Page 238 of Seizing Control: Part One

“I know, sweet thing.... I can regain your trust, make you believe, give you faith in me. Everything else is up to your husband.” Dropping his hand from my nape, Zeke places both palms on my pregnant stomach. “I’ll be here for you and our children.” Again, he uses the plural. My heart skips a beat, my mouth running dry at the implications. I lick my bottom lip, swallowing deep as Zeke tells me, “This baby means the world to me. So does Garrett. He bears no responsibility for the bullshit surrounding his birth. If Slash won’t step up, I will.”

This version of Zeke is so different from the man I once knew.

It’s like an invasion of the body snatchers has occurred.

Zeke has taken all the best bits of Slash and melded them with his positive attributes.

The grace and care he’s extending to me is unfathomable.

I expected arguments, recriminations, and guilt.

I’m being offered possibilities instead.

Unease fills my chest. I mentally shake myself, refusing to allow Zeke to get inside my head and weaken my resolve with pretty words. The decision I made in the bathroom requires self-discipline and stamina. I can’t bow to his vows to change. I need proof. Intrinsic actions. Measurable evidence. Follow through that doesn’t waver in hard times.

True partnership, not the benign dictatorship we previously had.

“You should go.”

“Mightn’t be able to claim you in the light, but I’ll be back as soon as it’s dark.” Extricating myself from his arms, I step out of his reach. Gaze flat, lips pressed into a tight line, Zeke scans my face with solemn sincerity. “Need you to keep up the pretence that I’m dead.”

“Sure.”

My quick agreement makes him frown. “I’ll be back tonight.”

“Be careful, Zeke. Stay safe out there.”

When he searches my expression a second time, I widen my stance and steel my spine. I will not wilt under his perusal. If things are truly going to be different, then I need to be better as well. No more relying on men. No more putting their egos first. No more bending under the weight of expectation.

It’s my turn to prove myself. As a mother. As a wife. As a... whatever I am to Zeke.

“You need me... just hit the button on the scalpel and say Lazarus. I’ll be with you as soon as I can, and if I can’t, one of my curia will come.”

I track his gaze when it flits down to my bracelet. “Why Lazarus?”

“Because, sweet thing—” My first love salutes me. “—that’s my name. Lazarus Damon Abaddon. Says it on my driver’s licence and everything.”

“Lazarus.” Trying the name on for size, I repeat it again. “Lazarus.”

He pauses, watching me closely as I absorb the news. The multi-coloured eyes that I adore are filled with worry, the creases in his forehead deepening the longer the silence continues. It’s such a strange feeling, to know someone so intimately, yet not know them at all anymore.

It’s agonisingly painful.

The end of an era.

Pleasantly freeing.

A fresh start.

After a moment, that somehow feels like an eternity and a split second all at once, in which I process the new reality in front of me and find myself excited, I reach a conclusion. Zeke’s familiar dark denim, heavy chains, Shamrocks t-shirt, thick rings, biker boots, long hair with shaved sides, and leather cut proclaiming him a one-percenter are gone. Because the man who previously sported that uniform is gone. Instead, I am seeing a tattooed man in a bespoke suit who holds himself differently. He sounds different. Acts different. From his new haircut to the ink on his throat to the perceptible strength in his expression. Lazarus displays none of the violent defensiveness that always lurked under the surface of my first love. He isn’t looking for validation. He believes in himself in a way Zeke never did, and matches the energy of the world without apology.

No more volatile biker.

Same fierce anarchist.

The man before me is authentic.

Genuinely comfortable in his skin in a way Zeke never was.

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