Chapter Six Razor #2
So I punched him. Hard. Full fist. Straight to the nose. Quick as a switchblade. The snap was clean. Luca’s head jerked back, a high little yelp cutting through the drizzle. He hit the wall and slid down, spitting blood into the gutter.
Did I like it? Part of me did. There’s a rush to breaking someone’s nose, to reminding the road who owns it.
Plus, this one had been behind my pretty boy.
He’d been so close to him I wondered if he could smell my spunk on him.
His on me. And that had me all sorts of riled.
It was bound to manifest in violence. All my issues invariably did.
The other part of me hated it, though. I didn’t want to be a bully to kids.
But disrespect’s a contagion; let it spread, and you wake up with strangers walking your block as if it’s theirs.
Which was why I was surprised this was happening.
Maybe Tyler was right. And Joe. My lenience was filtering through the estates and people were thinking I was a lighter touch than the rumours keeping me top boy for years had led them to believe.
So I didn’t shake out my hand. The sting tasted like victory and vinegar, same as a sweat-soaked alley fuck, same as too many nights I can’t ever let go of.
“Try that again.” I bent so my face was inches from his, looking down on him. My height, my bulk, the threat leaning over him right there for him to taste. “You only got one shot, bruv. Think proper before you try prove somethin’. What’s the point if you’re dead, innit?”
“This is your patch. I’m on your line.”
I clapped. Loud. Hard. It echoed down the street to make a dog bark. And probably wake all those from floors one to fifteen of the tower block behind us.
“I’m glad you noticed.” I scratched my chin. “Now, I know you’re low down the chain, yeah. I get that. But I’m gonna assume you did the play. Watched the intro vids when you signed up. Learnt your corner rules. So tell me, what’s the problem with you moving gear in Hackney?”
He drew a breath, and for a second, I thought he was gonna lie.
Same script they teach on the corners: feign ignorance, blink big, act surprised.
Pretend your pockets ain’t stuffed with cash and pills.
Would’ve worked if I hadn’t seen him pinch those notes from my pretty boy’s hand, the same hand that’d tossed me off in the alley.
Ain’t no innocence in that move.
And there I went again, thinking that pretty boy was mine.
Luckily, Luca got me back on track by getting up from the ground. “Only your product moves on this patch.”
“Well done.” I knocked on his temple with my knuckles. “Good brain in there. Bright future, Luca. Now if you wanna move product I ain’t vetted, what should you do?”
“Ask you.”
“Could.” I nodded as if thinking about it. “Likely to say no, though. So if you don’t get my say, what happens to the bloke who wants in on my profit?”
He stared at the wet concrete, at his trainers. Anywhere but at me.
I leant in. “Let me make it easy. You give me my cut.”
He let out a long, resigned sigh and looked up. “Tripper’ll string me up if I go back empty-handed. He’ll—”
“—kill you?” I finished for him, shrugging as if it was a weather report. “Yeah. That’s the street. Sorry, not sorry.”
If he was expecting sympathy, he was in the wrong fucking industry.
“He works for Ghost, yeah? You know Ghost?” he blurted. “He’ll have my balls.”
“You’re mistaking me for someone who gives a shit about your bollocks.
” Though, truth not known, was that I did favour bollocks.
Just not ones that shrivelled at the first sign of trouble.
Or me. “You got one option: you bring me my cut, or you find somewhere else to sleep. And if Ghost’s got beef, he can bring it himself.
Not by sending kids to nick on my street. ”
Luca huffed, fingers digging for the roll in his pocket. “How much?”
“All of it.”
“Bruv, you said a cut.”
“How long you been moving product in my club?” I asked, and his mouth shut. “Until I know what my cut is, I take it all.”
He knew the drill. He slapped the notes into my hand. I snorted. That was the same tidy roll I’d watched pass under the club’s neon. I shoved it into my pocket, along with the memory.
“Listen proper, Luca.” I leant closer. “This is my borough. My line. You move product here, I get told first. You’re caught in a crossfire. So tell me, what you shifting? Mep? Coke? MDMA? Don’t play dumb.”
“Mep,” he squeaked. “Meow. Tiny bags, innit.”
“Who fronted it?” I stepped so close he could smell the stale smoke on my coat. “Name. Alias. Who dropped it off.”
His eyes flicked to the dark where his mate had legged it. “Tripper.”
“Where’s the stash? Where do they drop?”
“Yard behind the takeaway. By the bins. Tonight.”
“Right.” I let that sit. He moved to step away, but I shoved him back, splaying my palm flat on his chest. “I ain’t finished.” I sniffed, eyes down. “Those two you had outside. Who are they?”
“No one. Posh twats. Came in a few times, bought bags. Said they could flog it out west. Gave ’em some to sell. Didn’t pay. Saw one in the club today, so we clocked ’em.”
“When you say ‘posh’?”
“From the other side. Gold-card posh. Tried to pay with Amex. Black one. Ain’t seen them before.”
Now that caught me. Why was some posh boy who held a black Amex spreading notes for blowjobs and buying in fifty stacks?
I held out my hand. “I’ll take what you took from them, an’ all.”
Luca fumbled, brought out a phone and the card in question then slapped them into my palm. “Was gonna flog those to Tariq. You hear about his phone hustle?”
“Yeah.” I slid both into my pocket. They were mine to look at later. Quiet, useful.
“Can I go?” He nudged his chin down the alley, ready to fly after his mate and knock him down for fleeing.
“Not yet. Give me a sample.”
“What?”
“A sample of what you’re selling.”
Luca stared at me for a bit. Then he rustled in his pocket and produced a matchbox. He handed it over. “I’m a dead man for that.”
“You’d be a dead man for not handing it over.” I shoved the box in my coat. “You just bought yourself a couple of hours.”
“Cheers.” He started past me, but I grabbed his neck, dug my fingers in and brought him right to me. “One last thing. Who put a piece on Darren Finter?”
He tried to shrug, or maybe I was pressing my fingers in too hard, but he said, “Dunno, mate.”
“Right.” I leant in until my breath was a cold thing on his face.
“You tell whoever it is you don’t know that I’ve got it.
If they want it, they come straight to me.
Any bouncing through someone else to get at me, including Darren, I take that personal.
And I have the evidence to make it worth eight to ten.
” I let my eyes go wide, slow, spelling out a sentence.
“We clear? Or you want me to write that down for ya?”
He looked at me as if expecting a biro. He didn’t get one. By “write it down” I meant make him show up bruised. A message that lives on the skin. ‘Cause that tends to last longer than a scribbled note torn to shreds on delivery.
He nodded. Legs shaky. So I let him walk off into the rain, shoulders hunched, phone and Amex gone from his pocket and the name Tripper tucked into my head. Ghost could make noise if he wanted. Least now he’d know I was onto him.
I thumbed the burner out of my pocket and dialled Tyler.
“Razor?”
“I got intel.” I walked back up the alley, rain spattering the leather on my shoulders. “You were right. Tripper’s running mep on our patch. There’s a drop tonight, behind the takeaway, yard by the bins.”
Silence, then, “You sure?”
“I’m sure.” I kept it flat. “You go watch it. Eyes only at first. Don’t touch nothin’ unless you’re certain. If it’s runners doing the drop, deal with them how we taught you. If Tripper shows up himself, don’t start beef. Nick the stash and pull back. No fireworks. Clear?”
“Yeah. Sound.”
“Good. Be smart. No shows, no loud moves. Phone me if it’s anything else.”
I killed the line and slid the burner back into my waistband.
Business done. Personal shit still simmered under my skin, but I tucked it where it belonged.
I had other things to get done. But before I did anything else, I went home to make sure everything still stood where I left it.
Eighteenth floor, same lift stinking of weed and chip grease.
Lights flashing once, twice. Mum was out on a night shift.
Saturday night at the drive-thru would be a tough one.
Keeley was in the bedroom, though. Her and the baby dead to the world.
And Darren was glued to the Xbox, sound turned down low.
He waved his college enrolment form at me as I passed. I nodded.
Then I slipped out to the balcony, night air hitting cold and sharp and lit a cigarette.
Leaning on the rusted rail, I glanced out at the estate sprawled in sodium orange.
Concrete veins, broken glass glinting under the streetlamps, sirens cutting through the wind.
The city hummed beneath me, alive and rotting all at once.
From up here, London looked split in two.
The skyline cut sharp against the dark. Glass towers, cranes, the clean white glow of the west. All that money stacked on top of itself until it scraped the clouds. Somewhere in all that shine was him.
I pulled out the iPhone Luca had handed over.
Thumbed it awake. Locked, of course. Needed a code.
A face. Neither of which I had. But the photo on the screen told me enough.
Four of them, posing as if they’d never known a bad day.
Tuxedos, champagne, some mansion behind them lit up like a film set.
The girl wore one of those ballgown numbers probably costing more than I made in a week.
And I did alright, considering I shifted gear for a living.
But there, at the back, half in shadow was my gutter boy.
The pretty poison I already wanted another hit of.
I knew he’d ruin me. Could feel it in the pull behind my ribs. That ache never meant anything good.
So I shoved the phone back in my pocket, leant on the railing, took a drag, and blew the smoke out. Then I watched it curl into the night until it vanished into the same sky he lived under and wondered why the fuck he’d come into my borough.