Chapter Sixteen Razor #2
“Cheers, Kee. Appreciate the fashion advice,” I snapped, rattled to hell. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I stalked to the coffee table, grabbed my cigarettes because if I didn’t put something in my mouth, I might put a fist through a wall. And no one here—baby, sister, Tristan—deserved even the echo of that.
“I need you to watch Maisie.” Keeley adjusted the baby, who was hellbent on getting down and showing off her new moves. “I’m going on a date.”
I stared, then barked out a laugh as I pushed the balcony door open, lit my cigarette, and blew out the smoke hard. “What? No.”
“You’re not doing anything,” Keeley called out, stepping closer.
Behind her, Tristan didn’t know where to look. And I couldn’t look at him without breaking.
“Who asked you out?” I dragged in smoke, held it until my lungs burnt, then exhaled. “Some prick with a death wish, clearly.”
Keeley chewed her lip, sheepish. “Toby.”
I blinked. Hard. Twice. “Toby? Works The Grange corner?”
She shrugged. Careless, innocent, infuriating.
The fucker worked for me. A crew runner with shaking hands and no respect had the gall, the suicidal gall, to ask out my sister.
Rage flared white-hot.
“Fuck no,” I snapped. “Absolutely fucking not. You’re not going anywhere near him.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll have another one of those”—I jabbed my cigarette at Maisie—“before the end of the night. He’s a walking pregnancy scare, Kee, and he’s got a fucking nerve even asking. Does he not know who you are?”
“Everyone knows who I am, Rich.” She shoved her hands on her hips. “That’s why I can’t get with no one.”
“Good.” I flicked the cigarette towards the canal, harder than I meant to. “You should be finishing school. Training for something. Getting the fuck out of this place. Not… fucking about with lowlifes.”
“Oh, right? Like you did, yeah?” she shot back, stepping closer. “Nice shiny GCSE certificates, yeah? No, you fucking didn’t. And every lowlife in Hackney works for you, so don’t start lecturing me.”
“Exactly!” I dragged a hand down my face. “That’s exactly why I am. Why I do this! Why I’m me, innit?”
She flinched. Startled.
So I softened, cause I hated scaring her or her baby.
“I know what these blokes are, Kee. I know what they do to girls like you.” I gestured vaguely toward the estate, the canal, the whole shitty stretch of our world.
“You think I built all this so you could end up stuck here the same as the rest of us?”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction.
But I was already wound too tight to stop.
“You’re meant to be the one who gets out.” I shook my head at her. “You and Maisie…you deserve better than this.”
Movement pulled my attention sideways, and my chest twisted as I caught Tristan at the coffee table being quiet, careful, slipping into his shoes with a gentleness that didn’t belong in rooms like mine. Head bowed as if not to intrude, he’d already decided he didn’t belong here at all.
Then he looked up. Met my eyes.
And the sick punched into my throat.
“I’ll go.” he angled his head to the door.
I didn’t answer.
Couldn’t.
So I nodded. A sharp, pathetic jerk of my chin. Because anything else would’ve broken me open in front of Keeley and her baby.
He understood.
Of course, he would.
That was the worst fucking part.
Cause he walked out. No scene. No question. Just gone.
And the flat felt instantly colder, emptied, as if he’d taken the last warm thing in it with him.
“Who the fuck was that?” Keeley settled Maisie onto the sofa and handed her a rattling chew toy.
The toy shook. Maisie gurgled. And I saw what she was sitting on.
Foil.
Crystal dust.
A glittering smear of the life I dragged everyone into.
I lunged forward, sweeping it into my palm, heart punching hard against my ribs. The truth hit like a slap. Clean. Merciless. Keeley was right. I was a fucking lowlife. And Tristan had just seen it. All of it.
Keeley plopped down beside Maisie, rattling the toy with her. “Rich?”
“Hm?” I crossed the room, dumped the remnants of the best night and day of my life in the bin, scrubbed my hands, then came back with an antiseptic wipe. I cleaned Maisie’s hands, her toy, and wiped the sofa.
“Who was the bloke?” Keeley asked.
“Oh. My… legal adviser.”
Keeley snorted. “Legal advice? What was it—don’t do it?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.” I kept cleaning, anything to avoid looking at the door Tristan had walked out of.
“Please look after her tonight.” Keeley fluttered her lashes, as if that was going to work on me.
“I’ll watch her, sure. But not so you can go out with Toby.”
“Who can I go out with then?”
“No one.”
Keeley tutted. “What about him?” She jerked her chin towards the door. “He was cute.”
“Way too old for you.”
She rolled her eyes and sank deeper into the sofa while I cleaned up the wreckage of the flat. Condom wrappers, lube packets, Frosties on the floor, two empty glasses knocked over near the balcony.
Then her voice floated over, small, quiet. “Mum’s wasted again.”
I stripped the bed, shoved everything into a pile. “I’ll go see her later.”
Keeley played with Maisie’s tiny hand for a while. Then, “Is Darren gonna be inside for a long time?”
I froze. Looked up. The fear on her face was real.
Darren’s case. Yeah. That one wasn’t going away.
I wanted him inside. If the judge hammered him for possession, he’d be out of my hair. Out of everyone’s. And it would show loyalty. A good soldier keeps his mouth shut, does the time, gets rewarded later.
Did I trust Darren to do that?
No.
Darren would crack. He’d cry in interview. He’d get a suspended sentence, a spot in witness protection, a new name, and a list of every fucking detail he’d given the police.
Then who’d be facing time?
I gathered up the filthy sheets still smelling of Tristan, which made everything worse, and shoved them in the washing machine.
Set it going. Tried to smother the panic in my chest. Then I went to Keeley, lifted Maisie, and sat beside her with Maisie on my lap, shoving her chew toy into my mouth, giggling.
“I know you think you need a man ‘cause you want Maisie to have what we didn’t.” I bounced the baby on my knee. “A dad around. But trust me, Kee, she’s better off with just you. No Darren. No Toby. No other scumbag trying to play father of the year.”
Maisie squealed. Keeley watched us.
“You don’t need anyone else.” I settled Maisie back beside her mum. “You got me. Money. Help. A break. Whatever you need. Just don’t be our mum. Be better.”
Keeley tucked her legs under her and studied me quietly. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Don’t you want someone?”
Yeah.
Yeah, I fucking did.
I’d always thought I didn’t. That I was coping fine with random fucks here and there. But after last night…
I didn’t deserve someone clean, though. Someone smart. Someone who’d kissed me like I mattered and then seen me sweeping drugs off a sofa ten minutes later.
I looked away.
And as if summoned by the universe, my burner lit up, vibrating hard on the table and cutting straight through my ribcage.
Keeley raised an eyebrow. So I handed Maisie back to her and snatched up the phone.
“Go.”
“Nice night off, yeah?” Tyler. Pissed off. No hello. “All relaxed, are ya?”
I closed my eyes. “From the sound of you, that’s about to get ruined.”
“Bang on, bruv. You better get a wriggle on.”
“Why?”
“Cormac wants you.” Fuck, he sounded stressed. “He and Doyle want you on a drive about. So be ready.”
My stomach turned. “A drive about?” No wonder the geezer was flustered. Everyone knew what a drive about meant. “What for?”
“You know what for, bruv. It’s the next step up, innit.”
Yeah. And it didn’t mean a corner office and an extra five days holiday. It meant physical presence and more expectation to step in and do whatever Cormac wanted.
A test of loyalty.
“And Razor?”
“Yeah?”
“You better be rested enough cause this one’s gonna need your muscle. It’s messy.”
The line went dead.
And I was back to who I was. Razor.