Page 225 of Seizing Control: Part One

The second the call connects, and I hear my wife’s voice, I know that I’m doing the wrong thing. My gut churns, the need to vomit strips me of the ability to speak. I swallow once, then again, urgency coiling within me as I listen to her breathing pick up pace. We remain silent, disconnected in a way we’ve never been—by more than just distance.

Lazarus’ impending resurrection stands between us.

The child I share with Bebe keeps us apart.

My guilt is yet another wedge.

Eventually, Cherub breaks the silence, “Slash?”

After yet another deep swallow, I launch into the speech I rehearsed this morning. “I’m not comin’ back any time soon. Sendin’ some of the brothers back and keepin’ some with me. We’re gonna run over to the east coast. Meet with all the chapters.”

“Okay.”

There isn’t a hint of surprise in my duchess’ tone. The ease with which she anticipated my cowardice is a knife to the heart. I should be ashamed. Angry at myself. I am, but in all honesty, I’m beyond that. If brokenness had a physical form, it’d be me.

Carter McKinnley Hudson.

A shattered shell.

Victim of self-inflicted humiliation.

My wife sighs. “How long will you be gone?”

“Two n’ a half months. Maybe three.”

“I see.”

Her quiet strength is an indictment of my weakness. I’m wavering, mentally and physically, my knees on the verge of giving out, my soul crying for salvation, when a baby’s wail invades my ears. It’s the worst possible sound at the worst possible moment. Makes me burn with hatred. Inwardly and outwardly. As all the reasons why I can’t face going home pop back into my head, I’m blinded with rage and shackled by the ghosts of my past. My failures. Fuck-up after fuck-up caused by the jealousy I can’t contain. If I hadn’t been caught up in my need to make my duchess mine, Bebe wouldn’t have slipped past my barriers. The kid wouldn’t have been conceived. So many missteps led to this current situation. The embarrassment I feel, the debasement of my honour, the intrinsic spinelessness behind everything I’ve done wrong, it fucks with my head. More than once I’ve found myself wondering if it wouldn’t have been better had Bebe put a bullet in my head the night of the Apologies to Medusa concert.

The kid I made with the Maddison bitch would still exist.

But he wouldn’t be living under my roof, stealing my wife from me if I was dead.

As solutions go, it’s imperfect, yet that seems to be the theme of my life.

Flaws, fuckups, and failures.

“Carter?” my wife asks once the baby has been settled.

“Yeah, duchess.”

My grip on the handset tightens to the point of pain. I glance at the one-way window in Diablo’s office, taking in the fighters sparring at his gym in Sydney this morning. If my wife knew how many additional kilometres I’d already put between us without informing her, she wouldn’t sound as sad as she does. Cherub would be spitting mad—I’d probably end up with her knee in my balls again. And, since that’s the closest she’s likely to get to them ever again once her first love has risen from the dead, I almost welcome it.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

“Are you ever going to come home?”

I exhale slowly to buy myself time. “Eventually.”

“I know you’re mad at me, but I want you to know that I miss you.”

My chest is tight and I’m having an out-of-body experience as every atom of my being screams at me to tell her that I miss her too. Of course, rather than expose my soft underbelly to my kind-hearted wife, I do what every coward does.

I try to make her feel as bad as I do.

“Get rid of the fuckin’ kid, and I’ll believe you.”

“His name is Garrett, and he is our son.” The vicious promise of violence in Cherub’s tone makes me wish I could see her face. Those blue eyes I adore so much will be flashing. Her instinctive fire, the temper she rarely unleashes on me is revved and ready to go. “Legally and morally. I don’t care how long you need to take to come to terms with that, but if you ever call him ‘the fuckin’ kid’ again, so help me God, I’ll stab you, Slash.”

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