Chapter Six Razor
Chapter six
Razor
My cigarette burnt low, biting my fingers.
Across the road, I’d watched the whole thing: Tripper’s two little idiots hemming in my backroom tart and his mate, flashing a blade as if they were extras in some cheap film. Kids thought carrying steel made them men. Didn’t know fuck all.
Two problems straight off.
First — they weren’t my line. Those kids, and they were kids even if they’d been grafting road since they could walk, weren’t my soldiers.
I knew them. Knew them well. And they knew this was my patch.
And if they were out here roughing someone on a tick, then something had passed hands and it’d be Ghost’s gear, not mine.
Meaning he was shifting product where he shouldn’t, moving it on punters too green to know whose name ran this street.
Unvetted. Untaxed. Disrespectful.
I weren’t having that. Not after all I’d bled to hold this corner.
Second problem— the posh boys.
Something didn’t add up there. I’d been in this game long enough to know the usual types.
Club lads. Corner punters. Hit seekers looking to take the edge off.
That was my bread and butter. I knew these streets inside out.
Sure, the odd tourist drifted through. But they got pointed the right way and got what they came for.
That was that. But those ones? They’d been pointed the wrong fucking way.
Which brought a third problem. The pretty boy.
He was meant to be for rent.
Yet… fuck. I’d had plenty of them. Money holes, rent pieces, working lads on the game.
Even a few of the higher-end escorts now and then.
I’d paid for the full boyfriend experience without leaving a hotel.
Pay, play, walk away. That’s how I kept the noise down.
Kept myself standing in this piss-stained corner of the world and not beaten to a pulp, removed and replaced by someone less problematic.
Okay granted, I’d taken a punt on a new one.
And I was cursing myself that I hadn’t done the mental check.
Rookie mistake. Didn’t think I’d see him again though, did I?
And yeah, I’ll admit it, I’ve got a weakness for the type.
Pretty boys in pretty clothes. Wide eyes.
Filthy smiles. Lips made for sin. Exactly like him.
Shit.
That back alley kept looping in my head.
His hand on me. Then him taking himself out, bold as fuck.
And how our cocks aligned together, slick heat between us.
The sound he made when I called him dirty.
And the way his body trembled when I took over.
Not from fear, but from wanting. That was the problem.
He wasn’t meant to want me. Rent boys don’t.
They touch only when told to. They keep their hands obedient, their reactions on a leash.
They don’t get off on it. They don’t fucking come unless it’s been discussed. Negotiated. Agreed.
But he did.
And I’d let him. I’d touched him. Took him there with my hand over his on my cock, tangled our fingers all slick with pre-come, and worked both of us as if it actually fucking mattered.
Like I gave a fuck. I never did that. Ever.
Not unless it’s some long job in a hotel, and even then, it meant nothing. Just another night. Another act.
But him…
Christ. I’d tried to shake it off. Walked out after.
My head had been full of noise while my hands still smelt of him.
So I went looking for air. Distance. But the bastard stayed in my blood.
Every drag of smoke brought him back. The look in his eyes when I asked what to call it.
The pause before he answered. As if he didn’t know either.
That look had followed me out the club and dragged me right into this.
Standing here, watching a pair of Ghost’s runners wave a knife at him.
Don’t get me wrong, I was ready. That blade wouldn’t have got within an inch of that pretty face, not while I had breath.
I’d have been across that road quick enough to carve them out if they’d so much as disturbed one hair on his head.
I’d let them see why they called me Razor and let the bastards live to tell it, but they’d be walking different.
And that’s the kicker.
When the fuck did I get possessive over a bought boy?
My stomach twisted. The smoke in my throat went sour.
I couldn’t tell if it was anger or something else.
Probably shouldn’t look too closely at what, either.
So I took my final drag that was down to the brown, then dropped the cigarette and watched the ember hit the pavement, flare once before I stamped it out. Then I crossed the road.
One of them clocked me, face bleaching white.
“Shit! It’s Razor!” He shoved the other one. “Move!”
Right. They knew me.
As they fucking should.
Which left no excuses as to what they’d done.
They ran. Trainers skidding on wet concrete, one of them glancing back with that stupid mix of fear and fake confidence.
It made me move faster, and I hit the tarmac hard, water splashing up my shins, tower blocks looming on either side.
Graffiti, satellite dishes, dead windows staring down as if they’d seen it all.
The air stank of chip fat and weed. Sodium lights washed everything the colour of old bruises.
Shutters down on every shopfront, metal scratched with names and tags I recognised. A dog barked once and shut up fast.
And yeah, I wished I’d changed out of the fucking leather. It slapped against my back as if I was in some slow-mo action film.
Nothing slow about me though. Nor heroic.
Streets blurred past, council grey, fly-posters peeling in strips.
The lads cut left into a narrow backway.
Stupid move. Less space. No escape. Dead end at the far wall, brick slick with old damp where the first one hit it and turned too late.
I crashed into him, shoulder to spine, driving him face-first into the grit.
He went down hard, coughing up rainwater and blood.
Then the other spun, blade snapping, fast and messy, hands trembling as if he’d been born with panic in them.
Fear lived in his eyes; his jaw worked to hide it.
Up close, he reeked of energy drinks and cheap soap, the smell of boys who never learnt to wash away what they were.
I didn’t like him. He’d come onto my road flashing someone else’s brass and thought that bought him licence.
Nah. I liked the sound the street made when I shut people down.
“Put it down,” I said. Close enough to taste the fear on him.
He swung. Wild and amateur. So I caught his wrist, twisted till the knife skittered and struck the brick, pinning the blade between us and drove him back.
I felt his panic battering against my forearm, and he flailed, all elbows and noise, until I cracked him across the jaw with the flat of my hand.
He folded, air ripping out of him. The first kid tried to scramble up, but I kicked him back down, grabbed the knife, slid the point under his chin.
“Don’t move.” I shook my head in warning. “Not a fucking twitch.”
He didn’t. His throat jumped, eyes wide as saucers.
The other tried to lunge, though. All bright-eyed stupidity. But I planted an arm out and kept him at bay. “You cross me, this goes in him.”
He froze. Backed off.
“Good.” I kept my voice flat, darting my attention from the kid on the ground to the one itching to leg it.
He wanted to run. I could tell. Shit foot soldier.
That’s the thing about running a patch: you need mates who don’t flinch.
Loyalty. People who’d stand when the bullets started. I’d earned mine the hard way.
None of them were here now, though.
I could call them. Tyler, the lads on my corners, the runners who’d drop everything for me.
They’d be here in a flash; I could have this sorted before last orders.
But I didn’t ring. Two reasons. First, these two were soft as clay; they’d folded on sight.
I didn’t need the muscle to make the point.
I was the fucking muscle. Second, and more important, I had questions I wanted answers to.
Answers I didn’t want shouted down the line or muddied by other people’s mouths.
Let Ghost bring his lot if he wanted noise.
I wanted the truth.
“Right.” I shifted my weight off one boot. “We keeping this civil?”
The kid on the ground gave a jerky nod. The other one did what I expected. He bolted down the alley, trainers splashing through puddles. Fucking coward.
I turned back to the one left behind. “You need better mates, bruv.”
“I didn’t do nuffink,” he stammered, voice thin, throat bobbing hard.
“You ran. Took a blade to me. On my street. Tell me what I’m supposed to think about that.”
He blinked up at me, chest heaving, grime streaking down his cheek.
“Get up.” I jerked my chin.
He scrambled to his feet, skinny arms shaking as he stood there.
He was about eighteen, maybe nineteen if I rounded him up.
Pale under the streetlight, freckles buried under weeks of dirt.
A half-finished buzz cut, fringe dyed piss-yellow, as if he’d tried to copy one of those drill kids off YouTube.
Cheeks hollow from skipping meals, eyes darting like a rat cornered in the bin yard.
Tracksuit too big for him, hanging off his shoulders.
A kid trying to play gangster.
That’s why I kept to my hard no of putting kids on my payroll.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Luca.”
“Right, Luca.” I slid the blade into my waistband and watched him flinch when it vanished. “We got a couple of problems, yeah? You gonna tell me what they are?”
Luca swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing, and he darted his gaze down the alley where his mate had trotted off, as if the dark might cough him up an answer. Then he shrugged.
Shrugged.