Page 14 of Seizing Control: Part Two

Have I been oblivious to his presence or is this truly the first time he’s ventured this close?

“You’re actin’ strange,” Nadia comments when I push away from the wall. The pounding of my heart increases the longer I contemplate the full extent of the deception that’s been shaped around me. With a sigh, my best friend catches hold of my wrist as we reach the top of the stairs and drags me to stop. “I don’t like it. Spill...”

“You’re delusional,” I scoff. Rolling my eyes, my effort to deflect from my secret borders on mean as I tell her, “Maybe you should worry about your own issues instead of projecting them on to me?”

The snark hangs in the air as a verbal indictment of my growing pile of lies and my inability to keep my composure. I’m falling apart within an hour of learning the truth, and it makes guilt ratchet through me. As I recognise that I’ll be lying to my best friend for the foreseeable future, my anger at Zeke and Slash grows. This is a betrayal of our friendship. A treachery that Nadia doesn’t deserve. Not when she’s proven her loyalty, over and over. Acknowledging her fidelity to me doesn’t calm the alarm that flares within my stomach at the idea of telling her the truth.

I’m caught in a web of duplicity.

Captive to the knowledge that Zeke is alive and in hiding.

Victim of Slash’s inability to live up his own impossible standards.

Determined to establish my independence so I can properly protect our children—from even their fathers if the need arises.

The onus is on me to eke out a future filled with peace and security for my growing family.

Here’s hoping I’m up for the challenge...

2

LAZARUS

The steady dripping of blood is a welcome distraction from the young woman silently rocking in the corner of the wine cellar I converted into my interrogation room. Situated in the basement of the house I purchased solely for its easy proximity to Slash’s, I am proud to have my own custom designed torture chamber to utilise during my mission to rid the world of threats to Lily. Having the ability to mount my own investigations, outside of Gabriel and the curia, is a must. He doesn’t have the same sense of urgency about my resurrection as Lazarus Abaddon as I do. I understand his perspective, and I am conscious of his need to take things slowly and properly acclimate me within his team before I eventually take over, but his leisurely approach irks me.

At the start, I was on board with his plan.

Now that I know the baby my sweet thing’s carrying could be mine, I’m not as agreeable.

“Lazarus.” The leader of the clean-up team I ordered greets me with a sharp nod. I’m pretty sure his name is Henry, although with the number of new faces that I’ve been forced to learn since I was woken from my induced coma, it’s impossible to be certain. “What exactly do you need from us?”

I appreciate his matter-of-fact approach to this early hour callout.

After leaving Lily yesterday morning just as the sun was rising, Layla surprised me with the news that she had the youngest son of the new Maddison clan boss chained in my basement. I needed a distraction from the gaping hole in my chest. Every time I think I have accounted for all of the risks, something else pops up.

Time after time, new problems sweep my feet out from underneath me.

Unfortunately, my current mistake is all on me.

Or more accurately, all over Lily.

Scrubbing the blade of the Satterlee bone saw I’m cleaning harder than necessary, I force myself to man up and admit that shouldn’t have given into my need to see my woman. To touch her while she slept. To make her climax for my own selfish gratification. Like the bastard I am to metukà shelì at times, I came all over her belly, then walked out on her sleepy plea for me to stay without cleaning her up. Making her pregnancy real in my head was both an error and a revelation. Acknowledging Lily’s choice to raise Slash’s son with the Maddison bitch as her own was an even bigger blunder.

I’ve cast myself adrift from my resolve.

And I need it back before I fuck things up beyond recognition.

Being in her proximity has only compounded my loneliness. I knew that the prolonged separation from my sweet thing was always going to be the hardest part of my original plan. The six months we spent apart while I was in Sydney had already taught me that, and I’d factored it in when I decided to have Slash marry Lily so his connection to the UK Trinity could protect her while I took the fall for Alex’s death to keep the Maddisons’ attention off her.

Except a better opportunity was offered, and I ended up faking my death instead.

Making the length of my separation from Lily indeterminable at present.

The sharp sting erupts across my palm a second before Henry says, “Lazarus... boss?”

Clearing my throat, I drop the bone saw onto the drainage rack and snatch up the Helferich Bier saw. “I want his body kept in cold storage. Would prefer the Maddison’s believe that he’s missing, not dead, for now.”

“Of course.”

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