Page 203 of Seizing Control: Part One

Betrays his patch.

Deceives his wife.

I want him on my list.

If I had my way, he’d be on it already.

Unfortunately, my boss opposes my assessment.

Gabriel believes Slash is salvageable.

I disagree.

In silence, we stride away from each other. Metres of concrete materialise, a visual representation of the distance between us. I can see his tall frame, his hands curled into fists at his sides, just like mine are, when I track his departure in the convex mirrors mounted in every cob-webbed corner.

My intuition is loud and angry.

His antagonism will be our downfall.

I know Lily.

Her heart is too pure for the games we’re playing with her love.

My peaceful intentions today, a gesture of truce and new beginnings, were rebuffed.

It’s a failure I feel all the way to my marrow.

All the secrets I wanted to tell him remain hidden.

Unspoken until I can trust his reaction.

The truth about my dad and Scarlett.

Brutus’s decades-long deceptions.

My younger brother.

The hit taken out on him.

Once Slash’s Harley has sped out of sight, I start my G-Wagon. It connects to the earpiece I habitually wear, the device crackling back to life with notifications that came through during my time off the grid. A series of bells chime. Each sound indicating a message I’ve received while I was off-line.

My thumbs are swift as I unencrypt the first text.

Layla’s voice fills the vehicle, her tone unusually solemn as she says, “I’ve tracked the missing Pentobarbital, Midazolam, and Morphine as requested. Your brother is the thief, and I’ve confirmed that the drugs are in his possession.”

“Fuck.”

When I curse, I look around guiltily, expecting Gabriel to emerge from the backseat to tase me for breaking his rules. His main mission is to make me presentable, his methods painful as he forces my capitulation and punishes my missteps. Most of the time, I find his concern with my profanity and bastardisation of the English language amusing, but it’s also nice to see people react to me like I’m someone worthwhile, instead of dismissing me as an uneducated biker.

I’d never admit it out loud, but I can’t wait to show Lily this side of me.

Opening the next message, and the one after that, panicked urgency grows with me. Every update from Layla is worse than the previous. The danger is imminent. Ready to be self-inflicted. The effects rendered irreversible if I don’t get there on time.

Heart thumping, I punch the accelerator. I speed out of the industrial area. Weave through the traffic, grateful for the reflective paint on my number plate that obscures the letters and numbers as I break a dozen laws on my way to the childhood home that was abandoned more than eleven years ago.

It’s a monument to a time when life was good.

Deserted by a man with a conscience that wouldn’t shut up.

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