Chapter Twenty Razor #2
Cormac’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? Have you now? Little insider intel, eh? You got a nice bit of skirt feeding you crumbs from the high table, have ya? Let her stitch you up while we waited around with our thumbs up our arse, eh? How nice. Moist cunt, was it?”
He was baiting. Wanted me to flinch. To dish the dirt. I didn’t give him either. Instead, I laid it out clean and quick, no room for holes nor for Cormac to fill them.
“If you want a plan that gets Ghost locked up, his gear gone and us taking over without a shred of a trace to us, then listen.” I sniffed, rubbed my nose.
“We pull every man off the patch.” I was right back in my lieutenant mode.
Might have failed school. Might have more cloth between my ears than anything else.
But this? I knew how to do this. “Tyler cancels pickups. Tell the kids the stock’s gone off, no runs for seventy-two.
Move our stash out of Bethnal Green to the safe unit on Roman Road.
Double locks, Tyler’s crew only. Burners rotated.
Any phones that have touched Ghost get crushed and SIMs shredded.
New burners distributed on a strict need-to-know.
Cash moves through runners, split in three: one third in a courier drop to relocate when it’s cold, one third in cold wallets, one third for wages and expense.
No bank draws, no paper. Everyone signs for nothing. ”
His face changed while I talked. The maths settling like coins in his head. Money speaks to him the way it does to the upper classes, too.
“We make Ghost look like the lone dog left in the fight.” I leant forward, prodding my finger on the table.
“He’s the one with product on the street, with vans and phones pinging his yard.
The Feds roll in clean, headlines run hot, his lot gets taken.
He disappears. We step in quiet. You don’t need a war to take turf.
You need the silence after a busted crew.
Run it tidy: micro drops, keep price tight for a month to lock heads in, then squeeze margin back up.
Fifteen to twenty thousand new punters on Roman Road and Bethnal Green inside two weeks if you run it sharp.
That ain’t guesswork. It’s supply and demand when one supplier goes loud and the other goes soft. ”
Cormac leant back, smile curling. He laughed then nudged the heavy next to him. “You hear that? Razor’s got friends in the right places. Got himself a little worm in his ear.” The laugh cut off like a switch. His eyes snapped to mine. Dead. Pale. Precise. “Who you got inside, lad?”
I didn’t answer. Some things you keep behind your teeth the way you keep a round in the chamber. Ready, loaded, never shown.
Cormac clucked his tongue, amused or irritated, hard to tell. “She must be one beautiful fuck if this is true. And if it is, she’ll come in handy, eh? Add her to my collection of corrupt soldiers in suits.” He stood, buttoned his jacket. “I’m gonna go wash my hands.”
No, he wasn’t. He was going to scrub any trace of us from his skin. Civilian words. Criminal meaning.
“Do this right, Razor,” Cormac met my stare, prodding a finger on the table, “and maybe I’ll make sure you’re standing when the chairs are handed out.” He flicked a tenner on the table, the gesture insultingly casual. “And if you don’t… I’ll find a place for you to lie down.”
Carrot and blade.
If it goes clean, I get my slice.
If it doesn’t, I don’t get to stand at all.
“Oh, and your little sister?” He buttoned the last clasp on his coat and I clenched my jaw so tight I felt a crack.
“She needs a place, don’t she? That baby needs a nice garden to toddle around in when she finds her feet.
And your mum could use some space of her own.
You do this right, Razor, and you can offer them both better than a knock off buggy. ”
Promise or threat?
Same difference.
I watched him go, the room shrinking with every step he took towards the door. When it closed, the air thinned, and everything tasted like metal. Coffee and fear grinding on my tongue. Tristan’s voice came back to me, soft as a ghost: You don’t owe them your life.
Maybe not.
But I owed Keeley hers. And Maisie’s. And my mum the chance to claw hers back.
And I owed Levi something I could never give him. A cleaner line, a way out for the ones still stuck in. I just hoped to fuck Tristan had been right.
I looked over at Tyler. “You found Darren yet?”
He shook his head. “No, boss.”
“Fuck.” I curled my hand into a fist, knuckles burning. Darren. My weak spot. Still missing and tied to me and Ghost both. “Keep looking.”
“And if we find him?”
“You lock him down.”
Tyler grinned, rubbing his palms together as if I’d handed him gold. Then he left. I took another sip of coffee, bitter to the last drop, and caught Joe watching me from behind the counter.
“You trust this?” he asked.
I stood, dropped a tenner on the table. “Don’t have the luxury not to.”
I was halfway to the door when Joe called after me. “Who is she, then?”
I turned. “Who?”
“This bird. The one patching you up, feeding you intel?”
I smirked, pushed the door open. “Don’t kiss and tell, Joe. You know that.”
“Well, it’s nice to know you’re kissing,” Joe called after me. “Might give you a reason to survive all this.”
I said nothing. Walked out into the rain.
Cause my reasons to survive were for more than a pretty face.
* * * *
Can’t say the next couple days were easy, though.
Fuck no.
Turning out gear without anyone noticing, keeping the runners off the street when that’s the only way they earn bread?
Jesus. It was chaos. We paid them a small wage to sit tight, enough to keep lights on and mouths fed.
Pulled every gram off the street. Moved it under the radar.
Tyler put a man we trusted on the lock-up, had him circle the yard every hour, eyes sharp for watchers.
Hardest part? Letting everyone think we’d lost.
Ghost thinking he’d won.
Word went out that we’d folded, that the line had dried.
Told the runners not to engage, no matter what deals Ghost dangled.
There’d be payback later, better rates, safer work.
And anyone who talked would regret it. That’s how we survived this game.
Keep the noise down, keep our circle clean.
Tyler wanted numbers. Kids begging. I wanted loyalty.
It’s why I’d told him no kids on our payroll.
Kids were flaky. They went after the cash.
I wanted runners and dealers who didn’t ask questions and would bleed before they talked.
Bet he could understand that now.
So we waited.
Then I stayed in. Babysat Maisie so Keeley could get a kip.
She even went out to see a mate, got some chicken, went to the cinema.
And I cooked dinner for Mum. Sausages. Mash.
Put peas on the plate for old times sake.
And we watched some old film on telly, laughed in the right places. Like normal people. A proper family.
Then just after midnight, sirens tore through the city, echoing off glass and concrete.
I left mum half asleep on the sofa to go out to the balcony.
From there, I watched the blue lights pulse against the storm clouds, breaking right where I’d told Cormac it would.
Hours I’d been waiting. Smoke, rain, the city holding its breath.
Then my phone buzzed.
“We’re good, boss,” Tyler said, voice crackling through the line. “Stash safe. Money untouched.”
Relief hit so hard it left me dizzy.
“—Darren got lifted.”
That cut clean through me.
“He was running for Ghost.”
For a second, everything stopped. The kettle. My pulse. The world.
I cut the call. Destroyed the phone. Then lit another cigarette.
Might have saved the Firm. But I’d lost blood.
Same equation. Every time.
I’d cleared the line. Scrubbed every trace tying me to Ghost. And still, there it was. A crack I couldn’t fix. A name leading back to mine. The papers would call it a victory. Cormac would call it profit. But all I could think was how the price always came in faces I knew.
Keeley came home then, looking almost half normal. She rested her head on my shoulder. “There’s a bit of bother over the Green.”
“Yeah.”
“You know about it.”
I took a drag of my cigarette. Said nothing,
“Darren ain’t coming home, is he?” She peered up at me with eyes too big for her face.
I kissed the top of her head. “Sorry, Kee.”
“Is he dead?”
“Not by me.”
She rose on her toes and wrapped her arms around me. “You’ll always be here for me, right?”
I shut my eyes, smoke burning the back of my throat. “Course I will. Always.”
Behind us, the baby started crying.
Keeley slipped down from me and rolled her eyes. “Never ends.” Then she ducked back inside, Mum’s voice following, shouting about the mess in the living room.
I stayed where I was, fag burning low between my fingers, staring out across the city. Lights flickered over tower blocks, flashing red off cranes and windows. Somewhere out there, he was.
Tristan.
I wondered if he’d see the news. If he’d recognise what he’d done when he did. What we’d done. If he cared, or if he was just glad I was gone from his world for good. Half of me wanted to pick up the phone, thank him for saving my skin. The other half wanted to find him and shake him for it.
That half also wanted to kiss him. Fuck him.
Keep him.
My phone rang, the real one, before I could get stupid. I flicked the fag over the balcony, watched the spark fall into the dark, then answered. “Yeah?”
“Congratulations.” Cormac’s voice, dry as dust. “Word from upstairs, you just earned yourself a promotion. Comes with a place out by the Wick, and another for your sister and the baby. Garden, even. Bit of green for the new boss man.” He paused. “Take it you accept my conditions?”
The line hissed with distance, and I felt the leash tightening, velvet-wrapped and gold-tipped. Freedom, they’d call it. Power, maybe.
But all I could think was how every step up sank me deeper.
I looked out over the city again, smoke still stinging my lungs, listening to my mum and Keeley fighting for space. The baby crying.
“Yeah,” I said. “I accept.”
I didn’t need to read the terms. I knew what they were.
And just like that, I was locked in.
Bought. Owned.
Standing taller than ever, yet halfway to the fall.