Page 146 of Seizing Control: Part One

27

SLASH

Three weeks later

Something hard smacks me in the face.

If I was sober, it would’ve hurt.

“Fuck off.” Eyes screwed shut, I blindly swipe the knife I’m clutching in front of me. “I’m not dealin’ with any of you motherfuckers today.”

“Way I hear it,” my younger brother drawls. The guilt I’m trying to outrun nips at my heels as I recognise the judgement in his tone. “You haven’t been dealing with anything.” As the mattress sways, I point the switchblade in that direction. My wrist flares with pain when Hunter easily disarms me. “Might be time to rethink your career trajectory, big brother. The Shamrocks deserve a president who does more than drink too much, fight them, and threaten to stab anyone who dares to talk to him.”

“Fuck. Off.”

“Wish I could,” Hunter continues on in the same infuriatingly censorious voice. “But I have somethin’ you want back.”

“My duchess?”

I sit up too fast. Black and white spots burst in my vision. The urge to vomit hits hard, and I crawl to the side of my bed to throw up in the metal bucket Toker placed there after the first time I purged the alcohol in my system all over the floor. Dry retching when nothing else remains to be expelled, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, then flop onto my back.

Arm flung over my aching eyes, I say, “If you haven’t found my wife, I ain’t interested in listenin’ to you.”

A metal object is dropped onto my chest.

I grimace through the pain in my ribs.

“What is it?”

“A blow torch. Hunter replies with complete seriousness. “Figured the time has come for you to officially strip me off my patch.”

The memory of the club brothers who turned out to be rats makes my head hurt.

I burnt the Shamrocks patch from their back.

Their screams for mercy echo in my ears.

Unlike Venom, who went out with dignity, stoic until the very end.

“Not happenin’.” As I deny the memory of Brutus drawing the knife across my best friend’s throat entrance into my head, my malicious psyche chooses to stalk me with vision of my wife in a catatonic state as I thrust my cock into her unwilling body. “Fuck off... I ain’t doin’ this. Not now, not ever.”

My response is for my brother and the sins haunting me.

The cinder block walls start closing in on me. My skin is too sensitive as the fan turns lethargically above me. The jeans I’ve been wearing since Venom’s funeral are plastered to my legs, basically a second skin by this point. Vomit stinks up the room, joining the smell of cigarettes and whiskey that’s permeated every inch of space by now.

I’m a mess.

The images of Cherub as I fucked her against her will during the ritual only compound my madness. Screwing my eyes shut, I do my best to ward off the Technicolour recollection of every failure I’ve wrought. My gut churns like a washing machine. The sick feeling that stalks my every waking moment drives me to reach for beer, then chase it down with whiskey.

Drowning my sorrows is my sole coping strategy.

Sad but true.

“Why not?” Hunter pushes the point in the blatantly direct way that only he can muster.

“Said so.”

I hear him venture closer, deliberate footsteps that pound like drums in my head, even though they’re muted in real life. The handgun under my pillow is easy to reach. I pull it free at the same time as I force my eyes open. Aiming the muzzle at his head, I flinch when I see that he’s shirtless.

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