Chapter Fifteen Tristan #2
I sat opposite him. “We need to evict Benji.” I crossed my ankle over my opposite knee. “Immediately.”
That made him put the document down. “I beg your pardon?”
“Benji. I need him out. Yesterday.”
My father leant back, assessing me like a witness he was about to dismantle in court. “Is this another silly little spat? Like when he borrowed your Tom Ford jacket?”
“No,” I said, jaw tightening. “And he ruined that jacket.”
He sighed through his nose, the faintest flicker of irritation. “You’ve been friends since prep school. What’s he done that can’t be resolved like civilised men?”
“He slept with Ollie.”
For a moment, Father didn’t move. Then he laced his fingers together and leant forward. “That is… very unfortunate.”
I almost laughed. Because of course that was what it was — unfortunate. Not betrayal. Not heartbreak. Yet another logistical inconvenience in the long-running social contract between our families.
He wasn’t wrong about the history, though.
The Rothwells and the Fitzroys went back decades.
I’m fairly certain my father dated Benji’s mother once.
Possibly more than dated. Wouldn’t shock me if one of the five Rothwell boys was a Fitzroy by blood.
Benji was the youngest, the reckless one.
The bad apple with a family crest shining on his cufflinks.
A bit like me, really. Only he got to be shameless about it.
And now he’d gone and made my rebellion personal.
Father rearranged the papers on his desk, not looking at me. His concern, as ever, wasn’t for me but for the optics. The fallout between families. The awkward whispers in the members’ lounge at the Garrick. “And you’re certain?”
“I have video evidence, should you wish me to submit it for the record.”
That earned a faint scowl. “Not necessary.” He then raised a hand, the universal signal that the matter was over. Closing arguments delivered, verdict passed. “I’ll handle the Rothwells. Discreetly.”
“Appreciated.” I dropped my foot to the floor. “We can have his things packed and ready by tomorrow.”
He nodded once, then leant back in his chair, steepling his fingers in that precise way meaning a lecture was coming. “Whilst not to twist the knife further, Tristan.” He peered at me under his lashes. “Let this be a lesson to you.”
Of course. A moral to the story.
Every heartbreak was an educational opportunity in the Fitzroy household.
“Oliver Montgomery was given a prestigious place at my table. I allowed that for you. He was given access to my contacts, as was his father, which elevated both their standings considerably. Again, for you. I believed in your judgement of character.” He paused, cutting his gaze through me as if assessing damage in a closing statement.
“Please don’t bring anyone of substandard quality into my circle again. You deserve far better.”
That last line was delivered to sound like care.
Maybe even love. But it wasn’t. It was investment management.
Damage control disguised as fatherly pride.
I almost let myself be comforted by it. The idea that my heartbreak had at least inconvenienced him enough to notice me.
That he thought I deserved better than a lying, cheating, hedonistic social climber.
And I wanted to tell him it wasn’t my judgement that had failed; it was the illusion he’d built around it.
That maybe the reason I kept choosing people who hurt me was because I was raised to value their pedigree over their humanity.
But I didn’t. I nodded. The good son. Well-bred heir. Swallowed the ache coming from being both seen and dismissed in the same breath. I’d remember it all though. His words, his precision, his belief that value was inherited, not earned.
I understood then exactly why Razor felt like freedom.
And the reason I had to forget him.
I pushed my chair back when a head appeared at the door.
“Charles, a moment?” Edgar Bryant, his senior clerk, stepped in, holding a file as if it might burn him. He then noticed me and smiled tightly. “Ah, Tristan. Hello.”
My father glanced my way. A silent reminder of what he’d said earlier that week: Be polite. Play the game.
“Edgar.” I shook his hand.
“Have we got something?” Father asked.
Edgar’s eyes lit with bureaucratic excitement. “We do. Operation Auburn.”
My father gestured for him to come in. “Sit, Tristan. Listen. It’ll do you good to hear how this works in practice. Marcus was always fascinated when I let him into my live cases and look at him now.”
I rolled my eyes. But I did what was asked. He was doing me favour; I must do him one. And Bryant set the file on the desk, so I could read the tab upside down: R v Leon Morris & Ors Op. Auburn (Ghost Crew).
The word Ghost niggled at me.
“Outline,” Father said.
Bryant adjusted his glasses, consulting his notes. “Major CPS pre-charge referral. East London. The police are ready to move on the Ghost Crew. Class A supply, large-scale distribution. They’ve submitted a draft indictment with six proposed counts.”
My father uncapped his pen. “Go on.”
“Count One—Conspiracy to Supply Class A Drugs, contrary to section one of the Criminal Law Act 1977. The umbrella charge. Covers the whole operation. The line runs. Storage. The lot.”
I knew that charge. It was a catch-all. You didn’t have to prove who moved the drugs, just that they agreed to. Conspiracy was elegant that way: it punished the thought, not the act.
“Counts Two to Five,” Bryant continued, “Being Concerned in the Supply of a Controlled Drug, section 4(3)(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Individual offences for each lieutenant. Each one linked by phone intercepts, surveillance logs, and controlled deliveries.”
Father nodded. “The paper trail?”
“Clean,” Bryant said. “Telecoms data from the main numbers. IPA authorised, two months of messages. Cell-site analysis puts their lead, Leon ‘Ghost’ Morris, at three delivery sites. There’s an undercover exchange scheduled at a Bethnal Green lock-up.
The OIC wants to hit the location before Ghost does. ”
Bethnal Green.
That also crawled over my skin.
“Count Six,” Bryant went on, “Possession of Criminal Property under section 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. One of their cash couriers was caught with thirty grand in vacuum packs. The police want restraint orders ready by tomorrow afternoon. Freeze the bank accounts before the arrests.”
Father leant back. “And your evidential sufficiency?”
“Strong,” Bryant said. “Five test purchases on video, lab confirmation of purity, continuous surveillance since August. They’ve also got an informant embedded through one of Ghost’s sub-dealers.
The CHIS flagged a major handover expected by the end of the week. The OIC wants to move before it lands.”
CHIS. Covert Human Intelligence Source. A snitch, in simpler terms. OIC, officer in charge of the investigation. A real live case, like my father said. Catching criminals even before the act. He was trying to get me all excited about this.
“The OIC wants to move on the main indictment by the end of the week,” Bryant said. “Six coordinated arrests. Dawn entries. If the drugs are on-site, the evidence locks the conspiracy. If not, they can still run the case on surveillance and communication data.”
Father took notes in the margin. “And disclosure?”
“Under control,” Bryant said. “Two sensitive CHIS documents will be redacted under PII. They’ll show product but not identity. Everything else, MG6C, logs, continuity, has been audited. No loose ends.”
Father looked satisfied. “Good. Keep it narrow. Conspiracy and concerned-in supply. Don’t dilute with smaller charges. The more focused your indictment, the cleaner the trial. And tell Harland I don’t want the defence claiming ‘overreach’ on the restraint order.”
Bryant nodded, making notes.
Father’s tone shifted into that calm cruelty he used in court. “If they’re clever, they’ll claim abuse of process. Say the CPS are relying too heavily on covert evidence. Make sure your informant is ring-fenced. One slip, and the defence will have the Crown bleeding in open court.”
Bryant smiled. “We’ve covered that, sir. The CHIS will only be referred to as ‘Source Alpha.’ Their statement is paraphrased to remove identifiers. Even the officers handling the intel aren’t named in the MG6.”
“Good.” Father shut the file. “Tell Harland he has my advice. Strike by Friday. Six arrests, one clean indictment. Charge on the conspiracy and keep the rest in reserve. Once Ghost is down, the others will fold.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bryant stood, collecting the file. “Always a pleasure.”
Father’s tone softened to its professional hum. “You’ll have your review back by sixteen hundred. The Home Office is expecting results before quarter-end.”
Bryant nodded to me politely before leaving. “Tristan. Nice seeing you again.”
“Likewise,” I said automatically.
When the door closed, Father looked up from his notes at last. “Surely that’s more stimulating than running statistics on repeat offenders.”
“Sentencing bias, Father.”
He gave a faint, dismissive smile. “There’s no bias. A criminal is a criminal, regardless of where they came from. The law is blind, Tristan. Or it’s supposed to be. It’s people who muddy it with sentiment.”
It was such a perfect soundbite I almost laughed. He’d probably said the same thing to the press at some point. But I didn’t have the energy to fight him again. Not today.
I stood. “Thank you. For handling the Rothwells.”
“Of course.” He capped his pen. “Will you be looking for another tenant? I imagine Henry will want to move nearer the hospital once he starts his junior rotation. And Zara? What are her plans?”
“Probably to follow Henry.”
“That wouldn’t be wise. Diana won’t approve. Henry will need to review that.”
Review it. As I should have reviewed Oliver.
I made for the door.
“Oh, and Tristan?”
I stopped, looked back.
“Needless to say, everything you heard in here is confidential.”
“Of course.”
He didn’t look up again. Already buried in the next file, the next life to be dissected.
I stepped out into the corridor. The air felt cooler out there, thinner, as if I’d surfaced from somewhere too deep. It always amazed me how a man could hold so much power in his hands and still make everything around him feel hollow. Or maybe it wasn’t him at all. Maybe it was me.
Hollowed out.
Wanting something more.
When, by every measure, I already had everything anyone could possibly wish for.