Page 20 of Seizing Control: Part Two

“Good.”

Despite my easy response, sweat breaks out over my skin. I pretend that it’s a reaction to the weather instead of another bout of intuition ringing my internal alarm bell. I’m stomping on thin ice—a delicate situation where I’m attempting to balance my club’s interests with my personal pursuit of my wife’s heart and trust—and I’m bringing an unknown quantity into my scheme along the way.

Angelo Cerulli is a hybrid outlaw. A mobster. A fighter. A biker. He’s the second eldest son of the Australian arm of the Cerulli Famiglia. Cousin of my handler. President of the South-East Queensland chapter of the Shamrocks. He’s also a legitimate business partner of Diablo’s as well as a retired MMA champion.

Known as Silver Tongue, or Silver for short, he’s a hard man to read.

He’s an even harder man to persuade.

Silver has the capacity to turn down a request while making you believe it was your idea to back out.

“You gonna tell me the plan?” Meeyal enquires. He nudges my upper arm with his shoulder. “Or should I guess?”

When my lower back locks up, I groan low in my throat. Stride hitched, I keep walking and forgo replying to my watchman’s goading in favour of silence. He falls quiet as he keeps pace with me. The slow beep from the traffic lights as we wait for them to change increases the pain in my temples. My joints ache from all the riding I’ve done since I left Perth nearly a month ago. I sleep like shit. My jaw hurts from grinding my teeth. I’m a ball of resentment and self-loathing. A man with a plan, hope that waxes and wanes, and a prickly disposition that is as foreign as it is familiar.

My ability to finesse situations has deserted me.

Every morning, as I climb out yet another unfamiliar bed, I have to talk myself out of loading my Harley on a truck and catching the next plane home. I don’t because I know I need to stay the course. Winning Cherub’s trust back is the most important thing to me, followed closely by finding a way to come to terms with the fact that I share a child with Bebe. I’m a father again. The words are ill-fitting, too sharp and pointed for comfort. I regret my rejection of my son. Guilt over my reaction to Cherub’s news weighs me down. My heart pounds with a relentless prayer that I’m the father of the child my wife carries. It feels like the only way to weigh out the bittersweet circumstances of my fucked-up life.

The truth is the dark side of my soul is winning.

So, I have to ensure that the shadow it casts is one my wife is content to live under.

Which is why heading back to Perth without a concrete token of my worth is untenable.

I need to present my wife with a tangible example of my love for her.

Words are easy.

Giving her all of me, the good and the bad, is the only way forward.

Even if that means accepting her hatred over the part I played in her first love’s fake death.

In silence, we cross the busy street on the green light, then my enforcers head into the parking lot to sweep our bikes for devices and signs of tampering. Always level-headed, determined to remain steadfast to our cause, Meeyal stays with me and keeps his thoughts to himself. He’s thrown out his bait, and the younger man knows me well enough to understand that I’ll open up on my own timeline.

I offer the change of subject as an olive branch. “Have you heard from Toker and Cub?”

“Yeah.” Meeyal keeps his gaze on the footpath. “Seems like everything’s good on the home front. The weed’s sellin’, the strip clubs’ are packed, Wyatt and Nate have the workshops tickin’ over... of course, the compound remains empty since everyone prefers to be with Cherub and the?—”

His abrupt stop is a knife to the heart.

The Shamrocks back home have chosen to support my wife’s decision to keep the baby with her over my decree to have him sent back to his mother. They openly flout my instructions, knowing that I can’t punish them without alienating my duchess further. I can feel the censure of my club brothers, even the ones remaining on the east coast with me.

My character has been destroyed by my own actions.

It’s a judgement I’ll be forced to face when I return to Perth.

Funnily enough, the only person seemingly content to give me time to wrap my head around the situation is the woman who should be the angriest with me. Sure, my dalliance with Bebe pre-dates our marriage, yet my duchess was well within her rights to lose her cool with me when my son was unceremoniously dumped on her. Instead, she’s handling me with kid gloves. Entertaining my nightly texts. Making a safe home for a kid who shouldn’t be her problem. Dancing around the problem posed by her pregnancy and the unwanted repercussions of my failure to protect the club from my mistake with Bebe.

Lilianna Hudson is a force of nature. Her big heart just seems to grow and grow, not matter how many hurts the world lobs her way. The ability she possesses to roll with the punches makes me drown in inadequacy. She takes the bad and turns it into a new beginning.

If I was half as strong as her, we wouldn’t have spent so many weeks apart...

“Want a laugh?” Meeyal asks. I nod, accepting his deflection on face value. “Toker thinks you can age a person like you can a tree... by countin’ their rings.”

“Jesus. Fuck me.” A chuckle erupts from my mouth before I properly comprehend the reason for a conversation about discovering someone’s true age. “He’s a clown.”

“Sometimes.” The younger man adjusts his bandana before he tilts his head back to meet my eyes. “But, at least, he’s not a coward or a quitter?—”

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