Reckoning by Heather Atkinson

on his face. Ryan had noticed Rachel’s darker side affected men in two ways - either it scared the life out of them or it turned them on. Personally Ryan loved her dark side just as much as her gentle one. It seemed Thane agreed. Great, that was all he needed, His Lordship even more crazy about his wife.
    The gorilla’s two friends were woken and dragged to their feet and they stood there swaying like two ugly, gnarled trees about to topple over.
    “Go on then Your Lordship,” said Ryan, gesturing at the two men. “Make sure they never come back.”
    He shrugged. “Not a problem.” With that Thane picked up the hatchet and whacked one of the men in the face with the handle and head butted the second, sending them both back to the dirty floor. “You don’t need to be raised on a dodgy estate to know how to fight,” he told them both with a pleased smile.
    When Rachel beamed at him, Ryan’s scowl deepened.
     
    The knock at the door irritated Jules. She was studying for an important exam and this interruption was the last thing she needed.
    “What?” she barked, yanking the door open. “Mikey,” she said, surprised. “Has something happened?”
    “No, I just need your advice.”
    “ You need my advice?”
    “Can I come in?”
    “It’s your flat.” Mikey had set her up in the flat he’d bought from Ryan and Rachel that Amber had initially occupied so he could keep an eye on her.
    He followed her inside and closed the door behind him.
    “Do you want a drink or something?” she said. Jules wasn’t used to hostessing, the only visitors she got were the one night stands she brought back who weren’t allowed to stay past a morning cup of tea, and Jax.
    “No, I’m fine thanks. Sorry, was I interrupting?” he said, indicating the books spread out on the dining table.
    “I was just studying.”
    “Studying what?”
    “I’m taking an online honours degree in mathematics and physics.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “I’m not all about sex and violence,” she said wryly.
    “I know that Jules,” he replied, picking up a book and frowning at the cover before putting it back down, unable to understand a word. Jules’s IQ was even higher than Ryan’s and, just like him, she enjoyed flexing her mental muscle.
    Jules retook her seat at the table while she waited for Mikey to work himself up to what he wanted to say.
    “I’ve decided to visit Jake,” he eventually said.
    “Jake, your brother?”
    He nodded.
    “The same brother who set you up for poisoning his friends and helped Terry try to kill Rachel and Danny?”
    “The very same,” he sighed before sinking into a chair at the opposite end of the table.
    “Why now?”
    He shrugged. “It’s been on my mind ever since…I mean…”
    “Ever since you found out I’d kept my adopted father locked in a cellar for two years until you smothered him with a pillow?”
    Mikey tried not to grimace at the memory. That had been a mercy killing after Jules had tried to poison him and fucked it up. “Yeah,” he said softly. “You should take a degree in psychology, you’d be good at it.”
    “I doubt it, I can’t even get my own psychology right, but I do get you Mikey.”
    The scary thing was she was right. “I’m visiting him tomorrow morning.”
    “Any idea what you’re going to say?”
    “I want to see if he’s changed.”
    “I think you’ll be disappointed. Want to know what else I think?”
    “I’m not sure I do.”
    “Yes you do, it’s why you came here.”
    “Go on then.”
    “You want to show him exactly who you’ve become and rub his nose in it.”
    The corner of his mouth lifted into a smile. “Alright, I do. When I was locked in that mental hospital for something he did he came to tell me he was working with Danny, that he was going to be a big shot and I would always be nothing. I want to show him how wrong he was.”
    “You want to throw your life in his face?”
    “Yes I do but I want to see how he’s doing too.