Reckless Temptations (The Tempted Series Book 4) (35 page)

Anthony was better off not knowing, one less casualty when the dust settled, and I needed Bianci breathing. I needed him to be there for Lauren and to be the man in my kid’s life. I had no doubt he’d be there for Pea. It was a good thing I spent all those months keeping him safe, keeping him out of the enemy’s line of fire.

Time to pay it forward Bianci.

“They know it was me who gave up their stash house. They know it was the Satan’s Knights who robbed them and it doesn’t matter that we’ve paid them back because we killed their men. They won’t quit until they’ve settled the score, until they’ve taken our blood.”

“Jesus, Riggs,” Bianci hissed, taking a deep breath before he shrugged his shoulders.

“So what do you want me to do? Jack wants my help?”

“Jack doesn’t know I called you,” I said, lifting my hand to rub that ache away from my chest, the one that seemed to keep nagging me.

“He’s putting prospects on Reina and Lacey until he figures what our next move is. He wanted one on Lauren too but…” I shook my head and paused, “…I’m not about to put her life in the hands of some little shit who doesn’t have a patch,” I said, looking away from him.

I hadn’t expected this to be so hard.

I hadn’t expected for it to hurt.

“I need you to look after Lauren,” I whispered, lifting my head to meet his wary stare. “I need you to keep her and the baby safe.”

“Riggs, I don’t like where this is going,” he started.

“C’mon man, you fucking owe me and I’m collecting. You love your sister, hell, you even love that kid she hasn’t given birth to yet. No one will look out for her like you will. No one will protect her and make sure this shit doesn’t land on her.”

“And you? Where does that leave you?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I want you to take Lauren back to your place, keep her close until everything dies down. She’s going to be upset, so make sure she doesn’t get herself worked up.” I pleaded. “It won’t be good for Pea if she’s sick,” I rasped. “Anything she or the baby needs, you come to me and I will make sure they have it.”

“Got it all planned, huh?” He questioned. “You still didn’t answer me. Where does that leave you?”

“It doesn’t matter, bro. I’ve got to do the right thing by them and being away from them, making it like they don’t mean shit to me, it’s the only way I can fight for them. They probably know about her already but if I end things now, if I prove to the world she’s nothing to me, no one will hurt her. She’ll be old news and they’ll be looking for another way to hurt me, another way to get to me.” I removed my hat and nervously ran my fingers through my hair.

“You’re going to break her heart,” he said.

“I’m going to save her life.” I countered. “She’ll bounce back from a broken heart, can’t bounce back from death,” I choked out.

“I did what you’re doing, you know? I stayed away from Adrianna and Luca, told myself I’d only poison them with my lifestyle—”

“Stop!” I interrupted. “Don’t try to give me hope because I’m not like you. I know you think we run in the same circles, but we don’t, brother. This shit isn’t the mob, it doesn’t go away because your boss goes up the river and spares your life. This is an oath, it’s a way of life. It’s my life and a choice I made long before I knew Lauren existed. Would I take it back? I can’t even ask myself that question because I’m a Satan’s Knight and I will ride to my death,” I argued. “But I won’t take Lauren on that ride or my kid. Now do I have your word?”

He remained still for a moment as he absorbed my words and stared at me. It took everything in me not to turn my head and pretend like I didn’t just hand over my
heart
to this man.

Anthony slowly nodded in agreement but it wasn’t enough.

“Man, need your word, not just a shake of your head. This is my…” I paused, taking a deep breath before I continued. “… we’re talking about my kid. My flesh and blood. Gonna need the words for this one,” I said, my voice sounding more like a plea than an order.

“I’ll take care of them. I’ll keep them safe,” he promised.

I nodded before I bowed my head and swiped my hands along it.

Goodbye Kitten.

Goodbye Pea.

Be safe.
 

I stormed into the clubhouse, headed straight for the bar and ignored everyone that was watching me. I pulled the strongest bottle of poison I could find from the shelf and grabbed a glass. Blackie stared at me with his signature beady eyes as I poured myself a shot and took a seat beside him.

I threw the shot back, letting the amber liquid worm its way down my throat and into my belly. I had hoped that the burning sensation in my chest would dull the ache that wouldn’t leave me.

“Tell me I did the right thing,” I demanded of Blackie, as I refilled my glass.

“I don’t even know what you did,” he muttered, eyeing the bottle I was clutching.

“It don’t matter, just tell me what I need to hear,” I said, downing another shot.

“You did the right thing,” he appeased. “You looking to forget? That shit won’t do it,” he informed me as he passed me the bottle he had half emptied.

Great, now I was swapping bottles with the club drunk. My life really had turned to shit.

At this rate, by the end of the night I’ll have a fucking needle sticking out of my arm.

That was fucked up.

But I was in a fucked up mood.

“I’m sorry,” I grunted, apologizing to him for my inner thoughts. Luckily, he paid me no mind, a combination of not giving a fuck and being sloshed.

“You have a fight with your ol’ lady?”

“I don’t have one of those,” I replied.

“Right, the baby mama then,” he corrected himself, as he pulled a bud of pot from his pocket and broke up the herb on top of the bar.

I ignored his question, not ready to admit out loud that I didn’t have a baby mama either. I had nothing.

Gave it all away.

Because of the fucking Red Dragons.

If I was a holy roller, I’d swear on a stack of bibles I would kill every Red Dragon from here to California.

I wasn’t a holy roller.

I wasn’t even a sign of the cross type of guy.

“What was that shit with the cops earlier?” I asked, changing the subject as I watched him dump the ground up weed into a rolling paper.

“Ah, me and officer Brantley go way back,” he slurred, as he rolled the joint perfectly, bringing the end of the paper to his lips to lick and seal it. “I don’t know who gave that piece of shit more of a hard-on me or Christine,” he added, passing me the tight joint as he lifted his eyes.

Christine, his wife, the wife he barely mentioned, much less ever used her name. I raised an eyebrow and flicked my lighter and blazed up the joint.

“Never heard you talk much about your wife,” I said, inhaling sharply. “So, this rat, the cop, he’s been itching to put you away for a while?” I thought about it for a second. “And Christine? He wanted to arrest her too?”

Blackie laughed, a low rumble that sounded more scary than jolly.

“Nah he didn’t want to arrest her,” he said before taking a toke. “Christine wasn’t some low-life junkie, Riggs,” he seethed.

“I didn’t say she was,” I replied, as I poured us both a shot.

“It’s what you think because it’s all anyone in this fucking place ever talks about. You’ve got this image of Christine, a woman you never met, lying face down in a bathtub with a fucking needle in her arm but that’s not the woman I married. Everyone in this club assumes I drink because I feel guilty she overdosed with the shit we were selling, but they’re wrong, so fucking wrong.”

“So why do you do it?” I asked, watching as he downed the shot I placed in front of him and he passed me back the joint.

“Sure, it’s got something to do with it. If I wasn’t dealing heroin she wouldn’t have been able to get her hands on it. But, Christine would’ve found some other way to end the nightmare she was living,” he revealed, staring down at his left hand, his fingers running along his ring finger.

“I was a shitty husband,” he admitted. “I put this club before her. I put the drugs, the money, the goddamn patch before the sweet girl I fell in love with when I was fifteen years old. See, she knew me before the club, before the corruption and the mayhem and she had to watch me morph into a Knight. It was all good when I was just a prospect, still had time for my girl and the crazy shit we used to do.”

He smiled faintly before glancing back at me.

“I don’t know Lauren all that well, ran into her a few times since you two started up, but she seems spunky. Christine used to be spunky. She used to love life, and more than life, she loved me. She loved me hard, felt that shit down in my bones.”

I swallowed hard, blaming the burning sensation in my throat on the weed but it was his words, his comparison of his woman to mine. It was hearing Blackie recall the love he remembered Christine had for him, knowing I’d never know that with Lauren.

“After I patched in, Cain pushed me to the front lines. I was eager to earn, eager to prove I would do anything for the club,” he cocked his head to the side. “Sort of like you,” he pointed out. “In our time of need you stepped up and became a front runner. That isn’t lost to the club, Riggs, and you don’t have to keep proving your worthy of your patch,” he added.

“I’m not,” I contested. “I’m just doing my job.”
      

“I thought the same thing and kept doing my job. I ran drugs, guns, women…whatever made the most profit and never looked back. I forgot about the love I had at home and what it felt like to go home to a warm body. I pushed the thoughts of how fucking good it felt to crawl into bed and have the sweetest woman wrap her legs around me. She didn’t know what I did, and if she did, she didn’t care. I could’ve killed a man, sometimes did, and she still welcomed me home, into our bed, night after night.”

“So how did it all change?”

“I started pushing her away. Cain made a deal with the G-Man and we moved more drugs, became the biggest operation on the east coast.”

“The G-Man is the guy Jimmy Gold was working with to push Pastore out, right?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, taking another shot. “Anyway, there is only so much bad shit you can do before it catches up to you and changes who you are. It didn’t bother me at first, I had shoeboxes full of money and in my head I was doing it for a good reason. I would buy Christine her dream house, make sure my woman had everything she wanted, the best of everything. I told myself I was doing it for her, making up for the douche bag I was on a daily basis. I didn’t have a conscience I only had a goal, but I didn’t plan on being the reason two seventeen-year-old kids died,” he confessed.

I stared at him dumbfounded for a moment, realizing Blackie had lived a whole lot of life and I really had no idea how deep his wounds went.

“It changes you,” he repeated. “Knowing that two kids, who had their whole lives ahead of them died, so you could make a quick buck—it fucking wrecks you, man. That was the beginning of the end for me and Christine. I stopped going home, started staying here every night. I couldn’t look at her; I couldn’t let myself have something as good as her when all I ever did was take the good from other people.”

He sighed, pushing away the bottle of alcohol.

“She thought I was cheating on her and that’s when Brantley came around. He was a rookie then, looking to make a name for himself and thought he’d start by taking down the Satan’s Knights. He’s smart, I’ll give the son of a bitch that. He looked for the weakest link, found it was me, and used my wife as bait.”

I didn’t know what to say and wasn’t sure I could find my voice even if I had the words to give him. So, I gave him my ear and let him continue with his story because he was a drunk, immune to alcohol. It doesn’t give him peace anymore, and he’s running out of ways to escape his grief.

“He gave Christine all the attention I wasn’t giving her anymore, made her feel things I gave up on making her feel, and promised her all the things I couldn’t. He used her, played on her broken emotions and convinced her I would wind up dead because of the club. I found out they were having an affair, put two and two together and confronted her but she had already made a deal with him. She would get the drugs from me and prove I was dealing the shit that killed those two kids,” he said, solemnly. “Instead of giving me up she gave up her life.”

He covered his face with his hands and I reached out and patted him on the back. He let out a groan and dropped his hands before piercing me with his tortured eyes.

“Jack’s been trying for a long time to get this club on the right track, to give us some peace. He thinks he can turn us into a legit club and make us proud to call ourselves the Satan’s Knights—but he’s in over his head. We’re in too deep, and every time we think we are pulling ourselves out of the hole, some other fucking threat comes along. Whether it’s a man in a fur coat or a fucking Chinese emperor, there will always be a fucking cancer that will drag us down.”

He held up his tattooed hands, turning them over and displayed his palms.

“See these hands? They have a lot of blood on them and that’s all I see when I look at them, all the blood and all the faces of the people who bled from these hands.”