Page 181 of Seizing Control: Part One

I’m a fucking fool.

Torturing myself for nothing.

Lily belongs to Slash for the foreseeable future.

A point she drives home with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel when she says, “Promise you won’t lie, keep secrets, or leave me.”

“I promise. I won’t lie, keep secrets, or leave again,” Slash replies without hesitation. The earnestness in his blatant lie makes me stumble. I steady myself on the chair, and Slash glances my way. I glare at him, but he ignores my ire to demand, “Now, tell me why you’re cryin’…”

Out of the millions of responses Lily could’ve given to his question, her next statement is the last thing I expected to hear so soon after my death. The tentative hope in her announcement is the final death knell to my brief interlude in the real world. Her subdued excitement is a shot across the bow, a sign that I need to work through my list at the speed of light if I’m to have any hope of reclaiming her when I’m officially resurrected as Lazarus.

I need to head back to the underground facility and get to work.

Returning as the Adjudicator is the only way I can validate my decision to leave her again.

Anything less is an insult to the love we share…

“I’m pregnant, Slash,” she whispers. Each word is a bullet to the chest. “You’re going to be a daddy again.”

I don’t stick around to hear my rival’s answer.

I don’t care what he has to say.

After all, I’m a dead man and he’s her husband. The father of her child. A fact it’s in my best interests to absorb before I lose my mind, reveal myself prematurely, and risk her safety to salvage my pride.

As I exit the compound, there’s one thought circulating my head.

For years, I feared losing the only sweet thing in my life to Brutus’ paranoia and society’s judgement.

Not once did it ever cross my mind that I might lose her to my best fucking friend...

36

LILY

Four days later

The four days that have passed since I end my self-imposed exile at Hades’ farm have been heartbreakingly familiar, yet foreign. A routine has quickly settled in. My brothers and Nadia are now permanent residents of the house I share with Slash. My husband is quietly stoic in his acceptance of my pregnancy. It is a revelation and a worry. This new life that’s replaced the months of suspension between my past and my future.

Because we haven’t addressed the elephant in the room.

Our baby, the one everyone is over the moon about, might be biologically Zeke’s.

In the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter.

My first love is dead, so he won’t be able to claim his progeny.

My husband is their daddy whether his blood runs through their veins or not.

Still, my heart can’t move on from the idea that we should at least discuss it.

Acknowledge it.

Lay the issue to rest before it flares into a fiery resentment that incinerates us.

“Mornin’, wife.” Slash presses a kiss to the top of my head. He pats my backside and steals a piece of Vegemite toast from my plate. Pushing away from the kitchen counter I was leaning against, I slap at his arm, laughing when he snatches another portion. “Keep goin’, I’ll eat the lot.”

“Or you could just stay there.” I scan his grey sweatpants and the sleeveless shirt with the ripped sides that he wore on his morning jog with a deliberate look. Tattoos peeking out, his pierced nipples on display, the big man is a feast for my eyes. “So, I can eat my breakfast with a view.”

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