Page 1 of Seizing Control: Part One

PROLOGUE

EZEKIEL

Aged: Nineteen

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“Hit ’im again,” my president tells me in his raspy, smoker’s voice. Leaning against the concrete wall of the underground bunker hidden beneath the main building inside the Black Shamrocks MC compound, Brutus is a formidable sight. As always, on the rare occasion he looks me directly in the eye, the brute of a man sneers at me, then quickly hides his dislike beneath a façade of resigned counsel. “Use the studded knuckle dusters. Make ’im bleed.”

“Not sure how much blood he has left.”

I’ve been working over the two half-naked men for hours so far without knowing what he wants out of them. So far, he’s been content to watch them squirm, beg, and bleed under my ministrations. Can’t say I care all that much about his reasons, since this scene is satisfying my need for violence after three days of outrunning my feelings.

Stumbling out of the strip club, pissed off as I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to be successful in my mission to drown my emotions in alcohol and pussy, the last thing I’d wanted was to accept a call from my president. The only problem with that was my status as a prospect and my rapidly deteriorating relationship with my godfather. I couldn’t risk angering Brutus when the votes required to receive my full rocker needed to be unanimous. Luckily, his order to grab one of the Shamrocks vans and meet him at the warehouse had proven timely.

Capturing a pair of Bishops on our turf and hauling their unconscious bodies into the bunker for interrogation was just the distraction I needed. With a smile on my face, I’d stripped them of everything but their boxers and their cuts and hung them from the chains connected to the ceiling. My prez’s demand to make them squeal had elicited a grin, then I’d set about doing exactly that.

Except, I’m confused by his lack of urgency to extract answers...

“You challengin’ my order, prospect?”

Biting back my brewing retort when his curt response warns me that his mood is turning sour, I shake my head to deny Brutus’ allegation. He’s spoiling for a fight, and I’m in no shape to give it to him. Not after spending weeks sitting with my cancer-riddle mother while she impatiently waited to meet the reaper. In the forty-eight hours since her death, I’ve done my best to evade my worried friends, as they’ve tried to track me down to offer their condolences.

I’m angry. Tired. Lost. Brimming with hurt. A tornado of emotion, some of which I can’t even name. The one thing I do know is that grief is the one thing I’m not feeling right now, so their sympathy is the last thing I need. No matter how well-meaning their intentions, I refuse to mourn the bitch who spawned me.

The truth is that my mother was evil, and just like the man talking me through the interrogation of two bikers from our enemy club, the Bishops of Bloodshed, she hated me. I wish I could’ve met her loathing head on with a hatred of my own, but I’m not built like that. A small part of my heart still yearns for her unconditional acceptance, even though her sly pinches, harsh words, deliberate neglect, stinging slaps, and hard words should’ve killed the child inside me a long time ago.

Maybe every little boy eternally craves his mother’s love?

I wouldn’t know since I never had it to lose...

Nowadays, I’m less hungry for her approval because I’ve become a slave to my pride. Motivated to impress the hard man glaring at me, I live solely to ensure the innocence of his only daughter. So much so, that I can’t remember the last time I existed outside the spectre of my mother’s slander and my own need to prove her wrong. I’m stupid. Useless. Dumb. An embarrassment. Ineptitude is engrained in my atomic makeup, to the point where I rely on my best friend to balance the books at the custom motorcycle workshop my dad gave me for my eighteenth birthday every quarter and a twelve-year-old girl to write up my quotes and finalise my weekly invoicing.

I’m the living embodiment of incompetence. If I wasn’t good with a welding rod, a blow torch, violence, and murder, I’d be nothing more than a meat sack with a heartbeat and a steady hand with a knife. My prez regularly informs me that my lack of talent is offset by my indiscriminate homicidal tendencies. He loudly proclaims that I’m his secret weapon, a killer he can point at his enemies without question or consequence.

Yet, as I snatch the brass weapon Brutus wants me to use to motivate our captives from the stainless-steel bench and thread my swollen and bloodied fingers through the slots, I’m not so sure anymore. Whereas I once found satisfaction in my venomous lethality, as I reach the end of my teen years I’m discovering that my bloodlust requires sufficient motivation in order to fully engage. I don’t want to kill without cause. I don’t want to be the violence behind the Shamrocks patch. I don’t want to be on the outside looking in while my fellow prospects are given bigger and better roles within the club.

My talents aren’t cerebral like Carter’s or parasocial like Benedict’s.

I know my aptitudes are based in the physical.

I’m much better with my hands than my head.

Still, going through the motions no longer interests me.

Not when the blood already coating my hands feels permanent. A bloom of disgrace I can’t outrun. Killing comes easily to me, especially when my pride and brotherhood are at stake, or my protective instincts flare. Which is why I live with the gnawing fear that my sins will stain little Cherub’s pure soul and righteous existence if I’m not careful. Being near her is ripe with risk, even as the mere thought of being separated from her feels like a fate worse than death.

At my core, I am a motherless son who grew into a man faithfully devoted to one girl.

Even though that truth would get me killed if it ever came to light...

“What ya waitin’ for... a fuckin’ invite from the Queen?” Brutus grumbles. He slaps me across the back of my head. I hunch my shoulders to absorb the blow, hissing low as my temper engages. As the dark reminder of the stakes in this game we’ve been playing since Cherub turned twelve and he decided I was his enemy swirl in my mind, I grind my teeth together to stop myself from whirling on him and jamming the sharp points in his throat—even if watching Brutus drown in his own blood would be an unexpected rainbow following the shitty few months I’ve endured. “Get a move on... the cut sluts’ll be no more than walkin’ cum dumps if we don’t get upstairs soon.”

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