Page 75 of Seizing Control: Part Two

My husband is gone.

And he’s not coming back.

12

SLASH

“You selfish fuckin’ cunt.” Lazarus voice is grit and grief. He slaps my face hard. It stings, but I ignore it. I’m too pissed off with my inability to aim properly to muster up the energy to deal with neither the pain pulsing in my head nor my ex-best friend’s meltdown. “Can’t believe you’d do this to her, ’specially after all you’ve already done to her.”

There’s only her he could be talking about. My wife. She’s the last person I need to be lectured about, not when the mere mention of my duchess drags the few sweet moments we shared while he was dead back into my head. I remember her kisses. The way her body felt against mine. My hand around her throat. Her complete submission. Our mutual destruction. We would rise together. Fall together. Come together.

My duchess trusted me with her life.

I didn’t trust her with my heart.

It was that simple.

And that hard.

Lazarus’ heart pounds against my cheek as he pulls me tighter to him. I feel his palm run over the top of my head a second time. The salt from his skin makes the self-inflicted wound sting. I gasp, then grumble under my breath. A combination of stale whiskey, cigarettes, and body odour invades my nose, and I gag at the same time as the man holding me makes a sound that is part yelp and part snarl.

“Open your damn eyes.” Jolting into motion, he manhandles me, slipping and sliding my body until my shoulders are pressed to his chest. Locking his legs around my hips when I protest his constricting embrace, the suit-wearing arsehole refuses to let me escape his clutches. I’m easy to dominate considering I’m gaunt as a skeleton and drunk as a skunk. His fingertips dig into my cheeks, and he tips my head back. “Face me, you weak prick.”

Eyes shut, I shove against him, however, he doesn’t seem to notice. From inside out, I’m depleted. My eating habits went to shit after I ended things with my duchess. I can’t remember the last time I ate, but it’s been a while since I’ve indulged on anything other than nicotine and alcohol. A little bit of coke was added to the mix, every now and again, until Meeyal flushed the last of my stash down the toilet on his way out the door tonight. That motherfucking busy body received a whiskey bottle to the head for his troubles. The bruise that’s no doubt setting in around his eye would’ve been nice memento for him to remember me by if it wasn’t for my shitty aim.

And Lazarus’ arrival.

I don’t know why he’s here.

Unless it’s to finish off the job...

A man can only hope.

“I’mma clean you up,” Lazarus answers my unspoken question. When I fight to free myself from the interfering bastard’s grip, he pins my arms to my sides, then continues talking in the same strangled, overly emotional voice he’s been using since he heard the gunshot. “Then I’m sendin’ you home, brother.”

“No.” I try to elbow him. “Let... me... die.”

“Fuck, no.” There’s a trace of irony laced around the outrage in his tone. Maybe I was on the right path, and he is here to kill me? Of course, Lazarus kills my hopes a second later. “Just tell her you love her... meet your son. Be the fuckin’ dad you’re meant to be.”

“Can’t.” Bile fills my mouth at the idea of facing Cherub. I shake my head once, pulling free of his grip, wincing when dizziness takes hold. Chin to my chest, I mumble, “She hates me.”

“Nah,” the idiot holding me drawls. “Would make my life’a heap easier if she did, but Lily loves you as much as she loves me.”

Optimism flickers in me, then it’s extinguished by the memories of all the things I’ve done to my duchess. The same emptiness that drove me to seize on Cub’s SOS call as an opportunity to manufacture enough time alone to eat a bullet grips me. I’m a fuck-up. Couldn’t even kill myself without screwing it up. My misdeeds rain down on my head. The hurt I’ve caused my wife hits me in an ocean of shame and regret. I drown in unbridled darkness, desperately paddling away from the demons I have spent my life trying to deny.

“Brother,” Lazarus murmurs. “Put all the shit to one side... talk to me.”

Gulping down air as I fight to stay afloat, I blurt, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what?” He growls with his trademark venom. “Live for your kids and the gorgeous woman who loves you...”

His censure is the final straw.

I slump against him, defeated and depleted, devoid of hope and courage.

The truth is easy to admit to myself, but hard as hell to say out loud.

I don’t want to die.

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