Reckless Abandon (Black Horsemen MC Book 3)

by Sophia Hampton

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

  Reckless Abandon copyright @ 2015 by Sophia Hampton. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

  Part 3 of Black Horsemen MC trilogy

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Mimosas! This is absolutely paradise!” a woman with salt-and-pepper hair exclaimed loudly as a well-dressed waiter handed her an orange drink in a tall crystal glass.

  Her companion was just about her age, equally gray in the hair, and looking longingly at the white sandy beaches from their spot on the patio’s white wicker lounge chairs. “Yup,” he said simply, “we needed this. Fresh air, sea breeze—and none o’ the nonsense back home.”

  “Especially after Matthew—” Her voice trailed off as she turned directly toward her partner and whispered under her breath, “—Matthew and his bank scam… Oh, Tom, I just can’t take the stress and the pressure of it anymore.”

  “Just forget it, Emma,” Tom replied testily. “If Matthew wants to be a damned fool and steal from his workplace, we ain’t gonna stop him. He was an idiot as a kid, he’s an idiot as an adult, and he’ll probably die an idiot of an old man.” Tom said this with an uncaring iciness towards Emma, too preoccupied with the frothy yellow beer in his hand to concern himself with details like her feelings.

  “But he’s our son, Tom,” Emma insisted, “Our son. If he gets caught, we are gonna watch him go to jail.” Her voice rose frantically as realization over her family’s situation came back to her. No amount of freshly squeezed orange juice and bubbly champagne could distract her from the realities of her life as the mother of an unchecked criminal.

  “Listen,” Tom said, turning on his side now to face her. “This is our time away. Just let this go for one night and try to find some peace. We’ll deal with Matthew when we get back to Sterling.”

  As their bickering continued, Emma, distraught, stood and began pacing the paved brick patio as her husband continued to hide behind his thick black sunglasses. The sun beat down on them mercilessly, adding physical heat to their anger and confusion.

  Gloria wanted to take pity them. Raising a child up for eighteen years to be a good man, a moral man, meant nothing when greed and money took hold of him. In Gloria’s former line of work, she had seen hundreds of good men go bad or grow corrupted over a plan they thought would never fail or a scheme that promised to make them rich. No mother’s love or a lover’s kindness could change them or steer them away—she was certain of that.

  From her spot on the deck, just a few feet down from where the two were now screaming at one another, Gloria tried to suck in as many details as she could as she wrote in her black notebook. Client Name: Emma and Tom?. Location: Sterling, FL. Plot: Son Matthew stealing money from bank employer. Deal: _________.

  She wanted nothing more than to fill in that last blank regarding their deal. But she was supposed to be out of the blackmail game. After years of being the queen of information, the woman with the know on everyone’s business, she had been forced into retirement after a motorcycle club her former bodyguard and lover was a member of began threatening her to provide information and keep their own secrets safe.

  No one trusts the blackmailer, that’s for sure. Gloria couldn’t really understand it. Sure, she had information on the group. And, yes, she knew a bunch on their rival gang, the Devils. But what none of the Black Horsemen knew except for her man Vinny was that she was the one who killed the Devils top rider. She would keep that secret to the grave if she had to if it meant saving Vinny’s reputation and skin.

  But now she may have bit into more than she chew. Just a couple weeks ago, Gloria managed to get out an urgent message to Vinny once again that he was in danger. After hearing from her partner, Jordan, that the Devils were actually hiding out a very wanted man named Junior in a restaurant and were planning to ambush Vinny and the leader of the club, Benni, while they staked out the quarry, Gloria acted fast. Just hours earlier, she had drove off into the sunset, vowing to never be a part of Vinny’s perilous life ever again.

  But as his secret keeper, she sent him a warning and hopefully got him out of the quarry in time to find Jordan, end the war between the Devils and the Horsemen, and get on with his life without her. Part of her didn’t want to know what really went down. If he survived, it would kill her to know he had yet to contact her or reach out to her. If he had not made it or was mortally wounded, she couldn’t take the thought of not warning him sooner while she still had the chance.

  And that’s why she could not blackmail the couple on their vacation. Blackmailing only led to pain and strife. It only chased her into dark corners of seedy bars and put all her hopes and dreams into envelopes sealed by drug dealers, adulterers, and robbers. Her actions had not only hurt her, but they had managed to kill others, as well.

  The image of Calvin Senior flashed before her eyes—the father who, just like the couple attempting to soak in some sun away from their troubles, was one of Gloria’s blackmail victims. She had found out about his son’s double cross and, in the end, it led to him being tied up in the basement of his own home while two of the top Horsemen’s enforcers, including Vinny, beating the crap out of him. His wife probably got the worse of it. Totally innocent in all of it, Gloria had watched in horror from her hiding spot as one of the men dragged her by her hair down the stairs and into the basement to await her fate.

  She never learned what had happened to her or her husband. The two could have died that night. From the beating she heard and saw Calvin take, it would not surprise her if the man couldn’t bounce back from those vicious injuries or the from the accumulating puddle of blood under his chair. On the other hand, they could have survived by Gloria’s quick thinking plan to warn Vinny that she had called the cops.

  Gloria could not live with herself if she let this couple endure even an iota of what Calvin Senior and his wife had gone through. Even if Michael had not committed a crime against a dangerous motorcycle club, wasn’t seeing someone’s loved one being taken away or forced to flee painful enough?

  Still, she wrote down their names in the nearly full notebook. Accumulating secrets was a habit she just could not break. And if she wasn’t going to bank on it, she was going to at least hold onto it. You never know what you can do with a secret.

  The couple moved on rather quickly. The husband left in a huff after the wife foolishly began weeping openly. She screamed after him as he ran down the white stone steps to the beach area, “Thomas! Thomas! You come back here and talk to me right this instant! Thomas!”

  Gloria watched with some amusement as Emma chased him down, tripping on her brown flip-flop. Neither had paid her any attention or mind. She was the only one out there on the deck. And with vacation season long gone and the crisp fall air moving in over the sand, there was not another soul occupying the rooms Gloria had known about.

  The resort was hers and hers alone. After several days, the staff began calling her by first name. By the first week, she had taught them her favorite drinks and menu items for easier access. And by the start of the second, Gloria had even convinced the bar manager to let her use the piano and an acoustic guitar belonging to the house band to practice.

  It was not home by any stretch of the imagination. But it was some place she could call her own. It was her kind of paradi
se.

  With her entertainment exiting stage left and her third drink of the day downed, Gloria retreated back to her room on the third floor. As soon as she walked in through the door, she headed straight for the gray metal safe hidden in the side of her closet wall. She punched in the combo and pulled out the black purse. In it was envelope after envelope of cash.

  When she had hit the road, there was at least ten thousand dollars weighing the bag down. She had counted each and every bill to be sure the amount was correct. By the second week of paying for the room and the all-inclusive package, the cash had significantly disappeared. She had made the fatal mistake of not budgeting, of not being more diligent, with spreading her money out. At the rate she was going with her hemorrhaging cash, she could only live like this for two more weeks or so before she was flat out broke or forced to find a job—whether back to bar singing, her first love, or blackmailing.

  Suddenly, planting a blackmail capture on the couple from the deck seemed more and more appealing to her. But if she was going to pull off this one big trick, she had to get more information. Normally, this was a job for Jordan or where she would pull her strings from other clients or plants from inside Jackman’s Tavern, where she did most of her work. But she was alone, unguarded, and unassisted here in Florida.

  Gloria dragged her feet as she walked slowly down the hallway. She had to get herself together if this was going to work. Looking suspicious or even giving off the air of novice wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She had to find the old Gloria – the sassy, sexy, dangerous, carefree Gloria. It was the one she left on that stage at Jackman’s nearly a month ago.

  She put herself back there, singing on that stage and dealing out in her favorite booth. It wasn’t just about her getting some attention or cashing in. She had to remember just how powerful she felt holding something so important as a secret over another’s head. It was thrilling and it made her feel, for the first time in her life, like she was something vital to this world.

  The secret keeper started to stride. She hit the elevator button with the palm of her hand as she crossed her arms over her bare stomach. Gloria adjusted her bikini top and rearranged her see-through coverall that draped across her bare, sun kissed legs and hips.

  She was in luck. Emilio was working the front desk, as she had suspected. The day she checked in, he was there, staring at her from across the room. He eyed her up and down as she bent over to pick up the handle of her backpack and as she reached up to grab the key from the attendant. He had not changed in the two weeks she had resided in the hotel. If anything, he grew bolder. He bought her drinks, tried to make awkward conversation, and always seemed to be there when she needed something like a takeout menu or a restaurant recommendation.

  “Hey, Emilio,” She played it coy, not wanting to come off too alluring and flirtatious just yet. “You workin’ the desk today?”

  “Just for a little bit while Nicole grabs some lunch at the Crab ‘n’ Go.” He smiled at her as she leaned over the desk, exposing the curvature of her small breasts as her bikini moved downwards with her. He licked his lips eagerly at the sight.

  “You look good behind there. They should assign you some time at the desk more often. I’d sure enjoy it.”

  “Yeah, well, I was just thinkin’ how great you were looking lounged out on that deck. You get some good sun?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she smiled teasingly, biting her lower lip slightly—a flirtatious trick she’d picked up in high school and been wooing men with since. “I forgot how good it feels to just strip down and let the rays hit me. See, no tan lines anywhere!” She leaned over farther and pulled down the strap of the turquoise blue bikini top slowly like a dance. She could practically feel the heat radiating off of Emilio as he watched her with wanting eyes. “Plus,” she continued after a long pause to let him take her in, “I met this really nice couple. I forgot their last names though. The… uh…”

  Emilio filled in the blanks, while not for once taking his glare off of her as she gently fingered the seams of her top. “The Watsons.” He had turned to mush as she rewarded him with a quick peek at her pink nipple as she spread the fabric away from her skin.

  “That’s it. The Watsons. They’re from right here in Florida, right? I think Tom mentioned something about Sterling?”

  “Yeah. Sterling. It’s about an hour from here. Small town, really. Not much to do other than to drive to another city. I’ve got a buddy who lives there. I used to play football with him in college.” Emilio trailed off as he tried to think of what else to add to make him sound more appealing.

  “Really, ‘Milio. What’s his name? Maybe I’ll look him up if I go on one o’ my road trips soon.” Gloria was banking every last piece of information she could. Nothing was trivial in this game.

  “Derrick Yarno. Good guy. But if you ever want to hit the road, I’ve got a jeep. No top! We could do Florida right with just you and me.” Emilio had to throw it out there. She was looking like a popsicle on a hot summer’s day, and he wanted a lick.

  “I may just take you up on that offer. But I’ve gotta run. There’s a call I need to make back in my room. Hope I get to see you again soon!”

  “I’ve got your room number. Just call if you want a visitor.” He winked at her, but Gloria could feel an odd shift. It was almost like a threat. He knew her room number? Of course he did. He did not need to remind her of that. Yet his reminder brought her back down to reality. She was stepping too close to the flame.

  As she waved a small goodbye, she headed for the stairs. The elevator suddenly seemed like a trap to her, one she wanted to avoid at all costs. As she ascended the main staircase, two figures appeared at the fork where the stairwell split into two wings. They were talking loudly, rambunctiously, about their ride down the highway. Both men were wearing tight black jeans and thin leather coats. One wore a bandana in purple and black. The other had a patch on his right shoulder of a coat of arms featuring a cartoon devil.

  Gloria took off like a shot as they turned the corner, careful not to be seen. As she darted into her room, a terrifying, crazy thought raced through her mind. She had been found.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Several hours passed from Gloria’s near run-in with the men at the stairs. She sat on her bed, staring at the makeshift barricade of the hotel’s desk and chairs pushed up against the entryway.

  Who was she kidding? She knew what business they were in—and how experienced they were at it. If they wanted to get in, they would get in.

  But time had passed and she had not heard a single movement outside of her door. Just as she had remembered, the hotel was a ghost town of empty rooms. If someone were coming for her, she would hear it…On the other hand, if that person did come, no one would hear her screams.

  A shot of terror coursed through her spine and down to her curled toes. For the first time since she fled her old town, Gloria was coming to the realization that she was truly alone. No bodyguard, no business partner, no tavern full of regulars. Here, out in the open, she was more exposed than she had ever been.

  Another hour passed and Gloria still could not bring herself to move. The pink skies would soon turn to the deep, velvety blues. If she were going to make it out of the hotel alive, she would have to do it during the very late evening hours when no one could detect her as easily in the daylight.

  The way she saw it, she had two options. Her first was to stick to the plan and go ahead with blackmailing the Watsons for her much needed cash out. She would risk being detected and, perhaps, captured by the Devils riders, but her other alternative was fleeing without the money and having to start over from square one without much of a safety net if she were to fail.

  The choice was clear: Gloria had to get the job done tonight. She pulled out a black hooded sweatshirt from her bag and zipped it up to her neck. A gray baseball cap finished her incognito look as she raced back down to the lobby. Emilio eyed her suspiciously as she passed his desk without a word said.

  Glo
ria headed straight for the office area next to the indoor pool. She closed the door behind her first before she switched on the lights. The small, windowless room smelled faintly of chlorine and cigarettes and an ancient desktop computer hummed on in the background. It would have to do.

  She pulled out her black notebook from her bag and set it upon the laminate desk. Turning to the page with the Watson’s information, she typed in the details she knew into the search engine page: Matthew Watson Sterling, FL Bank.

  The first page was filled with social media pages of the person she assumed to be Emma and Thomas Watson’s son. His profile picture grinned back at her with wide-eyed innocence. He looked to her just like any other mid-twenties, post-college kid. His polo t-shirts and clean-cut look would never give him away as someone embezzling money from his work.

  The second page of the search on Matthew Watson gave her exactly what she wanted: a business name. Central Florida Municipal Bank. A picture of Matthew and his parents embraced in a hug for a photo commemorating his employee-of-the-year award gave it away and sealed the deal. Gloria scribbled the phone number of the bank’s branch manager and his name frantically in the pages.