Page 83 of Seizing Control: Part One

“The moment you understand that that’s not the case, I’ll be right here, ready to support you,” he tells me vehemently.

“Scram.” Nadia cuts between us before I can respond. “I like you—” She screws up her face and her eyes scan his cut for his new name patch. “—Meeyal, but we’re entering the phase of the night where dicks aren’t welcome.”

“Hearin’ ya.” For a second time, the stoic man brushes his knuckles along my jaw. This time, I’m more comfortable with his unusually open display of affection so I don’t recoil. “Just remember what I promised.”

“I will.”

Once we’re alone, Nadia turns to me. “Every time one of them gets a road name, I swear it takes me a year to get a handle on it.”

“Definitely.”

“Game face on, Cherub,” she quips as we head for the craft area. “Give everyone the gracious good girl we all know and love for a few hours, then we’ll unleash the rude bad bitch who’s sick to death of havin’ her life dictated by fuckin’ men once it’s just us and the M&M girls.”

“Fucking men,” I repeat.

“Yep. Fuckin’ men.”

For the next three hours, I do as Nadia instructed.

I’m kind.

Polite.

Happy.

Then, exactly as she pledged, the old ladies I’m not as close to start to head home, and I find myself in a huddle with my ride or dies. Glancing around the group, as we sit in a circle on the floor with our legs crossed, I take in their faces. Worry lines fan from their eyes. The demons they’re all battling flicker in their gazes. Our shoulders hunch forward. The defiance with which we customarily face the world visibly deflates as we slowly comprehend that we’re in a safe space with each other.

This is our club.

Our time.

Returning my attention to the embroidery hoop holding my latest NSFW project, I carefully thread my needle through the fabric and pull it back to the other side. The cock in a top hat, bow tie, and a tuxedo that Nadia managed to organise for tonight is almost finished, my stitches neat, the colours complementary, despite my inebriation.

“I’m still wonderin’ how you found yourself in an arranged marriage with Slash,” Serena muses. “And I’m even more curious to discover why it was Venom’s idea.”

“Subtle.” I shake my head as I realise that they’ve been talking about my situation behind my back. “It is what it is... I’ll do whatever it takes to save the club and avoid marrying a captain in the Maddison clan. My dad?—”

“Is a dead shit with a head destined to meet the heel of my boot,” Ziva mumbles. “Repeatedly.”

As the only other woman I know who rides her own Harley, the look we exchange is filled with mirth and a tacit acknowledgement that she’s the most likely of us all to follow through on her threat. Ziva’s collection of bike boots puts mine to shame, although I have her beat on other types of shoes. Since she’s an author, she rarely ventures far from her home, and her simple wardrobe filled with leather, dark denim, and practical footwear reflects that lifestyle. The agoraphobic tendencies she also refuses to allow to defeat her stem from childhood trauma that she hardly ever mentions, but I know enough to feel solid in my assessment that the odds of Ziva stomping my father to death if they ever crossed paths are high.

Her steady support loosens me tongue. “My biggest problem is the guilt I feel.”

“For what?” Serena asks. They all keep their attention on their embroidery hoops as we chat. No doubt, they’ve been forewarned by my best friend of my expertise in changing the subject whenever I’m asked about my love for two men, so they don’t want to spook me by coming at me head on. “Because Zeke and Slash are best friends?”

Apparently, I guessed wrong.

My dominos of denial are about to start falling.

Serena is like a dog with a bone when she gets going.

“Yeah,” I admit with obvious reluctance in my low tone. “Every time I get a little excited about Slash, I feel guilty over Zeke.”

“And then you feel guilty for feeling guilty.” Ziva offers. “And vice-versa.”

“I can’t love two men the same amount.” My protest is met with a sharp head shake from Seraphina. I double down, saying, “It’s not possible. There has to be a winner… and a loser.”

“No, there doesn’t,” Sera objects. “While I once loved Lo more than Pax and Remi, I can honestly say that that’s not the case any longer.” Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows pull together as she takes in our open-mouthed astonishment. “It’s true. When Lo… and my sister… well, you know—” The black-haired rockstar shrugs as she glosses over the drama caused by her deceased twin. “Let me put it like this—I’ve always had feelings for the other two. They were just different shades of pink and gold glitter to Lo, so I didn’t know it at the time.” Her neurological condition, Synaesthesia, means she processes emotions as colours and textures. Hearing her explain her feelings like this is normal to me, since I’ve known her for years, but I can see Nadia frowning as she tries to understand. I subtly squeeze my best friend’s thigh in a silent promise to explain later as Seraphina continues. “Plus, there just wasn’t an opening, or a crack, I guess, in my heart for them to enter through until Lo shattered it. Once he made their love an option, it was inevitable that I’d fall in love with them too.”

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