Lethal Temptations (Tempted #5)(10)

The door opened again, and I lifted my head, prepared to drag her out by her hair if I had to but came face to face with Riggs.

“Get out,” I seethed.

“You the reason Lacey just ran out of here crying?” The newly patched Knight questioned me.

“What’s it to you?”

I rose to my feet, stumbling as the drugs swarmed my system, and crossed my arms against my chest as I struggled to glare at him.

He stepped closer, his eyes zeroed in on my arms before he lifted them to my face.

“You’re using?”

I uncrossed my arms and reached into my back pocket where my gun was tightly secured and brought it around, aiming it at him.

“Get the f*ck out of my room, Riggs,” I shouted, unlatching the safety.

Bury me.

End me.





Chapter Three





I prayed for death as I remained hunched over the toilet, ridding myself of the toxins that filled me but death never showed. I didn’t miss this feeling, the hopelessness, the regret, the way my body felt as if it was being torn in two. The alcohol never did this maybe because drinking was as natural to me as breathing and I barely got drunk anymore. I pushed through the agony, ignoring the debilitating headache and stood up, flushing the toilet as I gripped the wall and made my way to the shower stall. I didn’t bother turning on the hot water letting the ice cold water rain down on me.

I leaned my forehead against the tiles and closed my eyes as the pellets hit my back. Flashes of the needle sticking out of my arm haunted me first, quickly replaced with the prettiest face I ever laid eyes on. Even with the torment reflected in her eyes she still made me forget the shit I was and the man I felt I could be whenever I was with her.

I was addicted to the aura of Lacey as much as I was to any illegal substance. Drugs became a crutch in my life binding me to the demon I had become but one fix of her wiped that shit away. I was different in her presence, not the usual self-destructing *. But make no mistake about it, my addiction to Lacey was just as toxic as all the others because she gave me hope.

I didn’t deserve hope so I didn’t know what the f*ck to do with it.

Her innocence was refreshing in a world so full of manipulation, crime and deceit. A world known as the Satan’s Knights. The world I chose and the world I worshipped. The same world that destroyed any hope I had of being a better man. She became my light and that light’s been shining down on me for years now, since Jack went away to Riker’s and I would check in on her from time to time.

At first I did it out of duty but that smile of hers…it became my salvation. I still remember the first time she genuinely smiled at me, one I earned, not one manufactured by the innocent crush she had on me. Jack was doing time, and it was my job as his vice president and his friend to look out for his interests—first on that list was Lacey. I had taken her up to visit her father in Riker’s and afterwards we stopped at the Vegas Diner in Brooklyn. She ordered disco fries with extra gravy on the side and when she finished her food she picked off my plate.

There were two old ladies fighting at the table next to us. One lady yelled at the other as she tried to shove everything from the table into her tote bag. I think the only thing she left behind was the menu. It was amusing to watch the klepto ignore the ranting and keep pocketing things until the table was clear. I tore my eyes off the two broads to watch Lacey cover her mouth and mask her laughter. I reached across the table and pulled her hand away from her mouth and stared at her as she smiled.

I wanted more of it.

I wanted to hear her laugh.

I leaned over, stretched my arm across the space that separated the two tables and tapped the klepto on the shoulder. The lady she was with continued to rant and rave about the cold coffee and the fact that the tables were too small.

I grabbed the bread basket off our table and tipped my chin towards her tote bag.

“Open it,” I said, watching as she stared back at me with skeptical eyes.

I chucked the bread basket into her tote bag, followed by the ketchup bottle on our table. Lacey giggled, handing me the salt and pepper shakers next.

I turned to her.

“Give it a go,” I told her.

Her smile spread wide across her face. The smile I earned and the one I became a fiend for.

She threw the sugar packets into the woman’s tote bag.

“What are you doing?” The grumpy woman yelled. “Nina, for crying out loud you’re taking their condiments!”

“Oh, Provie, shut up. They offered,” the nice one argued.

Lacey leaned back in her chair and the smile that spread across her face became ingrained to my memory.

It was that moment, for purely selfish reasons, I vowed to keep her smiling and make her laugh more often. Because when she smiled at me, when she laughed with me, I felt like fighting instead of quitting, living instead of dying.

Lacey became my hope, and I gravitated to her like an electric current. She made me forget it was me who sold those innocent kids the drugs that ended their young lives. The same drugs Christine ingested when she killed herself. She pulled me into her light reminding me there was still good in the world, still things that were pure and untainted by filth.

Until last night.

I turned the water off, pushing my fingers through my hair and away from my face. The minute I drove my dick into that virgin * and tore her to shreds I tainted her. I ruined Lacey, selfishly taking something from her, something a piece of shit like me didn’t deserve.