Page 7 of Seizing Control: Part One

Eager to embrace oblivion after weeks of stress and my earlier run in with my president, I remove my belt. The leather strap hangs with my cut, my Shamrocks buckle clinking against the desk. I tuck my shoulder holster under my pillow, so my guns are within reach. Dressed in my black jeans and t-shirt, I take in the precisely organised, yet delicately feminine bedroom that contains all the trinkets of the girl who holds my heart in her fist. Her academic awards. A corkboard filled with polaroid pictures. Athletic trophies. A handwoven dream catcher. The painstakingly embroidered quilt mounted to the wall at the head of her bed. All the paraphernalia that comes part and parcel with her latest hobby.

Every few months, little Cherub decides she’s going to pursue something new. Three months ago, she was all in on these furry gerbils that blinked. Fucking freaky little things, they were. Right now, her craze is meltable plastic beads that she irons into cartoon characters.

She sells them to my club brothers to finance some secret purchase she won’t tell me about. I’ve probably spent five hundred dollars on her creations already. So has Carter. Benedict’s been scalped more than once too. Her uncles have learnt to lose their wallets whenever Scarlett brings her daughter to the compound.

Not me, though.

Whatever she offers, I buy.

Couldn’t say no to the girl, even if I wanted to.

Because I know she’s the only reason I’m still remotely human.

Without Lilianna Mayberry and her unconditional love and her sweet heart, I’d be in prison by now. It might irritate my president, but his only daughter is my life. She stole my heart within hours of her first breath, and she’s shown no inclination to return it to me. I live a life of violence with the promise of her acceptance as my sole motivation to stay on the right side of sane.

Cherub looks at me like I hung the moon.

If that ever ceased, I’d lose my mind within a week.

Probably less than that...

Scanning her face where she sleeps peacefully in her bed, my chest fills with affection. I jam my hands in my hair, so I don’t give into the urge to run my palm over the top of her head. The sharp cheekbones that are starting to steal the roundness from her face, the blonde hair that fans out over her pillow, lips parted as she lightly snores, little Cherub is perfectly named.

She’s an angel.

A blessing.

My sweet.

My everything.

Her father thinks our attachment is unnatural.

It mightn’t be normal, but it’s pure in intention and good at heart.

The first seven years I spent alive without her were devoid of warmth and filled with nothing but bitterness and angst. The last twelve have been a benediction and a revelation. My mother didn’t want me. Most of the time, she actively hated me. Abandoned me. Berated me. Abused me. Eviscerated me with her resentment at my existence.

My father tried his hardest to make up for her shortcomings, but he failed.

He preferred to save face with his brothers rather than tell them how bad things really were at home. Isolated from the rest of the Shamrocks kids by a vindictive woman who loathed the club, filled with constant fury at always being left out, and suspicious of a world that didn’t protect me from my parents selfish ways, my days were filled with torment and trouble. Teachers mocked my incompetence. The other kids feared me. My volatility reigned supreme as a defence mechanism against my obvious struggles to learn.

Until Cherub decided that I was her person.

The anger was harnessed.

My unpredictability tempered.

I had a purpose.

Keeping Lilianna Mayberry safe and happy.

Full stop.

I’d throw myself at the reaper without second thought to spare her a single tear.

“Zeke?” Cherub’s voice is soft. She blinks a few times as her eyes adjust to the darkness. Sitting up in her bed, my sweet girl pushes her hair out of her face. “Where have you been?”

“Around.” That one word has her narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to the side. I can’t meet her gaze, knowing that she’s mad at me for dodging her during the long weeks it took for my mother to finally dig her way to hell permanently. “You should get back to sleep. School tomorrow.”

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