Chapter Thirty Eight
The cottage cooled the second we stepped back inside it. The little mismatched room that had smelled of warm scones and wood smoke an hour ago, suddenly felt too small for the men now standing inside it. Too dangerous.
“Everyone in here,” Thrash ordered calmly, pointing towards the lounge. “Come on now. Don’t make this difficult.”
Nobody moved at first. Then Ciara stepped forward stiffly. Furious. Frightened. Trying not to show either.
“You heard him,” she snapped. “Living room. Now.”
The women shuffled slowly together. Emmie clutching Lily’s hand tightly while Luke stayed close against her hip.
Alice guided Suzy carefully towards the sofa while Heidi hovered nearby protectively.
Even Tori had gone pale now, all attitude stripped away beneath real fear.
I stayed near the back, my heart hammering hard enough to hurt.
Grace moved through the kitchen quietly beside me, hands disappearing briefly beneath the pinny tied around her waist before she crossed calmly into the lounge and sat beside Mamma Dot.
Their eyes stayed fixed ahead. But their lips moved.
Tiny murmurs. I strained to hear it, but couldn’t catch the words.
Emmie pulled Luke and Lily down beside her on the sofa, wrapping one arm around each child protectively. Lily buried her face instantly into her mam’s chest, tiny shoulders already shaking. But Luke just stared. Hard. Silent.
Thrash noticed too.
“Well now,” he mocked softly, the Mackem burr slow and ugly against the quiet room. “Think ye’re hard, little man?”
Luke said nothing. Didn’t move, didn’t even blink. Something unreadable flickered briefly across Thrash’s face before his attention shifted away again.
Suzy sat opposite us, cradling her bump instinctively beneath both hands, while Alice held tightly onto her shoulder. Thrash’s gaze dropped there too. Lingering.
“Reckon you’ve got a baby Magnet in there?” he mused casually. “Hope he’s luckier than his Dah.”
Ciara moved instantly.
“You fucking…”
Thrash had the gun up before she finished the sentence. Fast. Practised. The barrel stopped inches from Ciara’s face.
“Sit down.”
The room froze. Ciara stared at him, breathing hard, rage pouring off her in waves before eventually lowering herself slowly into the armchair nearest the fire. Nobody spoke after that. Only the sea outside.
The scream shattered the silence. Not human; engines. Mechanical banshees, urgent and angry. My head snapped towards the windows and the high-pitched noise. It was nothing like the deep heavy growl of Harleys or the violent roar of Ryan’s Rocket. These screamed, sharp and savage and fast.
Thrash and the other man reeled towards the door. A crash exploded outside. Metal hitting metal. Voices shouting.
Then Grace moved. On her feet, something raised above her head, moving too fast to see what it was.
It struck the other man with a dull thump, a sickening crack splitting the room.
The man staggered sideways, eyes wide with shock before his body slid bonelessly onto the floorboards.
Blood seeped through dark hair and onto Grace’s rug.
And then everything erupted at once.
Mamma Dot surged up beside her, an enormous steel soup spoon raised like a weapon from another century. Thrash turned just in time to smash the butt of the gun viciously across her face.
“Mam!”
The scream tore through the cottage as the woman burst through the doorway, still carrying her helmet in one hand.
Tall. Furious. Beautifully violent. Long, dark hair swinging as she moved.
Black motorbike leathers clinging to her body as long legs ate up space.
Thrash spun too slowly. She swung the helmet hard across the side of his head with a crack that made my stomach turn.
Thrash stumbled backwards towards the hearth, grabbing desperately at empty air before his skull smashed against the iron grate behind him.
The sound silenced the room. For a second, he stayed still. Then his body jerked violently once against the fireplace.
“Oh, God,” someone whispered.
Lily started screaming properly now, Emmie dragging her hard against her chest while trying desperately to shield her eyes. Luke still stared quietly across the room, though his expression had softened now. Eyes wide. Fear finally catching up with him.
I moved automatically towards Mamma Dot where she’d fallen beside the sofa, blood already running from a split across her cheekbone. The leather-clad Amazonian caught my wrist instantly.
“Don’t fucking touch her.”
“Jazz,” Grace barked sharply. “She’s a doctor.” Jazz hesitated. “And she’s Reap’s girl,” Grace added firmly. “Let her do her thing.”
The grip vanished. I dropped beside Mamma Dot, fingers already searching carefully along her jaw and scalp while adrenaline surged hot through my veins.
“Mamma Dot?” I asked gently. “Can you hear me?”
“Course I can,” she grumbled thickly through swelling lips. “Takes more than one ugly Mackem to finish me off.”
And despite the blood and terror and bodies in the middle of the cottage, Grace laughed.
*****
By the time the tide went out, the cottage smelled of blood, antiseptic wipes and cold tea.
Blue lights flooded the cottage with dance-floor style rhythm from police and ambulance crews who’d finally reached the island hours later.
Jazz and Chase were long gone by then, vanished back across the mainland as soon as the tide allowed them.
Mamma Dot sat wrapped stubbornly in a blanket while two exhausted paramedics tried unsuccessfully to assess her properly.
“There’s nowt wrong with me,” she complained for the fifth time while one attempted to shine a torch into her eyes. “Stop fussing.”
“You’ve been pistol whipped,” the paramedic replied wearily.
“Aye, and he came off worse, didn’t he?”
Nearby, Grace calmly gave her statement to a detective while blood still stained the leg of her dungarees.
“They broke in,” she explained smoothly, like she was about to teach an art class instead of standing in a bloodstained cottage. “Disturbed our girls’ weekend. Very traumatic really. We were just about to work on shadow and depth with oils.”
The detective glanced sceptically towards the body already being wheeled from the cottage, up at Tori whose tattoos covering both arms and hands were a work of art themselves, and then back to Grace.
“And you defended yourself with a rolling pin?”
Grace smiled pleasantly. “Well, I wasn’t going to use the good cast iron pan, was I?”
The officer looked exhausted already.
One by one, the rest of us gave statements. Almost identical. Even Tori repeated the same version eventually after enough glaring from Heidi and Ciara.
Bikers broke in.
Grace defended us.
Mamma Dot helped.
That was all anyone knew.
The police didn’t believe a word of it. I’d seen the looks they passed between themselves countless times. But without witnesses willing to say otherwise, there wasn’t much they could do.
Eventually, the officers flipped their notepads closed. The older one took a last look around, scanning each of our faces before exhaling long and loud. As he passed me in the narrow hallway, his shoulder brushed lightly against mine. He paused just enough to speak quietly.
“Your dad spent thirty-odd years trying to put men like this behind bars, Dr Mercer.” His eyes flicked briefly towards the women gathered in the lounge before settling back on me. “Mind what side of the door you end up standing on.”
For a moment, I just looked at him. Then my eyes drifted past him towards the lounge. Towards Suzy curled beneath a blanket. Emmie holding Lily. Mamma Dot still arguing with a paramedic while Grace made tea for everyone, like we hadn’t nearly been killed an hour ago.
Towards family.
“I think,” I answered softly, “I’m exactly where I always should’ve been.” Something unreadable flickered across his face. “Thank you for your concern, Officer.”
Then I stepped past him and closed the door behind us.