Chapter Twenty-One Tristan #2
“I was.” He set his glass down. “I’m consulting on a matter your father’s involved in. Your brother too, I believe. Quite the family enterprise.”
He smiled as if it were a compliment.
“Which case?” I reached for my glass, needing to hold it while I recalled how Razor had been there, too. “I thought you advised on Crown-level matters. Not Magistrates’ hearings.”
“I do, usually.” Wolfe tilted his head. “But this one is… interesting.”
Interesting was never a neutral word.
“It looks standard enough on the surface.” He leant back, crossed his legs, a figure of absolute control and authority. “Low-level charges. Runners. Procedural housekeeping.” Then he peered at me with a curved grin. “But the thing about cases like that is they rarely exist in isolation.”
I felt the cold slide into place behind my ribs.
“There’s a history. Longer than the file suggests. Threads running back further than anyone involved would care to admit.” He took off his glasses and slipped them into his inside jacket pocket. “Some of them brush up against matters that are… less tidy.”
“Such as?” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
Wolfe smiled, thin and almost indulgently.
“Such as institutional blind spots. Old compromises. Systems quietly tolerating things until they can’t anymore.
” He reached for his glass again. “Corruption is rarely dramatic, Tristan. It’s administrative.
Incremental. Everyone involved believes they’re only doing their part. ”
He took a sip, watching me over the rim.
“That’s why people like your father matter. Why people like you matter.” He pointed a finger at me from around his wineglass. “And why I keep a close eye on who’s coming up through the ranks.”
The back of my neck prickled. Not fear exactly. Awareness. A sense of being catalogued. Logged.
Corruption.
Wolfe seemed to shake himself off, the moment slipping away as neatly as it had arrived. “But enough of that. Tell me about your recent cases. Anything of interest there? Somewhere I might… steer and guide?”
At least it was work. At least that I understood.
I shifted, pulling my mind back into familiar channels. Facts. Procedure. Arguments. I gave him what he’d asked for, careful and composed, as if nothing in me had just tilted.
Because wasn’t that what Razor did, too?
Put his head down. Focused on the job in front of him. Pretend the machinery wasn’t already turning.
And trust it wouldn’t grind him under when it was done.
* * * *
Razor
I sat in the car until my hands stopped shaking.
Then I drove.
No music. No calls. Tarmac sliding under the wheels and the noise in my head. Tyler was alive. That was the line I kept circling. Alive meant I hadn’t crossed the point of no return. I could still square this. Whatever this was.
By the time I got home, the sun scorched the tops of the buildings, Hackney carrying on as if nothing had happened. As if their men didn’t die quietly in warehouses and their blood didn’t soak into concrete and vanish by morning.
I showered until the water ran cold. Scrubbed my knuckles raw. Watched the skin redden and split and told myself it was just dirt coming off.
Then I dressed.
Not Rich.
Razor.
Rich would sit and think about Tyler’s breath hitching. About Kyan cooling on the floor. About Tristan’s voice on the phone, tight with worry and trying not to show it.
Razor had work to do.
First, I checked on Mum.
Her flat smelt of ash and booze, and stale washing.
Door locked. Windows shut. She was out cold in front of the telly, chin tipped to her chest, whatever daytime rubbish murmuring away.
I made sure there was food in, slipped cash under her mug, and ordered a Tesco delivery to stock the cupboards properly.
Kissed her cheek. She stirred but didn’t wake.
Good. I wasn’t sure I could handle it if she had.
Next was Keeley.
She took one look at my face and started arguing before I’d even opened my mouth.
I handed her cash, telling her to lie low.
No dating. None. It wasn’t safe. She stamped her foot, furious, but she knew when not to push me.
I ordered her groceries too. Enough that she wouldn’t need to leave the house for a while.
Told her if anything went wrong she went to Lennon and Amara. No hesitation.
I bent and kissed Maisie’s head as I left.
“You are coming back, right?” Keeley shouted after me as I ran up to my parked car.
I opened the Audi. “Always do, don’t I?”
The lie came easily. Too easy.
Then I went to Tyler’s.
Courtney looked like hell when she opened the door.
Grey around the mouth. Eyes hollowed out, as if someone had reached inside her and scooped the light clean away.
My guess, Tyler had found a way to tell her, or it was instinct.
A code they might have between them, to let her know he wasn’t coming home by himself.
Then Shanice appeared behind her and cut off anything I could do.
Her best mate. The one I used to fuck on the bounce when I needed noise more than sleep.
“Razor.” Shanice folded her arms. “What’s the prick done now?”
Fuck.
I didn’t have it in me for this. So I didn’t explain.
“Tyler’s at St Thomas’s.” I took the cash from my pocket and put it straight into Courtney’s hands. Thick. Folded. Heavy enough she glanced down despite herself. “Bring him home. In a cab. Then don’t let him leave the house.”
Courtney looked up at me then, eyes wide.
I held her gaze to hammer it home. “Until I say.”
She nodded. No questions. No bargaining. Then closed her fingers around the money and stepped aside to do what needed doing. Courtney had always been good at surviving the practical stuff.
Shanice wasn’t.
She stepped in front of her, blocking the doorway. “What’s going on?”
“Not now, Shanice.”
She huffed a laugh, bitter. “It’s always not now with you.”
I shot her a look and turned away before she could dig her hooks in. I didn’t trust my temper. Or my guilt. Or the fact she knew too much about how I ran when things got hard.
She called after me, sharp as broken glass. “One day, you won’t be able to walk away!”
I didn’t answer.
I got in the car and drove.
The next part was worse.
The stupid part.
I drove through the borough and stopped outside the terraced house where Kyan lived.
With his family. Parents. A younger brother.
A fucking life that had nothing to do with warehouses or drops or men like Cormac.
And I sat there longer than I meant to, watching the curtains.
The dark upstairs window. Trying not to imagine who was inside, waiting for a knock that would split their world open.
Then I opened the car door and threw up into the gutter.
When I was done, I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve, grabbed another wad of notes, and shoved them into a plain envelope. Hood up. Head down. I ran to the door and pushed the money through the letterbox.
That was everyone who mattered.
Then I got back in the car and rang Cormac.
Short. Direct. No emotion.
Told him I’d handle distribution personally until Tyler was back on his feet.
Told him Pretty Poison would move fast, quietly, and cleanly.
No noise. No fuck-ups. And as I ended the call, phone still warm in my hand, I didn’t let myself name the thought pressing hard against my ribs.
This wasn’t tidying up. It was contingency.
Just in case I didn’t get the chance to come back and do it later.
Then, I went east.
Shoreditch wasn’t unfamiliar territory. It was polished chaos.
Brick warehouses turned into clubs, neon bleeding into damp pavements, queues full of kids who thought they were untouchable.
Bouncers who knew exactly when not to see things.
We’d seeded it months back with the Trentham deal.
Private rooms. Introductions. Doors only opening if your name was known.
I’d circled it long enough, not daring to step in.
Because I knew the second I did, there’d be no stepping back out. No clawing my way clear. This had my fingerprints all over it. Every route led back to me. How the fuck was I supposed to walk away from something built to carry my name?
So I didn’t.
I started with the managers I trusted. No owners.
Managers. The ones who knew where the cameras didn’t quite reach, who understood that discretion paid better than questions.
Pretty Poison didn’t get sold hand to hand.
It didn’t get pushed. It got invited. I told them I was running a short line.
Invite only, no repeats without approval, no phones, no dealers visible.
The clients came to us.
High-end chemsex wasn’t about volume. It was about scarcity. People who could afford silence and expected it. A vial slipped into a private booth. A bag passed in a bathroom stall with a doorman blocking the door. Cash moved electronically, filtered through fronts that had been built for years.
I would oversee it all.
Every drop.
Every payment.
Every night.
And that’s what I did.
For three…maybe four weeks. I’d stopped counting.
But it was long enough for Tyler to disappear from my day-to-day.
Long enough for Shoreditch to settle into a rhythm.
And for Pretty Poison to move the way Cormac wanted it to.
Quiet. Desirable. Inevitable. I didn’t drink.
Didn’t touch anything stronger than coffee.
Nor did I switch my phone on while I was out.
I didn’t leave a digital trail for anyone to follow.
And I started moving the pieces. Quiet adjustments.
New routes. New hands. Changes no one really notices, but the hands passing the vials weren’t mine anymore.
Only when I got home did I check my phone.
And yeah, there were messages. I couldn’t reply to them.
The rest of the time, I watched. Counted.
Memorised. Faces. Patterns. Who came back.
Who lingered. Who asked too many questions and needed reminding that access was conditional.
And I set wheels in motion. Got myself ready.
And when the numbers finally lined up, when Cormac’s cut was satisfied and the noise dropped low enough for me to breathe, I felt the noose loosening.
Just enough.
Enough to make me think about doors I hadn’t knocked on in weeks.
About a light that might still be on.
Whether it was possible to step into somewhere quiet without dragging the rest of this in behind me.
I didn’t go.
But the thought stayed.