Chapter Four Razor #2
He nodded, flustered, dropping back. For a second, it worked.
Then the press of bodies surged again, and the gap vanished.
The landing curved towards the stairwell, concrete closing in, sound ricocheting off every surface.
Boots scuffed. Voices overlapped. The air thickened with sweat and impatience.
And in that shifting mass, I caught sight of Ghost. He slipped sideways with the flow, riding the convergence as the two streams met at the turn.
Smooth. Planned. By the time my brain caught up, we were in the blind spot and out of the guards’ sightline, swallowed by bodies and noise.
That’s when he went for it.
He came at me hard and fast, his shoulder and forearm driving me into the wall.
The impact punched the breath clean out of my lungs, my back slamming into the rail so hard it bit through cloth and skin and sent my cup spilling across the floor.
Which fucked me off more than the pain flaring white-hot, sharp enough to blur the edges of my vision. I needed that fucking cup.
Shouts went up immediately.
Not alarm.
Enjoyment.
Everyone loved a fight. More so when it was Ghost reminding the wing who owned it, and me being shown I was nothing.
There were men in here who’d worked for Cormac.
Men who’d answered to me once. But loyalty inside wasn’t inherited.
It was bought. Earned. Paid for in coffee, noodles, cigarettes and, ironically, drugs traded in corners.
Ghost had all of that.
I had fuck all.
Not even my fucking cup now.
I had zero cash on my books. No leverage. No protection. I couldn’t afford to keep my former crew onside. The only currency I had left was violence. Win, and I might survive. Lose, and I got stripped bare. Win too hard, though, and my time in here stretched longer, darker.
Yeah. Fucked either way.
And the screws weren’t on my side either. None coming to my aid right now. Probably paid off the same as everyone else. Quiet transfers. Direct debits. Money landing in the account their missus used for the Sunday roast. Screws were just as easy, if not easier, to buy into looking the other way.
My life, innit?
Ghost’s mate stepped in behind me, blocking the stair, filling the space.
Retreat vanished. Wall at my front. Body at my back.
I was boxed in tight and Ghost slammed me again, harder.
My spine jarred against the rail. Stars burst behind my eyes.
But instinct cut through the pain, and I snapped an elbow up, driving it into his ribs with everything I had.
I felt it connect. Solid. Bone on bone.
Ghost hissed and rocked back, but his mate surged in immediately, thick arms grabbing my wrist, wrenching it behind me.
His weight crushed in close, pinning me.
My shoulder screamed, fire ripping down my arm, but I twisted anyway, bucked my hips, and drove my heel back.
It hit. A sharp crack. Bone. A grunt. A stumble.
Then Ghost was on me again. No pause. No warning.
It was fists and fury and the certainty that this wasn’t about settling a score.
It was about erasing me.
Colin shouted, but Ghost’s mate shoved him.
And in that moment, I went for Ghost’s throat, ready to strangle the motherfucker.
But he caught my wrist and twisted it. White-hot pain shot up my arm, shoulder tearing, so I head-butted him.
Blood burst from his nose, but he laughed as if it were nothing.
As if my pounding head hurt more than his broken nose.
And he drove me down the steps, shoulder first.
Colin screamed. “Officer! Officer Dent!”
Ghost’s attention snapped sideways then.
Shit. Stupid move by my cellmate there. Colin didn’t understand what that just cost him.
You didn’t call the screws. Not unless you fancied being dismantled slowly, over weeks, months, until there was nothing left of you worth recognising.
And the annoyance crossing Ghost’s face was proper real.
He’d leave me where I stood, regardless of the cash he was banking to put me on my face, to make an example of Colin instead.
Tear him apart just for the inconvenience.
I couldn’t have that.
I’d always taken the hits. Pain was familiar. Expected. Almost manageable. But Colin? He couldn’t. And I shouldn’t have cared. I really, really shouldn’t have.
I did though.
Call it some moral code. Fuck knows. But I launched at Ghost, shoulder-first, driving him off Colin and into the rail.
The impact rattled my bones. Breath tore out of me in a harsh bark, but I kept moving, kept pushing.
Stopping wasn’t an option. Not here. Not with a crowd closing in.
Not with eyes on us. If Ghost had wanted me dead, I’d already be leaking on the floor. So this hadn’t been about killing me.
This was hierarchy.
And I wasn’t letting him write it uncontested.
The fight exploded.
Fists flew. Bodies slammed. We crashed into each other with no space left for thought.
I took a punch to the jaw snapping my head sideways and tasting copper immediately, but I stayed upright.
Stayed in it. I drove a forearm into his throat, felt cartilage give, felt him stagger, and then his knee came up hard into my thigh, buckling it.
The crowd surged tighter, jeers and shouts rising, feeding it, sharpening it.
Men shouting my name. Others calling for blood.
The noise blurred as Ghost went feral. All the rage he’d been hoarding since I put him in here came loose.
Since I’d torched his little operation. Since I’d carved my name into his streets and left him with nothing but revenge to live on.
He came at me wild, brutal, swinging with everything he had.
And I matched him.
There was nothing else left in me but fight. It was all I’d ever had. So I let it loose. Every punch thrown was ugly and close. Elbows driven in tight. Shoulders slammed. Nails raked. Teeth clenched. Fury flared hot and poisonous, souring into hate.
I hated him.
Hated this place.
Hated that I was here at all.
Hated that I’d walked away from the warmth of somewhere beautiful because I’d believed I could end it on my terms. Not by doing the one last thing they wanted, but by proving I didn’t have to. I’d gambled on that. On showing them I still had a choice.
I’d lost.
So I poured it all into Ghost. The anger. The regret. The need to not be erased. And I can’t say, in all honesty, who would’ve won. But with another minute, another thirty seconds, while the hollers and jeers swelled around us, I’d reckon my chances were pretty fucking good.
He bled.
I hurt.
I bled.
He hurt.
And for a moment, that was enough.
Then boots thundered on concrete. Keys rattled.
Shouts cut through the chaos, and hands were suddenly everywhere.
Orders barked. Brute force ripped us apart, and I sagged into Dent, lungs on fire, pain blooming in places it absolutely shouldn’t.
Another screw dragged Ghost the other way. Just as bloodied, just as wrecked.
“Move,” Dent snapped.
I glanced back at Colin.
Wide-eyed. Shaking. One eye bruising dark. He’d had a hit in there too.
Told him he should have walked behind me.
And as they hauled me away, one thing cut through the haze with brutal clarity: by doing that, by breaking the one rule that should have mattered in here, Colin had bound himself to me.
That wasn’t a good thing for either of us.