Chapter Sixteen Razor
chapter sixteen
Razor
Cormac’s voice followed me out of Joe’s like the stink of chip fat.
His threat about my mum and sister lodged deep, a splinter I couldn’t dig out no matter how hard I tried.
Ironically, they were the reason I’d got myself tangled in this shit to begin with, all to keep them safe.
To have a man like Cormac standing between my family and the wolves meant no one would dare touch either of them again.
But that’s the thing about this life; it always comes with a collar.
I’d known it from day one: the same people who shielded me could strip safety away in a heartbeat.
And Cormac? He never let me forget who held the leash.
It didn’t matter how many rules I set, how I tried to run my line differently.
Fairer, cleaner, built on loyalty instead of fear.
I could dress it up like a business, tell myself I was better than the rest. But I still knew what sat above me.
And no matter how much respect I showed my people, it never travelled upward. Not in this game.
And to keep my family safe, and those under me safe, I had to fix this.
Hackney was slick with the same fine drizzle from the night before, hanging in the air to make everything feel close and claustrophobic.
And all I could see, no matter how hard I tried to look past it, was the way it had run down Tricky’s face when he’d asked me to fuck him.
The taste still lingered. Rain and want, salt and sin.
But that memory had to be parked. Locked up.
Back to the old rules.
No second times.
Certainly, no third.
The roads shimmered gold and grey, puddles reflecting the low clouds and the blue flick of a passing police car.
I stood there for a moment under the corrugated awning, listening to the city breathe.
Taxis, sirens, the clatter of cans rolling across the pavement.
The music that raised me was about to kill me.
I lit a fag, drew hard, and tasted copper where I’d bitten my tongue.
The first thing was to find out what Tyler had dug up while I’d been… otherwise occupied last night. I could tell myself it’d been for the good of the firm, some clever play to keep everyone sweet. But the truth was, it hadn’t been about the firm at all.
That had been my selfishness popping out for a while.
My stupidity.
Tyler picked up on the third ring.
“Tell me you got something worth hearing.”
“Yeah. Been watching Ghost’s lot down by the canal like you said. They shifted gear late. Two vans, no plates, rolled out from the lock-up near Roman Road. Had a few boys loadin’ boxes, but they weren’t the usual runners. Looked like heavy hitters. Out-of-towners.”
My gut tightened. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, they left someone behind at the warehouse. Big lad, shaven head. Didn’t do much, just stood there smokin’ and watchin’ the street. Felt off, though. Like they were expectin’ company.”
I stubbed out the cigarette. “They should be.”
“Want me down there?”
“Nah. Stay off-grid. If it’s bait, I ain’t draggin’ you into it.”
“Razor—”
“You know the drill if I don’t come back, yeah?” I cut him off before he could start talking brave.
“Yeah, but, fuck, Razor…I can handle this with you.”
“Tell me the drill.”
A beat of silence. Then, “Get your mum and Keeley out. Take the line. Keep it running until someone notices.”
“Good lad.” I flicked the cigarette butt into the gutter. “Now stay put.”
I killed the call and tossed the phone back in my pocket.
Then I opened the boot, lifted the floor panel by the corner I’d cut days ago and hooked my fingers into the tyre well.
The hoodie-wrapped box was still wedged beside the spare, buried under carpet and German engineering.
Hidden deep where only thieves or coppers with hours to waste would ever look. And no one wastes time on my car.
I pulled it free. The box felt heavier than it should.
Or maybe I was just sick of this part. The part where I pretended I wasn’t in too deep.
I opened it. The piece inside stared back at me.
A fucking lie in metal form. No weight. No soul.
No respect. Guns don’t make men. Guns erase them.
But Ghost didn’t care about men. He cared about territory.
And fear. So I loaded the mag and slid the weapon into the back of my jeans, the metal biting into my spine, a cold reminder of how far down the ladder this could drag me.
I slammed the boot shut before my second thoughts caught up.
Then I got in the driver’s seat, and when I started the engine, I caught sight of Lennon across the road. Working at a building site. Hard hat on, drilling away as if trying to build a life that’d outlast all this mess.
Fuck.
I hung my head. Tried to keep my conscience in check. To do that, I told myself another lie. What I was doing now was saving this shithole. Keeping Hackney under my authority would keep my family and his babies safe.
So I moved off and drove towards the canal.
I used the backstreets, avoiding every pothole and CCTV on instinct.
The sat-nav blinked uselessly. I knew these roads by pulse: the graffiti arches where deals went stale, the underpass where pigeons lived off dropped bags, the sugar-stinking bakery that’d been boarded since I was fifteen.
Ideally, I’d wait until night. The city compresses under dark.
Alleys fold into one another, the big roads fall away, and what’s left is raw and cheap and honest. That’s where deals get done.
But I also needed to see what was going in and out.
So when I got to the warehouse sitting squat against the water, brick eaten by graffiti, shutter pitted and half-closed, I found a gap in the line of parked vans and slid the car in.
Close enough to see movement but hidden by a girder and a heap of pallets.
I cut the engine and sat, radio off. Everything that could make me seen or heard was dead. I wanted to watch without being caught.
From here, the place looked smaller. A mouth in a wall, the shutter’s teeth closed enough to hide what was inside.
I kept the window cracked a finger so I could smell the diesel, wet rope, and faint copper of metal.
Then hood up, I reached into the driver’s door pocket and took the blade.
My real friend. Edge honed mean. Handle worn to the print of my palm.
A weapon that told the truth. And I slid it into the back of my waistband, angled reverse grip, right side.
Next to the gun. Warm next to cold. Me next to the lie.
My pulse eased. My mind sharpened. My world narrowed to the shutter and what waited behind it.
A silhouette moved. Cutting out of the warehouse, covered in shadow.
Then they turned and revealed a face I could pick out of a fucking lineup.
A kid walking like a man trying to look calm: shoulders square, hands in pockets, vape clutched in his grip like a prop.
He moved with a nervous energy I could smell.
My stomach turned over. That fucking kid had no idea how small he looked in a yard like this. A lamb trying to wear a wolf’s shadow.
My muscles tightened.
Darren.
Fuck’s sake.
What the fuck was Darren doing here?
He reached the gate, paused for a bit, then climbed up onto the low wall and stepped through the gap in the fence. He walked towards the shutter without looking up, head down as if practicing not-to-see. A van door thudded; someone laughed inside.
“Fuck.” I fished out my phone from my back pocket, the one I used for friends and family, and texted Keeley.
Where’s Darren?
Her reply came quick. College, y?
I tucked the phone away, then slipped out of the car, closing the door softly because noise travels like gossip here.
The cold hit me full force. Rain had started again, a thin sheet soaking through cotton and meaning business.
I moved low, keeping the short wall between me and the warehouse, the pallets my cover.
I stayed out of the strip light, only a shadow among shadows.
Darren had stopped by the shutter, glancing at his phone, then at the vans.
He took a drag off his vape and blew it out, trying for cool and missing by a mile.
The way his shoulders twitched told me he knew he shouldn’t be here.
So I crossed the yard, quick and silent, the ground sucking at my boots as if it wanted me to stay here.
But I reached him and caught a fistful of his hood, hauling him sideways into the alley between the warehouse and a stack of blue pallets.
“Ow — fuck!” His head cracked against the brick. Good. Maybe it’d knock some sense in.
I slapped him. Proper. “You at college, yeah?” I hit him again. “That’s for lying to my sister.” Then again. “That’s for lying to my niece.” I stepped close, breath hot in his ear. “What you get for lying to me depends on the next words outta your mouth.”
Darren’s lips trembled. He nodded.
“Why are you here?”
“They told me to come.” He practically squeaked as he rushed to get it all out. “Said if I helped it’d sort things. Said you were the reason I was in shit. Said they’d come for Maisie if I didn’t. I couldn’t— you took that piece from me, Razor!”
I let him go and stepped back, hearing how ridiculous it sounded even as it came out. “You stupid prick. Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Couldn’t find you, could I?” He tried a look, the one he’d learnt for bargaining. “They said they’d give me a job, yeah? Clear my debt. Get me a place. For me and Kee.”
I hit him again, then hauled him close by the hoodie until his face was inches from mine.
“You really that thick? You think Ghost gives out jobs? You think they hand out houses after they stab their kin for you? Do you know what you just offered on a plate? Do you know what they’ll do to her if you mess up and I’m not around? ”
Darren’s mouth opened, closed.
I answered for him. “They’ll do you too.”