Page 28 of Corrupt

“What’s the difference?” Razor kept worrying his lighter instead of actually lighting the cigarette wobbling dangerously between his lips.

“I’m still in training. I don’t choose clients. I go where chambers send me. Duty cover. Bail hearings. Youth lists. Whatever needs a warm body in a suit. Billy’s case came up, and I got handed the file ten minutes before walking into court.”

Razor cut me a glance. Sharp, searching, as if taking apart the words to see what lay underneath. “Does he pay you? His mum can’t afford that.”

“No. It’s legal aid or pro bono. Most of the people I represent don’t pay anything. That’s what pupils are for.”

“Pupils?” He snorted, rough and incredulous. “Thought you were some kind of Master?”

“I quit the Master’s.” I watched the city through the window. Buses, neon, the crush of commuters. “I’d already been called to the Bar before I enrolled, so I could apply for pupillage.” I looked at him. His blank expression told me none of that meant a thing. So I simplified it for him. “I’m in training. Which basically means I get paid less than minimum wage to shepherd terrified kids through a system designed to chew them up.”

Razor huffed. “Thought you were rich.”

“I am. Or… my family is. I float on the surface of it. I get an allowance. Technically, from a trust fund my grandfather set up, practically from my father. And my flat’s theirs, so I don’t pay rent. That’s the only reason I can afford pupillage while earning less than minimum wage.”

Razor’s lighter clicked. Once. Twice. A threat of flame.

“But none of it’s really mine. It’s money with strings. I get a cushioned landing and the big payout at thirty if I stay in line. Follow the rules.”

Click. Click. Click.

“Are you going to light that?” I pointed at the lighter. “Or give it a panic attack?”

Razor gave me a devastating stare, then flicked the flame, hovered it by the cigarette, inhaled deeply, and tossed the lighter onto the dash. Smoke curled out the open window, sharp and warm in the car.

I used to hate smokers. But right then, it was an aphrodisiac.

Maybe I was drawn to poison.

“What rules?” he asked through the smoke.

“I have a long list.” I dropped my head back onto the rest. “And one of them I’m breaking right now.”

Razor took another drag, gaze cutting to me sideways. “Bank of Mum and Dad has a clause about you not fucking drug dealers, eh?”

“Pretty much.”

He swore under his breath. Low, angry, maybe hurt, then jerked the car down a side street, away from the traffic and pulled over in a quiet gap between tall, terraced houses, engine humming low, the whole vehicle vibrating with that same restless, pent-up tension rolling off him.

He didn’t look at me. He kept chugging on that cigarette, holding it between his two fingers, exhaling through the window before finally throwing the butt out. The air between us thickened with smoke, breath, sweat, and nerves. As if the car itself knew what was happening inside it.

“We really are from different worlds.” He bowed his head.

“Yeah.” I looked back at him. “We are.”

But the space between us didn’t feel wide right then. It felt impossibly small. Heavy. Charged. As if the truth were inching its way to the surface. Razor’s grip on the wheel loosened, and he turned his gaze on me. My heart stuttered. Because behind those eyes, the ones that had captured me that first time down a dark alley, sat fear. Confusion. All the things he didn’t let anyone else see. I thought he was going to bare his soul to me, and I was unsure if I was ready for it.

I’d absolutely take it, anyway.

So it was a small mercy when instead he asked, “What’s a SCOPA reference?”

I blinked. Taken aback. “Sorry, what?”

“Section something fucking something SCOPA. Seventy-four, whatever the fuck.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “You mean SOCPA?” I studied him, the tension in his shoulders, the way he wouldn’t quite look at me. “S-O-C-P-A.”

“Don’t need you to spell it, pretty boy. Need the meaning.”