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“Or is it one of those things… maybe we all get a turn… as long as nobody tells Dan, yeah?” he’s stood way too close now, making me feel sick to the pit of my stomach. Tears swell behind my eyes as my shaky hands begin to add milk to the browning liquid in the mugs.

“Must feel dirty though, right? While your man’s doing proper time… maybe we should tell him, might need some convincing to not… doesn’t even matter if it’s true once we tell him, does it? How do you think he’ll take it? Especially as I hear he’s going to bust case”

Shame is overtaken by pure panic. Is he going to bust case? Have they told him? What’s going to happen now?

“So what do you say then, sweetheart… maybe I’ll come round tonight… alone” he snarls in my ear, his hand curling around my wrist attempting to hold me in place.

The world turns upside down, my ears ring, and my vision narrows. I’m dead anyway. Fuck it. I rip my hand away, he keeps hold of it so I bring it to my mouth and bite his hand as hard as I can. The warm copper leaks onto my lips. He yelps and slaps me hard enough to vibrate the world out of focus. Hair in my face, blood on my lips, my fingers snatch around the handle of Nik’s favourite knife aimed directly at Muscle’s chest. I try to look down the blade at my target but can’t, my hand is shaking uncontrollably. What was I even thinking, I can’t take him down, even with my blade in hand. I’m holding it like some kind of Temu wand.

I hear his footsteps and see Nik appear from the corner of my eye. Relief washes over me, my confidence grows, and the lethal weapon before me stills.

He barely has time to take the scene in before he headbutts Suit who falls silently to the floor. Immediately turning our engagement from a two vs two, to a two vs one. With one person dispatched so effortlessly I can’t help but think of my aggressor “well, you’re fucked now, aren’t you?”

The mild amusement melts into abject fear before my eyes. A wave of intoxicating domination, pure power comes over me. Muscle backs himself towards the garden doors, which I know are locked. Nik looks amused. He walks towards me, each step deliberately intimidating. He’s locked in.

Looking me up and down he brings his fingers under my chin and lifts me to look at him. My chest heaves so hard it hurts, I’m still shaking from head to toe. A genuine smile in the form of a snarl takes over his whole face.

“Beautiful” he tells me “proud of you. Give me a minute, okay?”, brushing my hair out of my face he kisses me on the top of my head. I nod, the jagged breathing bruising my lungs. And I’m fucking terrified at how calm Nik is, and excited to see what happens next. His hand runs down my forearm to the blade in my hand. “Why don’t we put this down” he suggests, taking the knife from my hand.

Oh my God he’s going to stab him…

Then he places the knife on the side. “Unarmed mate, see… it’s alright, calm yourself down… deep breaths, it’s going to be alright…” Nik punctuates his de-escalation with slow, purposeful steps towards the cornered, panicked man by the back door.

“Let’s just talk about it, shall we?” he offers “We all make mistakes, mate, it’s alright”

Muscle isn’t buying it, at all. He picks up one of my dining chairs and points the legs at Nik, like one of those old lion tamers. He’s very much barking up the wrong tree there.

“Now, now… let’s not get silly… the chair isn’t going to help you… is it?” Nik offers, still being unusually and unsettlingly reasonable “… you break it, you buy it” breaking the tension with humour, Nik laughs.

“You didn’t know, you couldn’t have known… it was a mistake… that’s fine… how about that cup of tea?” Nik carries on monologuing and Muscle decides to engage

“I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, I didn’t know you two…”

“That’s alright mate, we’re talking… now why don’t you put the chair down and take a seat”

And he does, in his own terrified-jittery way. He places the chair on the floor, pushes it back to the dining table. “There’s a good lad” Nik offers “could we get that tea over here, please? Chuck an extra sugar in it for our friend”

I don’t move, I don’t even realise I’ve been invoked into the situation. I’ve been waiting in the wings trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, and just watching this unfold. It’s not exactly what I was expecting from Nik. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. I’m still frozen, so Nik instead of asking again just walks over and grabs one of the cups. I don’t tell him the teabag is still in it. I don’t think he’ll care.

“There you are, fella, have a drink” and he sets the mug down on the table “careful, it’s hot” Nik warns Muscle, with an unusually warm smile.

Nik sits down opposite him “I reckon we can all talk this out, just a big misunderstanding, I’m sure” and he kicks a chair out for me. Entirely numb with bewilderment, I grab two more teas and go to the table and sit down uneasily. Like the kangaroo court equivalent of a mediation. I sit down and get one of those weird acknowledgement half-smiles from Muscle as I take a seat.

“Now, can one of you tell me what happened?” Nik asks, like a headteacher settling a playground dispute.

“She bit me!” Muscle spits like a small child defending his misbehaviour

“Okay, well that’s not good. We don’t bite people…” he winks at me “… unless they like it, of course”

“She pulled a knife on me!” Muscle adds, really clutching at straws here, I’m still bewildered by what’s going on, I can’t figure out what Nik’s done.

“Let’s have a look at that…” and Muscle hands his arm to Nik who inspects the wound “…yeah, it’s a nasty one, that… and for no reason…?” the temperature of the room suddenly shifts. Muscle tries to pull his arm back, but Nik has decided against letting him have it back, instead ripping Muscle towards him, causing the dining table to bounce on the floor, scraping the tile.

Nik releases the arm and both hands grab the back of Muscle’s head and ram it into the table, several times until his body goes semi-limp.

“What did you do?!” he asks again “What did you do to make this gentle, beautiful woman feel she had to bite you hard enough to draw blood, and to pull a knife on you?” he bounces his head again “I suppose the same as her face reddened all by itself?!” and he smashes his head again.

Oh my God, did he just call me a gentle, beautiful woman? That’s the nicest thing he’s ever said to me. I can’t help but flutter my eyelashes just a little.