Aftermath (Dividing Line #6) (33 page)

CHAPTER 36

Jules was lying on her front enjoying Jackson’s fingers lightly running up and down her bare back. Sometimes she just liked to be stroked, like a cat. Daylight was creeping through the gap in the curtains towards them and she scrunched her eyes up against it.

“Why don’t we get together Jules?” he said. “We’re fucking dynamite.”

Jules’s automatic response was to tell him no, she was a free spirit now Jasper had finally done her a favour and died, but she hesitated. This was the start of a new life. Mikey wanted her to find stability before he really trusted her. Maybe this was the way? Show him she was serious about starting again. She didn’t love Jackson, she’d only ever loved one person properly her entire life and that had been little Cara, but she thought she might be able to love him, one day.

She turned on her side to face him. “Why do you want to be with me so much Jax? You have women throwing themselves at you but you never seem interested in them.”

“Because I only want you.”

“Why for God’s sake?”

“Because you’re gorgeous and sexy as hell.”

“Is that it?” She pushed herself up onto her elbows. “There has to be more to it than a physical attraction.”

“Alright then. Most people find you prickly but I like that about you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Keeps me on my toes.”

“It would drive you mad if you had it full time.”

“Perhaps but I’d like the chance to find out.”

“You might regret it.”

“Are you finally starting to weaken?”

“Maybe,” she smiled.

He rolled on top of her, took a section of her hair between his finger and thumb and used it to tickle her face. She liked it.

“You do realise how fucked up I am?” she said.

“No, I’m deaf and blind,” he said sarcastically.

“I’m a nightmare, you’ll end up hating me.”

“Look, neither of us are psychic, we don’t know what’s going to happen but I’d rather try and have it go wrong then never try and always wonder.”

“That was deep.”

“You know I’m right, but if we do try I need to know I’m the only one. In other words, no shagging about. Think you can manage that?”

“Yeah, I think so. I was faithful to Jasper, for a while anyway.”

“Until we started sleeping together.”

She hadn’t the heart to tell him she was sleeping with Dane long before him. “The same would apply to you. No tarting about with that bunch of groupie slags who are always hanging round you.”

“When have I ever? You know I don’t touch them.”

“Because if you ever did the dirty on me I’d kill them and you. You do get that?”

“Yeah, Jesus calm down.”

“Just as long as we’re clear.”

“We are. So, what do you say?”

The ringing of a phone filled the air and Jules reached for her mobile phone that was lying on the floor, lost in a heap of clothes.

“Ignore it,” he said.

“I can’t,” she replied, attempting to unravel the device from her jeans. “I have a job now, it could be work.”

Jackson sighed and laid back on the bed.

“Yep?” Her eyes widened and she sat up. “Rachel.”

“Hello Jules,” said Rachel. “Is this a good time to talk?”

“Yeah, just give me a minute.”

Rachel patiently waited, listening to the sound of Jules moving about, the soft murmur of a man’s voice in the background.

“Okay, ready,” said Jules.

“Entertaining are you?”

“Yes, I have a friend here.”

“Dane?”

“No, a different friend. He’s in the other room, he can’t overhear. I’m glad you called, I wanted to explain about the Jordans. If I’d known you were pregnant I wouldn’t have done it and I played absolutely no part in the attempted abduction, I just told them where you were.”

“Alex was setting me up all along?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you mention any of this when you were in Devon?”

“Because I didn’t think it would help my case. I knew Ryan was seriously considering disposing of me and I didn’t want to give him any more encouragement. I was going to keep it to myself until Mikey started talking about fresh slates and being honest with each other. My therapist mentioned something about it too. New start and all that, I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“You were. I believe you Jules when you say you didn’t know I was pregnant.”

“Thank you. I feel an unusual respect for you Rachel. No woman has ever got the better of me before and you did. I hope one day we can be friends.”

“Me too.” Rachel heard Ryan’s footsteps coming up the stairs. “I’ve got to go Jules, thanks for talking.”

“Anytime.”

She hung up a second before Ryan entered their bedroom.

“Who was that?” he said.

Rachel considered lying but knew that would be impossible. She could never lie to her husband. “Jules.”

“Why do you want to talk to that mad cow?” he frowned.

“I had to hear it from her own lips about Thomas.”

“And?”

“I believe her. She didn’t know. Give her a chance.”

“That may be more complicated than we’d originally anticipated. Riley’s just called. He’s resigned from the army.”

“What? I thought he loved it.”

“He’s sick of being thrown about the world, his words. He wants stability, a home. I think he’s had some encouragement from Beth too, apparently they’ve kept in touch. He’s got to work out twelve months’ notice first, he can’t just quit. How do you think he’s going to react when he comes home and finds the queen of Lucifer’s Shadow, the murderers of his fiancée and unborn child, ingratiating herself into the family he’s only just found?”

Rachel sighed and fell back onto the bed, gazing at the ceiling. “Not well.”

“Exactly,” he said, lying down beside her.

“If it’s not one thing it’s another.”

“That’s families for you and we have the most fucked-up one on the planet.”

“Who was that?” said Jackson when Jules walked back into the bedroom, looking troubled.

“No one you need be concerned with,” she mumbled, sitting down on the edge of the bed, replaying her conversation with Rachel over in her mind.

“Jules?”

“Hmmm?”

“You okay?”

She just nodded.

He sat up and encircled her waist with his arms. “So, what do you say about us getting together?”

She turned her head to look at his handsome face, his light green eyes big and soft. It had been a nice dream. “Do yourself a favour Jax and run as far from me as you can. I’m not called Venom for nothing.” She removed his arms from her waist and got to her feet.

“Jules…”

“It’s Venom,” she hissed, pulling on her clothes.

“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.