Chapter Seven Razor
Chapter seven
Razor
Getting back to the club took its sweet arse time.
My fault. I should have left straight after Darren’s hearing. And yeah, I could pretend I stayed back to “arm myself with knowledge,” to get the lay of the land for when the kid went inside. But the truth?
It was all Tristan.
Everything lately drifted his way.
Rush-hour traffic was a bitch, crawling through London at a pace making me want to put my fist through the steering wheel.
By the time I swung into the Velvet Lounge, the doors were open.
Lights on. Music leaked out onto the pavement.
Not ideal. Not when I wasn’t inside to oversee and Tyler had already told me I had a visitor waiting.
So I shunted the car into my space out front and made for the staff entrance, taking the stairs two at a time, pushed into my office and walked into my nightmare: Cormac O’Rourke sat behind my desk.
Not in the chair opposite. Not pacing the room. Behind my fucking desk.
Doyle was in the room too. Parked on the sofa, legs crossed, pretending to read the Metro as if today’s headlines were more interesting than my impending execution.
He didn’t look up. He turned the page with those thick fingers of his, the ones having broken more noses than I’d had birthdays.
If Doyle was here, it meant Cormac wasn’t taking chances.
Tyler hovered by the open door, giving me a look that said I was in deep shit. Properly deep. At least I was in a suit today and not that too-small T-shirt from the other night. Small mercies. I was already funeral-smart.
Cause my first thought when I walked in?
They’d been watching CCTV.
They were about to pull up footage of me pressed against Tricky, easing into him, fucking him fast and filthy, loving every goddamn second. And if that was what they’d seen, well… First cover there’d be a new dish on the menu. Razor à la Tartare.
“Boss.” I nodded, keeping steady.
Cormac didn’t look at me. He kept his eyes on the bank of CCTV monitors.
Restaurant floor, club entrance, VIP stairwell.
Watching my territory as if it were his.
Which technically it was. But the way he sat there…
It felt as if he was weighing something.
Turning it over in his mind like a coin he might toss.
Heads, I lived.
Tails…
And even though I was ninety-nine percent sure I’d avoided every camera the other night, Cormac could have ones I didn’t know about.
Hell, Doyle probably installed half of them.
The thought prickled down my spine. Had someone gone behind my back?
Had Elliot run straight up the chain to tell Cormac I’d ordered that prick Wolfe thrown out?
And Wolfe being someone that I should probably know, meant the people in this room did know.
My stomach tightened.
Because if that was the case… this wasn’t a meeting. It was an evaluation.
And I knew how evaluations went in this world.
Finally, Cormac spun in my chair, one lazy turn to look me up and down. Same old face. Same thick-rimmed glasses framing dead, calculating eyes. Same ginger hair and stubble, going greyer by the minute. Same mad bastard smile.
“You’re late,” he said.
And, fuck me, the room suddenly felt far too small.
“I had court,” I said. “For Darren—”
“I know where you were.” His voice was so calm it made my lungs contract.
I stepped further into the room. “Everything alright?”
Cormac’s stare sharpened. “I got the highlights of last night.”
My pulse thudded once. Hard. But I kept my face still. Last night could mean anything. Plenty happened. Better to wait than to walk into the wrong trap.
Cormac spun lazily in my chair, eyes drifting back to the CCTV monitors. “Thirty percent is a decent price.”
I sifted through the mental chaos, found the right thread. Ah. The Trentham deal. The new supply chain for his Shoreditch joints.
“Should give us a tidy sum, yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck, then immediately dropped my hand, remembering how Tricky’s fingers had been there earlier. “Or, well… give you a tidy sum.”
Cormac grinned. “Indeed, laddo.”
The leather chair creaked under him. “But I heard there was… some commotion with it all.”
I glanced at Doyle. He didn’t look up. He turned another page of the Metro.
But Tyler gave the faintest clear of his throat.
Our code. He was with me. And I knew if I got turned into mincemeat for the overpriced burgers in the restaurant, then he’d go with me.
Stupid bastard probably thought the two of us together could take Doyle and Cormac.
They were older, sure. On the slope into their sixties.
But they were also very, very fucking scary.
Cormac cocked his head; all innocence wrapped in barbed wire. “You take a disliking to a customer, Razor?”
“Wouldn’t say it was a disliking,” I said. “I took precautions. Something felt off with him. Didn’t like the way he was scoping the place. Last thing we need is heat when we’re expanding. I made the call, so it didn’t become your problem.”
Cormac stared me down. And I stared right back, planting myself where I stood.
No blinking. No flinch. If I backed off even an inch, I was done.
Then Cormac laughed. Bold as brass, full-bodied, as if I’d told the best joke of his week.
The sound hit me square in the gut, cold and hard.
I didn’t let it show. Fuck no. I locked my jaw and waited him out.
Even Doyle let out a tiny chortle. Could’ve been at whatever joke Cormac thought he’d found, or maybe the cartoon strip in his paper.
Hard to tell with Doyle. Either way, I weren’t amused.
Could be I’d end up the amuse-bouche in a minute though.
“Right, lad.” Cormac switched the humour off as fast as he’d switched it on. His whole face went still. “I’ve got something for you.”
For a stupid second, I hoped it was a bonus. I’d been eyeing up a new motor, one without bullet holes, but Cormac steepled his fingers, and I knew hope had been a fucking idiot.
“We’re expanding a line,” he said.
I didn’t answer. I waited. Like a good little soldier.
Cormac nodded towards the duffel bag by his boot. Black. Heavy. Half-zipped, as if it was breathing.
“New product,” he said. “High-end, clean. Exclusively ours. And I want it routed through you only.”
He pushed the bag towards me with his foot.
I crouched, unzipped it, and the smell hit first. Chemical-sweet, faint, familiar.
Inside were packets. Dozens of them. Sealed tight, heat-pressed foil, each containing small rose-tinted crystals with a faint shimmer.
Not the chalky crap we cut for the Shoreditch boys.
This was boutique. Purpose-built. Expensive as fuck.
The air in the room tightened.
I picked up a packet, turned it over, and saw the logo: Two Ps mirrored upside down. Looked like a fucking sixty-nine. Course it did. Dirty bastards.
“Pretty Poison,” I read.
Doyle’s newspaper didn’t rustle, but I felt him look up.
Cormac watched me with flat interest. “That’s the name. You’ll take point. Move it carefully. Selectively. Discretion is everything.”
I pinched a tiny corner through the foil. Not opening it, just feeling the grain. Crystalline, hard-edged, not powder-soft. MDMA base, but cut finer. 2C-B, maybe. They’d engineered this shit to glow.
“Who’s the supplier?” I glanced up.
Cormac’s mouth ticked, not quite a smile. “Not your concern.”
His face made the back of my neck prickle. It wasn’t anger. Nor disappointment. But there was definite calculation. As if he were sliding me into a box he’d already nailed shut.
“And if I say no?”
Cormac smiled. “You can’t.”
A quiet sound came from Tyler. Barely a breath, barely there. But enough to tell me he felt the squeeze of the room too.
“Alright.” I closed my fingers around the edge of the duffel. “I’ll run it.”
Cormac stood, smoothing his jacket. “Good lad.” He stepped up to me and tapped my cheek, hard enough to sting, then pinched it between his thumb and finger like he would a fucking baby. “Knew I could count on you.”
When Cormac left the room with Doyle trailing after him, tossing the Metro on the sofa as if he’d stepped off the District line, I finally let out the breath I’d been holding. Tyler shut the door with a soft click, then turned to face me.
“You alright with this, bruv?”
He knew I hated surprises. Hated running gear I hadn’t vetted myself. Hated not knowing what strings were being tied around my neck.
I stared at the duffel bag.
Pretty Poison.
The name itself felt like a dare.
I dragged it under my desk with the back of my boot and sank into my chair, pressing a hand to my forehead. My pulse still hadn’t settled.
“You want me to start pushing it?” Tyler asked.
“No.”
“But Cormac—”
I slapped the armrest before I even thought about it. “You answer to me.”
Tyler froze, then nodded. “Always.”
I exhaled through my teeth, then leant forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Anyone asks, we’re building a high-end client list. Something this premium doesn’t get thrown at any punter. It takes time to roll out.”
Tyler considered that, then gave a nod. “Makes sense.”
Yeah. On paper.
In practice?
I had no fucking idea.
But Tyler left quietly, shutting the door behind him, back to his usual posting.
Silence settled over the office. Cormac thought this was a promotion.
Could be.
Could just as easily be the start of my ruin.
Either way, the crystals in that bag were waiting.
* * * *
Tristan
I can’t say I slept much Friday night.
I did my usual: slumped on the sofa, drinking my way through a bottle of red while some god-awful late-night television droned in the background. And I tried, truly tried, not to keep checking my phone every three minutes, hoping Razor might use the number I’d given him.
He didn’t.
By the early hours I’d given up and dragged myself to bed.
Alone. Unfortunately.