Page 75 of Seizing Control: Part One

Once more, I allow it to pass without comment.

“How is he?” I ask Doc as he exits the room that we put Sander in last night.

“I’ve sedated him again.” The older man looks every one of his years this afternoon. “He’s very agitated, I hope you’ll try and talk some sense into him when he’s lucid.”

“Will do.”

After a curt nod, Doc disappears out of sight, and when I linger outside my brother’s room, Nadia grabs me by the arm to drag me into mine. The white lace dress she’s laid out is brand-new, and so are the strappy gold heels. It’s not a look that I would usually wear—maybe to a firm picnic or a garden wedding, but never to a rowdy Shamrocks patching-in ceremony.

As quickly as the word “wedding” enters my head, I force it away.

No more stressing about something that I can’t control—for tonight at least. Isaiah deserves a proper official welcome to the club, and a wild night that he can talk about in years to come like the rest of the club brothers do. So, instead of concentrating on all of the reasons why I should pack my bags and run away, I allow my best friend to treat me like her personal Barbie doll for the next three hours.

A much-needed reprieve that ends all too soon when my new husband walks out on me after the impromptu wedding ceremony that he organised at the Shamrocks compound. Carter Hudson flays my soul into a million pieces with the truth I demanded. He brings me to my knees in the worst way, then leaves me to flounder alone as I face my new reality alone, bereft of the support of the two men I love for the first time in my life.

Nothing makes sense...

Zeke is pleading guilty to Alex’s murder.

I need to have a baby with Slash within two years or my first love is dead.

The first time I make love to the man I wed to save myself from Hugh St. James will be in front of an audience of Trinity witnesses. It’s an ancient ritual. A covenant to seal the blood pact between the Shamrocks and the guild. The end of my hope to stop Slash and Zeke’s bond from being permanently severed. Double-dealing, double-crossing, duplicity of dubious origin and ambiguous outcome will become the norm within my world.

I’ve been set up to fail.

By my first love.

By my husband.

By life, itself.

13

VENOM

“Miles.” The guard runs his night stick along the metal bars keeping me caged. “You’ve got a visitor. Be ready to go in five.”

“Fine.”

As he jerks his chin toward the booth where the automatic doors are manned, I level the fucker I’m in the middle of beating into submission with one last punch. I drop his head and it bounces on the concrete floor with a hollow thud. Groaning, he flops on his back, blood running from his nose and his ear. His meathead friend, the dickhead who started all of this, is still unconscious on the other side of the cell. Standing upright, I extend my arm and point at the other man I’m locked up with, then at our other cellmates.

“They give you any shit while I’m gone, let me know.”

“Cheers.” The older man scuffs his palm over his rust-coloured chin stubble. With a deliberate flick of his eyes from my bloodied knuckles to my swollen eye, he asks, “You a Black Shamrock?”

“Yeah.”

“Knocked around with a couple of you fellas back in my day,’ he tells me as I line up at the door ready for the screw to return and let me out. “One of ’em was a loose cannon... didn’t much like ’im. The other one was a good bloke... ya look kinda similar.”

“Hades?”

“That’s the fella.”

“My dad.” I refrain from informing my cellmate that the man he once knew is currently incarcerated in the same institution as us, awaiting charges for murdering a dirty politician. “How many years ago were you a hangabout?”

“Twenty-one or so... his son had just been born. Your brother, I presume.”

“Nah.” Shaking my head, I say, “I’mma only child.”

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