Chapter Fourteen Razor #2
My mouth found his again, catching his bottom lip between my teeth as I slid my hand around his waist, under his soaked shirt, desperate for skin.
I traced the line of him. Toned stomach, smooth chest, up to the hard peaks of his nipples, before slipping higher, under his collar, grazing the pulse in his throat with my fingers.
And when I slid those fingers between his lips, he took them without hesitation, eyes half-shut, a low moan swallowing against my skin as he sucked me in, slow and filthy.
Christ, it was hot. The night. The rain. The sound of us.
Breath crashing, bodies colliding, every thrust a promise I had no intention of keeping.
And I kissed the side of his neck, tasting rain and sweat, desperate to tear off every scrap of clothing between us just to feel him.
All of him. Knowing I’d never get to, my groan broke rough against his ear as I snapped my hips forward, the sharp slap of skin on skin lost in the flow, and I pulled my finger from his mouth, caught one of his hands, laced our fingers tight, slamming it to the car roof.
“Gonna paint my car for me, pretty boy?” I wrapped my other around his cock. Hot, slick, pulsing in my grip.
“Fuck…” he breathed, pleasure in one word.
He pushed back into me, meeting every thrust, torn between the drag of my hand and the stretch of me inside him.
Then he came. Hard and brutal. White streaks splattering across black metal, the sight searing into me as I kept him there, milking him through it.
His whole body trembled around me, and I lost it, driving deep, forehead pressed to his shoulder blades as I spilt into him, breath tearing out in broken growls sounding nothing like control.
We stayed like that for a while as the world crept back in with the hiss of tyres through puddles, the gutter-drip patter of rain, the distant laugh of someone who’d had too much and nowhere to go. The city was still ugly. But right then, pressed together in the dark, it felt almost sacred. Ours.
Then a passing truck roared by, shaking the ground beneath us, and the spell broke.
I eased out of him, breath unsteady, and slipped off the condom, flinging it into the shadows.
We pulled ourselves together, fingers clumsy, silence thick, once again securing our jeans and belts.
And when he turned to face me, I caught the sight of his flushed face, hair a wet mess, lips swollen and split open again. Too beautiful. Too real.
I kissed him.
And he kissed me back.
For a second, there was only that. His fingers sliding through my fade, mine searching under his top for skin, both of us pretending the night could stay suspended.
Then my burner started buzzing in my pocket.
Sharp, insistent, reality clawing its way in.
I didn’t want to answer. Didn’t want to move.
So I kept kissing him, fishing blindly for the phone until I tapped it on.
“Yeah, what?” I muttered against his mouth.
Cormac’s voice cracked through the line. Harsh, Irish, all business. “Razor? You still breathing?”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Getting a call from the big dog meant shit. And I should’ve stepped back, put space between us, remembered what I was and who I answered to. But instead, I leant in closer. Because that was the problem. This. Him. The reason I was already in too deep.
“Cormac,” I said into the phone, resting my forehead on Tristan’s, his breath warm mingling with mine.
“Where the feck are ye?”
“Sorting a debt.”
Tristan slipped his fingers to my neck, and he nuzzled in, kissing me right where Cormac would’ve put a blade if he’d seen this. So I pulled back, met Tristan’s gaze as the voice on the line turned cold and shook my head in warning.
“Be at the caff first thing tomorrow morning. Don’t make me wait.”
The line went dead, and so did the quiet between us.
“You in trouble?” Tristan’s gaze followed me as I stepped back and pocketed the phone.
“I’m always in trouble.” I gave a half-smile. “And there’s no HR department in my line of work to piss and moan about it.”
He chewed on his lip. “What are you in trouble for?”
“Stuff they don’t cover in Master’s of Law.”
That got him tilting his head, confidence edging back in, maybe still high off how easily I’d come undone for him. “How would you know what they cover?”
“I know more than you think.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
I sighed, glancing past him at the empty road. “The debt your ex paid off barely scratches the surface of what’s happening to my cashflow. And no matter how hard I shake him, it won’t balance my books. That has to come from me. In cash, product… or Ghost’s blood.”
His brow creased. “Ghost?”
“Rival crew.” I sniffed, squaring my shoulders to shake off the softness when discussing the hard lines of my life.
“The one your skanky ex did his deal with on my patch. Think of it like Coke and Pepsi. I’m Coke.
The true brand. Pepsi leaves a bad taste but they’re edging into where I own anyway, claiming it’s the real thing when it ain’t. ”
Tristan nodded, pretending to understand, and I pretended not to notice. I didn’t know why I was even telling him any of this. Maybe I wanted him to see what he was walking into.
“I’ve gotta get back.” I tapped his cheek, stroking my thumb over his skin. Soft, damp, too human. “You want a lift, or you calling one of those overpriced cab firms?”
“I’ll take the lift. If it’s not out of your way.”
I snorted. “Everything about this is out of my way.”
I opened the driver’s door and slid in. He circled around, slipping into the passenger seat and as he got in, it was as though he belonged there. I started the engine, wipers clearing the windscreen in steady sweeps.
I gestured to the window. “Didn’t get no fine.”
Tristan reached into his back pocket, pulling out a crumpled yellow packet. “You did get one. I already paid it.”
I laughed under my breath. “Then the owner of this car will be grateful.”
“Is this car seriously not yours?”
I winked, pulling away from the curb. “You worry a lot for someone who just broke about three public decency laws. What’s the sentencing on that, then, Master of the Law?”
Tristan flushed, a faint pink cutting through the rain-damp chill.
I chuckled, shifting gears, letting the city swallow us again.
The roads were near empty, slick with reflected light.
My playlist hummed low through the speakers.
Easy, wordless, filling the silence we didn’t bother to break.
What was there to say, anyway? The truth sitting between us didn’t survive small talk.
And when I pulled up outside his place in Clerkenwell, he didn’t move right away. He stared out the window.
“Is he…” He turned back to me. “Okay?”
I met his eyes. “He’ll live. That’s the point.”
He nodded, as if that meant something. Maybe it did. And I thought that would be it. Him leaving, door shut, moment done. But then he leant across the seat and kissed me. Soft. Unplanned. Dangerous in a way bullets were.
Yeah, it left a flutter. Maybe even a smile I pretended wasn’t there.
So I fished out the phone. The incriminating one. “Here. Take it.” I could’ve got Tariq some cash for that, but I let Tristan do whatever he wanted with it for some absurd reason that had nothing to do with how this felt like a farewell.
He hesitated but eventually took it. “Thanks.”
“See you around, Tricky.”
I didn’t know if I would, but he smiled anyway. Then he was gone, walking up the steps, unlocking his perfect little door. He turned around once, our eyes met, then he went inside and closed the door. I waited until the light came on inside before I exhaled.
That was it.
The end. Or what passed for one.
I drove back to Hackney, parked up by Smoky Joe’s, dropped the seat back, and closed my eyes, waiting for the shutter to roll up and the next problem to begin.
* * * *
It began with knuckles rapping on my window.
Joe.
I lifted my head and wound the glass down. “Cormac here yet?”
“Yeah.” Joe tipped his chin towards the caff. “Inside. Look sharp, bruv. He’s out for blood.”
I scrubbed my face with the heel of my hand, pushed myself up, and shoved the duffel under the seat.
Then slid the cash I’d come by yesterday into my jacket and walked into the heat.
Lennon brushed past me coming out with a coffee and a bacon roll and it made me stop for a second.
Made me think. Feel like the low-life he saw me as.
But I still tried with a, “Hey.”
Lennon glanced at Cormac’s corner. “Be fucking careful, Rich.”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I will. You too, Len.”
The doorbell spat me back into the same stink of grease, fryer oil, and overboiled kettle steam.
I slid into the plastic seat beside one of Cormac’s heavies, opposite the man himself, his other flank occupied by another slab of silent muscle.
The three of them crowded the table so tight it felt as if the plastic might warp.
Cormac O’Rourke didn’t look up when I sat.
Didn’t need to. He had the presence of a man who owned every inch of any room he was in, even this cheap café with its flaring strip lights and sticky floors.
He worked the place into his orbit just by breathing.
He had a full English spread in front of him, greasy and steaming.
A chipped mug of tea sat untouched, gone cold.
His hair was iron-grey, cropped tight, and his beard was rough and patchy, red still clinging stubbornly at the roots like old bloodstains.
His eyes were the worst part. A washed-out blue, the colour of a winter sky over a graveyard.
Sharp enough to assess you. Empty enough to forget you.
And covered by those stupid thick-framed glasses that made him look… harmless.
He was anything but.
“Razor.” He stabbed a fork into a black pudding then shoved it into his mouth, greying red stubble around chapped lips.
“Cormac.” I kept my voice even.
Joe dropped a mug in front of me as if handing over a shield. But Cormac knew the rules in here. As did I. No weapons. No fists. A place to talk. Save the violence for outside. No one wanted the filth coming in here unless they were as bent as I was.
To try to smooth things over, I fished the envelope out and slid it across the table. “From last night.”
Cormac opened it, glanced at the notes, then laughed. “You went on a walkabout for a measly grand?”
“I’ll get the rest.”
“You better.” He pushed the money across to the bloke on his left and slurped his tea as if he didn’t have to breathe the same air as me. “You look like shit.”
“Been busy.” I let the lie sit on my tongue.
“So I hear.” He glanced down at his food, moving it about with a blunt knife. “Busy losing product I paid for. Busy letting kids go missing. Busy letting Ghost’s scumbags take the piss out of you.”
I kept my mouth shut.
“You know what a good lieutenant does when his patch gets hit?” Cormac dipped a triangle of toast into his yolk and watched me with those flat, unreadable eyes behind the lenses.
“Finds the leak. Fixes it.”
“Well done. Gold star. And you should have before I have to.”
I waited. Like a good little soldier.
“You owe me twenty grand in gear and reputation.” Cormac eyed me. “I don’t give a fuck which you get back first.”
I nodded once, the room tilting.
“You’ve got a week.” Cormac speared a sausage, lifted it to his mouth, and bit off half with a lazy chew. “Either my product, my money… or Ghost’s heart on a plate.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Make it right, or I’ll find someone who can.”
“Yes, boss.”
He held the fork suspended in the air for a beat. Then he pointed it at the heavies flanking him. “Don’t make me send the boys round to your mum.”
My insides coiled tight. Pride, fear, both twisting together like barbed wire. But I kept my face dead still. He wouldn’t get to see me flinch.
Cormac cocked his head, chewing slow, pale eyes fixed on me the way a butcher looks at an animal he’s pricing up. “Your sister’s of age now, aye?” He took a slurp of strong tea. “Pretty little thing, ain’t she now? Nice tits.”
My jaw locked so hard I felt the crack in my molars.
He smiled at that. “Don’t make me knock on her door for payment, Razor.” He tore off the toast with his teeth, watching me over the top of it. “I don’t like hurting women. But I will.”
The heavies didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
They didn’t need to. His words did the work.
“No need to make a baby an orphan now, is there?” He chewed. Smiled. Sat back and locked his fingers together over his stomach. “Although, could always get rid of that little thing too. Make life easier for everyone.”
The threat hung violently in the air, soft as smoke, sharp as a blade.
Because he meant every syllable.
He’d hurt my mum.
Hurt Keeley.
Crush that baby’s life between two fingers if it made his books balance.
And if he ever sniffed out anyone else I had a soft spot for, he’d use them too. Break them. Turn them into leverage. Another reason why my mess with pretty boy had to stay buried deeper than a grave.
Cormac kept looking at me.
And I sat there, trapped in the stink of grease and steam, knowing full well I wasn’t walking out free.
I was walking out with the countdown ticking.