to become one suddenly.”

  “You don’t know him,” she argues.

  “Yeah, well, maybe you don’t either. You were a kid when you met him and my age when he moved away. Do you really think he hasn’t changed? The truth is, you don’t know Eric either.”

  Her lips part, but the objection never leaves her tongue because a blunt force hits the back of our car, knocking her into the steering wheel and me into the dashboard. It takes me a moment to realize what happened and process our car has been hit. I push off the dash and immediately check on my mom before stealing a glance at the rearview mirror.

  The front doors swing open and two boys, who appear to be around my age, stumble out. Remaining completely still, their eyes go wide as they simultaneously look from the back of our car to the front of theirs.

  “Are you okay?” my mom questions, gripping my forearm. I peel my eyes away from the two teens and look back at my mom, silently cursing myself for not asking her the same question.

  “I’m fine. What about you?”

  She gives me a quick nod before raking her eyes over me, assessing me for any injuries. The teen boys shouting outside our car startles us both, and we turn to look out the back windshield. For some reason, I focus on the driver as he roughly drags his fingers through his hair.

  “They look young, I should see if they’re okay,” my mom says.

  She twists around and reaches for the silver handle. Pushing open the door, I watch as she winces slightly as she slides out.

  Something is off with her.

  “Mom, are you sure you’re okay?” I ask, leaning over the console to get a better look. She hit the steering wheel pretty hard and her body is already so weak.

  “I’m fine,” she insists, before closing the door in my face.

  I sit there for a second as she starts for the two boys, then I draw in a deep breath. If this isn’t a sign to turn this car around and head back to Connecticut, I’m not sure what is. But my mom is determined. I look over my shoulder once more before reaching for the door and exiting the car too.

  “You are so screwed,” the passenger says as I near the back of my mom’s car.

  He’s a little shorter than the driver, maybe an inch or two, and his hair is a shade lighter, but his eyes are what really draw my attention. They’re a mix between blue and green and they remind me of the time me and my mom took a trip to Cape May. They are as clear as the ocean we spent the weekend enjoying. They’re also framed by a pair of glasses that he pushes further onto the bridge of his nose.

  He turns back to the driver.

  “Mom and dad are going to kill you,” the boy taunts. “Actually, I take it back. They’re not going to get the chance to because as soon as Uncle Anthony finds out you took his car for a joyride, he’s going to drop a pair of cement shoes on you.”

  Ah, brothers.

  That explains the similar features. However, as soon as the driver peels his hands away from his face, I take a longer look at him and a weird feeling immediately creeps into my belly. His eyes are a deeper shade of blue and don’t remind me so much of the ocean as his brother’s do. They’re the color of the brightest, clearest sky and the more I stare, the more that feeling in my belly intensifies.

  I’ve experienced it once before when I followed Colton King behind the bleachers freshman year. He gave me my first kiss and when I told my mom about it, she called the feeling butterflies and said I’d get them a lot through my teenage years. I wish she would’ve warned me that a whole swarm of them would take flight when my eyes locked with the blue-eyed boy who smashed our car, but psychic powers are not one of my mom’s many talents.

  “No one is getting fit for cement shoes because no one is going to find out, shithead,” he grinds out, pinning his brother with a glare. “Do I need to remind you snitches get stitches?”

  The passenger chuckles.

  “Bro, the only one getting stitches here is you. You ruined this lady’s car,” he retorts, waving a hand at my mother’s bumper that’s conveniently sitting on the pavement like a casualty of war.

  Clearing her throat, my mother makes her presence known and both boys stare at her.

  “Shit,” the driver hisses, raking his fingers roughly through his hair again. “I’m sorry lady, I didn’t even ask… are you okay?”

  My eyes follow him as he starts for her. She waves him off, causing him to pause. Then she gives him a weak smile and stares at him as though she’s seen him before and is trying to place him. It’s an awkward moment and I think she realizes that because she suddenly shakes her head and brings her eyes back to me.

  “We’re fine. Isn’t that right, Brooklyn?”

  The driver’s eyes slice to me, and I feel my cheeks heat in an instant.

  “Brooklyn, huh?” the younger boy says. “Like the borough?”

  Feeling as if they’re both examining me, I bite my lip and look away.

  “Zip it, Rob,” the driver growls. Foolishly, I let my gaze wander back to him and I find his eyes are still firmly pinned to me.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks me.

  I nod, or at least I think I do. I’m not sure what the hell is going on with my body, much less my face, which in case you were wondering
, feels like it’s on fire.

  He flashes me a lopsided grin.

  “Great, well, if everyone’s okay, we’re going to be on our way,” the driver says, turning to my mom. “Nice meeting you, take care!”

  “My bumper is on the street,” mom points out.

  He pulls his brows together and eyes the bumper curiously—as if he doesn’t know how it got there.

  “Hmm,” he murmurs, crossing his arms against his chest. I wait for him to elaborate on that hmm, but instead, he lifts his hand and strokes his chin thoughtfully.

  “Yeah, I can’t believe it either,” he replies, as if he’s not to blame. Then he snaps his fingers. “Oh, hey, I’ve got an idea. Our Uncle Pipe coincidentally has a garage in Brooklyn…” His voice trails as he pauses. Turning those baby blues to me, he smirks, and I try to decide when I became a stereotypical teenage girl who swoons over a goofy boy with a killer smile. It’s lame and I hate it.

  “You can’t be serious,” Rob scoffs. “How’s she going to get there? Half her car is on the ground, the other half is attached to Uncle Anthony’s, and let’s not forget what Uncle Pipe is going to do when he finds out you were driving.”

  The smile vanishes from the blue-eyed boy’s face as he glares at his brother.

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

  “Don’t get all pissy with me, tough guy. You’re the one who had to be a big shot and steal the keys to Uncle Gangster’s car when you don’t even have a license.”

  “I’m going to tell him you called him Uncle Gangster,” he fires back.