Chapter Twelve Razor #2
Truth was, I’d been tasting it in the air for weeks.
The quiet before the swing. Ghost’s boys were sloppy, cops were sniffing, and whoever put that piece on Darren was sending a message.
And last night, Tiny missing, the stash hit, Cormac wanted that answered.
I could get the money, had a plan on that.
But more so, it needed its own message back.
And if I played it right, secured the border, maybe nick another block, then I moved up the chain.
Play it wrong and I’d be another name whispered on a Hackney stairwell.
And lately, with everything else twisting my head, I weren’t sure I trusted my instincts the way I used to.
I tapped one of the circles marked in biro.
“Here’s what you’re gonna do. Check every drop between the Green and Roman Road.
Take Kyan and Rio if you want backup, they’re showing initiative.
Anyone moves gear without clearing it through me, I want a name.
You find Tiny, you bring him in. Breathing, preferably. ”
“Shouldn’t we do that?”
“Can’t.” I folded the map, tucked it in my jeans pocket. “I got something else to sort.”
“Like what?”
“A debt owed.” I nodded to the bag of gear I’d brought in. “That’s new stock. Get it shifted. Quick. We need to feed up the chain to keep this looking good, you get?”
“Yeah, okay.” Tyler frowned. “What debt?”
I should tell him. That’s how it worked.
He was my second. A gobshite, sure, but reliable when it counted.
We had each other’s backs. Always had. Keeping secrets about the line was how operations cracked from the inside out.
Personal stuff? That was different. Everyone’s entitled to their own shadows.
But right now, mine were bleeding into the business, and that made it dangerous.
He watched me, waiting for an answer.
I forced a shrug. “One that’ll be settled tonight. We’ll divvy it up after, same as always.”
He narrowed his eyes as if he wanted to push, but I turned away before he could.
Couldn’t risk him seeing a hint of hesitation meaning something was shifting.
And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t sure who I was protecting anymore.
The line. My secrets. Or the bloke tangled up in the middle of it.
So I slapped Tyler’s hand, a handshake saying all was square and nodded towards him. “Go buy your girl some flowers. Or take her out somewhere nice.”
“She’s away at Butlins in Bognor.”
“Butlins? Ain’t that a kids’ place?”
“Nah, they do adult shit now. Some washed-up nineties boyband reunion. She’ll be hungover till Friday.”
I huffed a laugh. “Classy.” I started for the door, then glanced back. “Get someone in to clean this place up for her, yeah? Looks like a crack den, not a home.”
I didn’t wait for the comeback.
I got in the car, did a few runs around the blocks, checking corners, keeping up the habit.
Scouting for any sign of Tiny. Tried not to think.
Didn’t work. The thoughts looped. Tricky’s mouth, those girls, Tiny, Cormac wanting answers, the mess I was making of both sides of my life.
By the time the sky bruised into dark, I found myself heading somewhere I hadn’t in a long while.
Borderland. Not quite Hackney, not quite Stratford. Mid-terrace gaff with hanging plants and clean paint, and I sat there for a bit, staring through the windscreen at a life that didn’t fit me anymore.
Fuck it.
I got out, went to the boot, wrestled the bloody twin buggy out and it finally folded after a fight, but left the car seats in the back.
Then I walked up to the door, dragging the thing like a guilty offering.
Knocking felt like betrayal; it always did.
Every time I came here, I felt like the piece of shit I was, pretending I still belonged.
The door flew open.
“Razor!” Amara came at me belly-first and I barely got an arm round the buggy frame in time to catch her. “Careful! I’m massive.”
She weren’t wrong. Carrying twins, Lennon’s twins, had her glowing. Round face, shining skin, a soft fullness meaning life kept going no matter how dirty the streets got.
And me? I was the grime on her welcome mat.
“You look fucking good.” I stepped back, rubbing her belly through the thin blue of her scrubs. She’d just come off a shift, by the looks of it. An A&E nurse, seeing the worst of the worst. Probably never got a minute’s peace.
Lennon would’ve planned it different. He liked order, savings, lists on the fridge. Twins this early? That’d have shaken him. Me turning up here would, too.
So I got to it. “I got this for Kee, but it’s a twin one.” I tilted the buggy so she could see. “Top range. Two car seats. Folds like a bastard, but you’ll figure it out.”
Amara flicked her braids off her shoulder. “Oh my god, Razor. Do you even know how much these cost?”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m giving it to you. Twins ain’t cheap.”
“Tell me about it. Double nappies, double prams, double everything. And no one gives you extra for that.”
“So you’ll take it?”
Her smile faltered, the warmth slipping a touch. “I’d have to ask Lenn.”
I nodded, swallowing that small sting. “Yeah. Course. Look, I get it. I’ll leave it here and if he don’t—”
“He’s home.” She cut me off with an angle of her head. “Come in. You can stop him falling asleep in his dinner.”
That pulled a laugh out of me. “Still grafting himself half to death, is he?”
“Always.” She stepped aside, pushing the door wider. “Come on, before you change your mind.”
And I might’ve. Even with the warmth pulling me in.
That soft, homely heat reminding me of the baths Mum used to run on Sundays after football, when my knees were scraped and the world was simple.
When Lennon and I were joined at the hip.
When there were three of us, before the world got mean and took one away.
I swallowed that down.
Amara tilted her neck. “He still cares about you.”
I knew he did. That was the fucking problem.
Still, I stepped inside. Couldn’t help it.
Amara gave me a gentle shove forward, nodding to the living room.
The telly flickered blue light over the walls, some quiz show in the background.
Lennon sat on the sofa, balancing a plate of chicken and rice on his knees, still in his high-vis from the job site.
He looked over his shoulder, caught me standing there. Wish I could say his face said welcome.
It didn’t.
But he stood anyway, sliding his plate on the coffee table, wiping his hands on his trousers before holding one out. I took it, and maybe it was him, maybe it was me, but one of us pulled. Turned it into a hug. Brief. Hard. Full of years and things neither of us ever talk about.
When we broke apart, he stepped back. “What brings you off your line?”
Yeah, there was a dig in it. Half-joke, half-warning.
“Was in the neighbourhood.”
He gave me that look, the one that said bullshit, then jerked his chin towards the other end of the sofa.
I sat. “Amara looks good.”
His grin cracked him wide open, lit his whole face like it used to when we were kids running the estate rooftops, daring each other to jump the gaps.
For a second, he looked exactly the same.
The laugh lines, the warmth, the spark getting us both into trouble more than once.
He scrubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair, still damp with sweat from work.
He’d had locs once, back when music and mischief ruled everything.
Cut them when the site took him on. Said it was practical.
I’d said it was selling out. Maybe we’d both been right.
“Yeah,” he said, pride soft under his voice. “She does look good, don’t she? Suits her, carrying my blood. Just wish she’d slow down a bit. She’s still on shifts, stubborn woman.”
“She knows what she’s doing.” I leant back. “And if she don’t, she’s surrounded by people who do. Perks of working in a hospital, right?”
“Yeah.” He gave a small smile, eyes on the telly for a beat then picked his plate back up to put it on his knees. “How’s Keeley?”
“Would you believe taking to motherhood like she was meant for it?”
That got a proper laugh out of him. “Bet she has. On her own, though?”
“Darren’s moved in.”
Lennon’s brows shot up. “No shit.”
“Yeah. Shocked me too. He’s an absolute waste of fucking air most of the time.” I didn’t mention the gun. That’d open doors Lennon didn’t need to walk through. “But sometimes, when he’s holding Maisie, I swear there’s hope for him.”
“Fatherhood’ll do that.” Lennon picked up his fork, nudged his rice. “Makes you see yourself different. Gives you something to lose.”
“Or something to prove.”
He gave me a sidelong glance, knowing exactly where my head was at.
“Having someone who loves you’ll do that, too.
” He went back to his food. “You should tell him to come down the ring.” Lennon ran a youth boxing club, keeping kids off the street and out of gangs.
Ironically. “And you.” He pointed his fork at me. “You should try it.”
“Boxing?”
“Having someone to love.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Didn’t rise to it.
“Speaking of.” He glanced over his shoulder to check the hall. “You got anyone these days? Someone hoping to get you straight?”
Nice choice of words.
“Who the fuck’s gonna do that?” I scoffed. “Ain’t many queuing up for a man like me.”
He shook his head. “You’d be surprised. Some people love a lost cause. You’ve still got that sad puppy look that used to get us free kebabs.”
I snorted.
“You’re not as repellent as you think.” He shovelled a forkful of rice into his mouth. “There’s someone out there who goes for the white-trash-thug vibe.” He looked at me. “Bet the blokes love it.”
My chest tightened, heart giving one hard thud before I flicked my gaze to the doorway. To the floor. Anywhere.
“Oh, give it a rest, Rich.” Lennon tore into a chicken leg, grease shining on his fingers.
“She don’t know. I don’t know. But we guess, yeah?
Guessed years back. Don’t matter. Just means when you finally work out you don’t have to live where you’re living, doing what you’re doing, answering to who you answer to…
maybe you’ll come clean. Maybe we can have a conversation about it.
And maybe I’ll tell you it’s all good.” He looked at me.
Right at me and I swallowed. “I don’t care who you fuck, Rich. As long as you do it with heart.”
He said it so easy, but I could hear what he meant under it.
He wasn’t only talking about who I fucked.
That he’d figured out I was into the other kind.
No, he was talking about who I’d become.
I swallowed hard. The silence following had teeth.
And the telly burbled on about general knowledge questions and prize money no one in this room had.
So I cleared my throat. “I brought something round for you.”
He looked up, wary now. He always knew when I was about to fuck the mood.
“Twin buggy. Got it from Layton. Was meant for Kee, but the twat dropped off the wrong one. Top range. Folds like a dream, comes with car seats. Thought it might help.” I rubbed a thumb over the cut in my knuckle, not meeting his eye. “If you want it.”
He didn’t answer straight away, the corners of his mouth twitching as if fighting two versions of himself. The friend who’d grown up beside me, and the man who didn’t want dirty money in his hallway.
“Layton, huh?” He shook his head. “Since when you running buggies through your line?”
“Since I got sick of seeing my mates struggle.”
Lennon set his plate down on the table. “You mean since you got more cash than you can spend without burning it.”
That one hit. Clean. True.
“Just take it, bruv.” I glanced away. “No strings.”
“There’s always strings.” He turned fully on me. “Whether you nicked that off the back of a fucking lorry or used your dirty money on it, the thing’s tainted. You think I want my babies in that?”
It burnt, hearing it. But he wasn’t wrong. He never was.
And there was the reason, glaring right at me, why I shouldn’t have come. So I stood. “You don’t have to struggle, Len. You don’t have to let her struggle.”
He glared up at me as if I’d spat in his face. “And you don’t have to put poison in people’s veins, but here the fuck we are.”
“Take care, Len.” I stepped around the table to the door. “Joe says stop by the caff, he’s got that bacon you like.”
“Was it you?” Lennon called after me.
I stopped. “Was what me?”
“The phone.”
“No,” I lied through sheer will to keep him from cutting off his pregnant girlfriend because I’d footed the bill of her smashed phone.
He held my gaze long enough for the weight of it to settle. “You could come work on the building site with me?” he said suddenly, the words tumbling out too fast. Too hopeful. As if he were gripping the wrist of a man already halfway off a cliff. “We need muscle.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d offered. But this time… it hit different. There was no banter in it. No elbow to the ribs. Just a plea with skin on it. But I said what I always said.
“On a zero-hours contract? Where the minute the job wraps, I’m back at the Jobcentre?” I shrugged, because shrugging hurt less than admitting anything.
Lennon turned back to the telly. Back to his plate. “Stay fucking safe, Rich.” His voice cracked on the last word. “I can’t bear the thought of seeing you on there one day.” He pointed his fork at the screen.
The news had switched to a local stabbing. A cordon. A sheet on the pavement. Someone’s kid. Someone’s brother. Probably someone I knew. Might even be Tiny. So I didn’t have anything to say to him. Because he wasn’t wrong.
And the odds were, one day he would.
So I left.
Leaving the buggy leaning up against a wall for someone else to take.