Page 73 of Seizing Control: Part Two

A mausoleum encasing Slash’s dying ego.

I make my way to his bedroom.

In the hallway, I pass by the wall of remembrance. My picture frame has been smashed, and no one’s bothered to clean up the glass from the floor. Pausing in front of his door, I listen for signs of life. There isn’t a sound to be heard, nor a strip of light shining around the doorjamb. My gut flares with intuition. I unbutton my jacket and extract one of my handguns from my shoulder holster. The weight of the weapon gives me comfort, reminds me that I am the predator.

Highly trained.

Deadly accurate.

Slash couldn’t get the better of me as Venom.

He stands no chance against Lazarus.

Kicking open the locked door, then flipping the light switch a second later to blind my prey, I enter the bedroom. My eyes adjust immediately, an outcome that is produced by excruciating practice in the sensory deprivation tanks on the lower floor of Gabriel’s training facility. The sleeping area is empty. I screw my nose up as the stink of cigarettes and beer invades my senses. I edge around the corner. His reading nook, a space he once used to monopolise Lily’s attention is also deserted. The couch is surrounded by whiskey bottles and overflowing ashtrays.

When I test the door that leads outside, I discover that it’s locked.

Considering the rest of the building is wide open, this feels strange.

Have I wandered into an ambush?

My question is answered a moment later when a gunshot rings out. The bullet lodges in a wall nearby. I duck down behind the closest recliner. It takes me a second to decipher the direction of the shot.

The bathroom.

When the sleeping quarters were renovated and expanded, personal ensuite bathroom were added to the main bedroom. The prospects basement lodgings have communal showers and a series of restrooms that offer little privacy. It’s part of their initial testing. A probationary period where they foster brotherhood through constant contact. I went through it, and so did Slash and Toker. Being legacy patch-ins, we were given our own rooms during the final months of our time as a prospect, and the same thing happened with Hunter. Cub and Isaiah weren’t granted that grace, and that difference was something I planned on changing once I stepped up into the presidency.

In a true brotherhood, every brother is equal.

I sneak around the corner.

Yank open the bathroom door.

Muzzle first, I step into the tiled space.

My heart drops.

A lump lodges in my throat.

Every ounce of love I once held for Slash crashes into me at once.

“Fuck. No.”

For once, I don’t look around for Gabriel and his taser. I’m too far gone—past the point of caring about pain or punishment. The sight before me is something I’ve been avoiding since I was nineteen, and I witnessed my best friend’s killer instinct emerge as he strangled the woman who gassed his newborn son to death with his bare hands.

The revelation of Slash’s darkness was buried underneath the clean-up I hastily organised. But it never left my head, even as he did his best to pretend like he was only goodness, wisdom, and light. For more than a decade, I let him live in delusion. I allowed him two weeks to break every year, during the anniversary where he was given unfettered access to my sweet thing.

Sharing Lily was verboten with anyone else, but I did it for him. Because she was the one who saved him back then... only to lose him after finally discovering how much she loves him.

Dropping to my knees, I pull his slumped body close. The gun he fired falls free of his slackened grip, dropping to the tiled floor with a clunk. I glare at it like it’s personally offended me. My arms are weak as I sink against the wall with his full weight on my chest. I can’t breathe, can’t think, can only feel. Almost every memory I possess, from my very first to the horror currently unfolding in front of me has his presence in it.

He was my best friend.

My right-hand man.

My conscience.

“Jesus Christ, Slash.” Trembling like a junkie in need of a fix, I run my shaky palm over his cross-cropped scalp. The absence of his long hair, something I’ve teased him about for years, gives me an up-close view of the wound running from his temple and curving along the top of his ear. “You selfish fuckin’ cunt.”

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