Reckless Temptations (The Tempted Series Book 4) (2 page)

Give me more.

I’ll take everything you got.

But I will come for you motherfucker.

“You have a lot of faith in your club. You think Jack will come riding to your rescue? You’re nothing to him but a pee on that he uses to tweak his surveillance. You’re the eye in the sky, someone who can be replaced. You’re not his heart or his right hand. They won’t come for you. They don’t even know you’re gone.”

For a smart man, he made a pretty stupid move, using one of the oldest tricks in the book, trying to get me to turn on my club. Wu took the wrong brother, I’m no rat. I’ll burn in Hell before I give up my family, before I give up the Satan’s Knights.

Whip me motherfucker.

Give me all you got.

And so he did, him and his brothers took a chance a piece, cracking the whip and balling their firsts. My skin felt like it was on fire, I was bleeding from one of my eyes and spitting blood from my mouth.

Give me more
.

“Enough,” Wu ordered, before one of the Dragons could pound in my face a little more.

“This is how it’s going to work, Mr. Riggs. You’re going to tell me why my drugs are sitting in an evidence room. You’re going to make me understand why Jack Parrish wants you dead,” he insisted. “Because he does you know, sacrificing you and the rest of the club for a piece of pussy, that’s some fearless leader you brothers have there,” he continued. “Because if you don’t I’m going to find everything and anything you love and I’m going to tear it apart. You know how it works and if you think what that stupid prick Gold did was fucked up, how he took Jack’s vice president and his woman and made them pay for his sins, you haven’t seen anything yet. When I’m through with you, you’re going to sing to the Lord and beg for His mercy as you stare at the blood of those you love on your hands.”

“You stupid bastard,” I scoffed, laughing in Wu’s face. “You took the wrong brother. I ain’t got shit and as far as love goes—I only got love for the reaper on my back,” I rasped, leaning as close as my confinements would allow. “I won’t sing to the Lord but I’ll rejoice with the Devil when I take your sorry ass down.”

“Oh no, I’ve got the right brother,” he assured, turning around and pulling back a curtain that lined the back wall of the garage, revealing a bunch of flat screen televisions.

“What the fuck is this, movie night?” I questioned, trying to figure out what he was up to.

“I’m a very patient man, Mr. Riggs, I will wait and bide my time but I’ll always get my revenge. I will take back what is mine. The Knights took my product and they’ve killed three of my men—they owe me and I will collect. So, one last chance, one shot to tell me the truth or you and yours will be the first I take.”

“We’ll see about that motherfucker,” I growled.

I’m going to come for you motherfucker.

Gonna give you all I got.

He turned around to face the screens and pulled a remote control from his pocket. He aimed it at the wall of televisions, bringing each of them to life. I peered at the screens with my good eye, slowly taking in each frame. I was thankful for all the red marks on my skin and the black eye because the blood drained from my body. The stash house was wired from the street to outside and back to the closets inside. Everything looked as it should. The time stamps all had the same date and time, every frame was perfectly adjusted to the footage we wanted them to see that day.

“Can you see what I see?” Wu sang.

My eyes scanned each frame slowly until they stopped and zeroed in on one, the one that showed Jack and me in the hallway.

Oh shit.

I cringed, closing my eyes as I lifted the ski mask and bared my face to the camera. Wu paused the frame, hit another button and brought the same image up on all the screens. He turned to me, his eyes meeting mine, and he smiled knowingly.

He had me.

“It’s time to send your club a message,” he informed me, as he looked over my shoulder at one of his boys.

He wasn’t blowing smoke. I had fucked myself and royally too. Sun Wu had everything he needed to wage a war between the two clubs. He had everything he needed to be a man of his word and make us all pay.

I had no doubt that he’d start with me.

Then it dawned on me—his words, his threats, they all of a sudden had meaning.

One last chance, one shot, to tell me the truth or you and yours will be the first I take.

Lauren.

Pea.

One reckless move would change my whole life, actually two. One that changed my life forever and another that would ruin it.

I heard the sound of a machine vibrating before something crashed against my skull and everything faded to black.

Join an MC, it will be fun, they said. But no one mentioned babysitting a bunch of mobsters or getting smacked in the head with a frying pan by one of their mothers. This shit was worse than hazing. I knew I was a prospect, and I had to eat shit for a while before I became a patched member of the Satan’s Knights, but this was fucking bullshit.

“Does your mother know you’re part of a gang?” The Italian nutcase, Maria Bianci, asked as she climbed the stairs leading to her daughter’s apartment. It surprised me that I hadn’t killed the woman yet. I’m not going to lie, there was a time or two when I thought about it, but the bitch was mobbed up and I wasn’t a patched member yet.

Her son, Anthony Bianci, was some wise guy in the mob and tonight he and his girl had been attacked. Bianci’s chick was the daughter of mob boss Victor Pastore, or “Mr. Soprano,” as I like to call him. Tonight was the grand opening of some fancy club of his but instead of dancing and drinking the night away they dodged bullets. How the fuck I’m in the middle of this shit, I’ll never know. Jack Parrish, the president of the Satan’s Knights, ordered me to grab “Mama Leone” over here and her grandkid, or half a grandkid, I don’t know the deal, but there was a kid and Bianci’s mother was watching it.

I did as I was told, grabbed mommy dearest and the boy, delivered them safely to Anthony Bianci, only for him to take the kid and leave me with his maniac of a mother. Not even a thank you, Riggs. Say what you want about bikers, but these mob people were fucked. They were rude and their women were fucking violent. Imagine marrying one of these broads, she’d likely throw the fucking kitchen sink at you if you forgot to put the seat down after you took a piss. This one right here, would probably cut your balls off.

“Well? Does she?” She asked, glaring over her shoulder at me.

“I don’t know lady, she’s dead,” I sneered.

My mother was very much alive, living the dream, married four times and all that but I wanted nothing more than to get the woman in front of me, who was busting my balls, to shut her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pausing for a moment to stare at me. “She must be rolling in her grave,” she continued, making the sign of the cross before knocking on her daughter’s door.

See? Crazy. She was fucking crazy. Who says shit like that after you tell them your mother is dead?

The door swung open, and a girl stood there wearing nothing but a towel in the doorway. Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel.

The girl’s eyes widened as she stared at Maria.

“Mrs. Bianci,” she exclaimed, moving to stand behind the door to cover herself. “What’re you doing here?”

“Mia, do you always answer the door in a towel?” Maria retorted.

“Um, no not usually,” Mia stammered.

“You going to bitch about what the girl is wearing or you going to ask to be invited inside?” I chimed in, hoping to get a better glimpse of this Mia character.

“I’m sorry. He’s right, come inside please. Does Lauren know you’re visiting?” She asked politely, as she opened the door wider allowing us room to step inside.

“No. It’s an impromptu visit she can thank her brother for,” Maria said, looking around the apartment. “Where is she anyway? It’s nearly three in the morning.”

“Um…working.” She smiled nervously. “Can you give me a minute to throw on some clothes?”

Maria shooed her away with her hands before walking further into the apartment, picking up empty cups and paper dishes along the way.

“I’ll just be a minute. Make yourself at home,” Mia said, eyes bouncing anxiously between me and Maria. They locked with mine and she hastily turned on her heel and headed down the tiny hallway. Yeah, something was up and it wasn’t my dick. Bummer.

“You can leave now,” Maria said, glancing over her shoulder. “I wish I could say it was nice to meet you Rabbit.”

“Riggs,” I hissed.

“What kind of name is that anyway?” She asked, brushing me off and bending down to pick up a pair of shoes one of the girls had haphazardly left on the couch.

“It’s my road name,” I explained angrily.

“Well if that isn’t the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. What is your God given name?”

I shook my head in disgust and walked away from her, searching for the bathroom.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Maria asked behind me.

That was it. A man can only take so much and I had had my fill of Maria Bianci.

“I’m going to go take a piss, would you like to come with me? Maybe hold my dick for me?”

I grinned in satisfaction when I heard her gasp behind me. One for Riggs, twelve thousand for Maria.

I walked down the narrow hallway, finding the bathroom and heard Mia talking in hushed tones in the room across from it.

“Lauren, you really need to answer your phone goddamn it! Your mother is here with some scary looking guy. Call me back.”

I stopped outside Mia’s bedroom door, peered through the crack and saw she was fully dressed. Double bummer. She was sitting on the foot of her bed, her fingers moving rapidly on her phone. I toed the door open with the tip of my boot and she quickly dropped her phone onto the bed.

“Problem?” I asked, checking over my shoulder to see if “Carmela Soprano” was anywhere near, then stepped further into Mia’s room. She lifted her eyes to mine, sinking her perfectly straight teeth into her lower lip.

“Why would you ask that?”

I narrowed my eyes trying to read her. I didn’t know what the hell was going on here but I was sure that my night wasn’t over. I was starting to hate everyone with the last name Bianci.

“Where’s Lauren?” I asked, crossing my arms against my chest. Her eyes zeroed in on my cut and I watched her throat as she swallowed.

“Who are you?” She questioned.

“I’m a friend of her brother’s.” I lied because Anthony was more of an enemy of mine at this point. She looked uneasy, I didn’t know if it was because I was a strange guy standing in her bedroom or because she was hiding something. I lifted the skull cap from my head and ran my fingers roughly through my hair.

“Look, if Lauren’s in some kind of trouble…” I started but my words trailed off the moment she stood from her bed and peeked her head out the door. She closed it softly and turned around.

“Lauren’s been lying to her mother,” she started.

I fitted the hat back onto my head and sighed. More Bianci bullshit was headed my way.

“Maria thinks Lauren is an intern at a hospital, a requirement for her nursing degree. The
thing
is, she kind of quit the program,” she continued.

I lifted an eyebrow. “Mama Leone” was going to blow a gasket.

“So if she’s not playing Florence Nightingale, where is she?” I questioned.

Silence.

Fuck my life. I stalked toward Mia, watching as she raised an eyebrow and walked backward until her back slammed against the door.

“Ouch,” she muttered.

I narrowed my eyes, bracing one hand flat against the door over her head and leaned close to her.

“Where is she?” I repeated.

“She’s working at a bar in town, near campus,” she said, stepping around me to walk toward her desk. She ripped a piece of paper off a pad and scribbled something on it. “Here’s the address. She’s not answering the phone so you need to go get her before Maria starts asking questions.”

“You’re kidding right?” Does the leather and tattoos not scare anyone anymore these days? These people are walking all over me like I’m some kind of
jerk off.

“I don’t even know what she looks like,” I grunted, staring down at the scribbled address, wondering what kind of bar the Pink Pussycat was and what the fuck I did in life to deserve this shit.

Mia looked at me for a moment before turning around and grabbing a picture frame off her dresser. She held up the framed photo of her and what I assumed was Lauren. I dropped my eyes to the picture of the two girls, my eyes zeroing in on Lauren.

Big crystal blue eyes, framed by thick black-rimmed glasses, stared back at me. She had a killer smile, perfectly straight, white teeth, framed by full pink lips and a cute tongue since she was sticking it out the side of her mouth. Her black hair framed her face in waves, a stark contrast to her bright blue eyes. She was pretty, hot even, if you’re into the girl next door type. Or nurses. I wouldn’t mind being her patient.

I lifted my eyes back to Mia’s and handed her back her photograph before turning around and pulling open the door.