We step out of the taxi at Surgery a short drive later.  The streets of London are busy as always, but it seems Jake's directions were as exactly as he'd promised; the faster more direct route.   Jake gets out first and helps me down onto the pavement by holding gently onto my hand for me to balance on.  He then goes to the driver window and hands him some cash and tells him to have a good night before leading me through the wrought iron gate up to the front door of the busy entrance. 

As always, two queues of well dressed, over preened Londoners are chatting, smoking and laughing loudly in orderly fashion on each side of the door.   As we get closer I notice that it looks like to be the same doormen who were guarding the entrance last night.  A burly guy dressed in all in black telling a story with lots of hand gestures and over exaggerated facial expressions, and a smaller bearded one who is laughing loudly, his shoulders heaving with the effort.  The instant they spot Jake coming towards them though they stop conversing, stand up a little straighter and then break out into wide smiles and shouts of greeting. 

Their attention only moves to me when Jake retakes my hand and pulls me closer to him.  Their expressions seem to be a mix of curiosity and mild shock.

As the smaller one eyes me from head to toe, Jake's grip on my hand changes and he links his fingers through mine, his thumb rubbing the top of my palm lightly.

"Guys, this is Alex." He says with a serious tone, he turns his head to me and smiles a wicked sort of smile at me.  I return it, feeling a flush of heat as the memory of his mouth brushing over mine and his fingers squeezing my upper thigh flits over me. 

"Nice to meet you Alex." the small one says.  

"Actually we've already met. I was here last night?" I remind him with a smile.  His eyes widen in surprise before a sheepish kind of look comes over his face.   He glances at Jake nervously and then me and then nods.

"Of course you were, shit, sorry sweetheart," he says, shifting on his feet. 

"Don't worry about it." Given he was the one with the worst attitude last night, I suppose I'm enjoying his discomfort more than I probably should.

"Listen lads, talk in a bit, yeah?" Jake says pulling me with him towards the larger ornate double doors.  

Inside the entrance, people are checking coats and paying the people in the small ticket window, and others are being led off to the upper floors by pretty staff who remind me of Kyle.  I wonder briefly if he still works here.  Then I wonder if Gemma still works here.  Some tall authoritative blonde, who may or may not be the same one from the night I came with the girls, spots Jake immediately and rushes over. 

"Jake!" she preens, throwing a tanned bare skinned arm around him as she plants her mouth on his cheek. I tense slightly.  He's her boss for goodness sake.  A bit overly friendly if you ask me.  All of a sudden a cold sharp notion slices through me.  Oh god, not her too I plead internally, please not her as well.   Jake doesn't return her hug, instead, air kissing her as he keeps a tight hold of my hand.  It only partially helps calm my jealous inner harpy.  

"Alright Jess, Rach about?" he asks, casting a look over her shoulder.

"She's on the second floor with Gem," she nods gravely.  Gem? Gemma? This involved Gemma. Why does that make me feel worse?

Jake nods. "Seen Kev about?" 

"No. But Cal said he saw him leave about a half hour ago."  She says. 

"Well if he comes back, tell him I'm looking for him yeah?" 

"Will do," she says with a flick of her hair.  She only briefly glances at me, a tight smile on her face that does nothing for the Gemma style Deja Vu I'm currently experiencing. 

Jake thanks her and then leads me across the crowded foyer towards the door Kevin led me through last night.  He presses his wallet against the silver box below the handle and I hear the sound of it unlocking.  Once inside, I follow him up the stairs in silence, the corridor a cold echoing chamber of our footsteps and the faint sound of the bass beyond the walls. 

When we reach the second floor he uses his wallet to unlock another door, beyond which is a fairly long corridor with several doors leading off it. It's painted white like the rest of the backroom areas, the doors black metal and wedged open and in shadowy darkness as we pass them. 

Jake scans inside each of the rooms briefly as we pass, alert and focused as ever, his mind on whatever it is he's looking for.  I open my mouth to ask him what it is he's looking for when we hear the sound of feminine voices coming from behind the last door on the left-hand side.    The doors are thick because I can't hear exactly what the voices behind are saying but they sound raised and agitated to my ears. 

He stops and turns to face me looking tense. 

"I honestly don't know what I'm walking into here baby - it might be better if you waited for me upstairs, yeah? in my office?"  I glance behind him to the closed door.

"Are you going to be alright?  Do I need to worry about you?" I ask.   I feel tense too and I don't really know why. 

He smiles softly and steps into my body. "No, you don't ever have to worry about me," He says, brushing his lips over mine. Ha! As if that was ever going to be something I could just not do. Worry about him.  I wrap my arms around his neck and look up into his eyes.  Then I bite my lip thoughtfully.  "You don't Alex, I can look after myself." He asserts.

"I know you can, it's not that." I look away from his eyes as I fiddle with his collar.

"So what's wrong?"

Why do I even need to know? I don't. I really don't.  I shake my head.  "Nothing.  Nevermind.  Just... well hurry."  I feel his fingers under my chin and he raises my eyes to meet his. 

"Not nothing Alex.  What is it?"  he presses softly. I hold his green stare for a few moments and take a deep breath. 

"The girl downstairs... I just... well have you??"  I close my eyes for a moment and then open them again. "I don't know why I need to know, I don't really.  It's just coming here, not knowing who you've been with..." I'm pathetic.  Why can't I string a sentence together? 

"No," he says.  "I haven't."  His eyes are open and unguarded as he meets my own.  The relief I get from the knowledge really is pathetic.

"Okay," I nod.  "Okay then." I chance a smile at him. 

"Anything else you want to know?" he asks, his mouth soft.  Was there?  I consider asking about Kevin, what he's done now, but I decide I don't particularly want to know.  I want him to do what he needs to do so we can go home. 

"Not right now," I whisper, pressing my lips to his.  "But please hurry up in there.  There's a wall at yours with my name on it." I nibble gently at his bottom lip with my teeth.

"Fuck sake..." he groans. "I'll be as quick as I can." When he presses my palm to the front of his trousers to the pronounced hardness there my legs weaken in response.   "Been holding onto this for too long already."  

"Mmmmm. Well would you like me to hold onto it for you then?"  I smile against his mouth as I wrap my fingers around his arousal.  He moans softly and licks at my lips with his tongue.

Just then the closed door of the dressing room opens behind Jake, startling us both, and a good looking round-faced woman pokes her head through.  I drop my hand from his crotch but he doesn't move away from me.  The woman is about my age perhaps and has sandy brown hair almost the same colour as Jakes which she has tied back in a messy bun.  She's wearing a black lanyard around her neck with the club's logo on it. 

"Jake, it's you, thank fuck," she gasps in a northern sounding accent as her eyes move between us. 

"Hey Rach, sorry, I was just coming," Jake says.  She comes fully out of the door and pulls it closed behind her. 

"Hi, I'm Rachel," she says to me with a small but genuine looking smile.  "Sooo sorry to spoil your night, kinda needed the boss to sort this one," She tells me in a rush.

"Alex, hi" I lift my hand in a wave.  "And it's fine, don't worry.  We'd finished eating anyway - good timing." 

"Okay, I won't be long, make yourself a drink or something yeah?" He kisses me quickly once more before moving to follow Rachel back towards the closed door.   

"Oh the office will be locked," he says turning back to me.  "Code is 140615," he says it like you would say a date of birth and so I repeat it a few times until it sticks and give him a nod. He gives me a small wink and then disappears after Rachel back into the dressing room. 

I turn and make my way back the way we came and then up the third flight of stairs to where his office is.   Unlike the layout below, Jake's office is the only room up here, and it stretches almost the length of the entire floor, above the dressing rooms below.  The sound of the music from the club is fainter up here, barely a dull beat against the walls.  The air is cooler too; a bright white clinical space that makes the comfort and warmth of Jake's office very appealing.  

Punching in the code I'd been repeating over in my head for the last few minutes, I slip quietly into the back kitchen area and close the door behind me.   The air in here is warmer and it smells male, like Jake I think.  To my left is the door to the small windowless bathroom and once inside it I kick the door closed and relieve myself with a contended sigh.  I was definitely needing the toilet more often than usual. Something which will only get worse I suppose.

In the corner there's a decent sized shower cubicle with a towel drying over the top of the glass screen, and a tall red locker which is open to reveal a few shirts on hangers and a dark grey suit bag with the Burberry logo on it. 

After flushing, I wash my hands in the small corner sink and inspect myself in the small mirror.   My face looks a little burnt perhaps, the freckles across my nose, cheeks and forehead a little more prominent than usual.  I rummage through my clutch bag for my lip balm and rub it into my dry lips before puckering them loudly a few times.  There's no point in touching up my make-up really; we were going home to go to bed after he deals with whatever it is going on downstairs. 

Why hadn't I asked what Kevin had done?    There was a time when I'd wanted to know everything.  Hadn't I wanted and needed to know everything once?

Didn't I need these things anymore?  No, I still did.  It was just that I needed and wanted other things more now. I also cared more about some things than I cared about other things now.  When had that shift happened I wonder? When had I reorganised my manageable and unmanageable piles? After the day in my kitchen?  After my soul searching in France?  After he'd told me about Mark? Or had I finally bought into the clichèd notion that what I didn't know couldn't hurt me? 

God, I'm too tired to do this right now.  

Make myself a drink, he'd said.  Well I could have water I suppose. Or tea.  He probably has tea somewhere in here, I think, as I scan the small compact kitchen. Since it looks practically unused and extremely tidy however, I decide not to disturb it.

In the main part of the office, I go directly towards the cupboard below the TV which I know has a mini fridge hidden within it. I rest my bag on top and bend low to survey the contents.  Lots of cans of Coke and Diet Coke, bottled water, and those little branded bottles of spirit mixers. It's a well-stocked mini-fridge. Better stocked than my actual fridge. If mixers and water were a main food group that is.

There's shelves on either side of the fridge with more bottles of alcohol than I can count.  Mainly Jack Daniels, but other kinds of whisky too, and vodka, brandy and gin. There are bottles of tequila too, and some of those liqueurs that people drink towards the end of the night when they're feeling brave.

Weirdly I hope this is mainly for entertaining Russian business associates and not for his own personal consumption.  His poor liver.   Reaching into the fridge, I retrieve a bottle of still water from near the back of the shelf and close the door and stand up.  

The instant I do I feel something crawl up my spine.  A realisation; an acknowledgement of something I think I had been dimly aware of before but had just chosen to ignore.

When I turn around I almost drop the bottle.   

Kevin is sat slouched behind Jake's desk, a bottle of something amber resting in front of him, his eyes are heavy-lidded, his head resting to the side in a relaxed repose.     He's so still, his chest moving up and down so slowly and evenly that it looks like he might be asleep.  Oh how I hope he's asleep.  I could tiptoe right back out of here if he's asleep.  My hopes are dashed in the next instant when the side of his mouth lifts into a lazy smirk.

"Well, look who it is," He says, his voice thick and slurred.  He reaches forward and lifts the bottle.  "Evening doctor."

My breathing feels too fast and the hairs on my neck are dancing a warning across my skin.  

"Jake's looking for you," I reply after a long moment. 

He nods and brings the bottle to his mouth.  "Yeah, I bet he is," he snorts, taking a loud gulp, followed by another.  When he trains his glassy stare back on me he draws it down my body and back up slowly.  "You look good darlin, you and my boy out somewhere nice were you?" 

My boy.  God how I hate that.  "We were at dinner." I manage tightly.

"Ohooohhh, you were at dinner, was you? Somewhere nice I'm betting?" another snort.   I say nothing, my expression impassive as I stare back at him.  "You doin here then?" 

My nostrils flare.  "We were at dinner. Rachel called.  Asked Jake to come in." My tone is laced with accusation.  He doesn't miss it. 

"Oh did she now.  Well, there's a fucking surprise," he doesn't sound surprised in the slightest.    "Never could mind her own fucking business that one..." his cockney tone is filled with loathing for Jake's pretty manager.   I say nothing.   "Where is he then?" he asks.    

"Downstairs.  He won't be long."

"Yeah well, if he's downstairs with her yakking his fucking ear off then he ain't gonna be joining us anytime soon, trust me on that sweetheart." He laughs dryly and takes another swig from the bottle.   I feel the outside of my bag for my mobile.  

Before I have the chance to do anything, Kevin springs up from the chair with far more energy than he looked to possess a moment ago.   He'd looked about ready to pass out a moment ago.   I have to stop myself from cringing backwards as he comes around the desk toward me.

Christ, I don't want him near me.    Which door was closer?  The one I just came in by or the main door.  If I ran would he stop me?    Oh god, this is ridiculous.  I'm not going to run from him.  I'm not going to let him intimidate me.   He wouldn't dare come near me.  He just likes to make me feel weak and unimportant. Because he has no idea how to treat women.    He's a pig and I'm not afraid of men like him.   Not that I'd met many men like him.

I pull my shoulders back and level my stare at him as he crosses Jakes office, taking a step back out of his way as he ambles towards the drinks cupboard.  His massive hulking form teeters precariously as he bends down in front of it.  His shoulders are wide and solid, the t-shirt stretched tightly over a strong muscular back.  He's big.  Threateningly big. 

"You know what's funny?" he says as he inspects the contents of Jake's alcohol supply. 

I'm certain nothing he has to say would strike me as funny, but I respond anyway. "What's funny?"

"Jake only started having this much alcohol around when you came on the scene," he pulls out a bottle of vodka, reads the label, shoves it back in.   "He was at the gym kicking the shit out of a 6ft punchbag most days," he turns to me then and smiles wide. His teeth are white but there are a lot of them and his mouth echoes that of a wolf.   "Now he goes apeshit if they haven't put a crate of Jack in his office every week.  You really that much fucking work sweetheart?" 

I give him a small stiff smile.  "You'd have to ask Jake that I suppose."

"Yeah, maybe I will," he snickers.  "Doubt he'd find it funny either mind you, Jay seems to 'ave lost his sense of humour these days.  In fact, he's startin' to be a bit of a fucking bore if you ask me." He throws me a look of accusation before turning his attention back to the task at hand.  

I glare at the side of his head before moving a little further away from him, clutching hard to my bottle of water which I've just this second begun to think of as a weapon. 

I walk across Jake's office towards the large focal point window on the other side of the room.  It's closer to the door than where I was, but it's  blocked by the leather sofas and low dark coffee table set in the middle of them.  I'd have to hurdle to get away from him now, should I need to.   That is if he were to attack me.  Which of course he isn't going to do. 

"Maybe you should go down and see him?" I suggest, casting a casual look over my shoulder at him as I sip from my water.

"Oh I should, should I?" he asks, standing bolt upright and clutching hard to a fresh bottle which he immediately begins to twist the cap off of.  "Jay do whatever you tell him to do does he?"

I flush hotly, burned by the insinuation on Jake's behalf.  "Oh, that's what you think is it?"

Kevin nods. "Yeah, that's exactly what I think, Doctor."

I straighten my spine and look him in the eye. "Then you don't know him as well as you think you do."

He laughs a small bitter laugh that sounds like a dog barking. "Better than you ever will darlin, better than you ever fucking will," He throws another load of Jack Daniels down his throat, wipes the back of his hand over his mouth and gives me another of his stares, heavy-lidded eyes moving languidly over my face, his mouth arched up in contempt.   He's perched on the edge of the low cupboard now, legs apart, bottle dangling between his thighs.   The silence is ice cold between us and sounds deafening to me.  Jake where the bloody are you?  What the bloody hell is taking him so long? 

Deciding that I'm not going to have him force me out of Jake's office but also that I can't bear to be alone with him a moment longer,  I reach down to set my bottle on the coffee table and unclip my bag and retrieve my mobile from it.   From the corner of my eye I watch him, and with slightly shaking fingers I type out the text to Jake.  The reception isn't great, but I have 3g at least and as I hit send I also send a silent prayer upwards that it goes through.   He'll come straight away.  Kevin watches me closely, a small hint of a smile loose on the right-hand side of his wide mouth. 

I take a deep breath and meet his eye. "You really don't like me very much do you, Kevin?"

His laugh is like a crash of plates on a concrete floor; loud and sudden and it makes me jump.  It's a cold lurid sound that makes my skin crawl. 

"Aww come on now doctor, what the fuck makes you think that?!" He actually manages to look genuinely surprised. 

I give a half shrug. "Just a feeling." 

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise.  "A feeling?" he says.  "And what other feelings you got about me Alex sweetheart? I'm curious now,"  as the smirk spreads across his mouth my body hardens further so that it's seems to be vibrating from the pressure of my bones tightening together.  It's almost painful.  

I'm tempted to say exactly what feelings I have about him; I'm tempted to say that I find him boorish and repellent and that the idea of Jake being anywhere near his realms of influence makes me feel physically ill. I'm tempted to say that he makes me want to commit violence and that if he calls Jake 'My boy' once more then I just might.  But of course I don't.   I say nothing.  I remain tight-lipped and instead fix him with a look I hope lets him know silently exactly how I feel about him.

His response is to follow his lecherous smirk up with another leisurely look down my body.  It causes a tremor of nausea to follow it.   I turn my head away from him but look back immediately for the sole reason that he seems to me like the kind of person who needs to be watched at all time.  

"Me and Jay actually have pretty similar tastes in women, did you know that?" 

I swallow. "Why on earth would that be something I would know?" I ask tightly.  He says nothing but looks amused as he lifts the bottle to his mouth again. 

"Drink?" he asks then, rising up from his perch and moving towards me.   My body tenses further, a deep gnawing sensation scraping against the base of my spine and at the back of my neck and I shout internally for Jake to come.  "You like Jack right?" he asks, handing the bottle out to me. Something tickles at my brain, a small spidery sensation that trickles down my spine but which disintegrates as I try to grab on to it.

"No," I tell him with a shake of my head. Edging away from him as casually as possible despite feeling the polar opposite of casual.  I feel like a weak thing caught in the snare of something exceptionally dangerous.  I feel like if I move too quickly or show any fear at all then he'll pounce.  I'll be snuffed out.  Crushed to powder. 

He wouldn't dare. He looks pretty daring right now Alex don't you think?

I find that it's difficult to look him directly in the eye for too long. Most likely because I'm afraid of what I'll find in there.  He's taller than Jake, and wider too I think.  He watches me intently for a long moment, his dark glassy stare focussed on my face.  His eyes look like marbles - hard and inanimate.   He lifts the bottle to his mouth but doesn't move away from me, not an inch.  I can smell him.  He smells of sweat and something sweet and the scent of alcohol fogs up the space between us.  Nausea announces itself once more.  I'm going to be sick. 

"I'm going to find Jake," I decide.  I can't be here an instant longer.   I make it a few steps towards the door before I feel his fingers wrap around my arm and he pulls me back.  I'm certain a temporary paralysis takes over me and I freeze, my muscles leaden and heavy with terror. 

"Wait a sec, Alex, hang about," he moves in front of me to block my path.  "We're not done here."  Did he just say those words? I'm going to throw up.

I take a step backwards but I meet the hard edge of Jake's desk and he steps in closer still, smiling almost triumphantly.  Oh, my god.  I push against him but he doesn't budge even a fraction of an inch.  He's a hulking rock of a man.  "Move Kevin," I demand pushing my shoulder against his chest. 

"What's the problem sweetheart?  I thought we were having a nice chat?" his voice is sickeningly playful and I feel my hands curl into fists.  I bring them up to his chest and push at him harder. 

"Get the hell away from me Kevin, right now.  Get out of my way," my heart is hammering in my chest now and my breath feels liquid and suffocating as I glare up at him.  

"I just want to talk to you, Jesus christ you're fucking lively ain't you?" his hands are on me now. Pressing into my arms, restricting my movements.

Suddenly his weight disappears from me.  It happens so fast and so unexpectedly that my legs lose all of their strength and I have to hold on hard to Jake's desk to keep myself upright.   When I look up I see him standing there, a glorious joyous barrier between Kevin and I. His shoulders are pulled back and his body is tense and alert and I feel the waves of rage come off it from here.   My own body sags with relief. 

Kevin is few feet across the room now, his shirt stretched and pulled at an awkward angle and a look of dark amusement on his face.  

"Have you gone fucking mental?" Jake growls.  "What the fuck was that?"  His voice isn't loud but it rattles with something powerful. 

Kevin rights himself, dragging a hand through his thick wavy hair and then over his face.  Jake turns to me and looks me over quickly, asking with his eyes if I'm okay, to which I respond with a swallow and a quick nod.   As he turns back to Kevin his body hardens once more, seeming to grow in size right in front of me. 

"What the fuck was that?" He repeats, taking a step toward Kevin. 

"Jay mate, look at you all dressed up," Kevin says cheerily. "Nothing at all.  Me and the missus were just having a little chat.  She's a good one mate, definitely a fucking keeper," he inclines his head to me and smiles.  My mouth all but drops open.  He must be insane.  Clinically.  It would certainly explain a few things.  

"A chat?" Jake growls. He sounds grossly unconvinced. 

Kevin nods. "Yeah, a chat." 

"That be the same kind of chat you had with Gemma?" Jake steps a little closer to him.  Christ I don't want him to step closer to this lunatic.  I want him further away from him.  Instinctively I move toward Jake and stretch out my hand to him, my fingers lacing through his arm.  His body is hot and hard and it vibrates under my fingers. 

Kevin gives Jake an innocent look.  "What the fuck's she said now?" he sighs.   "I'm telling you mate, that girl is a fucking drama queen. You should get rid of her... nothing but trouble."  With a shake of his head, he lifts the bottle to his mouth again.

"Yeah, should I?" Jake nods.  "So she can shut me down permanently?  Nice black eye you gave her by the way, " he nods again as I gasp quietly beside him.   "Don't you worry about it though Kev, sorted your fucking mess out for you again, like I always do."

"Never touched her." Kevin shrugs.

"Oh I know mate, you never do," Jake says before turning to me.   His eyes soften as he rests his hand on my arm.

"Did he touch you?" he asks me.  Though soft, his eyes are still darker than I've ever seen them.   The green hidden beneath layers of raven black. 

I can feel the touch of Kevin's hands echo over my arms but I shake my head and throw a glance over his shoulder.  Kevin is watching us both carefully, an amused glint in his eye.   "Jake can we just go home now please?" I plead. There's a dangerous crackle in the room which feels explosive.  A word, a look, the tiniest flicker of movement could set it off, I feel that.  I feel it and I'm afraid.  Not for me, not anymore, but for Jake.  And the baby.  I need to get us all out of this room.

Jake has always seemed so powerfully strong to me; fierce and capable and always in complete control. Kevin, by contrast, is completely unpredictable.  He's also huge, brutal-looking and dangerous.   I'm not entirely sure how control Jake is of this situation.  He looks in control now but I feel like one tiny action in any direction could change that.  I don't want him to lose this one.  

"Yeah, take your woman home mate," Kevin says.  "Think she's had enough excitement for one night." He mutters something under his breath that I can't make out from here.  When he lifts the bottle again have to reign in a snarl.  I wonder how many bottles it would take to completely incapacitate him. Truly, I loathe this man with every fibre of my being.       

Beside me, Jake nods, not to Kevin or me, but to himself.  He's just decided something and I'm scared about what that is.  When he turns to me and unwraps his arm from around my body my stomach sinks further. 

"Baby, wait downstairs for me yeah?  Ask Jess or someone at the front to call us a taxi, I won't be long." He says.   He actually manages to smile a little.  It makes me want to cry.  My blood freezes in my veins and I shake my head at him.    

"No Jake, I'm not going anywhere without you."

He doesn't look surprised.  The hint of a smile stays firmly in place over his mouth as he nods and steps in closer to me.  He brings his hand up and brushes a thumb over my lip and meets my eye.  He looks calm.   His face has an almost serene quality to it which makes me tense even more.  I don't understand what's happening here.  I'm so bloody afraid.

"I told you downstairs, didn't I?" He smiles a little more; a flash of canine, a glimmering of heat in his eye.  "You don't have to worry about me baby.  I won't be long, promise."  With his hand on my lower back, he tries to move me towards the door, but I push against him and shake my head again. 

"Jake, I'm not leaving you here with him." My voice is firm and resolute and it causes a flicker of annoyance to move over his eyes.

Kevin's laugh explodes around the stuffy air of the office like a thunderclap.  Jake hardens but doesn't turn to look at him.  When the laughter fades Jake lets out a half sigh and nods.

"Okay then, let's go home," he says, walking us both towards the door now. 

Kevin smirks, looking almost vindicated but I could care less.  Right now all I need to do is get us both out of here. Everything will be okay as soon as we're out of here.  My feet feel like clown feet, heavy and clumsy, but I cling tight to Jake's arm and force my body to keep moving towards the door.     

"I want you the fuck out of here," he tells Kevin as we pass.   "Stay away from my fucking club.  This isn't done, yeah?  Not even close.  Tomorrow it gets sorted."

From the side of my eye, I see Kevin lift his bottle up and thrust it toward us in some sort of faux celebration.  

"Here, Jay, do us a favour, mate?" Kevin says when we're almost at the door.  His tone is as relaxed and as out of place as ever. "Leave your fucking collar at home tomorrow, will you?  That thing is choking the fucking life out of you," he chuckles, his eyes fixed on me.

Jake stops moving, considers something and then smiles imperceptibly.  It's not even a smile, it's like a switch as been flipped. A tremor of a hint of a nerve being touched. It's almost invisible. Almost.

It happens fast.  Or maybe it's slow? Time seems to stand still while everything else moves past me in a blur.   Jake turns slowly to face Kevin and their eyes meet.   The blast of heat that comes from Jake's body is what pushes me back against the wall by the door, or did he move me backwards out of the way?  

A low snarl comes from Jake as he practically flies across the room.  Kevin attempts to block the first blow at the same time as he swings the bottle at Jake's face. He pulls neither off with any great purpose and the bottle hits the side of Jake's body and smashes - doing nothing to deter him in anyway.   Jake's hands connect with his face in a loud fleshy collision of power fuelled by rage.  I hear the sound of the flesh being pounded, bone being broken, pain being meted out.  I hear venomous threats and insults spoken in a growling accented tone that sounds so little now like the man I love.  That voice that I'd heard speaking only words of tenderness and devotion, love and promise.  It was something else now.  It was transformed.  You piece of shit... cleaned up your mess too many fucking times... you're done... you're dead... thought you could go near her?...  Each threat is punctuated with another blow, compounded by an added kick. 

God how wrong I was to be afraid for Jake.

I watch in a horrified daze as Kevin tries to stand but is kicked down by a smash to the head from Jake's polished expensive shoe.  I'm not sure how long it goes on.  I'm not sure how long I stand there stunned, paralysed and speechless.  I've never seen someone beaten before.  I've seen blood and open wounds and death but I've never stood witness to someone being damaged in this way.  This was brutal, sustained violence like nothing I'd ever known or would ever hope to know.  I'd always suspected Jake to be capable of violence and he'd told me as much. He had hurt people he said, and he would hurt people who threatened the things he loved.   But it's one thing to suspect it and be told of its possibility. It was quite another to witness it. To see the man you love pummel another man into a bloody broken mess.

I notice something then. 

Kevin isn't fighting back anymore.   He's blocking the blows by bracing his arms up in front of his face, turning his head this way and that, twisting his body into a foetal defensive stance — but he's no longer throwing any hits of his own.  Why isn't he fighting back?  It looks macabre now.  Of course, it looked macabre before, but now it looked simply unfair.  They were matched in size.  This shouldn't be happening like this.

Jake isn't shouting anymore either.  He's just a ball of controlled tempered rage; alternating each punch with a kick, each action with something more savage than the last.  There's an almost ghastly kind of gracefulness to his movements.   Practiced.  Precise.  Clinical. 

This thought disturbs me so much that I think it's what finally shakes me out of my voyeuristic trance.  

"Stop! Jake!" I rush across the room towards him "Jake, please stop it!  You're going to kill him!"  I grab desperately at the fabric of his shirt and pull as hard as I can.  He resists me at first, I don't think he even hears me so thick is the cloud of fury he's under. I wrap my hand around his arm and pull harder and finally I feel him respond, his downward kicks slowing as he takes a step back, and then another until we're clear of the groaning broken heap on the floor. 

His body feels white hot and it shudders beneath my trembling fingers. He still isn't looking at me.  His face is a mask of slowly receding rage and darkness, his breathing hard and his eyes burning bright and wide as he glares down at the floor.

"Jake look at me, look at me please," I whisper, stroking my fingers gently down the sides of his face  "Look at me. We need to go now.  It's done, let's just go home now?" 

I take his face in my hands and press my mouth onto his as I continue moving us both backwards towards the door.  I can hear groans and movement behind me but I can't bring myself to look back at the scene.  I'm not sure what sort of person that makes me let alone what kind of Doctor, but I am sure of one thing: I need to get Jake and I out of here. 

When I pull back from his mouth I'm shocked to find his hard eyes are now looking at me with a familiar heat and hunger. Worryingly, he still looks breathtakingly handsome; a dark dangerous beautiful that breaks my heart a little when I notice the blood. Dark spatters coat the side of his neck and the collar of his shirt, and his arm is soaked through with the contents of Kevin's bottle.  The scent of bourbon is pungent and nauseating to my fragile stomach.  When I place my hands flat on his chest I feel his heart beating hard and fast under my fingertips from the exertion, the sweat beading on his forehead.  His arm slides around my waist and he pulls me into his body which begins to soften against mine.

"Please Jake, let's go home now." I manage in a thick voice.    The lump feels wedged in my throat, noxious and hot, and my legs feel boneless again.  I can't cry in front of him.  I won't cry in front of him.  I don't know why I even want to cry at all.  

His other hand slips around the back of my neck and his fingers slide into the lengths of my hair as he pulls my head down to meet his.  "Yeah.  Let's go home, baby. It's done." He nods before pressing a rough kiss to my lips.