Page 184 of Seizing Control: Part One

“Cherub.” The laundry opens as Cub says my name. He steps inside the small room at the same time as our kiss abruptly ends. “Have you seen...” Trailing off, colour surges into his face until his complexion almost matches his hair colour. “Slash?”

“Not recently,” I quip.

Laughing, my husband palms Cub’s face and shoves him backwards. He knocks the door shut after the redhead is out of the way. Caught between mortification and amusement, I bite down on my bottom lip. The gleam in Slash’s eyes tells me he finds this situation funny, even though his male ego dislikes the idea of another man seeing me undone like this.

“Looks like duty calls.” He shoves a hand through his hair. “’Spose I should go.”

Widening my legs, I peer down at the junction of my thighs where my body remains impaled by the big man. “Are you planning of taking me with you?”

The snort that’s ripped from Slash is a balm to my soul. “Fuck me, duchess. You can’t say things like that.” After grabbing a dirty t-shirt from the laundry hamper, he slides free of me. Cleaning us both up is close to pointless. We’re a mess. Sweaty and sticky. “Meet me in the shower, wife?”

After pulling my sleep shorts back on, I lightly slap his cheek. “Race you.”

If anyone was planning on sleeping in this morning, they are sadly mistaken.

My shrieks as my husband chases me up the stairs puts paid to that idea.

As we embrace underneath the pelting shower head, contentment courses through me, and for the first time since Zeke’s interrupted funeral, I don’t immediately feel guilty for the small taste of serenity in find in Slash’s arms.

It’s a win I’ll take for as long as it lasts.

Because victories have been few and far between in recent months.

37

SLASH

“I’ve been dealin’ with an increase in hackin’ attempts,” my Tech officer tells me after I finally meet up with him at the kitchen table. He’s been waiting patiently for half an hour since I couldn’t let the opportunity to fuck my wife against the tiles pass me by. The numbers in the spreadsheet mean nothing to me because I’m too busy watching Cherub water the plants on the patio. “Prez, this’s serious... like, there was a lull immediately after Venom—” Cub gulps as he tries not to give into the grief that fills his face. “—but it’s picked up exponentially in the last six weeks. I can’t decipher any correlation between the time frame and the firewall breaches...”

I tune him out as I realise that the correlation between the hacking attempts is named Lazarus. The phone call I received at the funeral—well, the one Toker technically received via his old as fuck phone, even though it was for me—was from a woman who wished to alert me that it was likely Lazarus would be brought out of his coma within the next week or so. Since this was the first time I’d received any confirmation that there was a possibility that Venom had survived Brutus’ prison attack, I’d immediately spiralled. The body in the casket was yet another headfuck. It’d taken me three days of throwing my weight around, after I was released by the cops post-cemetery-arrest and discovered my wife had left me, before Gabriel deigned to confirm the possibility of Venom’s survival.

Then, I dove into a bottle of whiskey, and chased it with cartons of beer, until my duchess returned and broke me down in her sweet but steely way. With Lazarus acting as witness and armour for Cherub as I unleashed my darkness on her, the three sentences we exchanged are the only ones that mattered, and he hasn’t shown his face since he blew his bolt, cleaned his dick with my cushion cover, then left.

While I was reeling from the resurrection of my ex-best friend at the same time as my wife finally embraced the reality of his death, the sly motherfucker started meddling in Shamrocks business from the shadows. The new charm on Cherub’s bracelet mocks me, another way he’s sending me crazy while I try to nail down my duchess’ heart so I can thwart Lazarus’ intention to re-claim her.

“You agree, prez?”

Blinking twice, I peer at Cub. “Can you repeat that?”

“What if we bring Hunter in on this... I’m good with the tech stuff, but he’s the best we have when it comes to deciphering patterns and tracking people down.”

“Fuck no.” My response is immediate. Cub frowns, his freckles becoming more prominent as the colour drains from his face. I try to temper my agitation with an excuse and a shrug. “He turned his cut in... we can’t bring him in on club business. It’s against the constitution.”

“Maybe if you talked?—”

“Not gonna fuckin’ happen.” For a second time, he grimaces as he recoils from my anger. It sets my hackles on edge. I’m one of the more tolerant of his club brothers, but Cub’s tendency toward meekness is annoying me to hell right now. If he found a backbone, he’d be an even bigger asset to the Shamrocks than he already is. My tone is stringent when I tell him, “The ball is in his court. Not’a one of you has permission to cut him in on club business or speak to him about returnin’ to the brotherhood.”

“Sure. Sure.” Cub taps away on his keyboard, then spins his laptop back to me. “There’s somethin’ else I needa talk to you about.” I scan the screen, my frustration growing to nuclear levels as I comprehend what I’m reading. Jabbing at the track pad, I scroll down so I can see the totals for each column of Cub’s spreadsheet. “It gets worse—he’s siphoned off Hades’ accounts too.”

“Fuckin’ hell.” Glancing out the patio doors at my wife, I shake my head. She’s happy as she can be in the circumstances, flitting about with the hose, adding her touch to the garden. Blonde hair piled messily on top of her head, the leggings and oversized t-shirt she’s wearing as casual as her demeanour, her bare feet padding on the stone path. I don’t know if she can withstand another betrayal right now. “I hate that prick—how many more goddamn times can he fuck her over?”

Cub follows my gaze and a sorrowful cast clouds his expression. “Sooner he’s dead, the better.”

“You’ve got that right.” I shove at the laptop. My Tech officer seizes hold of his device to move it out of my reach. “I’mma fix it. We needa keep her from lookin’ into things while I work out how to replace what Brutus has stolen.”

“Prez, I’m not sure how you figure you’ll pull that off. With the trusts drained, and now Hades and Venom’s estates, you’re talkin’ tens of millions of dollars. Know you’re good with the stock market and all that, but it’ll take months to earn that kinda cash back, clean it up, and produce a paper trail that’ll fool the tax office.”

Pushing back to my feet, I draw on every ounce of authority I wield. My Tech officer can see what’s coming, and he visibly readies himself for the threats I’m about to level. When I jab two fingers to the patch on his left lapel, right over the Black Shamrocks MC emblem, Cub nods.

---