Chapter 10 Razor
chapter ten
Razor
Sat in my motor, engine off, window cracked for the smoke to slip out, I glanced at the row of posh townhouses across the street. Islington. Clerkenwell side. Clean. Expensive. And I scrolled through the stolen iPhone, one eye on the movement outside.
Tariq’d been right; most of the phone had been wiped. Whoever owned it knew their way around a reset. Moneyed type. Probably thought a factory restore could hide their sins. Didn’t matter. I still pulled a few things out: recent messages, photos, one address. Enough to paint a picture.
Name on it, Benjamin Rothwell.
Messages between him and an Ollie Montgomery.
Both mouthing off about my club. Calling it “pathetic.” Laughing about how they were gonna make a mint flogging mep between them.
Seething didn’t cut it.
They’d nicked straight out of my line, cut a deal with Ghost’s lot, and had the fucking nerve to brag about it.
On my turf. And for what? Not hunger. Not survival.
Nah, these weren’t estate kids. These were the polished kind.
Money-soft. Hands too clean to have ever bled for anything.
Students. Not the grafting type, either.
They weren’t working shifts to eat. These were private-school, trust-fund tourists playing gangster for the thrill.
And the worst part?
My gutter boy was mixed up in it.
Couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Him turning up that night, right when I should’ve had my eyes on the floor, not on some pretty stranger with sharp cheekbones and a mouth that could ruin me. If someone wanted me distracted, sending him in was a smart play.
Only thing was… it didn’t make sense.
I’d kept what I liked buried deep. Concrete-deep.
No one knew. Not a whisper. And if someone had talked?
I’d have found out long before now. From a warning, a threat, or a message delivered in a bottle smashed across my skull.
It’d take a bloody miracle for some random bloke to stumble on exactly the one thing that would have me looking the wrong way at exactly the wrong time.
Which meant either I believed in miracles… or something here didn’t add up at all.
Didn’t change the job, though. The reason I was here.
What I had to do. But it twisted the knife.
Cause my priority was simple. Get back what I was owed: the stash Luca lost, the cash they’d stiffed him for and put it in my line.
That’s how I kept the runners fed, the corners paid, the Firm breathing.
But every time I tried to think like a boss, my head kept sliding back to the same useless question: why would some posh twat kneel for fifty quid?
And why come back for more?
So I got out the car. Had a nose. Noticed a back alley beside the house, and we all know how much I like them.
I found a stupid bit of architecture, some designer ledge and a drainpipe that had no business being that climbable, leading straight up to a half-open bedroom window.
Of course rich boys left windows open. What were they afraid of?
Crime? They were crime. I got to it. One pull, one lean of weight, and the sash window gave. Easy.
I slipped inside.
The place was empty. Sterile in that way only money can make a room.
Not clean, but… untouchable. Everything was white and pale, tasteful to make my teeth itch.
I could smell the polish, the privilege.
No one in this house had ever slept on a mattress with questionable stains or shoved a towel against the door to block out the neighbours screaming.
But I moved quick. Didn’t touch anything I didn’t need to.
No prints worth finding, gloves or not, old habits die slow.
Upstairs had four bedrooms. Four. Who needs four bedrooms unless they’re hiding the bodies?
Two had locks on the doors. Proper locks, not the flimsy inside-latch kind.
People with secrets. People with things to lose.
Bathroom was bigger than my entire flat.
Marble everywhere. Towels softer than anything I’d ever wiped blood off with.
Shelves full of fancy soaps and serums, men’s and women’s.
Whole bloody pharmacy. Downstairs, a rustic kitchen that had never seen a burnt pan, and a living-diner with wood floors so smooth I nearly slipped. Nothing much else of any interest.
I went back upstairs. To the bedroom with the open window.
Because that’s where the real story was.
And I started clocking the little things first. A silk tie slung over the back of a chair, careless in a way only someone privileged could be.
An open shoebox with expensive polish set out, like someone who cared enough about appearances but not enough to tidy up afterward.
Receipts in a drawer. Restaurants I couldn’t pronounce, prices I wouldn’t pay if I could.
Then I opened the next drawer and found a few things in there that made me stop.
Made me grin. Made something else in me twist, too.
Interest, maybe. Amusement. And yeah, it made me chuckle. Quiet, to myself.
Then I left the way I came. Window, ledge, alley.
Back in my car, I hunkered down to watch the front door as if it was an altar, lighting a cigarette.
I smoked the whole thing, eyes on. Then I flicked the stub into the gutter when I saw movement.
A figure came off the station towards the row.
I ducked lower. Lie if I said my heart didn’t jack up.
Because it was him: my gutter boy, walking straight for the house.
He looked different here, though. Nice chinos, clean boots, cashmere under a coat costing more than my rent.
Leather laptop bag slung across one shoulder.
Earbuds in, little white stalks framed by smooth as silk honey-blond hair, wind ruffling it just so.
The whole package sat wrong on my road and proper on this side of town.
Pretty boy did things to me I wasn’t used to.
Pulled at something stupid and dangerous.
I breathed, told myself to move like I meant it.
Then I counted to three, shouldered open the car door and got out, lurching like a shadow across the road.
He had one foot on the step, slipping a hand into his bag when I clamped mine over his mouth, circling his waist with my other arm and yanked him back so hard our bodies collided, all sharp bones and startled heat.
And fuck…
If I said I didn’t feel anything at the press of him like that, I’d be lying.
I gave no warning, though. Used the silent stealth I’d learnt on the streets and dragged him down the alley until the wall stopped us both. There, I slammed him into it, face first, brick meeting his delicate skin. He gasped, fear bleeding out into something else entirely.
I didn’t want to see what it was, though. Couldn’t afford to.
Not if I wanted what I came for.
Which wasn’t him.
But for a moment, I kept us there like that. Crushing my bulk into his back, pinning him to the wall, my breath hot at his ear and his warming the inside of my palm. I could feel his pulse right through his lips, and everything in me strung tight on the wrong charge.
“You don’t make a sound,” I said, low and close enough for the words to graze his skin.
My hips were tight against him; I could feel tremors running through every inch of him and the way his body tried not to move.
I didn’t mean to get hard, but fuck, he smelt of money and cologne and some sweet poison I couldn’t shake.
“You make one sound when I take my hand off, and I’ll open you up. Got it?”
He nodded, eyes wide, then darted his gaze to try and see me.
I eased my hand away, giving him space. He didn’t run. Didn’t even try to move. He stayed there pinned to the wall, too frightened to look, swallowing down his fear. So I grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around.
Up close, there was fear, yeah. He trembled. But under it, something else pulsed. Cause his eyes, Christ, they burnt like firelight. Temptation wrapped in panic. A fucking siren. I’d never seen eyes like that. Eyes pulling me in, looking as if they saw straight through the noise and dirt.
I refused to look away from it. “You Oliver?”
There was a flash. Surprise, maybe. He hadn’t expected that. Then he shook his head. “No.”
Didn’t sound like a lie. And I already knew he wasn’t Benji Rothwell. Which left the other names burning a hole in the phone in my pocket. So I tried again.
“Who’s Oliver then?”
“My ex.” He snorted, though there wasn’t any humour in it. “As of three days ago.”
“Right.” I didn’t do the mental maths, nor feel the thing stirring low in my gut. I had a fucking job to do. “And Benjamin Rothwell?”
“Is… my housemate.”
“You aware they’ve been fucking?”
He looked down at the ground, as if trying to contain the shock. The tightening in his jaw told me he was preventing a reaction. A curse. A cry. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t here to hug him better. Then he shook his head with a bite of his bottom lip. “No.”
“Lucky you got rid, then.”
He said nothing.
“Do you know who I am?”
He drew in a breath. “No. Not really.”
I studied him. There’s a rhythm to lies. I know them by heartbeat. By breath. He wasn’t lying. Or if he was, he was too clean at it. And the way he held himself, the fear and the heat all tangled up, threw me.
Didn’t like it. Didn’t like him getting under my skin like that.
“I mean…” He rubbed the side of his head where the wall had kissed him. “I know we’ve met.”
I let out a short, ugly snort scraping through the cold. “Right. So your memory’s not as filthy as the company you keep.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. A small, stupid movement making my insides fracture like ice. I hated it. Hated him for it. He threw me off balance the way a stray punch throws your whole guard out.