Lethal Temptations (Tempted #5)(73)

Riggs was scared of losing his heart.

I felt every ounce of his pain.

“It’s a precaution, Riggs,” Jack assured. “We need to bide our time and keep our heads. We can’t keep our heads if we’re worried about our women. You feel me?”

A third fact.

I paid close attention to the pep talk Jack was giving Riggs, pretending I was the one on the receiving end of it.

“Then trust me when I say we will get these motherf*ckers,” he declared. “We always win, even when it looks like it’s impossible. You know why? Because I’ve lost too much to let anyone else ever take a goddamn thing from me and mine.”

He was talking about his son.

And I was picturing his daughter.

“Get that look out of your eyes, Riggs,” he ordered. “Looks like you found your heart, kid. Now, you have to hang on to it.”

A final fact we all needed to keep in mind.

Heart.

It wasn’t only the thing that kept you from being reckless it was what gave men like us purpose in this world.

I walked toward my bike, glanced back at Brantley just as my phone chimed, signaling I had a text message.

I tore my eyes away from the bastard, pulled out my sunglasses and covered my eyes before I straddled my bike. I reached into my jacket and looked down at my phone. The screen showed a message from a foreign number. I swiped my thumb across the screen, opened the message and a photo of Lacey appeared on the screen. She was carrying books, making it clear the photo was taken while she was at school. Another text came through from the same number, containing a message.

I haven’t forgotten about her.

Heart.

The one thing we’re all afraid to lose.





Chapter Twenty-five





I left Pops and headed straight for the Dog Pound, my phone burning a hole in my pocket, the picture of Lacey plastered to my mind. I opened the door, found the prospects playing a game of pool and stalked toward the table, grabbing the white ball from the felt top and threw it against the wall.

“Games over,” I sneered. “Time for the three of you to stop playing with your dicks and earn your f*cking patches.”

I pointed to Toke, the youngest of the three, and the one who has been sitting around the longest. “You get on your bike and ride to Dee’s Diner. From this point forward you are Reina’s shadow. She needs to take a piss you hold the f*cking stall closed. Do not let her out of your sight,” I ground out.

“Yeah, you got it,” Toke said, grabbing his leather vest off the back of a chair.

“Go,” I bellowed, turning my eyes on Bosco. “Get your ass to Riggs’ apartment and keep his woman and that baby she’s got on the way breathing. I don’t give a f*ck if she pulls a bat out on you and takes a swing or if her mother shows up wielding a frying pan—you do whatever the f*ck it takes to make sure no one touches her or that kid she’s about to bring into this world. You hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” he assured, dropping his pool stick and moving quickly toward the door.

“That leaves you,” I said, cracking my knuckles as I stepped closer to Mack. He stared back at me with hungry eyes, clenching his fists as he rolled his neck.

Yeah, he’s the one.

“Kingsborough College,” I stated. “You find Lacey and you stick to her like glue.”

I took a step closer, reached behind him and cupped the back of his neck.

“Anyone so much as blinks at her wrong you take them f*cking down. Don’t think, just do. Do you understand?” I questioned digging my nails into the nape of his neck as I clenched my jaw. “One f*cking hair on her head gets harmed, I’ll cut you and bury you deep in the earth.”

“I got you,” he said.

“No, you got her. You got her life in your f*cking hands,” I corrected. “A life that means more than yours, remember that,” I hissed, releasing his neck. “Now get on,” I ordered.

I watched him straighten his jacket before he walked out the door and off to guard my girl. My phone rang again inside my pocket, dread filled my body as I reached for it and saw it was Lacey calling.

My fingers hovered over the screen, itching to answer and hear her sweet voice one more time. I pictured her pretty face, that smile, those eyes that bore into my soul and knew there was only one choice.

My love or her life.

Her life.

I declined the call, turned the ringer off and went to shove the phone back into my pocket but stopped myself. I pulled up my contact list and debated on whether to make the call.

One phone call and a twenty-minute drive to the projects is all it would take to forget.

And I wanted to forget so badly.

I wanted to forget how she made me feel and how she made me want to be better.

But I didn’t want to forget her.

That alone was enough to stop me from making the call.

I took off on my Harley in search of a place where Lacey was still mine and wound up home, standing in the middle of my aqua kitchen.

Every wall, every new fixture, even the doorbell she had me install reminded me of her. I’d never be able to step into this house after tonight. I lifted the folding chair in the kitchen and, swung it against the freshly painted walls.

Jack kept the holes in his walls to remember a time when he was too proud to get help. If he ever doubted his choice to get well and do the right thing all he had to do was remove one of the many pictures and stare at the offensive reminder.