Chapter Ten Tristan #2
Razor limped towards the chair opposite and lowered himself into it carefully, jaw set to hide the pain that must have cost him.
And in that moment, watching him manage his body as if it no longer quite belonged to him, professional distance finally cracked.
Whatever they’d done to him in here hadn’t been incidental. It had been deliberate.
And it wasn’t over.
I sat, keeping my eyes on him and searched for words belonging in a legal conference but found none of them would do. Not for this. Not for him.
Then Razor pointed to the empty chair beside me his voice, when he spoke, was rough as if scraped raw and unused in days. “Where’s the other bloke?”
I forced myself back into work. “He’s not needed today.”
“Why not?”
“He’s the solicitor. His work happens outside these walls. I’m counsel. I deal with the court. That’s why I’m here.”
Razor swallowed and held my gaze as best he could through the swelling around one eye.
It might have been relief. Or maybe resignation.
As if he thought the absence meant someone else had abandoned him.
So I glanced down at the file, trying to clutch onto the detached professionalism I needed that would mean I could do this job cleanly.
Which was to get this man out of here. Out of danger.
But that already thin thread had frayed.
I couldn’t bare for him to think no one cared. That I didn’t care. And Lennon’s warning pressed achingly at the edges of my mind: “Give him a reason.”
I closed my eyes.
Then—fuck it.
I stood and went to the door, rapping once. When it opened, I kept my voice measured. “Could we have some water, please?”
I received a muttered response. Then a pause.
Then a plastic cup appeared with another.
I took them, closing the door again with a soft finality, then set a cup down in front of Razor.
His hand shook as he reached for it. And I watched him lift it, the way his fingers struggled to grip, and couldn’t bear it anymore.
So I rummaged in my bag, pulling out the small cloth I kept for cleaning my screens, then dipped it into my cup.
I paused for a moment, contemplating the risk versus the need.
Then I stepped around the table and stood next to him.
I cupped his face gently. Carefully. And I felt him freeze before he leant into it, into me.
Allowing me to clean him. His skin was hot beneath my palm.
Too hot. And familiar. And when he peered up at me, I could see those eyes hidden beneath the swelling and cuts and bruises, and my heart twisted.
I knew exactly how inappropriate this was.
I knew the rules. The risks. The consequences.
But in this moment, the law felt very far away, and the human cost sat right in front of me, bleeding and breathing and tearing me in two.
I dabbed carefully at a cut. He flinched, sucking in a breath.
“Sorry,” I whispered, instinctively easing the pressure, gentling my touch as if I could undo any of it.
“S’okay.” He blinked up at me. “You always were a bit… Tricky.”
For a heartbeat, my mouth betrayed me and I gave him the smallest hint of a smile, my chest tightening with relief.
But I quickly schooled my face back into neutrality and kept working, focusing on the task of cleaning him because it was safer than looking at him.
And as I did, he slipped his hand from the table and dangled his arm to his side.
His shoulder brushed my leg. Light. Tentative.
As if he wasn’t certain he was allowed the contact.
Then, before I could process what he was doing, he skimmed my ankle with his fingers.
Barely anything, really. A ghost of a touch.
More reflex than intention. Could be passed off as an accident.
Though it was anything but.
Proven when he drifted his fingertips higher, edging beneath the hem of my trousers and found the strip of warm skin above my sock.
There, he stilled. As though that tiny feel of skin under his fingers, human and real, was enough to anchor him.
And he leant forward a fraction, breathing in—breathing me in—the exhale following quietly broken.
My eyes burnt.
I swallowed and glanced at the window. The guards weren’t watching.
Then I checked the camera. It was dark, dead, or badly angled.
So I let us have this moment. Stayed there a little longer, letting him touch me if it meant keeping him from believing there wasn’t anything for him beyond these walls.
And I let myself have this moment, too. His rough fingers stroking my ankle, the smallest contact cutting straight through me, to make me stutter. Because I needed it. So fucking badly.
Fuck.
I was so in love with him it hurt.
So completely, irrevocably in love with him—there was no escaping that truth. And if this moment of selfish recklessness cost me the case… so be it.
But a noise from outside had me realising the cost of that.
So I stepped back. Away from his touch. From his warmth.
And he brought his hand back up to the table, glancing up at me with those puppy-dog eyes that had made me his from day one.
I smiled. The smallest, almost imperceptible rise of my lips to let him know I was right there with him.
Then I handed him the cloth to return to my seat, placing the table firmly between us again.
Barrier restored.
Because if I wanted his touch again, I had to fight as if I’d never had it.
“Before we go any further,” I laced my fingers together on the tabletop, “I need to be clear about something.”
Razor shifted in the chair, careful of his ribs. “Go on.”
“This is a legal conference. Anything you tell me here is privileged. I’m here in a professional capacity. And nothing I do next happens unless you consent to it.”
He cocked his head. “Bit late for consent between us, eh?”
“Consent for me to act for you.” I held his gaze. “And it matters.”
He looked away then, as if deciding whether to put his throat back under a blade.
I leant forwards to catch his eye again. “Do you want me to act for you? As your counsel.”
The silence stretched, thick and heavy.
Then he turned back to me, and in a voice stripped of bravado, stripped of everything but truth, he said, “I want you in any way you come for me, Tricky.”
I inhaled sharply. Looked down. Those eyes were just as penetrating even with the swelling. So I held onto what would get us back outside these walls where I would come for him willingly.
“Then we proceed.” I opened the file. “When I came here today, my intention was to confirm your instructions, go through the charge as it currently stands, and assess whether there was any realistic scope to revisit bail.”
I paused.
Looked at him.
The swelling around his eye. The split lip. The way his shoulders held too high, every muscle braced as if still expecting the next blow.
“Then you walked in like that.” I gestured to him. “Whatever’s happened to you in the last forty-eight hours wasn’t part of the plan. So we deal with that first.”
“How? You gonna pop down and ask them nicely to keep their hands off me?” He tilted his head. “No offence, Tricky, but that might paint a bigger target on my back.”
“That’s not how this works.” I shook my head. “And you’re right to be wary.”
He eyed me. “Am I?”
“Very much so.” I shifted. “Have you had counsel before? Properly. Been in the dock?”
“No.”
“Lucky you.” I sobered. “So let me be clear about what I do, and how I help.”
“Legally?”
“Legally,” I agreed. “Exclusively.” Unfortunately. I leant forwards, forearms on the table. “I don’t tell the prison how to behave. I tell the court what they’ve failed to do. I don’t stop hands being laid on you; I make sure the consequences of doing such reach those who can’t ignore them.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“My role is to control the narrative before it controls you. To take what’s happened to you in here and turn it into something the judge has to engage with.
Bail. Conditions. Scrutiny. Pressure.” I held his gaze.
“I can’t protect you with muscle. We both know that.
And frankly, I’d be curious to see what the other man looks like right now. ”
Razor snorted and looked away, chewing the inside of his cheek. “There were several of them.” He glanced back to me. “You think just one bloke can get this much on me?” He shook his head, a wry smile. “C’mon, Tricky. You know me better than that.”
I glanced back to the file, desperate not to give myself away. “Then I can make it legally dangerous for anyone to lay a hand on you again.”
He furrowed his brow. “So… less touch him and die and more touch him and get a strongly worded letter?”
“A strongly worded letter that ruins someone’s week and keeps you out of a cell.”
“And how much does that cost me?”
I frowned. “In what sense?”
“You charge, right? Rich boy. Per hour. Per letter. Per fucking miracle.” He gestured vaguely between us. “How much is all this?”
“You’re on legal aid.”
He blinked. “You do legal aid cases?”
“Yes. Most juniors do.” Then, after a beat, “My senior doesn’t, usually. She earns the sort of money that makes headlines.”
Razor furrowed his brow. “So why’s she anywhere near this?”
“Because I asked her to be.”
I hoped he’d read the part I couldn’t say out loud. The part I wasn’t allowed to spell out. Or charge for. That I’d done it for him. That all of this was because I was in love with him.
“So…” I opened the file and clicked my pen, letting the sound reset the room. And myself. “Start from the beginning.”
“Of the raid?”
“No. We’ll get to that later—”
“I wasn’t holding.” Razor leant forward abruptly, as if the words had been clawing at him for days, waiting for my face. For someone. “I wasn’t.”
The movement cost him. He sucked in a breath, hand going instinctively to his ribs.
I stopped writing. “I know.”
He blinked. “How?”