Page 74 of Seizing Control: Part Two

Blood runs down his neck.

It pools in the hollow of his collar bone.

I slap his face.

He doesn’t respond.

Not that I truly expected him to...

Because the man I’ve spent a lifetime loving like a brother is gone.

11

LILY

Gasping for air, I wake in a rush. My pulse is racing. A sharp pain stabs me directly in the heart. Over and over and over. It’s relentless. I clutch my belly with one hand and press the other to the middle of my chest. The pressure helps with the ache, but it doesn’t fully take it away. Unease spreads through me. I fight to catch my breath as I roll onto my side and snatch my phone from the bedside table.

With my thumb, I illuminate the screen.

I have no notifications.

For some reason, this only ramps up my anxiety even more. The fine hair on my body stands on end. A prickle of awareness runs the length of my spine, leaving a shiver in its wake. Through panicked eyes, I scan the dimly lit room. It is dark, deserted, and silent, apart from the night light and Garrett’s soft snoring. The rocking chair and footrest are adjacent to my bed, the solitary sign that Lazarus was here earlier.

Stumbling inelegantly to my feet, I toss my phone on the nightstand and retrieve my handgun from underneath my pillow, then I cautiously edge my way over to my son’s crib. He is fine. Sleeping easy while I battle the first flushes of a panic attack. Muzzle leading the way, I check the ensuite bathroom, then after finding it empty as well, I slowly open my bedroom door to look up and down the hallway.

The coast is clear.

“It’s time to get a grip, Lily,” I mutter to myself after I’ve perched on the end of my bed. The pounding of my heart continues. It’s agonising. I feel empty and full of dread all at once. Foreboding weighs me down, turning my limbs to jelly. My hand shakes as I swipe at my burning eyes when they well with tears. “Fuck’s sake... now is not the time for a nervous breakdown.”

As much as I can’t pinpoint the exact reason for my middle of the night fright, my head is telling me that it’s Slash’s doing. His request for a divorce broke me—more so than Lazarus’ violence. I guess, I expected my first love to let me down while I still held out hope that my husband would come to his senses. Now, the ongoing radio silence that greets my attempts to communicate with him only compounds the pain he’s caused.

I miss him almost as much as I hate him.

And therein lies my real problem...

Because I don’t actually hate him at all.

I still love the hard-headed man.

The thought of losing Slash forever makes me cry. Twin trails of tears stream down my cheeks while I return my gun to its usual spot. I am unsteady on my feet when I walk over to Garrett’s crib. He is the only part of my husband that I have left, and it breaks my heart.

We could’ve been happy.

If only Slash would’ve tried...

Weeping silently, I scoop my slumbering son from his crib and carry him to my bed. It isn’t something I’d usually do, but I need him close tonight, so I settle him between two pillows well away from the edges of my mattress. When it looks like he’s about to wake up, I pop his pacifier back into his mouth, and my good boy goes right back to sleep. I swipe away my tears before I lay down on the other side of my son with a pillow between us, and my arm tucked under my head while my other hand cups the lower swell of my stomach. My gaze runs over Garrett, taking in his sleeping form and his peaceful expression. Safe in his makeshift bed, warm in his sleep suit, the little man is the spitting image of his dad. Strawberry-blond hair, light-blue eyes, he is big for his age and calmer than any baby should rightfully be. Wise and even-tempered, much like his father. The circumstances of his birth don’t appear to have affected him at all.

It's a state of affairs that I’m determined to maintain.

Come hell or highwater, I will keep Garrett safe from the cruelty of the world.

Even if I have to be both a mother and a father to him, he will want for nothing.

This inner resolve hardens as it becomes clear to me that my use of the past tense when I think about Slash is the real reason why I’m currently awake and shaking like a leaf from head to toe. My sleeping psyche must have acknowledged the reality that I avoid accepting when I’m awake. For weeks, I’ve tried to outrun the truth—that the marriage I agreed to in order to protect myself from Hugh was initially only for convenience, but it came to mean everything to me. It was real. Our love was genuine. We were even content for a fleeting moment.

But the emptiness inside my chest cannot be denied.

It’s all over now.

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