Chapter Twenty Razor
Chapter twenty
Razor
I slid into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and leant my head back against the rest.
Breathed.
Once.
Twice.
Fuck.
I could feel it. That crawling, sinking sense in my chest. The knowledge that I’d done something stupid. I’d gone to Tristan when I should’ve gone home. Should’ve shut my door, shut my phone off, shut him out. Left him clean. Left him untouched by all the rot clinging to me.
But that weekend? When I was with him? I felt like me again. Not Razor. Not the thing people waited for in rooms with no windows. Just… me.
And I hadn’t lied. Not to him. Not to myself.
I wanted to get out. I needed to. The thought had lodged under my ribs and wouldn’t shift.
I couldn’t keep living with Cormac’s hand wrapped around my throat, tightening whenever he felt like it.
If there were a way out, I had to find it now.
Before I lost whatever part of myself Tristan kept calling back.
I opened my eyes.
He was up ahead, walking towards the station. Tie straight. Back easy. Belonging to a world moving forward instead of closing in.
I fucking smiled.
That surprised me. And caught in my throat before I could stop it.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, forced myself upright. Get it together. Feelings later. First things first. The burner. I pulled it out of the glove box.
My stomach dropped.
Missed calls. Too many of them. Tyler. Over and over. Messages stacked beneath, unread. Shit. I’d been off-grid longer than I’d realised, but this wasn’t him panicking over nothing. Tyler could handle a quiet day or two. This was something else.
I hit callback.
“Razor. Nice of you to check in.”
My spine went rigid. Every muscle in my body locked at once.
“Cormac.” The name tasted wrong in my mouth. “Where’s Tyler?”
A pause. Long enough to hurt.
“He’s right here with me, lad. Me and Doyle. Bit tied up at the moment, though.”
Cold flooded my veins. Proper, bone-deep ice.
“What’s happened?” I kept my voice level. Professional. As if my heart wasn’t trying to beat its way out of my chest.
“He went a bit… rogue.” Cormac’s voice was all smooth familiarity. It was unnerving. “Thought outside the box you should’ve had him in. That’s not clever, Razor. You know my line. You know how this works.”
I swallowed. Hard.
“And if you still want arms and legs on your boy, you might want to get yourself down to the Battersea warehouse. Now.” His tone shifted, silk pulling tight over steel. “And bring your weapon of choice. I don’t like getting my hands dirty.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone.
Then I dropped it onto the passenger seat and gripped the wheel. The image of Tristan walking away burnt behind my eyes. The warmth of him. The promise I’d let myself believe in for all of five reckless minutes.
Gone.
Just like that.
I started the engine and pulled out into traffic, the city swallowing me whole again as I drove straight back into the life I’d just tried, stupidly, to step away from. By the time I hit the bridge, my hands stopped shaking.
That was worse.
Traffic crawled, scorching sun bleeding across the tarmac to make it look as if it might melt.
London never did fare well in the heat. But I drove on instinct, emptying my head of anything that might slow me down.
No Tristan. No balcony. No hands in my hair.
I couldn’t afford him in my head right then.
I needed Razor.
Battersea slid into view in slabs of concrete and half-finished glass, cranes clawing at the oddly blue sky, regeneration trying to paper over old bones. Cormac always liked places like this. In-between spaces. Places no one looked at too closely because they were meant to disappear soon, anyway.
Same as how he’d found me on the estate in Hackney.
The pin he’d sent took me off the main road, down a stretch of broken tarmac lined with temporary fencing and dead streetlamps.
The warehouse sat back from the road, squat and ugly, windows blacked out, roller door half-raised like a mouth waiting to swallow me.
Two cars were parked. Familiar plates. I pulled up beside them and sat for a beat.
That was the last moment I got to choose who I was.
I got out of the car.
The warehouse swallowed sound. Cold, stale air pressed in from every direction, thick with damp, oil, and that sharp metallic tang that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.
The lights were on. Harsh industrial strips bolted to the ceiling casting everything in a sick, unforgiving white, leaving nowhere to hide.
The space itself was almost bare. Concrete floor.
Pallets stacked along one wall. A scattering of tools pushed to the edges, as if the centre of the room had been deliberately cleared.
And in that centre, a metal chair had been bolted to the floor. Tyler tied to it.
Fuck.
He had his wrists wrenched back behind him.
Ankles cuffed. Shirt hung torn at the collar, fabric darkened with sweat and blood.
One side of his face was swollen, skin pulled tight and angry, a split at the corner of his mouth crusted black.
When he lifted his head at the sound of my footsteps, relief flashed across his face so fast it almost knocked the breath out of me.
Until I saw the floor.
Where a plastic mat had been laid out, edges taped down to the concrete.
On it lay a man. On his side, limbs twisted at the wrong angles, one arm bent beneath him as if folded there by accident.
His face, Christ, what was left of it was turned towards the floor, cheek flattened, features swollen and broken beyond distinction.
Blood pooled beneath his head, thick and dark, already beginning to congeal, the mat doing exactly what it was there to do.
Dead.
A low, wet smell hung in the air, iron-heavy and nauseating, and I realised distantly that I was breathing through my mouth to stop retching.
Doyle crouched beside the body, methodically wiping down a length of metal with a cloth already soaked through. The tray next to him held other implements, neatly arranged, wiped clean of anything visible but not of their purpose. He looked up at me and smiled.
Jesus.
Fucking.
Christ.
Cormac stood a few feet away, immaculate as ever.
Coat still on despite the scorching heat.
Hands tucked into his pockets as if he were waiting for a late arrival at a private function.
He might as well have been in a boardroom for all the emotion he showed.
Doyle rose to his feet behind him, folding his arms, content to let the evidence of his work speak for itself.
Cormac met my gaze and smiled. “Good lad. Knew you wouldn’t keep me waiting.”
I didn’t look at Tyler. If I did, I’d hesitate. And that was a luxury I didn’t have.
“What’s he done?” I kept my voice steady. Detached. Razor’s voice.
Cormac sighed, disappointed I’d made him spell it out. “Your boy took an order he wasn’t authorised to take. Used your name, too. Moved my product without clearance.”
“That’s on me.” The words were automatic. Reflex. Street instinct hard-wired deep. I didn’t hand my people over. Not ever. Didn’t matter how high I climbed or how clean my suits got, my rules didn’t change. I protected my crew. If someone had to bleed for something, it was me. “I wasn’t available.”
Cormac’s eyes snapped to mine, sharp as a blade finding its mark.
“Exactly.” He stepped closer, boots echoing in the open space.
“If you’re not available, Razor, then your people start making decisions.
And when your people make decisions, I start wondering who’s actually in charge.
” He gestured with his chin towards Tyler. “Is he in charge?”
“No.”
“So he’s a problem. Your problem.” Cormac gestured vaguely at the corpse, as if it were an item on an agenda. “Same as he was. But we handled that one for you so you could have your nice weekend away.”
Behind him, Doyle finished wiping down the knife.
Slow. Thorough. He set it neatly back on the tray.
That was when it hit me. The shape of the body.
The jacket. The trainers. Kyan. Fuck. Kyan had started on my line years back.
Street runner. Reliable. Kept his head down.
Tyler had pushed for him to move up. Errands, collections, nothing big.
A reward for loyalty. I felt it in my knees before I felt it anywhere else.
A brief, vicious buckling, like the floor had dipped.
“I don’t care how you handle it.” Cormac’s voice stayed calm. Almost bored. “But it needs handling. Now. So I know you’re still the man I put there.”
I understood then. This wasn’t about Tyler. It was about me.
If I refused, Cormac would nod once, and Doyle would step forward, and Tyler would leave here broken beyond repair. Or not leave at all. And I’d be next. But if I complied… I’d live. Tyler might too. And Cormac would know exactly how far he could push me.
I looked at Tyler then.
Fear sat heavy in his eyes, thick and wet, but threaded through it was worse. Trust. Stupid. Misplaced. And he shook his head once, barely there. A plea. Or absolution. I didn’t know which cut deeper.
“I fucked up,” he rasped. “I thought—”
“Shut your fucking cunt mouth.” Cormac stepped forward, pointing at Tyler as if he might grind him under his shoe. “This isn’t your conversation.” He turned back to me. Calm again. Assessing. Then angled his head. “Go on.”
My chest folded in on itself, the last soft piece collapsing inward.
The part Tristan had touched mere hours ago, coaxed open under warm water and steady hands.
I shoved it down. Locked it away. There was no room for Rich here.
Only Razor survived rooms like this. So I stepped forward, close enough to feel the heat coming off Tyler.
Fear, sharp and sour. The copper tang of blood on his lip.
I leant in enough so he could hear my breath, feel my presence, know this wasn’t Doyle, wasn’t Cormac.