Seizing Control

by Kylie Hillman

  We’d just stepped out of Church so every brother was present. The cops had grouped us all together what they had determined was a ‘safe distance’ from the threat and wouldn't let us leave until they said we could. I’d protested, but the cops wouldn’t budge on their protocol. Not wanting to deal with calling Lainey to bail me out if I got arrested for knocking one of them on their ass was the only reason I’d sat on my fucking hands and waited. And waited. And waited.

  I’d tried calling to tell her to wait for me because I was held up, but she hadn’t answered. I’d left a message for her with reception. Nothing got through because the next thing I knew she was texting me that she was already home.

  She should have known to stay put if no one was there to escort her so I was fucking angry at her for leaving without checking in. In all honesty, as angry as I was, I had been looking forward to her apology after my lecture about following my safety measures because our make-up sex is fucking epic.

  After her text, I’d pushed my way to my bike—fuck protocol—and started riding. The fucking bomb hoax hadn’t sat right with me or any of the brothers at the time, and with Lainey disappearing we now know it was a diversion to get her by herself. A diversion created by someone who obviously knew our plans for the day.

  My rage spikes as the possibility of a fucking rat in my Club grips me.

  I pull myself from my fucked up thoughts and grab my phone. I need to get the ball rolling, right fucking now. I need my woman back. The state she's in when I get her? I have no fucking idea, but I suspect it’s not going to be good.

  My call is answered on the first ring.

  “Kid,” I greet my fellow club member and Benji’s best friend.

  Kyle, or Kid as he’s called by the Club, is our first ever Information Officer. I put him forward for the position. It's unprecedented for someone who's only been patched for a couple years to become an Officer but the kid is a bloody genius with technology, surveillance and hacking being his specialties, and I was determined to drag the MC kicking and screaming into the twenty-first Century.

  Kyle had grown up around the Club as an honorary O’Brien since his parents hadn't given a shit about him, caring only for the oblivion they could find at the bottom of a bottle. He’d prospected straight after high school and his parents had officially disowned him for it. Their loss not his.

  “Pull up everything you can find about 14 Monroe Avenue. I’m pretty sure the fucker’s squirrelly and that she’s either there or was there. His story for having her phone is shit. Also get all our brothers back to the compound because I want a full complement when we storm that motherfucker’s house. You need to tell everyone I’ve called lockdown.”

  I take a deep breath before I continue. “Brother, I need you to find the fucking whereabouts of Brendan Taylor first. My gut says this smells like him.”

  Kyle clears his throat nervously, and then replies in a quiet voice.

  “I was just about to call you. Once you asked me to access Maddi's GPS, I checked where he was straight away. He hasn’t been seen since lunch time when he met with his parole officer to have his parole signed off. The tracking I put on his car shows that it's still parked at his parents and I’ve had visual confirmation. I tracked his phone signal and it’s been constant at Central Station. My guess is that he’s caught the train to the city and gone off the grid by ditching his phone. Your gut is right, Mad Dog.”

  Fuck, I’d known deep down this was his doing, but having it confirmed ups my anxiety. I know what he’s capable of and it’s every woman’s worst nightmare.

  Kyle draws in a ragged breath.

  “You need to be here to tell Beast, especially now you’ve called lockdown. He’s gonna flip the fuck out when he finds out and I don’t wanna die because I’m the one who tells him. You’re VP, so you'll need to handle him with Maddi gone. You're nearly as good at calming him,” he finishes with a half-hearted laugh, probably picturing the same thing that I am, which is me knocking Beast’s lights out when he starts smashing things after I've told him what's happened. It's a distinct possibility.

  "Yeah, I'm hearing ya," I grunt. I really don't want to be the one who deals with an out of control Beast but as VP it falls to me. Lainey can get through to him when he's raging but no one else can. She thinks it's because she’s the spitting image of her dead mother.

  I was voted in as Vice President when my old man stepped down from the position six months ago. He’s still a brother but he’s been suffering from terminal cancer for nearly five years and was finally forced to admit he can’t ride too far anymore. I was shocked to have my name put forward but Dad said he'd seen it coming because I’m a natural leader and my brothers respect me.

  Kyle continues, sounding worried. “What are we gonna do about Benji?”

  He’s one of only two people outside of those there that night who know exactly what was happening to Lainey. Everyone else thinks it was an argument that turned physical. That was enough for her family to deal with without knowing the other fucked up details. Beast nearly ended up in jail for beating Brendan half to death in the courtroom during his sentencing. Our expensive lawyer saved his ass and he was put on 12 months’ probation due to the extenuating circumstances.

  Lainey doesn’t know that Kyle knows the full details of what happened but Benji had a major breakdown when he realized what she went through trying to save his career and keep their family safe. It didn’t help that he also went cold turkey from his drug habit. Kyle was the person who dug him out of his guilt ridden black hole.

  It would have normally been me, because I love him like a brother, but I love Lainey more so I’d concentrated on putting her back together and cleaning up the mess.

  “Where’s he playing this weekend?”

  “Over the West, brother. He flew out three hours ago. He’d be about to touchdown. The game is tomorrow.”

  Benji was drafted to the AFL right after Lainey was nearly killed. Dodging interstate drafting under the father-son rule, he plays for the Brisbane Lions. He finally pulled his head in after his twin nearly died for him, and was serious about his career just like Beast had been pushing him to be for years.

  “Let’s hold off telling him until after he’s played tomorrow. He’ll fly straight back if he finds out and that’ll leave the team fucked. They need him to cement their spot in the finals and he needs them to keep his head on straight.”

  I leave unsaid the possibility of him diving straight onto the end of a crack pipe at the news. It's not a secret between the pair of us that Benji staying clean has been an ongoing battle.

  “Yep, I’ll let everyone know to keep it on the down low from him. You need to haul ass back here though. Beast knows something’s up and nobody wants to be the one busted up for telling him. I’ll have the blueprint for the house and everything else I can find ready when you arrive.”

  “I’m on my way, brother.” I end the call.

  Locking the front of the house, I grab my wallet and keys and pull all of the curtains closed before leaving through the back door and jumping our fence. Our house is on a corner block and the side street can’t be seen from across the reserve. I jog four houses down the street and let myself into Benji and Joel’s house. I’m going to take Benji’s Jeep to the clubhouse, making it look like I'm still home if our house is being watched.

  I back the Jeep out of the driveway and lower the garage door as I drive off. I’ll be at the club in twenty minutes. Kyle better have everything ready by then. I want my woman back yesterday! The guilt and fear settling into the pit of my gut is all too familiar.

  During Benji's breakdown, I’d told him that he was crazy for blaming himself for what happened. I meant it. Yes, he had fucked up by using drugs but most of the blame fell squarely on me. I’d failed the love of my life the last time she needed me but I'm sure as fuck not going to this time.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mik

  Four and a Half Years Earlier

  I press se
nd on my text to Lainey. I hope she doesn't take too fucking long to dump that fucker because I need her to spend the night with me. It feels like my right arm is missing now that she isn't tucked under it.

  Rage still races through my veins when I think about how he hurt her tonight when he pushed her over. If we had been on my turf, I would have killed him then and there, but we weren’t and there were too many fucking witnesses around. Too many people who didn't belong to the MC and would have called the cops if things got too violent.

  Lying back on my rumpled bed—a bed that smells just like her—I think about how it felt to finally slide into her beautiful, tight body. My balls tighten as I relive what happened on this bed tonight and my cock hardens. Fuck, I want her again.

  I wasn't lying when I told her I've been waiting for a long time to make her mine. Finally being able to call her mine has me keyed up and pining for her like a little bitch.

  After she'd left, I'd tried to enjoy the party but every time a woman threw herself at me I'd felt like telling them to back the fuck off and stop touching me. I didn't, but only because it would have seemed strange and Lainey wanted me to play it cool tonight.

  Since the only woman I was interested in wasn’t there, I'd had a couple of beers with Beast and making my excuses, I'd called it a night. Wendy had fussed because it was rare for me not to be one of the last drunken fuckers to leave but I'd shrugged off her worries, telling her I was tapped out from the drive.

  Benji had shot me a knowing look when I’d walked past him to my car. He'd known what my plan was for tonight so I’d given him a chin lift, letting him know that he was dead fucking right in his thoughts. I was heading back to my room to wait for his sister, something he damn well approved of and was pushing to happen.

  Waiting for Lainey to text me that's she's free, I think back over what led us to this fucking awesome night. I’ve always loved Lainey like a little sister but just before she turned sixteen, I realized that my love had grown and changed. I loved her as a woman.

  I was twenty-four at the time and would have fucked anything that let me, so it felt fucking sleazy that I was in love with a teenager. My guilt eased when I looked at the big picture because she may have been eight years younger but in most ways she was more bloody mature than me. Her mother's death had seen to that.

  She was, and still is, the sexiest and most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen but my feelings go beyond the physical. She’s smart, funny, and loyal. Full of tenacity and drive. I'm at my happiest when I'm with her and for the first time, I can see myself sharing my life with someone instead of fucking them once and moving onto the next wet and willing hole.

  I knew that with our deep bond I could make her mine without much effort. We were already best friends and she looked at me like another brother so I just had to show her that her feelings for me were different to the feelings she had for her actual brothers. Then she’d realize what we have. I’d been watching her, flirting with her, and waiting for the perfect time to make my intentions known when fucking Beast clued in to what I was planning.

  Pulling me aside he had laid down the law. He told me that he’d seen this coming for years and he ultimately approved of it. He just wanted me to do one thing for him. He wanted me to let Lainey experience life first. Her mother dying and his meltdown afterwards had robbed her of the chance of a normal childhood so he wanted her to spread her wings a bit and enjoy herself before she settled down with a biker just like her old man.

  He knew—as did I—that she loved fiercely, so she would devote her life to me when I made her mine. Beast made me promise that I would wait until Lainey finished university before I made my move. If she came to me before then that was okay but I needed to let her feelings for me awaken without my interference. I wasn’t happy with his plan, four years is a long time, but I respected him and could see his fucking point. The only glitch in his plan, neither of us saw Brendan Taylor coming. Lainey had never shown interest in dating before and anyone who bothered her was quickly taught a lesson in respect by one of the men who surrounded her.

  When Beast said she could go out with him, I was beyond pissed off. I told him after she agreed to a second date with Brendan that I wasn’t honouring our fucking agreement since he’d decided to change the fucking rules. Fucker had laughed in my face, asking why it took me so long to man up now another fucking man was sniffing around. He said he’d started thinking I was too pussy for his baby girl. I had been tested and fallen at the first hurdle in his opinion.

  Putting a stop to fucking random sluts, I had invited Lainey down to my house every weekend I was home from work. Lainey had jumped at the invitations in the beginning and we spent a lot of quality time together, getting closer and fucking closer, but then her visits stopped. She had the shittiest excuses for not being able to come, cancelling at the last minute or ignoring my calls.

  I was worrying that she didn’t share my feelings; that maybe she was in love with this other guy or I was coming on too strong and scaring her away when Benji came to stay with me for a week. He was in the city for a football scouting session.

  I'd decided to get him drunk on his last night in Brisbane and pick his brains about her. I thought I was being fucking subtle and all that shit, but even drunk he saw straight through me and started snickering.

  “She’s got you so pussy whipped! Big bad Mikhail ‘Mad Dog’ Kennedy is sneaking around trying to find out shit about a woman.”

  I cringed as the bane of my childhood rolled from Benji’s tongue and he barely avoided falling off his chair because he was laughing so hard at my reaction. My Irish father wanted to call me plain old Michael but my mother, the professional ballet dancer, wanted the Russian variant. Dad lost so I grew up surrounded by my Irish-Australian family and friends saddled with an Eastern European name. It was quickly shortened to Mik when I began punching anyone who called me Mikhail—my tiny mother excluded of course.

  “Fucking man up and ask her yourself, ya big fucking girl!” he crowed.

  His response made my temper spike, by not only reminding me that I'm named after a fucking male ballet dancer but also insulting my manhood.

  “You’re a real fucking comedian, Benji. I'm out.”

  Knocking back the last of my beer, I stood up. I wasn't sitting here listening to this dickhead laugh at me. He’s lucky I love him because if he was anyone else I would have knocked him the fuck out. I start heading inside before I do something I’ll regret. Like thump the smartass.

  “Whoa, brother, sit down. I’m just fucking with ya.” He motions me to sit down and stops laughing. “In all seriousness though, I can’t stand that piece of shit she’s seeing. He acts like he fucking owns her, strutting around with his chest out, running away anyone who tries to spend any time with her.”

  Benji’s quickly sobering up, his worries for his sister coming to the surface.

  “Everyone can see she’s in love with you, she’s the only person too stupid not to see it for what it is.”

  “You think?” I shrug. “I thought so but then she stopped coming here.”

  “That's because he treats her like shit when she goes anywhere without him. I’ve heard her apologizing for leaving him alone. He bosses her around, trying to turn her into a pompous snob like him. I've warned her but as usual she's being fucking pig-headed and she won't listen to me.”

  He shakes his head furiously. This has obviously been pissing him off for a while.

  “Why the fuck haven’t you said anything to me before now? Why haven’t you told Beast? We would have ended him.” I ask the obvious questions.

  “I didn’t want to worry you both when you’re dealing with all the fucking shit going down with the club. You're about to have a war over turf and I was sure she’d kick his ass to the curb anyway, so I kept quiet. She doesn’t normally take any shit.”

  I shake my head because even with the shit going down I’d find the time to deal with anyone dumb enough to fuck with Lainey. He's right about one
thing, she is the toughest woman we know. She’s known for kicking ass—verbally and physically—so I don’t know why she would be putting up with some random fuckheads shit.

  Benji continues filling me in as I’m trying to digest the situation.

  “She’s got some romantic shit planned for him on New Year’s. I heard her and Wendy talking about it. She hasn’t lost her V card to him yet. Even though he's been telling everyone that they're fucking.” Benji's looks like he's swallowed a lemon. “She told Wendy that she’s thinking about doing it then since it's their anniversary.”

  He grimaces, this obviously falls into the TMI category regarding his sister.

  Personally I’m happy as a pig in shit that she hasn’t fucked anyone yet.

  “Wendy told her to think really hard about it. I don't think Wendy likes him ba. I heard some shit went down with Brendan's dad and her when they were younger. But Maddi said she's probably gonna do it anyway because her girlfriends say she's weird because she hasn't already.”

  He shrugs, which is completely understandable considering he has as much pussy thrown at him as I do and he rarely turns it down. He probably can't even remember when he was a virgin.

  "She getting pissed off at him, I can tell. Me and Joel have been giving her shit too, trying to rev her up so she dumps him quicker.”

  I hold out my fist and Benji bumps it with his.

  “Love your work, brother.”

  He snorts. “It's working but nowhere near as fast as we thought it would. It's got us fucked why she's still with him. He's not her type.”

  Swinging back on two legs of his chair, he's quiet for a moment.

  “I reckon if you meet him, he'll show his true colours to her then. He's got a serious jones for you already because of how much she talks about you.”

  “If that's true, then I’ve gotta make my move at the party Beast’s throwing for your eighteenth next weekend then. New Years is only two weeks after that so it has to be before then.”