Seizing Control: Heartbreak

The main condition of the Black Shamrocks MC’s new alliance with the Trinity is clear.

My union with Slash must bear fruit, or Zeke will die.

It’s the motivation behind my wedding vows.

The reason I willed myself to endure the ritual.

My fuel to uphold the promises I made to the two men I love, even as I understand that I’ve been set up to fail them both.

Until the news of Zeke’s untimely death is announced and my reason for marrying Slash dies with him.

Now, I am pregnant.

Paternity unknown.

Wed to a man who hates me for my inability to love him most, while our family’s wellbeing hinges on our capacity to make the Trinity believe that our broken marriage is real.

• Death of a main character

• Pregnancy after miscarriage

• Death of a newborn (not stillbirth) (off page, mentioned in passing)

• Death of a parent (off page, mentioned in passing)

• BDSM elements

• Drug use

• Profanity

• Violence

• Emotional manipulation

• Torture (on page, descriptive)

• Non-consensual sex

• Love triangle (readers may feel some events constitute cheating)

• Gravestone desecration

• Dub-con (under coersion)

• Self-harm Humiliation

Prologue 
Ezekiel 
Aged: Nineteen

“Hit ’im again,” my president tells me in his raspy, smoker’s voice. Leaning against the concrete wall of the underground bunker hidden beneath the main building inside the Black Shamrocks MC compound, Brutus is a formidable sight. As always, on the rare occasion he looks me directly in the eye, the brute of a man sneers at me, then quickly hides his dislike beneath a façade of resigned counsel. “Use the studded knuckle dusters. Make ’im bleed.” 

“Not sure how much blood he has left.” 

I’ve been working over the two half-naked men for hours so far without knowing what he wants out of them. So far, he’s been content to watch them squirm, beg, and bleed under my ministrations. Can’t say I care all that much about his reasons, since this scene is satisfying my need for violence after three days of outrunning my feelings. 

Stumbling out of the strip club, pissed off as I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to be successful in my mission to drown my emotions in alcohol and pussy, the last thing I’d wanted was to accept a call from my president. The only problem with that was my status as a prospect and my rapidly deteriorating relationship with my godfather. I couldn’t risk angering Brutus when the votes required to receive my full rocker needed to be unanimous. Luckily, his order to grab one of the Shamrocks vans and meet him at the warehouse had proven timely. 

Capturing a pair of Bishops on our turf and hauling their unconscious bodies into the bunker for interrogation was just the distraction I needed. With a smile on my face, I’d stripped them of everything but their boxers and their cuts and hung them from the chains connected to the ceiling. My prez’s demand to make them squeal had elicited a grin, then I’d set about doing exactly that. 

Except, I’m confused by his lack of urgency to extract answers... 

“You challengin’ my order, prospect?” 

Biting back my brewing retort when his curt response warns me that his mood is turning sour, I shake my head to deny Brutus’ allegation. He’s spoiling for a fight, and I’m in no shape to give it to him. Not after spending weeks sitting with my cancer-riddle mother while she impatiently waited to meet the reaper. In the forty-eight hours since her death, I’ve done my best to evade my worried friends, as they’ve tried to track me down to offer their condolences. 

I’m angry. Tired. Lost. Brimming with hurt. A tornado of emotion, some of which I can’t even name. The one thing I do know is that grief is the one thing I’m not feeling right now, so their sympathy is the last thing I need. No matter how well-meaning their intentions, I refuse to mourn the bitch who spawned me.  

The truth is that my mother was evil, and just like the man talking me through the interrogation of two bikers from our enemy club, the Bishops of Bloodshed, she hated me. I wish I could’ve met her loathing head on with a hatred of my own, but I’m not built like that. A small part of my heart still yearns for her unconditional acceptance, even though her sly pinches, harsh words, deliberate neglect, stinging slaps, and hard words should’ve killed the child inside me a long time ago. 

Maybe every little boy eternally craves his mother’s love? 

I wouldn’t know since I never had it to lose... 

Nowadays, I’m less hungry for her approval because I’ve become a slave to my pride. Motivated to impress the hard man glaring at me, I live solely to ensure the innocence of his only daughter. So much so, that I can’t remember the last time I existed outside the spectre of my mother’s slander and my own need to prove her wrong. I’m stupid. Useless. Dumb. An embarrassment. Ineptitude is ingrained in my atomic makeup, to the point where I rely on my best friend to balance the books at the custom motorcycle workshop my dad gave me for my eighteenth birthday every quarter and a twelve-year-old girl to write up my quotes and finalise my weekly invoicing. 

I’m the living embodiment of incompetence. If I wasn’t good with a welding rod, a blow torch, violence, and murder, I’d be nothing more than a meat sack with a heartbeat and a steady hand with a knife. My prez regularly informs me that my lack of talent is offset by my indiscriminate homicidal tendencies. He loudly proclaims that I’m his secret weapon, a killer he can point at his enemies without question or consequence. 

Yet, as I snatch the brass weapon Brutus wants me to use to motivate our captives from the stainless-steel bench and thread my swollen and bloodied fingers through the slots, I’m not so sure anymore. Whereas I once found satisfaction in my venomous lethality, as I reach the end of my teen years I’m discovering that my bloodlust requires sufficient motivation in order to fully engage. I don’t want to kill without cause. I don’t want to be the violence behind the Shamrocks patch. I don’t want to be on the outside looking in while my fellow prospects are given bigger and better roles within the club. 

My talents aren’t cerebral like Carter’s or parasocial like Benedict’s. 

I know my aptitudes are based in the physical. 

I’m much better with my hands than my head. 

Still, going through the motions no longer interests me. 

Not when the blood already coating my hands feels permanent. A bloom of disgrace I can’t outrun. Killing comes easily to me, especially when my pride and brotherhood are at stake, or my protective instincts flare. Which is why I live with the gnawing fear that my sins will stain little Cherub’s pure soul and righteous existence if I’m not careful. Being near her is ripe with risk, even as the mere thought of being separated from her feels like a fate worse than death. 

At my core, I am a motherless son who grew into a man faithfully devoted to one girl.  

Even though that truth would get me killed if it ever came to light... 

“What ya waitin’ for... a fuckin’ invite from the Queen?” Brutus grumbles. He slaps me across the back of my head. I hunch my shoulders to absorb the blow, hissing low as my temper engages. As the dark reminder of the stakes in this game we’ve been playing since Cherub turned twelve and he decided I was his enemy swirl in my mind, I grind my teeth together to stop myself from whirling on him and jamming the sharp points in his throat—even if watching Brutus drown in his own blood would be an unexpected rainbow following the shitty few months I’ve endured. “Get a move on... the cut sluts’ll be no more than walkin’ cum dumps if we don’t get upstairs soon.” 

Rampantly cheating on his gorgeous wife is a recent proclivity. 

One that Brutus hasn’t taken any steps to hide from his club brothers. 

The cone silence that our brotherhood operates within is being tested by his latest betrayal of his family. No one likes what he’s doing, however, I have been expressly forbidden by my father, the current Shamrocks’ vice president, from telling Scarlett the truth. Carter and Benedict’s fathers, the Sergeant-At-Arms and Road Captain respectively, have laid the same decree on their sons. It goes against my nature to lie to the woman who helped raise me during my mother’s many absences. She deserves my loyalty in a way Brutus never has. At the same time, I can’t imagine a world where I am responsible for destroying Cherub’s picture-perfect childhood by revealing that her father is as faithless as he is feckless. 

Rock meet hard place. 

Whichever I turn, I lose. 

My brothers, the respect of a good woman, or the happiness of the girl I’d die to protect. 

“Ask him about the missin’ packages.” 

“Sure.” My voice is hoarse from lack of use. I swallow deep, then clear my throat. “What packages?” 

“What packages?” Brutus snorts after he verbally mocks me. “Fuck, you’re a slow learner... a right daddy’s boy who can’t see past the end’a his nose.” Breathing heavily, daggers in my eyes, I scan his face for clues to his puzzling comment. When he moves to slap me again, I sidestep his outstretched palm, and he demonstrates his irritation as he scoffs, “Remember those lost—” He makes finger quotes around the last word. “—packages. I might’a found ’em, or better still, I might’a left ’em layin’ about for the Bishops to find so we could engineer this little meetin’.” 

My president’s flippant reply sends a chill down my spine. 

The only missing packages I’m aware of are the ones my fellow prospect, Benedict Cherub, was accused of losing on our latest run. He swore, black and blue, up and down, at church that he’d counted right at the start and again at the delivery spot, but Brutus still docked his meagre earnings for the “lost” packages, reduced his paid hours acting as security at the Shamrocks strip clubs, and put him on solo clean-up duty for a month in the compound. Carter and I helped him out when no one was looking, and we did our best to spread the blame between the three of us since we were all responsible for the safe passage of the recent weed crop to our Nullarbor chapter. We deflected the old timers censure from him with logic. Tried to make them understand that we’d triple counted before leaving, again at the end of each night’s camping, and when we’d handed over the packages. 

Our explanations fell on deaf ears because our word was at odds with our president’s. 

Brutus Mayberry is king in our world. 

Sure, the Shamrocks are technically a democracy, but everyone knows we live under one man’s rule. Normally a benevolent ruler, it now appears that my president set up my good friend to fail. It’s enraging. Grates on my sense of fair play. Pushes me closer to the edge. Where I once hero-worshipped Brutus, I have grown to resent my godfather’s callous hypocrisy in recent months. 

First, he tries to limit my time with Cherub. 

Then, he lies about Benedict to the club. 

I should turn the homicidal tendencies he lauds so loudly on him. 

It’d be a well-deserved slice of karma... 

“Knew you were bent, didn’t realise your moral compass was all the way broken,” I muse loud enough for our captives to hear. They’re displaying keen interest in our conversation, likely out of some stupid hope that they’ll live to pass on any nuggets of information they glean to their president, Wolf. If they had more than one braincell between them, they’d know that their meeting with the reaper was cemented the moment I captured them at gunpoint this evening. “Next week at church’ll be fun.” 

“Sure will,” he tells me with a snort. “’Cause your stoner buddy’ll be scramblin’ to explain how the Bishops got their hands on the packages he lost.” My president shrugs, then angles his head to the side. “Unless...” 

It’s clear that he’s angling for something. 

Rather than drive myself crazy trying to guess his next move, I ask outright, “What the fuck do ya want?” 

Brutus jerks his chin toward the two men hanging from the bunker roof. “Them.” 

Following his gaze, I remind myself that the underground room is soundproof. I have no alibi to this situation, and I lack a witness to Brutus’ admission about the lost packages and his threat to Benedict. Cutting a deal with him is the smartest move. 

I think... 

With my brain moving a million miles an hour, I stare at the ceiling like it holds the answers. As I blindly scramble to determine what Carter would do in this situation, I imagine the party getting started in the main bar above us. My best friends will be setting things up, stocking the fridges, and kowtowing to the demands of the old timers who ascribe to Brutus’ treat ’em like slaves ethos when it comes to prospects. No doubt, they’ll be slipping off every now and then to check for updates about my whereabouts, worried as they’ll be that I’m out in public fucking up my life in response to my mother’s death. 

They have no idea that I’m dancing between the devil and insanity. 

Trapped underground with our (maybe) dirty president. 

I have two options. 

Cut a deal with a maniac with an agenda. 

Storm upstairs and out his double cross to my club brothers.

Do I sell my soul for mine, Carter, and Benedict’s full rockers? 

Or should I lay my honour at the feet of men who’ve already fallen victim to his lies?  

My choice is made when I enquire, “What do you want from them?” 

“I want them to confess to the theft of our weed.” The big man snickers when our captives protest his allegation. Delight at my impending compliance dances in his cerulean gaze as he tells me, “Then I want them dead.” 

“Fine.” With my right leg bouncing erratically, hitching my stride, I circle the first of the men hanging from the bunker roof. The chain securing him jangles and clanks when he skids on his tiptoes in a feeble attempt to escape my reach. I glare at him, focusing the rage I feel over Brutus’ deceit and my mother’s final desertion on the bleeding Bishop. He makes a whining sound when I jam the studded knuckle dusters under his chin. “Tell me how you got your hands on our weed?” 

“C—Come on, man.” The stringent scent of urine fills the small, cold space. I glance at the floor to make sure his piss isn’t splashing my boots. “I know nut-tin’... I’m bein’ straight. I know nut-ting about no packages.” 

The bounce in my leg, a sign that my control is about to slip, picks up pace. I rake my hostile gaze over his swollen face, noting that he’s slightly older than me. The patch on his left lapel identifies him as an enforcer. It’s shiny state telegraphs that he’s new to the role. His pale ink-covered skin and the diamond stud in his ear lobe denotes him as one of Wolf’s favoured brothers. Most of the Bishops live pay-cheque to pay-cheque, extravagances like tattoos and jewellery out of their reach. 

“Tell me—” I drop my gaze to the patch with his road name. “—Prickles... why were you hangin’ around our warehouse?” 

He breathes heavily through his mouth, recoiling when I jab the studs through his skin. Blood wells, then it runs down his neck. The streaks of claret colour his heaving chest. A squeal that’d embarrass a pig emanates from his quivering lips. 

“Venom...” Prickles pleads. 

I shoot a look at Brutus. “Why’s he callin’ me that?” 

“You know why,” my wily president replies evenly. His bright eyes gleam with satisfaction. “I named you as an eight-year-old hothead.” In my head, I mentally correct him. The “Venom” moniker was christened when I was seven and little Cherub was nine months old. Her only cousin, Benedict, had dropped her while horsing around, and I’d lost my shit on him. Fists and angry words, I’d punished him for hurting my sweet girl with his stupidity. “Told ya then... told ya hard-headed father the same bloody thing... once I found your trigger, you’d be my best weapon. That ain’t changed—” He screws up his nose and regards me like shit stuck to his shoe. “—Despite your inability to learn ya place.” 

Once again, I let his hostility slide. 

Although I match his venom, I don’t completely understand his motivation. 

I’ve done nothing to him. His affections turned on a dime a few months ago. To the point where he feels comfortable sabotaging my nomination to patch into the Shamrocks. I don’t necessarily respect his personal choices, and his moral code is lacking in my opinion, but I would’ve walked into a hail of bullets to protect him and everything the patches on his cut stand for. The club I want to belong to is worth dying for, and that meant sacrificing myself for my president if it came to that. 

But that ends now... 

My allegiance is to the brotherhood I’m trying to join. 

No one man stands above that allegiance. 

“Venom.” The second Bishop of Bloodshed chooses now to offer his input. I redirect my attention from Brutus to the bleeding man. The name on his cut states “Thorns”. His forehead is screwed up. Pain clouds his gaze. There is an absence of guile in his features when he tells me, “Me and my brother were sent to watch the warehouse by Wolf—he told us that Brutus was sendin’ us a—” 

Bang. 

The gunshot echoes off the walls of the bunker. 

“What the fuck?” I exclaim. Seeing that Brutus is about to send Prickles to the reaper before he can finish his brother’s sentence, I surge forward to catch hold of his wrist. My aim is true, but my timing is off. Prickles crab-walks on his tiptoes to get out of the firing line, just as my president pumps a bullet into the second Bishops’ forehead a second before I snatch the Glock out of his hand and knock him to the concrete floor. As I sight him up with his own weapon, he flops prone on his back in the puddles of blood slowly circling the drain and glares up at me. “You’re a fuckin’ rat... you told them about the warehouse.” 

Panting hard, my president grins. “Nah... I wouldn't've done somethin’ like that.” 

“It wasn’t a fuckin’ question,” I shout at him. 

I see his next move the moment the thought enters his head. With the knuckle dusters hampering my grip, and the Glock held in my non-dominant hand, I’m slow to react when he sweeps his leg out. The impact buckles my knees. I go down like a sack of potatoes. The air is knocked out of my lungs. I groan as pain ricochets through my head and shoulder blades. 

Fit, despite being in his forties, my president springs back to his feet. After driving the toe of his boot into my ribs, he easily disarms me. Brutus laughs when I jerk away from his foot after he feints another kick. He aims the muzzle at my face. Slapping the cement beneath me with both palms, I refuse to look away as I wait for him to send me to the reaper as well. 

The bullet never comes. 

Instead, Brutus holds out his hand to me. “You’re gonna make a good fuckin’ biker.” 

“Fuck you.” He flicks his fingers when I refuse to accept his assistance. Resolutely remaining on the floor, I ask, “You gonna act like I didn’t hear what I just heard?” 

“This was a test... you heard what I wanted you to,” my president tells me. When it becomes clear that I’m not going to take his hand, Brutus wanders over to the bench that contains the tools we use on our enemies. I clamber back to my feet, ignoring the stabbing pain that flares in the back of my skull. After selecting the thin wire that we use to garrotte our captives, he ambles over to the dead men. “This’ll be ya callin’ card, Venom.” 

In silence, I watch him desecrate both corpses by drawing the wire between their lips and slicing until they’re left with an artificial smile curling from either side of their lips. Arms crossed over my chest, I arch an eyebrow in a request for him to expand on his previous remark. 

Brutus grins. “It’s called a Glasgow Grin. My Pa used to dole ’em out.” He examines his handiwork, before turning back to me. “Every time I see one, it warms the cockles of my heart.” 

“Not sure why you expect me to take up the mantle.” 

“Told ya that you’re gonna be my best weapon. That means I getta shape ya skills.” 

After working saliva into my suddenly dry mouth, I ask, “What if I want more than that?” 

“Then we’re gonna have a problem...” Although he trails off to drive home the seriousness of his point, Brutus doesn’t wait for my response to his veiled threat. “You’re free to go. I’ll have Angelis get his enforcers to clean up this mess. 

With a sharp nod, I accept his dismissal. 

The only exit from the underground bunker is a retractable ladder. 

I jump with one arm extended to catch hold of the bottom rung so I can unfold it. 

The last thing I want to do is see my friends, even though I know the time has come to face them. They’ve been tracking me for two days, and I’ve been doing my best to evade them. Their sympathy is unwarranted. It’s also the sole certainty in my near future. My brain is scrambled with thoughts that my president is dirty. Caught between my reticence to accept his excuse about this fiasco being a test, I need the firm footing the presence of my best friends provides. 

My preference would be to visit Cherub. 

But, I’ve already escaped death once tonight, so I’m loath to push my luck. My president didn’t shoot me after pulling a gun on him. Doubt he’ll extend the same grace if he finds me in his daughter’s bedroom in the middle of the night. 

Innocent as my intentions toward her may be... 

“Excusin’ ya from prospect duties tonight,” Brutus announces. Waiting for the other shoe to drop since he isn’t known for cutting his noms any slack, I continue pulling the ladder down without acknowledging his declaration. “In light’a ya mumma’s death and all.” 

“She wasn’t my mumma... just the bitch who birthed me.” 

“Ain’t that a fact.” Brutus’ droll response follows me up the steps. “Bitch won’t be missed, that’s fo’ sure.” 

When I emerge from the hole in the floor into the deserted laundry room, I allow myself a moment to breathe. My nerves are rattled, a circumstance where I’d cut out my own tongue before admitting out loud. I need a break. From my life. From my friends. From the club. From my own head. 

I need something sweet to offset all the bitterness flooding me. 

Exiting into the hallway that connects the various extensions to the original building, I take one look at the rowdy crowd in the main bar, then I spin on my heel. Despite my urgency to get out of here, I take a few minutes to wash up in my private bathroom. Once I’m clean, I quickly dress in fresh jeans and a new Shamrocks t-shirt. My knife is strapped to my calf. The shoulder holster I habitually wear follows a second later. 

I slip my cut over my shoulders as I enter Carter’s bedroom. 

His neat and tidy space, filled with the baby books and parenting guides he’s currently devouring in preparation of his kid’s birth, is dimly lit by his bedside lamp. While I’m not a pig by any means, my room always looks a mess when compared to his. It’s a physical manifestation of our contrasting personalities. 

I’m chaos. He is calm. Together, we’re unbeatable. 

As much as I want to avoid him right now, I still don’t want him to worry. Smiling, I toss his pillows on the floor and short sheet his bed, to let him know that I'm still alive and kicking. Then, after moving the bookmarks in the book he’s in the middle of, I let myself out of the side door leading to the parking lot. 

Carter is the only brother with an external access. 

It’s a boon that we don’t take for granted as we make our way through the rotation of fresh strippers and new cut sluts that we like to share. Prospects aren’t supposed to fuck the whores that flock to the compound before the full patches, so the side door offers plausible deniability and freedom for the women to come and go without question.

Since my Harley is still parked at the strip clubs, I slide into the driver’s seat of a club van. 

The drive from the port-side suburb that houses the compound to the suburb where most of the old timers live passes by in the blink of an eye. I should be worried about getting caught, but I’m not. I’m borderline manic. In need of a circuit breaker before I explode. My need for sweetness is stronger than my sense of self-preservation. 

Especially when the truth is as crude as it is simple. 

Brutus will spend the night balls deep in a cut slut. 

I’ll be free to savour every second I have Cherub to myself. 

She is my reason for breathing. 

The only thing keeping me sane. 

My busted knuckles start bleeding again as I pound on the heavy wooden door. Leaning heavily against the wall, I shift from foot to foot as the frantic urge that drove me to visit my president’s home in the middle of the night tries to goad me into smashing a window to let myself inside. The front light blinds my bleary eyes when it’s switched on. White spots burst in my vision. 

Muttering to myself, I shield my face with my hand, “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” 

“Oh, sweetheart. Come on in.” Scarlett Mayberry’s expression fills with worry when she pulls the door open to find me standing on her front porch at midnight. Her eyes dart past me, scanning her front yard for signs of danger, then return to my battered face and my busted hands. The bruises are courtesy of the fights I’ve picked whilst drunk. The grazes on my knuckles from torturing the Bishops tonight. “You’re a mess.” She ushers me in with a frantic hand motion. When I don’t immediately move, she grabs me by the front of my shirt and pulls me inside her foyer. “Everyone’s been looking for you... let me check you over.” 

“I’m fine.” 

With one of her patented eye rolls, Scarlett flicks the lock back into place, then lays the handgun she’s holding on the side table. Her concerned gaze tracks from my bruised jaw down to the split knuckles. I reopened them when I pounded on her front door and they’re now dripping blood on her floor. “You certainly look fine...” 

“You should see the other guys,” I joke. 

My attempt at humour falls flat when Scarlett purses her lips before she says, “So they’re alive to tell the tale?” 

“No.” 

“Did Brutus send you to deal with them for the Shamrocks, or was it personal?” 

“Bit’a both,” I hedge the truth rather than inform her that I suspect her husband’s intentions have nothing to do with the safety of the club and more to do with some game he’s playing with the lives of his prospects. When Scarlett’s eyes fill with scepticism, I’m forced to admit, “Can’t really tell, nowadays.”  

“Sweetheart.” Scarlett sighs. Her fingers wrap around the cherub pendant she wears around her neck. It’s one of the few pieces of jewellery that I’ve been satisfied enough with to gift to one of my loved ones. My dad wears a sceptre and horn of plenty designed in the same style. She caresses it, then tucks it back inside her top collar. “I really wish you’d speak to Hades before you allow my old man to use you as his attack dog. Times are changing. Violence isn’t always the answer.” 

“Violence is the only thing I’m any good at.” 

“That’s not true.” The pretty blonde sighs a second time. “You’re good at lots of things.” 

Scarlett’s attempt at explaining away my killer tendencies feels like a thousand thumbtacks being jammed under my fingernails at once. I’m not in the right headspace to ward off the poison that immediately floods my head as a protest to her kindness. A solitary word echoes in my skull. Stupid. It’s a familiar refrain. One I’ve heard since my earliest days at school—a label my own mother has tossed my way more than once. As thoughts of the woman who finally deserted me for the last time begin to curdle my blood, Scarlett closes the distance between us. The hug that she engulfs me in makes my skin burn with shame. My right leg starts to bounce, and a tell-tale prickle of rage breaks out over my scalp. As my temper, the oversized pit of lava that endlessly bubbles in the space between my heart and my gut, begins to catch fire, the tall and graceful blonde holding me immediately notices. I try my hardest to temper my dark side, aware that it’s a fight I’ll lose if she doesn’t stop offering me unearned sympathy and understanding. 

“Zeke,” Scarlett says my name in the same tone she uses on her own children whenever they are upset. “It’s late, and the kids are already in bed, but there’s room for you up there too... as long as you’re happy on Lily’s floor.” 

A few months ago, that caveat wouldn’t have been needed. 

Now, thanks to Brutus’ paranoia, my every move is watched. 

“Thanks, Scar,” I reply as evenly as I can manage. 

“No thanks needed. I know you’ll always look after that sweet child of mine.” 

“Always.” 

“And that’s why you’re welcome here, any time.” Although I’m aware that’s not necessarily true, I still take advantage of Scarlett’s vow. After the past three days of abstaining, I need to bask in little Cherub’s sweetness or I’m going to find myself in lockup. Moving fast, a little apprehensive that she could rescind her offer at any time, I have one foot on the stairs when Scarlett adds. “I’m so sorry about Chantal. It wasn’t a shock, still I know it can’t be easy. Your mother was so very proud of—” 

“Her looks. Her dancing. And the number of zeroes in her latest fuck buddy’s bank account. But never me... I was her biggest disappointment.” When Scarlett looks as if she’s about to argue, I angrily shake my head as I turn back to face her. She frowns, and the weight of the guilt that hits me in the wake of that pitying look quickly becomes too much to bear. “I apologise... shouldn’t’ve have spoken to you like that.” 

“You’re forgiven. Three days without sleep will put anyone out of sorts.” 

“You and I both know my bad temper’s kinda permanent by this point.” 

Shock ripples through me, slowing the lit fuse of my rage a little, when she replies with a sharp laugh, “Ain’t that the truth.” My lips quirk and Scarlett’s smile widens, and she makes a shooing motion with her hands. “Now off you go, get some sleep. I’ll keep my old man—” A ripple of revulsion shakes her shoulders when she mentions my president. “—at bay while you catch some much-needed zeds.” 

The reminder of her hot-headed husband—the man who nominated me to the Black Shamrocks MC nearly eight months ago, then immediately began to cut me down—forces me back into motion. I take the stairs three at a time and bound down the hallway toward the Mayberry twins adjacent bedrooms, expertly skipping the squeaky floorboards so I don’t wake up the five kids sleeping under this roof. 

For the first eleven years of their lives, Lilianna and Lysander shared a room with their Irish twin, Everett. The threesome was inseparable until late this year when little Cherub decided that she wanted her own space. Always eager to indulge his only daughter, Brutus ordered his prospects to build a dividing wall down the middle of the giant room. 

With Carter and Benedict, I’d worked my arse off to make Cherub’s bedroom perfect. 

Blue. Airy. Safe. 

It’s her sanctuary. 

My sanctuary. 

Cherub’s scent envelops my senses when I slip inside her dark room and quietly close the door behind me. It’s a fruity vanilla perfume that reminds me that she’s growing up too fast. No more Impulse body spray for Lilianna Mayberry, nowadays she wears the expensive perfume Scarlett helped her select as her “signature scent.” It was a major milestone apparently, one that had ended with me acting as her test dummy in the middle of the department store, so that she could start high school early next year smelling like a woman and not a kid. 

A woman. 

Fuck me, she’s only twelve. 

I’m already conscious of the ticking time-bomb brewing between us. I don’t need everyone around us harping on about the speed with which she’s growing up. Logically, I know that the fuss with the perfume was just another way for them to drive home the approaching end date of mine and Cherub’s friendship. 

They think I’m stupid. 

Maybe, I am. 

But, not about this. 

I know that Cherub will be grown within a few years. 

She’ll head off to university, and I’ll be relegated to the shadows where I belong. 

The future is clear. 

Lilianna is a shooting star. 

I’m a black hole. 

The prospect who pounds heads. The son who dropped out of school. The biker who works with his hands while the rest of the club completes the jobs that require actual skills and intelligence. 

The useless one. 

The stupid one. 

Reality is worse than a knife to the chest. 

Losing her is my worst nightmare. 

With shaky hands, I scrape my hands through my hair, then attempt to breathe, deep and slow, to settle the urge to tear the heads off every person who wants me to step back from little Cherub. It’s a problem for another day—one that won’t come to a head for years if I have any say in it. Right now, she wants me in her life, so the matter’s settled as far as I’m concerned. 

“Get a grip, fuckface,” I berate myself when my bouncing leg refuses to die down. “Breathe in, breathe out.” 

The calming technique is a little Cherub brainchild. 

She swears it stops her from murdering her brothers. 

I’m not quite as sold on it. 

Still, for her, I try… 

For my sweet girl, I’ll always try. 

With deliberately precise movements, I pull off my prospect cut and hang it over the back of her desk chair. Toeing off my boots, I line them up next to the wall, then grab the spare blanket from the end of Cherub’s bed and the extra pillow she keeps on the top of her wardrobe. The pallet I make on the hard floor is basic, yet I know the sleep I’ll get on it will be better than I can manage anywhere else. 

The sound of Cherub’s breathing is my peace. 

Eager to embrace oblivion after weeks of stress and my earlier run in with my president, I remove my belt. The leather strap hangs with my cut, my Shamrocks buckle clinking against the desk. I tuck my shoulder holster under my pillow, so my guns are within reach. Dressed in my black jeans and t-shirt, I take in the precisely organised, yet delicately feminine bedroom that contains all the trinkets of the girl who holds my heart in her fist. Her academic awards. A cork-board filled with polaroid pictures. Athletic trophies. A handwoven dream catcher. The painstakingly embroidered quilt mounted to the wall at the head of her bed. All the paraphernalia that comes part and parcel with her latest hobby. 

Every few months, little Cherub decides she’s going to pursue something new. Three months ago, she was all in on these furry gerbils that blinked. Fucking freaky little things, they were. Right now, her craze is meltable plastic beads that she irons into cartoon characters. 

She sells them to my club brothers to finance some secret purchase she won’t tell me about. I’ve probably spent five hundred dollars on her creations already. So has Carter. Benedict’s been scalped more than once too. Her uncles have learnt to lose their wallets whenever Scarlett brings her daughter to the compound. 

Not me, though. 

Whatever she offers, I buy. 

Couldn’t say no to the girl, even if I wanted to. 

Because I know she’s the only reason I’m still remotely human. 

Without Lilianna Mayberry and her unconditional love and her sweet heart, I’d be in prison by now. It might irritate my president, but his only daughter is my life. She stole my heart within hours of her first breath, and she’s shown no inclination to return it to me. I live a life of violence with the promise of her acceptance as my sole motivation to stay on the right side of sane. 

Cherub looks at me like I hung the moon. 

If that ever ceased, I’d lose my mind within a week. 

Probably less than that... 

Scanning her face where she sleeps peacefully in her bed, my chest fills with affection. I jam my hands in my hair, so I don’t give into the urge to run my palm over the top of her head. The sharp cheekbones that are starting to steal the roundness from her face, the blonde hair that fans out over her pillow, lips parted as she lightly snores, little Cherub is perfectly named. 

She’s an angel. 

A blessing. 

My sweet. 

My everything. 

Her father thinks our attachment is unnatural. 

It mightn’t be normal, but it’s pure in intention and good at heart. 

The first seven years I spent alive without her were devoid of warmth and filled with nothing but bitterness and angst. The last twelve have been a benediction and a revelation. My mother didn’t want me. Most of the time, she actively hated me. Abandoned me. Berated me. Abused me. Eviscerated me with her resentment at my existence. 

My father tried his hardest to make up for her shortcomings, but he failed. 

He preferred to save face with his brothers rather than tell them how bad things really were at home. Isolated from the rest of the Shamrocks kids by a vindictive woman who loathed the club, filled with constant fury at always being left out, and suspicious of a world that didn’t protect me from my parents selfish ways, my days were filled with torment and trouble. Teachers mocked my incompetence. The other kids feared me. My volatility reigned supreme as a defence mechanism against my obvious struggles to learn. 

Until Cherub decided that I was her person. 

The anger was harnessed. 

My unpredictability tempered. 

I had a purpose. 

Keeping Lilianna Mayberry safe and happy. 

Full stop. 

I’d throw myself at the reaper without a second thought to spare her a single tear. 

“Zeke?” Cherub’s voice is soft. She blinks a few times as her eyes adjust to the darkness. Sitting up in her bed, my sweet girl pushes her hair out of her face. “Where have you been?” 

“Around.” That one word has her narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to the side. I can’t meet her gaze, knowing that she’s mad at me for dodging her during the long weeks it took for my mother to finally dig her way to hell permanently. “You should get back to sleep. School tomorrow.” 

“Screw school.” The giant yawn that she tries to suppress makes a mockery of her objection. Eyes watering, Cherub pulls the covers back. She pats the mattress next to her. “Come on.” 

“I’ll be fine on the floor.” 

“Sure, you will.” She rolls her eyes when I don’t move. “Dad will be at the compound for the night... no one will know you’re here.” 

“Go to sleep.” It irritates me that she’s aware of the dissonance between me and her father. “You’ll be FUBAR at school... your perfect marks’ll plummet.”  

In the wake of my blatant deflection, Cherub rolls her eyes, then pokes her tongue out. I go to chuck her under the chin with my knuckles but pull away at the last moment when I remember that they’re bleeding. I will never sully her with my violence, so I drop down to my haunches to press a kiss to her forehead instead. The cotton pyjamas she’s wearing cover her from collar bone to ankle, yet I know her father would flip his lid if he caught me this close to his daughter. 

“Go back to sleep without an argument, and I’ll give you a ride to school in the morning.” 

“Promise?” She holds out her pinkie. 

I hook my little finger around hers. “Promise.” 

As we both make ourselves comfortable, me on the floor, Cherub on her bed, an easy silence dawns. It’s the first moment of peace I’d had since Doc came to the farm to check on my mother and made his pronouncement that she didn’t have more than a few days left. Watching the woman who birthed me fade away from the breast cancer she refused to fight was hard as fuck. I had so many things I wanted to say to her. Questions. Insults. Pleas. A whole heap of blame, anger, and dislike. A dollop of unearned love that I’ll deny to my dying breath. It all percolated in my head until I was drowning in all the words that I couldn’t bring myself to say.  

The gaping divide between us came down to two things. 

She didn’t love me. 

She only came back to die. 

Why?

“I’m sorry about Chantal,” Cherub whispers. I stare up at the ceiling as the sympathy in her voice makes my gut fill with hatred. “Mum said you were holding her hand when she died. That was really kind of you.” 

“Wasn’t my call. Just kinda happened.” 

“Hades wasn’t there?” 

“Nah...” 

Pulling the pillow from behind my head, I jam it over my face to stop myself from screaming. The burning turmoil that I’ve spent days fighting to suppress whips through me. I need to vent. Purge the depths of my soul. Flood the world with the bile that poisons me. Drain it before it infects every atom of my body and I lose my constant battle to stay on an even keel. 

My anger is trying to taint the only sanctuary I possess. 

I won’t let that happen. 

I won’t break while I’m with Cherub. 

Before I can think of a way to change the topic, the girl who holds my heart in her fist sums up reality without sugar coating it. “That’s bullshit... I love Hades to death, but he’s a really shit dad sometimes.” 

“Yeah.” 

The sound of her feet hitting the floor is the only warning I get before she body slams me. I know that I should chastise her for cursing. I know I should stop her from removing the pillow from my face. I know that I definitely shouldn’t allow her to curl up next to me on the floor with her arms around my neck. It’s not right—even though nothing feels more right to me than this. 

Since she finished primary school, everyone comments about our attachment. 

Particularly Brutus... 

My president has made it clear that I shouldn’t be near his twelve-year-old. 

That a nineteen-year-old man shouldn’t be this close to a pre-teen. 

I’d normally agree. 

I’m a killer. 

An outlaw. 

Wild. 

Stupid. 

But Lilianna Mayberry is mine. 

Without her unconditional acceptance, without the illumination of her love, without her unwavering faith, without her sweet and sassy disposition, I would cease to exist as a human man. My dark side would win. The broken, twisted black hole at the centre of my soul would devour me whole. And I’d probably take out half of Perth on my way to the grave in a hail of bullets and a deluge of bloodshed. 

“You’re safe now.” It takes Cherub’s whispered oath for me to realise that I’m shaking. My leg bounces. The needle-like prickle of fury returns, stabbing me from the inside. When I attempt to draw in a steadying breath, my sweet girl cups the back of my head and presses my face into the crook of her neck. She holds me tight, attempting to rock me even though I’m more than twice her size, while she croons, “This is it, Zeke. The last time. It’s finally over. She can’t ever leave you again.” 

I’ll never know how she does it, somehow Cherub always knows exactly what I need to hear. From the moment my mother drew her last breath, I’ve wanted to be in her orbit. I needed her sweetness to offset the sourness of my hatred. Yet, instead of pursuing solace, I rode away from the farm to the Shamrocks’ strip clubs. Rather than seek out the comfort I needed, I drank myself into a stupor, fought customers at the club, fucked strippers, then passed out in a back booth. 

I wanted to come here. 

And, ordinarily, I would’ve... 

But the constant surveillance, the judgemental comments, Scarlett’s inclination to sneak me in without Brutus knowing... it all makes me uncomfortable. So, I denied myself. I put on a brave face. Pretended I wasn’t affected by my mother’s final rejection. Avoided Carter and Benedict when they tried to track me down. 

Until I knew the coast was clear. 

Brutus gave me the night off. 

Made his intentions to indulge in the cut sluts clear. 

So, I came here. 

“Thank you.” 

My gratitude settles over me like a soft cloud. 

It dampens my rage. 

Soothes my hurt. 

“I love you,” Cherub tells me. “You don’t ever need to thank me for that.” 

Fucking hell. Every time I’m with her, she makes everything better. Makes me feel normal. 

Why do people have to taint what we have with their impure notions? 

“Time to get back in your bed,” I tell her, even as my arms refuse to let her go. 

Gritting my teeth, I try to ease Cherub away from me, but she holds tight. “I’m sleeping with you.” 

“Nope.” 

“Yep.” The little smartarse screws her eyes shut and makes fake snoring noises. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop from laughing. When my body shakes with suppressed humour, she cracks one eyelid to peer at me. Her cheekiness lifts the rest of my mood and settles the discontent that’s had my soul in a pincer grip since I saw her last. “Either get in my bed or I’m staying down here with you. Dad’s gone. Mum let you up here. It’s fine.” 

Aware that she’ll dig her heels in all night to get her own way, I give in. She stands first, pulling me back to my feet with a forceful tug of both hands. When I’m at my full height, Cherub presses a kiss to the bottom of my jaw, then she peers up at me with determination in her gaze. 

I’m dead on six-foot-tall and she already stands at nose height. 

The ticking time-bomb I’m avoiding echoes loudly in my head. 

She smells like a woman. 

She’s on the cusp of becoming one. 

Will I lose her when that happens? 

“If you sneak away during the night, I’ll get Christian to track you down for me.” From the top of her blonde head and down to her toenails, every inch of Lilianna is filled with defiance. Her threat to use Carter’s younger brother’s bloodhound abilities is a good one. No one can outsmart that little genius when he decides he’s going to hunt you. Eight years old, and he’s already a bigger threat than the rest of us combined. “Then Sander and Ev will help me dismantle your Harley for parts. Do you hear what I’m saying, Ezekiel Asher Miles? No more running away. We’re your family. We love you. We’re not going anywhere.”  

Swallowing down the lump that wedges in my throat at the vehemence in her voice, I quip, “You’re damn lucky you take after Scar and not your dad.” Her blue eyes narrow to slits and I smirk. “That pretty face is the only reason you get away with bein’ as demandin’ as you are.” 

“I am not demanding.” 

“You are. Bossy, too.” Seeing her hair-trigger temper start to flare, my smirk widens to a full-blown grin. “Jokes aside, you need to learn when to back down... that mouth of yours’ll gonna get you into more trouble than you can handle one day.” 

“That’s hilarious coming from you.” Cherub drops her gaze to my busted knuckles, then she smiles. “I can say what I want ’cause I’ve got you to protect me.”

Her faith makes my chest tighten with affection. 

My heart skips a beat as I realise that she sees me for who I am. 

A man with a single-minded devotion to a sweet girl seven years his junior. 

“Get under the covers,” I order in a terser tone than necessary to break the thrall she’s cast over me. After Cherub crawls onto her mattress, I tuck her in. Once her duvet is secured over her, I grab a blanket from the floor and lay down on the other side of the bed. Pulling it over me, I murmur, “Go to sleep, Cherub.” 

She extends her arm across the space between us. 

I let her link our fingers together. 

“Don’t leave.” 

“I won’t.” 

“Promise?” 

Nudging her little finger with mine, I reply, “Promise.” 

My intention is to wait until she’s gone back to sleep to return to my previous position on the floor. That way I’m not technically breaking my promise to Scarlett or her daughter, although I know Cherub won’t see it that way in the morning. Still, it’ll help me walk the tightrope between appeasing everyone who thinks our connection is wrong and keeping her in my life for as long as possible. 

After vowing that I’ll only take a moment of comfort in her presence, I close my eyes to rest them for a few moments. The next thing I know, Cherub’s bedroom door is being opened. Jolting awake in an instant, I reach my hand under my pillow to grip my gun, then tense as I realise that I’m still in her bed. 

Fuck. 

If this is Brutus, I’m dead.