Page 77 of Seizing Control: Part Two

Was it Lazarus?

Do I even care?

I’ve already lost my duchess, but this could be the answer to all my prayers.

She would truly be free without me, Lazarus, and Hugh in the world.

Before I can truly come to terms with dark turn my thoughts have taken, the choice is made for me. Hugh surges forward, pulling the trigger on the weapon he has trained on Lazarus as he lunges. The shot echoes around the bathroom, followed by another bullet being discharged a second later. I shove the broken door into the Maddison soldier to stop him from opening fire in the small room. He curses at me when I wedge the splintered wood across the doorway to hamper his re-entry, but can’t risk taking me out with his rifle since Hugh is less than a foot away from me.

Another gunshot goads me into action.

Lazarus hits the floor.

When Hugh tries to line him up, I throw myself at him. The bullet discharges, a streak of heat gashes my cheek and the upper curve of my left ear. Looping an arm around the shorter man’s neck, I choke him as hard as I can while also extricating the handgun from his grip. We wrestle, bouncing off the walls, smacking into the glass wall of the shower cubicle. My towel falls off. It winds around Hugh’s ankles, and he trips.

I wrench the weapon out of his hand, disarming him while he’s off-balance.

Fighting to catch my breath, I sight him up.

“Fuck me dead. Slash.” Hugh raises his hands. Positioning myself between Lazarus and the Maddison captain, I level the muzzle on his centre mass. The sandy-haired man smirks as he runs his gaze down my naked body. A lascivious glimmer shines from his eyes as he says, “Dunno what’s in the water here, but I’m getting rather sick of you all returning from the dead.”

Behind me, Lazarus pushes himself upright.

The relief that floods me when he groans with pain is confounding.

I shouldn’t care that he’s alive, yet I do.

I guess, when push comes to shove, a lifetime of brotherhood supersedes our newfound rivalry. My hatred for him stems from my feelings for Cherub, and nothing more. Outside of that, he’s still one of the best men I know. The problem is that he’s had my wife’s heart for as long as I can remember, and I’m jealous of that. I will always be second—her second choice, her second love, her second chance—and it makes me irrationally angry.

He will always stand between us.

If he was dead, maybe I’d eventually be first in my wife’s heart?

We made progress while he was dead, prior to my son’s shock arrival.

And my decision to run away.

“Shoot him, brother.”

When I hesitate to follow through on Lazarus’ order, Hugh’s smirk widens into a grin. “Yeah, Slash... shoot me.”

Before I can get my head together, the bathroom door is yanked off the hinges and the clan soldier. He blanches when he discovers Hugh on the business end of his own gun, but rallies quickly. The silencer of the semiautomatic moves from me to Lazarus and back to me. The motion telegraphs the soldier’s apprehension.

Something worse than being shut out of the bathroom has unsettled him.

“We need to leave, Captain,” the stressed-out man states in a rush. “There’s an ambulance pulling into the courtyard and sniper on the bloody roof.” My heart drops at the mention of Hunter. He has only recently returned to the Shamrocks after turning in his cut over Venom’s death. The last thing I need is for him to get caught up in this mess. “We have an extraction point set up—it’s open for the next two minutes.”

“Fuckin’ shoot him,” Lazarus demands. When I don’t move, he thumps his bloodied fist on the floor. “End this bullshit, once and for all.”

While I understand his frustration, the situation isn’t so straightforward.

One handgun against a semiautomatic.

It’s not a fair fight.

If I kill Hugh, then Lazarus and I will die.

The ambulance out the front is unlikely to be armed.

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