Page 151 of Seizing Control: Part One

It’s a wry sound.

Empty and incensed.

Who’d have thought all those years ago when I kissed Zeke for the first time that I’d end up here?

Pregnant and alone.

It’s a turn of events that the wide-eyed girl who still believed in her dad’s goodness, loved the Shamrocks, and was devoted to Zeke, Slash, and Toker would never have seen coming. I still don’t believe that this is my life. It’s too cruel to contemplate.

Turning the key in the ignition, I knocked the car into gear.

At the T-junction, I turn right instead of left.

The clinic where Hades is in hospice looms high ahead of me. I pull into the underground parking lot, and sign in at the front desk before I can talk myself into turning around and leaving. Mustering the courage to follow the nurse, I don’t even wonder why I’m on his visitor’s list until it’s too late.

“Come on in, little Cherub,” Angelis tells me when I freeze in the doorway. The hospital bed is surrounded by machines. The oxygen is loud. A regular beeping that alerts me that Hades is still with us. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Both of my uncles, Cass and Duke, as well my boss, Gabriel, are perched in the plastic seats that hospitals obvious had specially designed to stop visitors from lingering too long. The four men look at me with expectation in their eyes. I scan their faces, and when I don’t detect any censure, I take a step inside.

Uncle Duke is the first to stand.

He hugs me tight, then offers me his seat.

It’s the closest to Hades.

Zeke’s father is frail, but alert. His gaze, so much like his dead son’s, is fixed on me. “Knew you’d come.” He waves me forward. I take hold of his hand and allow him to pull my head to his shoulder. Propped up against the raised head of his bed, he surveys the room like a benign king as he holds me with one arm like I’m precious. “Knew I’d get to bask in your light one last time.”

“I’m pregnant.”

The news that I blurt out is loud in the suddenly silent room.

I swear even the machines have paused in shock.

“And I don’t know if the baby’s Zeke’s or Slash’s.”

The four men surrounding us laugh.

Hades coughs as he joins them.

The familiar leather and smoke that used to cling to him has been replaced by impending death. Handcuffed by one arm to the bed frame, he’s a captive of the system that cost him his son. When I raise my head, Hades nods twice, then he shakily swipes his thumb under my eyes. The kiss he presses to my forehead is dry, and I know it’s the last one he’ll give me.

He’s too proud to let anyone but Uncle Cass watch him fade away.

“The baby belongs to my boy,” Hades tells me. “Mark my words. He wouldn’t leave you with a piece of him to hold on to.”

“Promise?”

“Fuckin’ know it.”

When I shoot Angelis a tentative look, I expect him to be angry.

He isn’t.

“Don’t be worryin’ about my hard-headed son... that moron isn’t in any state to be a father right now. It’d be best if it is Venom’s child.”

My uncles incline their head in agreement.

Gabriel is hard to read, what I’ve come to recognise as Adjudicator mode activated.

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