Lethal Temptations (Tempted #5) (15 page)

“We’ll talk more in the car,” he insisted, continuing to stare at me in deep thought. “Why Blackie’s room?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“It’s closest to the stairs,” I lied, shrugging on my leather jacket.

He didn’t say another word, holding open the door for me and following me out of Blackie’s room. I led him down the stairs, my stomach twisting in knots as I thought of all the possible things he would tell me.

The common room had emptied out for the most part. There were a few stragglers still here, like, Anthony Bianci who I overheard tell my father he was waiting on Riggs.

“Don’t shoot the poor bastard,” my dad told Anthony as he slapped him on the back. “Kid, might just surprise you. Who knows? Maybe he found his heart,” he added, turning towards me. “Let’s get out of here.”

Bianci threw my father his keys, and we walked out of the Dog Pound. I have never been on the back of bike. Never. Well, that’s a lie. I have a photo of my dad holding me on his bike. But take a ride on one? No, never.

I slid into the front seat as my father adjusted his mirrors and seat. He looked ridiculous sitting behind a steering wheel, almost comical and it doesn’t matter how many times I tell him, or tease him he always insists that I’m being ridiculous. The man was born to straddle a Harley. It was like his god given right or something.

I waited for him to start the truck up and peel out of the lot before I spoke.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“That doesn’t concern you,” he clipped.

“Technically, it does. You’ve never lied to me once are you going to start now? I’d like to know what would’ve happened if Blackie hadn’t intervened. I’d like to know what he endured because of me.”

He remained silent, his knuckles whitening as they clenched the steering wheel. I shouldn’t have pressed but there was no stopping me.

“I’m not a little kid who will sit here and believe everything is okay. I learned a lot in the last couple of days. I get it, I get why you wanted to keep me away from your life. It’s ugly. But guess what? Despite all your efforts I’m still a part of it. Jimmy proved that the minute he came looking for me. I’m property of the Satan’s Knights…fair game. I deserve to know what happened because it affects me just as it does everyone else,” I argued.

He swerved, pulling the car onto the shoulder of the Belt Parkway and shifted the gear into park before pinning me with a stare.

“You listen to me and listen good you are not property of the Satan’s Knights. You are
no one’s
property,” he shouted, startling me, making it the first time my father has ever reprimanded me.

So much for not being treated like a child.

“He didn’t endure anything because of you. That shit is all on me, Lacey,” he growled. “Is that what this is about? You feel some sort of guilt over Blackie?”

“Are you telling me I shouldn’t?” I asked incredulously. “There aren’t too many people who will choose your life over their own,” I added, angrily.

“It’s his goddamn job to put you first!” He fumed.

That stung, and another lesson was learned…words are one powerful weapon. I’d have to be pickier with my own, make them count, make them hurt, just like my dad’s did.

At least then I’d have a rebuttal.

Now, I just sat there like the young naïve girl he thought I was.

“He’s in the hospital, hanging on but he suffered a heart attack,” he said, finally.

My eyes snapped toward him and my mouth fell open as my heart lurched into my throat.

“A heart attack? What the hell happened to him?”

“Watch your tone Lacey, giving away a whole lot with the way you’re talking,” he warned.

“Giving away what? That I care about Blackie? Of course I do. You have yourself to thank for that because the moment you stepped foot onto that bus to Riker’s he was there for me and he’s never left,” I trembled as my voice shot octaves higher with each word I spoke.

“Shit,” he ground out. “Blackie’s not some knight in shining armor Lacey. He traded places with you because that is his job. It’s who he is. That man has a death wish and everyone knows it, including the man who took him. He loaded him up on drugs. Blackie should be dead right now but he’s hanging on because his body is so immune to the poison he keeps filling it with. He’s not a prince, Lace, he’s the devil clothed in leather. He is the same as me and don’t you forget that!”

“I know exactly who he is and I accept him as he is…the same way I accept you,” I insisted.

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to scare me away or warn me but either way it didn’t matter. I knew Blackie had a drug problem I saw it with my own eyes that night. But, he was still a man, a broken man who lost his way. He could push me away, try to make me hate him, but I’ve known him nearly all my life…I know how good he can be.

“Best-case scenario, he makes it out of this and gets the help he needs,” my dad added.

“And worse case?”

“He cheats death only to beckon for it to come again,” he said as he pulled the truck back onto the Belt. “Can’t make someone live when they don’t want to. You can’t keep them breathing when they want to suffocate.”

I stared at him as he fixed his eyes back to mine

“Blackie’s at the end of his rope, Lace.”

I restrained from shaking my head and telling him to shut up that he was wrong. Blackie may be at the end of his rope, but I was going to give him another inch, I was going to be the one who pulled him back.

Just watch and see.

I fell back against the seat and stared out the window.

“I’m sorry you had to see everything you saw,” my father whispered. “The world isn’t always pretty but the one me and Blackie live in is downright ugly.”

Duly noted.

Words.

They wound but they don’t change the way a person feels.

Luckily, neither of us uttered another until he pulled up in front of my mother’s house. She was on the stoop waiting for me, her arms crossed against her chest and a worried look adorned her pretty face.  I climbed out of the truck just as my father slammed his door shut. He walked around the truck, meeting me at the curb.

“Lace…”

“Thanks for keeping your promise,” I interrupted, reaching up and throwing my arms around his neck.

Daddy’s little girl.

Until you’re not anymore.

Until there is another man.

And sometimes he’s just like the first man you ever loved.

Sometimes he's just like your dad.

Chapter Eleven

I conned my mother into lending me her car, told her I needed a break from the last few days. The reality of my father’s life was harsher than I could’ve imagined. She bought the act, handed over her keys and I made a beeline for the hospital.

To be honest, I don’t think she bought my little act at all. I think my mother knows me better than she lets on. In fact, I sometimes think she’s a witch and knows all my secrets. It wouldn’t surprise me if she even surmised that I was going to see Blackie but for whatever her reasons were, she didn’t try to stop me.

I should be more cautious, try to make more of an attempt to mask my emotions, make it harder for her to read me but it wouldn’t work. My mother knows me but, more than that, she knows herself. She lived what I am living. I wouldn’t be naïve to say she condones my feelings, but she gets them. She’d be a hypocrite to try to stop me.

It makes me wonder about my parents when they were young and in love, mainly my mother and what she was like when she was property of Parrish.

Property of Parrish.

I’m sure there are women who would cringe at being called someone’s property. But there are a few things I know about the MC world and being a man’s property doesn’t mean he owns you but more that you own his heart.

You belong to his heart…to his soul, whatever is left of it.

Love, it’s the only purity men like my father and Blackie have.

And to own that solitary piece of him…well, it’s bigger than all the I love you’s any man can say.

So, when I say I want to be Blackie’s property don’t look at me with pity.

Keep your pity.

Because being Blackie’s property means I own the only piece of him that isn’t
black
.

Being Property of Petra is owning his heart.

It’s restoring his soul.

It’s the unspoken I love you.

It’s the unspoken vow to honor and cherish, protect and love one another.

It’s belonging to the one person in this world created just for you.

At least that’s what it means to me.

But what do I know? I’m just a girl who’s been sheltered from the life she was born in to. 

My stomach twisted in knots as I made my way into the hospital. I had no idea what floor he was on or what unit he was in but I quickly learned he was in intensive care. They allowed me to go upstairs to the unit but when I was buzzed in the nurse told me there was already a visitor and there was only one permitted at a time. I pleaded with her to make an exception but she wouldn’t budge, closing the door to the unit and leaving me in the hallway.

Now what?

The elevator chimed behind me causing me to turn around as the doors opened and I came face to face with Riggs.

The universe isn’t my friend.

It hates me.

“Ah, shit,” he groaned, stepping off the elevator as he ran his fingers through his hair. “What the fuck?” He asked the ceiling before pinning me with a glare. “Your father know you’re here?”

I rolled my eyes.

“I suppose you’re going to run back and tell him,” I accused.

“Fucking, Blackie…Man. Shit! Shit! Shit!” He rambled.

“How do you know I’m not here for another reason?” I said, placing my hands on my hips, cocking my head to the side as I challenged him. “Maybe I’m here picking up a prescription for birth control.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“It was one time!”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean what am I talking about? What are you talking about? You know what? I don’t care. I have zero fucks left,” he ranted.

“Are you okay?”

“No! I’m not okay. I have a pea. And a baby mama. And Bones in my ear telling me to own it…imagine? Me owning responsibility for something? It’s fucking crazy. You should probably pick up that birth control or this could be you,” he said, as he swiped his hand down the length of his body.

“Breathe, Riggs,” I instructed, watching as the badass biker had a meltdown.

“I’m going to be a dad,” he hissed.

“Congratulations,” I smiled, earning me a glare in response. I guess impending fatherhood wasn’t on the agenda.

“Not funny,” he ground out, moving to walk around me. I quickly side-stepped him, blocking him by lifting my hand to his chest.

“Wait! Look, I’m sorry you’re having a crisis and all but I need your help,” I pleaded.

“Oh, hell no!” He shook his head. “I am not getting involved in this shit. Are you fucking crazy?”

“Riggs! I have to see him,” I said, desperately.

“No, I don’t know what the hell is going on with the two of you and shit, I don’t want to know but I am not getting involved.”

I raised an eyebrow when he stomped his foot to drive his point home.

Poor guy, he was falling apart.

“Riggs, please,” I tried. “I want to see for myself that he’s okay.”

“Your father will kill you, him and me!”

“He doesn’t have to know,” I countered.

“Right,” he said sarcastically, lifting his eyes to the glass door. “Fuck, I know I’m going to regret this. Wolf is coming this way, go fucking hide somewhere,” he hissed.

“Where?”

“Behind the goddamn plant. I don’t know just scram,” he said, shooing me away.

I scrambled toward one of the chairs in the waiting room, lifting a magazine to my face as Wolf strutted out from the intensive care wing.

“Well it’s about time you showed your pretty face,” he seethed. “I’m fucking beat.”

“Yeah, sorry. I was dealing with the end of my freedom,” Riggs replied. “How’s he doing?”

“No change,” Wolf said, yawning. “I’m getting out of here. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, no worries, I’ve got it from here,” Riggs assured him.

“You okay?” Wolf asked suspiciously.

“Peachy,” he replied.

“Being a father isn’t a bad thing,” Wolf told him.

“No, of course not. This coming from a man with three sons. I wonder if you had a defiant little girl, what you would say?”

That last part was definitely a dig toward me.

Riggs was a shit head.

Wolf laughed as I peeked over the magazine and watched him get onto the elevator. Riggs waved goodbye to him and once the doors shut he turned his eyes back to mine.

“Come on little Miss Defiant,” he called.

I knew it!

I dropped the magazine, rose to my feet and hurried the doors, ringing the buzzer before I turned back to him.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re not welcome,” he grunted. “I never helped you.”

“Of course you didn’t,” I winked, remembering the last time he caught me and Blackie.