Epilogue Razor
Epilogue
Razor
Two months later
The Wick flat didn’t feel like mine.
Too big. Way too new. And far too quiet.
It was a place meant for someone who’d made something of himself, not someone who’d bled his way up the ladder.
But Cormac had tossed me the keys as if it were a reward, and refusing wouldn’t have been smart.
So here I was. Top floor of a converted warehouse overlooking the canal, exposed brick, steel beams, open-plan everything.
It echoed when I breathed. When I moved.
When I let myself think too long. It was the hipster end and I had to pretend I belonged here.
Didn’t matter. I wasn’t here to live.
I sat behind a cheap desk I’d dragged up three flights of metal stairs, papers spread, burners lined in a row, ledger open.
Tyler had done the rounds already, sent the runners home, locked up the stash.
We’d moved so clean that even I couldn’t trace half the routes without a map.
The money was piling faster now. Bundles boxed up under the desk. Crisp. Anonymous. A number on a page.
Cormac’s number.
I kept the chair angled so I could see the entire room.
Front door, windows, balcony. Habit. Survival.
Paranoia. Whatever word made it sound less pathetic.
The clock on the wall blinked past midnight.
Somewhere below, the canal lapped against the walls, slow and thick, carrying bits of bottle caps and cigarette butts downstream. London’s bloodstream.
My phone buzzed. The real one.
Tyler.
“We’re squared, boss. Stock’s moved. Wick lock-up’s sealed. New runner’s decent. Don’t talk much.”
“Good.” I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Anyone sniffing around?”
“Not today. Place is dead.” A pause. Then, quieter, “You should see Keeley’s new garden, bruv. She’s got one of them plastic slides for Maisie. Proper posh.”
My chest tightened. “She alright?”
“Happy as fuck.” He cleared his throat. “Your mum too. Keeps saying she don’t know what she did to deserve it.”
She didn’t deserve it. She deserved more.
A life that wasn’t built on violence and back rooms and boys dying young.
But this was all I had to give her. A nicer flat with central heating and a view of a quiet road, bought with the promise that I’d keep working for the man who’d gutted a lieutenant and fed him to pigs without blinking.
“Good,” I said. “Tell ’em I’ll come by tomorrow.”
“You fancy coming round? Shanice is here. Says she’s up for a bit of you.”
“Not tonight, mate.” I hung up. Didn’t know what else to say. I’d run out of excuses to not fuck his girls’ mates.
I leant back in the chair, letting the quiet swallow me.
This was what I’d traded for safety—distance.
I saw my mum less. Keeley too. I dropped off money and boxes and the occasional takeaway, then left before anyone could ask how I’d paid for it.
They knew how, of course. But I never wanted them to look at me too long.
Cause then I’d remember what it felt like to want something better.
And that was why I hadn’t been round Joe’s for a while either.
Nor seen Lennon. It was intentional. Because he was the last person who still looked at me and saw Richie.
But Richie didn’t exist anymore.
A soft tap echoed off the warehouse door. Two knocks, pause, one knock.
Cormac’s code.
I stood automatically, spine straightening, jaw clenching. Habit again. The body remembering what the mind didn’t want to.
I opened the door.
Cormac stepped in like the place belonged to him, because it kinda did, shaking rain off his coat, the smell of cigarettes and cologne drifting in with him. He looked around, amused.
“Christ, Razor. Could at least pretend you’re enjoying the high life.” He flicked a finger at the bare walls. “Get a bloody lamp. Or a plant. Something green that ain’t mould.”
“Don’t need décor to run a line.”
“No.” He wandered toward the whiteboard, hands in his pockets. “But it helps convince the neighbours you’re not storing severed heads.”
He smirked at his own joke. I didn’t.
His eyes moved over the board. Routes, initials, stash codes, payments due. My handwriting. My organisation.
“My boy’s got a head for this.” He chuckled, low and knowing. “Didn’t expect that. Thought you were only good for muscle.” He flicked his gaze back at me. “And knew your way around a razor blade.”
“Wasn’t aiming to impress.”
“Yet here you are.”
He tapped a burner with one knuckle. It buzzed. He raised an eyebrow, waiting.
“Answer it,” he ordered.
I did.
Kyan’s voice crackled through, my most reliable runner. “Drop complete. No heat.”
“Good,” I said. “Dump the SIM. Walk the long way home.”
Cormac watched the whole thing. Studied the ease. The command. The way I didn’t flinch anymore. And when I hung up, he smiled.
“Upstairs like you.” He adjusted his glasses. “Think you’re steady. Smart. Loyal. That last bit’s rare.”
My throat tightened.
He stepped closer, close enough so I could feel the cold dripping off his coat. “There’s talk of shifting more territory your way. Maybe a seat at the table. Shoreditch. Soho. Clubs. Wouldn’t give that kind of graft to a coward.”
“I’m not a coward.”
“No.” He pinned me with his gaze. “You’re something worse. You’re useful.”
He said it like a blessing. Like a threat. Like both.
I didn’t move.
Cormac gave the room another long look, as if measuring the empire I didn’t want but had already built.
“You’re not some street kid anymore, Razor.” He slapped my cheek. “You’re running a third of my borough. You’re the man they fear when they hear footsteps. You keep it tight, keep it quiet, we’ll have this fucking city by the throat.”
My pulse hammered. Not excitement. Not pride.
Resignation.
I had climbed so high I couldn’t see the ground anymore.
“And your sister…” Cormac headed for the door. “Tell her the garden’s being done next week. Swings. Fence. Proper place for the little one.”
My jaw ticked. “Thank you.”
He paused, turning back. “Don’t thank me. Earn it.”
Then he was gone, door slamming shut, echoing through the steel and brick until the whole place felt hollow again.
I walked to the balcony, shoved it open, stepped into the cold.
London stretched out. Orange, blue and white lights danced across the canal, against the broken teeth of rooftops.
Somewhere out there, Tricky breathed the same winter air as me.
Probably studying. Or pretending to. Probably drinking expensive wine from a crystal glass.
I wondered if he thought of me. If he’d seen the headlines. If he’d guessed what I’d done. What I’d become. If he hated me for it. If he still ached the way I did.
Stupid.
Dangerous.
I lit a cigarette, the flame trembling in the wind, and drew the smoke deep until my lungs burnt.
This was my life now. A kingdom of lock-ups and ledgers.
Streets belonging to me only because someone more powerful allowed it.
A family rehoused with blood money. A flat with too many empty rooms. A leash disguised as a crown.
Welcome to the top, lad.
Cormac’s voice echoed in my skull.
I took another drag, eyes burning as the city blurred into streaks of colour.
This wasn’t the top.
This was the point where there was no fucking turning back.
And I’d chosen it.
For them.
For survival.
For the ghost of something I’d lost the night I’d left Tricky’s bed. He deserved someone whose tomorrow wasn’t a coin toss. And I… I didn’t even know what tomorrow looked like.
So I exhaled smoke into the freezing air.
Then went back inside to keep the machine running.
To be continued in…