Chapter Seventeen Tristan
Chapter seventeen
Tristan
I left Razor’s apartment with something close to clarity.
I was going to get my heart broken.
It shouldn’t have surprised me. I’d known it the moment he mistook me for a rent boy, the moment he smirked at me across the lamplit pavement.
Razor Slade was always going to be a catastrophe.
Mine, or his, or both. And I could have handled it.
Honestly, I could. If he’d just stayed the way he was supposed to be.
Hard. Detached.
Good at fucking and nothing else.
I could have survived that version of him.
Hell, I’d gone looking for it. It was easier, wanting someone who would never pretend I deserved more.
Or never want to give me more, like Oliver.
Easier than risking the alternative. And discovering, too late, I might want something I’d never been taught how to keep.
Oliver had taken enough. My family took the rest.
And the only person who’d ever looked at me as if I might deserve gentleness had been Henry, which meant it was clearly a clerical error in the universe rather than evidence of anything real.
So yes. I could have survived Razor as a transaction.
A mistake.
A mutually beneficial lapse in judgement.
But he hadn’t stayed that man, had he?
He’d gone soft.
With me.
Not just once and not just because I’d asked him to.
I could have compartmentalised before, written us off as chemical intimacy.
But he’d kept going long after the rush had dissolved.
He’d kissed me when it meant something. Held me as if he didn’t want the night, or the morning, to end.
Fucked me as if he wanted to keep me, not use me.
It felt dangerous, the way he’d touched me sober.
Then it shattered the moment his sister walked in.
Because of course it would.
I wasn’t stupid. He’d told me he wasn’t out.
Sleeping with a closeted man always comes with a warning label.
Every gay man learns it the first time he falls for someone who still flinches at his own reflection.
Closet cases drain your soul. And I, idiot that I was, had let him.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. I knew who he was.
What he did. He had a stash of drugs in his house.
And here I was, mid-way through my pupillage. This could ruin me.
No more.
I went home. Buried myself in case files. Tried to force the whole thing into a tidy little box marked Bad Decision. Resigned myself to the idea I wouldn’t see him again. I would not seek him out. I would stay in my lane. And I would deal with everything else in my life that wasn’t Razor.
Which unfortunately included my father.
I called Amelia that evening. “I know about Dad.”
She inhaled sharply. “Marcus told you? I’m sorry, Tris. I thought Mummy might have said something.”
“No. That vital piece of information did not make it into her weekly voice notes about Pilates and the bloody gardenias.”
“I think people just know you’re busy.”
“We’re all busy, Milly.”
“Yes, but you’re… you’re always distracted by things.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I was too tired to unpack it.
“When are you next sitting with him during treatment?”
“Friday. I’m coming home from Windsor—”
“I’ll take it.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Don’t tell him. Just send me the details.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“You too.”
Hanging up, it hit me how wildly different my sister was from Razor’s.
It looked as though they were similar in age.
But in character? As far apart as I was with Razor.
Amelia with her soft voice and pony-club ribbons and “Mummy” and “Daddy.” And Keeley, all fight and swearing and a crawling baby. They existed in different worlds.
Another reason this thing with Razor had to stop.
I went to bed, tried to sleep, and failed at both.
Monday morning, I owed Imogen the truth.
I went into chambers early and told her about my father.
And the moment the words left my mouth, I understood exactly why he hadn’t wanted me to know.
He knew I’d have to do this. And once I said it aloud in a place like Temple Crown, it became a liability.
If word spread, even by accident, the entire Inn would know Charles Hale-Fitzroy was no longer untouchable.
A titan coughing blood. A man whose very name usually made opposing counsel flinch.
Any hint of weakness would have every ambitious defence barrister sharpening their teeth.
But Imogen listened. Properly. No interruption, no impatience, no soft pity either.
She promised it would stay between us, that nothing would leave her office unless I wanted it to.
Then she almost withdrew the five-minute opening she’d promised me last Friday.
A promise that, after the weekend I’d had, belonged to another life entirely.
But I insisted.
God, I needed it.
Needed to wrench my mind back from something that wasn’t Razor-shaped and raw and still lingering under my skin.
“Let me do it,” I said. “I’d rather be busy.”
She studied me for a long moment, making me feel as if she knew exactly what kind of ruin I’d spent my weekend in. Then she nodded.
“Then you can take the preliminary point in Wilkinson.” She opened a file and slid it towards me. “The Crown is trying to link a series of irregular accounts to organised laundering. We’re challenging that inference.”
I blinked. “You want me to argue against the alleged criminal enterprise?”
“Exactly.” She gave me a pointed look. “Five minutes. Remind the court that suspicion is not evidence, and patterns are not inherently criminal. Those are prosecution leaps, not facts.”
My stomach tightened. Because the language felt too familiar. Gangs. Laundering. Inferences. Things Razor lived inside of.
Imogen continued, oblivious to the punch in my chest. “Focus on alternative explanations: mismanagement, poor bookkeeping, even reckless staff. And make it clear the Crown bears the burden. The defence does not fill gaps in the prosecution’s case.”
I nodded, even as my gut twisted.
Unwittingly, she was training me for what I didn’t want to admit I might one day need to do.
To stand up and argue that a man accused of organised crime had been misread.
That the story around him was built on inference and fear rather than fact.
That he deserved to be seen as he was, not as the worst version of what people assumed.
And the truly terrifying part?
I wouldn’t be making that argument to a judge. I’d be making it to my friends. My family. My father. Another flashing sign, as if I needed one, that whatever had happened with Razor had to end.
It couldn’t survive the light of those rooms.
I swallowed, forcing the words out through the tightness in my throat. “I’ll draft something.”
“Good. And Tristan?” She peered at me over her glasses. “Keep your head. You look… elsewhere today.”
Elsewhere? Yes.
I was everywhere but where I needed to be.
A man I shouldn’t care about had vanished from my life. My father was ill. Wolfe was messaging me as if I were a piece on his board. And here I was, preparing to stand up in court and argue that people weren’t always what the Crown said they were.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
It hurt, actually.
But I got through it.
Surprisingly well, if I’m honest. Imogen even gave the faintest nod of approval, which in our chambers was the equivalent of applause.
And the week went on.
Wednesday, I met Henry for a drink in a bar in Chiswick.
Let him talk. Let him pour out his misery about ending things with Zara, which he insisted was necessary for reasons even he didn’t seem to fully understand.
I gave him the right consolations, nodded in the right places, and pretended my insides weren’t scraping against bone.
He didn’t know I was drowning in the same ending.
No idea I was grieving something I’d never been allowed to name.
So I kept it shut and we discussed Father instead.
That did the trick. Henry immediately shifted into rational-medical-comfort mode, quoting studies and remission statistics as if reading from a holy text, assuring me there was an excellent prognosis.
It didn’t help. But I appreciated the intention.
I checked my phone on the way home. Two messages from Wolfe. Ignored. None from Razor. Of course.
I went to bed feeling hollowed out.
Court weighed down the rest of the week, and by the time Friday came, I was grateful for the reprieve of going to The Royal Marsden in Chelsea, a specialist cancer hospital smelling of money and hope, though not always in that order.
Private wings, quiet corridors, soft lighting designed to make distress look tasteful.
My father had always bought the best. Even now.
I walked the sterile hallways towards the treatment bays, shoes tapping too loudly against the polished floors. I hovered at the curtain for a moment, steadying myself, bracing for whatever I was about to see.
Then I slid it aside.
My father looked up.
And for a moment, I didn’t recognise him.
Angled slightly in the recliner, shirt collar unbuttoned, cuffs folded back with deliberate neatness, the cannula taped into the back of his hand, saline ticking through the line with mechanical patience, the colour had drained from him.
His jacket lay folded over the adjacent chair as if he intended to put it back on at any moment. As if this were temporary.
But he looked smaller.
Not physically, but as though the essential qualities that had made up my untouchable father had been quietly shaved away. The sharp edges I’d grown up orbiting had blurred. Authority softened into something almost fragile.
I hated that softness.
Hated that I could see it.
Charles Hale-Fitzroy did not do fragile.
Until now, it would seem.
“Tristan.” His voice wasn’t weak, but it was tired enough to unsettle me. “I wasn’t expecting you.”