Page 112 of Seizing Control: Part One

“Baby, just go back to sleep.”

The agony in his voice puts me on edge.

A wave of grief rushes through me.

Suddenly misty-eyed, I rub at my stuffy nose, and that’s when I see it.

The diamond bracelet.

An alien head.

A scalpel.

Everything comes back to me in a rush. I fight to breathe as memory after memory crashes through me. Over and over, my new reality stabs me in the heart. My anguish becomes palpable. Turns my breathing into gasps. It scares my husband, spurs him into action. He sits up in a rush and gathers me in his arms as I wail louder with every new recollection from the worst twenty-four hours of my life.

The ritual.

My trauma reopened.

Doc’s visit.

Slash taking a phone call.

Nadia’s tears.

Wyatt’s disbelief.

The news cameras.

Emptying the rifle.

Slash.

A promise.

Sedation.

Blissful escape.

Until a noise woke me up and I was forced back into an existence that I wish I could reject. It’s out of pocket. A damnation of the worst kind. Life without Zeke. Worse than that, a life where I can still feel him, but everyone else can’t.

“He’ll—” Sob. “—be back.”

“He’ll be back, duchess.”

As Slash holds me together with his brute strength and his simple promise, I become aware that we’re not alone in my bedroom. I bite down on my bottom lip, blood running over my chin as I fight to stop the keening sound bubbling inside of me from erupting from my mouth. As much as I want to break, to wail about the injustice of this ruse, I know I can’t.

It’s not safe.

It won’t be.

Not until I get Zeke back…

Scanning the people crowded around the bed, I try to take comfort in their presence. It doesn’t work—I’d rather be alone than see their grief. They are mistaken. Mourning the man that I know in my soul is still alive. He took my heart, and he promised to bring it back.

He’s not dead.

He’s just gone.

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