Page 88 of Seizing Control: Part One

“The way I see it.” He glares at the back of Toker’s head when the Rover veers around another bend too fast. I brace my hand on the roof, while Diablo shoves his bulk into the corner to stop from sliding again. “You’re gettin’ what most men would give their left nut for.”

“And what’s that?”

“A second bloody chance—you’re married to the girl of your dreams, her ex is locked up for twenty-five years, and you’re president of the club you’ve spent your life defending. What the fuck more could ya want?”

“To be her first choice.”

“Seems to me that’s a losin’ proposition.”

“Easy for you to say,” I snap back at him. He scowls, the irritation he has for me and my pity party visibly merging with the urge to drive his knuckles into my smart mouth. Knowing I’ve fucked up, I attempt a backpedal while still defending my point. “Look, you lost Mari and your son. That’s fuckin’ harsh, brother, but you also live with the knowledge that she loved you first, she loved you most, and she would still be with you over anyone else if she could.”

“Little Cherub loves you, ya blind fuckin’ idiot.”

“She loves Venom too—” I huff. “—And that’s my point... she loved him first, loves him most.”

“Fuck you’re a dumb cunt.” When I bristle at the insult, he holds a hand up in a silent request for me to hear him out. “You’re her silver linin’, Slash. Her future. I’m tellin’ ya now, as a man who lost everythin’, the future is the only thing that matters at the end of the day. The past is the past—dead and gone. Hopes and dreams and possibilities are all we have. That’s the human condition, it’s what separates us from animals. We can’t change the past. Can’t recapture what’s dead and gone, but we can sure as fuck change the future... if we want to.”

“Might wanna take a leaf outta ya own book,” Jep comments from the back seat. “Maybe cut Gabbi some slack while you’re at it... it ain’t her fault you hate yourself for poppin’ a fat every time you see her.”

“Shut up.” Diablo slaps his top fighter across the back of the head. “Not one person asked for your advice.”

“That’s ’cause no one wants to listen to sense.”

“That’s what I say all the time,” Toker interjects. My Rover swerves from side to side as he peers over his shoulder to exchange a look with Jep. “I’m always right, just no one ever listens to me.”

“You?” Diablo roars with laughter. “The same dickhead who once bought dried parsley instead of weed, and when I tried to tell you that, you insisted that I was wrong because you believed you were high off it? Unlikely?—”

“I was fourteen.”

“Fourteen is old enough to know the difference between parsley and marijuana.”

As the members of Blackards SMC and my newly patched-in Sergeant-At-Arms start bickering like a bunch of old ladies at bingo, I lean back against the window and stare out at the dark sky. The moonlit night holds no answers to the questions whirling around my brain as I try to calculate the odds of Diablo being right in his assessment.

Am I Cherub’s silver lining?

I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one hand it’s a hell of a lot better than being her second choice. Yet it still makes me feel less than. I want to be worthy of her. Good enough on my own merits, not a substitute temporarily taking the place of her true love.

The rest of the drive to the Shamrocks compound is spent running numbers.

How many months will I have with her without Venom getting between us?

How many months will it take to make her see me as her husband, and not just the man she married to save Venom’s arse and to keep her out of Hugh St. James’ sadistic hands?

Twelve?

Eighteen?

Twenty-four?

Is there actually a number high enough, knowing as I do that he’ll eventually return?

For the next fifteen hours, as my club brothers ply me with alcohol and weed, and I do my best to act like I’m happy, I come at the problem from multiple angles. My head aches. My heart hurts. The time spent on my analysis yields nothing. Because, time after time, I find myself caught at the same crossroads on my way to a solution.

What if I just love her the best I can and allow the chips to fall where they land?

What if I simply embraced being my wife’s silver lining?

Early the next afternoon, I’m woken in my bed at the compound by my phone ringing. Eyes screwed shut so the bright light I left on when I passed out can’t make my pounding head worse, I feel around on my nightstand for the too-loud device.

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