Page 84 of Seizing Control: Part Two

I have so many questions that need answers. Hunter’s split loyalties have really left me in the dark. A skerrick of anger, something I rarely feel toward the youngest Hudson sibling, surges inside of me. Dread and rage intermingle, with confusion swiftly joining the mix as my stomach starts to roil.

Something is happening here.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t sit well with me.

“Can you organise beds and stuff, lil cuz?” Toker asks. With worry in his voice, he continues. “Know you’re close to popping, but?—”

“I’ll get Nadia to help. Will also arrange for Doc to check Slash over and for Crystal to create a menu. How long should we plan for?”

“A week,” Cub offers.

“We’ll start with that, and go from there.” My cousin is all business, a seriousness in his voice that I rarely witness. “Cub... need you to disconnect little Cherub, the rest of this’s club business.”

Before I can respond, the line goes dead.

“Well, fuck you too,” I snark at the silent handpiece.

Nadia snickers as I hang up the phone. “They pull the ‘club business’ excuse?”

“Yep.”

I’m doing my best to stymie my increasing ire as I steal another glance at my husband. Slash hasn’t moved. He continues to hold his mug like it is the only thing anchoring him to earth while staring at the tabletop like it holds all the answers. It appears that it’s up to me to breach the distance between us.

The memory of the last time we were together invades my head. I’ve done my best over the past six weeks to avoid thinking about it. Slash’s scorn hurt more than his brutality, but I didn’t escape his clutches unscathed. The bruises were a reminder that endured for a week or so. My heart remains tender. The fractures he caused in that vital organ are permanent—the proof in that evident by my middle of the night wake up call.

It kills me to know that my husband hates me.

Hurts even more to accept that he resents my claim on him.

Nauseous, stressed to the max, and in need of time to find the courage needed to approach Slash, I take a sip of my Milo. The choc-malt goodness soothes my stomach. It does little to steady my racing heart. Even less to reduce the wobble that’s taking hold of my chin.

“He’s a mess,” Nadia offers. “He’s gonna be a pain in our butt, isn’t he?”

Her understatement is the kick in the butt that I need.

The only way out of this is through...

“Yep... so wish me luck.” My best friend squeezes my shoulder. She’s been on my side throughout all of this. Her ongoing objection to my guilt over sleeping with Lazarus behind Slash’s back helps calm me a little bit. I don’t think I did anything worse than he’s done to me, but my conscience won’t let me completely off the hook. It wasn’t the right thing to do without telling him first. He’s my husband, and that endows him with a claim over me that I broke.

“You’re a saint, Anna... I would be screaming obscenities by now.”

“Hardly.” We lock eyes, and Nadia grimaces at whatever she sees in my expression. “Here goes nothing.”

My heart is lodged in my throat as I venture forward.

In the days that it took me to get over my last altercation with Slash, it was easy to be angry at him. His touch was deliberately cruel, marking my body with his savagery. Fingerprint-sized bruises mottled my hips. Handprints that settled into welts covered my butt. The soreness that I felt in my core from his probing fingers was the worst.

It forced me to face the toxicity between us as I healed.

For the first time in my life, I was fearful of him.

Slash’s darkness is deeper than Venom’s ever was.

I’m out of my depth with my husband.

His decision to divorce me was almost a relief.

A temporary one, considering that he’s back under the same roof as me.

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