Aftermath (Dividing Line #6)

by Heather Atkinson

  “But…”

  “I’m doing you a favour. I’ll mess up your life like I’ve messed up everyone else’s who got near me. I’m the quintessential fuck-up, the original, and I’ll never be able to give you what you want.”

  “I’ll never give up on you.”

  “You’re not a fool Jax so don’t talk like one. Don’t forget to lock up behind you.”

  With that she was gone, leaving him to stare at the closed door.

  Jules straddled her brand new Harley Davidson Superlow, which was safely stashed away in the underground car park beneath the flats. A snake’s head identical to the one on her shoulder was emblazoned on the tank, flashing its fangs. She sank onto the seat, shoulders slumped, the good feeling an athletic night with Jax had left her with gone. He’d almost torn down her carefully cultivated defences, made her believe she could be a normal woman, a girlfriend whose boyfriend didn’t expect her to murder people on his order, someone who would care about her because of who she was and not just want her for sex or to sell to their friends, but she could never have that. Life had conspired to twist and distort her into an entirely different creature to the one she’d aspired to be when she was young and she could never unknot herself, not completely.

  Feeling miserable she took out her phone.

  “Alright Howie?” she said.

  “Venom,” he mumbled, voice nasal. “You broke my fucking nose.”

  “Sorry mate, I got carried away. You did good.”

  “I shat myself. I pulled a knife on Jez fucking Law, I still can’t believe it. What if they find out?”

  “How will they? Only me and you know and I’m certainly not telling.”

  “My nerves are shattered.”

  “Fucking keep it together Howie. The last thing I need is you bottling it. If you do it won’t be Jez you need to worry about because I’ll fucking come for you.”

  “Alright, calm down. I’m not going to say a bloody word.”

  “You’d better not.”

  “So, are we square?”

  Howie was an old acquaintance of hers who owed her big time after she’d saved him from being beaten to death by a drug dealer he’d stolen from.

  “Yes we are.”

  “Thank Christ for that, I’d hate to do you another favour. We’ll never mention this again?”

  “Never.”

  “I wanted to help you Venom, if you hadn’t come along when you did I’d be six feet under by now.”

  “Debt paid. Goodbye.”

  She hung up, shoved the phone into her jacket pocket, started the engine and revved it, the machine growling in response to the anger surging through her. Thanks to Howie and her little set up she was in Mikey and Jez’s good books. She’d overheard their little conversation about the Starklaws at the match and seen the perfect way to earn a few brownie points and take out some of her enemies at the same time. She hated the Starklaws after Joel tried to force himself on her when he was drunk. She put him in hospital for his trouble and the family had taken random pot shots at her ever since. Now the nasty little sods were going to have Mikey and Jez on their tails.

  Her triumph wasn’t enough to take the sting out of how far Jax had burrowed his way through her armour. For a moment she’d seriously entertained a normal future with him, settling down, kids. But that wasn’t her. She liked living on the fringe of society. Two point four children with the house and the car just wasn’t her. Her conversation with Rachel had really brought it home how much of a fuck-up she actually was and she liked Jax too much to hurt him, as she inevitably would.

  Cassandra had been right, her past was responsible for how she was now. She revved the engine aggressively. Time to take it out on those who fucking did this to her. The bike surged forwards, the purr and growl of the powerful machine enveloping her, soothing her. After taking a quick detour to collect something she needed for this errand she rode through the city towards the suburb of Didsbury.

  Cautious as always, Jules left her bike two streets away and walked the rest of the way clutching a white plastic bag, passing mansion after mansion. The area she was raised in hadn’t changed since she was a little girl. Still full of the super-wealthy and super-stuck-up hiding behind their big gates and high hedges. That was a blessing though, there were no curtain twitchers to watch her coming and going.

  She unlocked the gates of a large mansion at the end of the avenue, a detached red brick Victorian monstrosity hunkered down behind a row of tall fir trees, blocking out the world. The Parkers had needed privacy for their sick charades. It was hers now and she ensured it was well maintained, not wanting to draw people’s attention to it by letting it go to seed.

  She unlocked the door and stepped inside. Despite all the windows very little light ever penetrated this house. It had never been a home. Jules recalled being terrified to touch anything in case she got it mucky or accidentally knocked it over. Alice had been a complete neat freak. The satisfaction gleaned from the knowledge that it was now hers to do with as she pleased had never diminished and she revelled in it. Now and then, when the memories threatened to drown her, she contemplated tearing the place apart just for a bit of extra revenge but her business head restrained her. One day she intended to make a lot of money from this house, but as yet she still needed it.

  She bypassed every room, glimpsing in the corner of her eye the expensive furniture protected by dust sheets, which gave it a ghostly air, the house’s slumber disturbed by the heavy tread of her boots on the lacquered floor.

  Whenever she came here there was only one room she visited, preferring to pretend the others didn’t exist. She headed for the door that led down to the basement. Pausing to remove the padlock she stepped through this door and encountered a second, which was heavier and thicker and unlocked that too before making her way down the wooden stairs, listening to the rustling below. It was dark but she didn’t need the light, she’d come down here so often she could walk down this staircase blindfolded.

  At the bottom of the stairs she finally hit the light, needing to see what was awaiting her.

  Her eyes involuntarily squinted at the flood of harsh artificial light reflecting off the metal bars of the cage. The man behind the bars was curled up on the camp bed, knees drawn into his chest, eyes bulging out of a scarred face, limbs shaking. When she shoved the white bag through the bars of the cage and the cheeseburger and chips fell out he looked to her, awaiting approval. Jules drew out giving her permission, enjoying how the saliva dripped from his lips at the aroma. Obviously she hadn’t left enough food for him while she’d been away. Eventually she nodded and he leapt on the food, desperately stuffing it into his mouth.

  The corners of Jules’s mouth curled into a grim smile at how low she’d brought Leighton Parker.

  “Hello Daddy. Did you miss me?”

  After the telling off Ryan had given the site manager the house was almost ready to move into a week ahead of schedule. Work on the visitor’s annex had already begun and Ryan and Rachel watched the plot being excavated from the kitchen window. The back garden would be off limits to the kids for a few weeks but they didn’t care, all they wanted was to come home.

  “Do you like your new home?” Ryan asked her.

  “I love it. It’ll be a relief to get settled again, especially after everything that’s gone on. The kids need stability.”

  “Especially Leah, I’m worried about her. She’s been so quiet lately.”

  “I know. I’m sure she’ll improve when she’s home again and she can bring Sophia back.” Sophia was Leah’s beloved pony. The neighbouring farm had kindly stabled her all these months while their home was rebuilt. “Everything’s finally getting back to normal,” she said, leaning into him. “What a relief.”

  A shout from outside drew their attention to the window and they saw the foreman frantically waving at the man controlling the digger excavating the earth to stop.

  “What’s going on?” frowned Rachel.

  “Let’
s find out,” said Ryan.

  They both donned hard hats before hurrying out to the site, the foreman rushing to meet them. “Stay back Mrs Law, you really don’t want to see this,” he said, blocking her path while indicating for Ryan to take a look at the excavated ground.

  “Don’t be so bloody soft,” she said, stomping round him, standing beside Ryan who was staring into the pit with dismay.

  The rest of the workers gathered round them, talking quietly, afraid to raise their voices above a whisper.

  “Jesus H Christ, I don’t fucking believe this,” exploded Ryan, making them all jump. “Just when everything’s going our way this happens.”

  Rachel nodded sadly. They wouldn’t be moving into their new home any time soon, not now. The decaying skeletal hand sticking out of the muddy pit, cocked in a macabre wave, taunted them.

  THE END

  Many thanks for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it. There are plenty more adventures for the Laws and Maguires to come. If you’ve read the entire Dividing Line series I have many other books available on Amazon Kindle.

  Once again, thank you. Heather Atkinson.