Page 130 of Seizing Control: Part One

“I know.”

Mumma pats my damp cheek as I lift my face from her neck. “Now that yer back on yer feet, things will get better.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Here.” Her hands are steady as she passes me the cut I discarded—it’s my grip that’s shaky when I accept it. I dash my free hand across my face to remove the signs of my heartache. My mother watches me with a curious look in her eyes. “Put this on. Be the president your brothers need. Be the husband your wife requires… start with the easy things, then move on to the harder tasks once you’ve regained their trust.”

“I’m not strong enough.”

“For your sake,” she tells me as she gathers her leather jacket and the “Property of Angelis” cut my father gave her more than three decades ago. The disappointed frown that creases her face is worse than a knife to the gut. “I hope you’re wrong.” Shaking her head when I don’t correct her, her scowl deepens with disgust, and she heads for the front door. I trail behind her, a stranger in my own home. When Mumma turns back to look me dead in the eye, I hold my breath and brace for the worst. “If yer right, Carter, and yer not strong enough to fix evry’hing ye destroyed, then I’ve failed as yer mother because I thought I’d raised you better than ’is.”

Her summary of my shortcomings stings more than my dad’s disappointment.

I’m a Mumma’s boy, through and through.

Even when I was at my most rebellious, she kept her faith in my strength of character. To have it stripped away is one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced. Almost as bad as knowing that my best friend’s body lays in a casket at the funeral home and I haven’t had the balls to visit him yet.

As I ride alone to the chapel, with only the cut I’ve stuffed in my pannier like an unwanted guest for company, I try to formulate a plan. My brain grinds out, the cogs smoking. The synapses burn out as I run them dry. For a man who prides himself on calculating the odds. On computing impossible solutions. On being the one with all the answers. I sure do have a habit of coming up empty.

How do I apologise to the wife I deserted in her time of need?

How do I make amends to a club I failed?

How to I move past my culpability in my best friend’s death?

When I arrive, carnage greets me. The Shamrocks are in a standoff with the media. My wife screams obscenities at them while her cousin fights to restrain her. Her girlfriends match her vitriol with their own curses. Cherub’s younger brothers are on the verge of joining the women when Nadia appears out of nowhere with a lit Molotov cocktail in her hand.

The glass bottle sizzles.

Smoke billows from it.

Eyes wide, profanity after profanity tumbling from her painted lips, she runs at the closest media contingent. I pull my cut from my pannier and slide it back on. The moment the leather settles on my shoulders, I’m in action.

I seize the bottle from Nadia.

Spin on my heel.

Toss it straight at the portable satellites instead.

The reporters scatter.

The petrol bomb explodes.

My eardrums pop.

My heart races.

The girls whoop and holler their appreciation, then they turn their attention to the media as well. As one, they run for the leeches who are intent on feeding off our pain. Seraphina, the US Trinity heiress turned rock star snatches a megaphone out of a man’s hand.

“Shame. Shame. Shame,” she shouts in his face.

Another journalist finds herself on the business end of Indigo Michaelson’s fist. The fiery woman pummels the local morning show host two more times in her designer nose before moving on to her next target. I grin as the US biker princesses, Ziva and Serena, take a running leap onto one of the news vehicle’s and start jumping up and down on the windscreen.

Behind me, my club brothers assemble.

I glance over my shoulder to make sure they’re cool with my presence.

Arms folded, grins splitting their faces as they watch the women wreak havoc, no one gives me a sign that they’d like me to leave. Except for Toker. He flips me a double bird, then stalks off. I watch as he joins Nadia while she lights up the rest of the petrol bombs that she brought with her to Venom’s funeral in the back of her little red hatchback.

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