Page 87 of Seizing Control: Part One

“Workin’ out how to get away from you idiots, is more like it.”

“I’m wounded.”

I shrug at his dramatics. “Couldn’t give a shit.”

When Toker follows me back to my vehicle and the annoyances gathered around it, I hold my hands up to ward off their questions. My Glock dangles from my trigger finger as I say, “If this is an intervention, I’m not interested. I won’t give up beer, cigarettes, weed, coke, MDMA... or my wife. Any personality issues I have are permanent and medication resistant. Anyone with a problem about any of that can take it up with my assistant—his number is one-eight-hundred-get-the-fuck-off-my-Rover-before-I-shoot-you.”

When they stare at me instead of moving, I take hold of the butt of my gun and sight them up. “Fuckin’ move outta my way.”

“I think I’m missin’ somethin’ here,” Diablo offers slowly. “This’s a Buck’s night, not a shootout.” With quick movements, he pulls his weapon from the back of his pants and aims it at me. “But I’m happy to change up my schedule if you wanna make things interestin’.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Hunter screws up his face as he steps between me and the president of the Blackards SMC. “Lower your goddamn weapons and act your age instead of your shoe size.”

My grip on sanity has been tenuous for days.

It loosens at little more at the sight of my brother standing at the end of my muzzle.

I’ve lost my best friend, I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Hunter as well.

“Hunt... I just wanna go home.” The fatigue in my voice shocks me more than it does the bikers staring at me with their mouths open. I reholster my weapon and hunch my shoulders as I slide my hands into my pockets. “If you wanna party, that’s on y’all. But I just want to sleep away the next two days, then get on with things once...”

“Get on with things?” Cherub’s brother, Wyatt, steps into the fray. His narrow-eyed glare should warn me that my new prospect’s about to unload a bunch of home truths, however, I’m too far gone to care. Alcohol. My son. Cherub’s expression when I told her that Venom’s pleading guilty. I just need to escape everything—for five damn minutes. “Your best friend’s locked up. My sister’s holdin’ on by a thread. And you’re out here throwin’ a pity party in a fuckin’ cemetery. There’s no gettin’ on with things—there’s only survival until my dad’s six feet under and the Maddisons are wiped out, and that’s only possible if we all pull together.”

“Don’t need a teenager tryna teach me?—”

“Beg to differ,” Toker interjects from behind me.

I don’t have time to respond to his taunt because a hessian bag is shoved over my head at the same time as my arms are clamped at my sides in a bear hug. With Venom missing, only one of the men here is big enough to subdue me like this. Struggling to free my arms, I throw up a knee. Diablo counters my defensive manoeuvre with a scoff.

“Gotta try harder than that,” he says with a laugh.

“Fuckin’ let me go,” I order him as the giant pain in my arse uses brute strength to haul me over to my Rover. As I’m unceremoniously tossed into the back of my vehicle, the heavy-arse motherfucker plonks his entire weight on me. The wind is knocked out of my lungs, making me sound like a pre-pubescent boy when I yell, “Get off... Get the fuck off me.”

When I squirm and buck, he straddles me. Breathing like a bull charging a red flag, I continue to battle to get free but end up with two men sitting on me while my wrists and ankles are bound with zip ties. The distinctive sound of Harleys roaring to life camouflages my Rover being started. Since the fob is in my pocket, they have zero issues kidnapping me with my own vehicle.

For fuck’s sake...

The door is slammed shut.

Diablo remains perched on my back as we speed away from the cemetery. I slide around the rear of my Rover, blind and bound, with a hundred-and-twenty-kilogram heavyweight champion on top of me. Whoever’s driving takes a turn too fast, and we both smack into the side panel with a thud. I groan when pain shoots up my knee and the ribs Toker bruised as punishment for hurting his cousin after our wedding ceremony at the compound twinge in complaint.

“Whoever taught you to drive should be shot,” Diablo grumbles.

“Blame my dad.” From the front of my Rover, Toker chuckles. “I’m much better on a one-thirty-one than I am in this posh piece of shit.”

His mention of his cammed-out Harley-Davidson reminds me that the only vehicle Toker has driven in his life is a Shamrocks van. To say I’m more than a little worried that he’s going to break my expensive SUV is an understatement. My gloss-white beauty is a custom-made beast with bullet-proof windows and exterior panels, a souped-up engine, and too many bells and whistles to count.

“If he fucks my Rover, you’re all payin’ for it.”

“The way he’s drivin’ none of us’ll be alive to cough up.”

I laugh at Diablo’s pessimism, and it actually surprises me by how good it feels.

Flopping onto my back, I huff out a garbled sigh that sounds like it’s filled with rocks. I’m done fighting for the moment. When the resistance leaves my body, Diablo hefts his bulk off me. He helps me sit upright and pulls the bag off my head. I blow my knotted hair out of my face and drag in a full breath. My lungs are dank with stale air. The ache in my knee throbs at a matching pace to my pulse. Clutching my ribs, I hiss when the tenderness seems to worsen.

“Got some salve that’ll fix that.”

The look I give Diablo could peel paint. “Ain’t no salve in this world that can fix me.”

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