Page 38 of Corrupt

“Tristan!”

I paused in the corridor, schooling my face before I turned.

“We must rearrange that dinner.” Wolfe crossed towards me with a smile. “I spoke with Elliot from the Velvet Lounge about my… untimely departure the other night. They’ve offered the Mezzanine VIP suite for us. How does Friday sound?”

I glanced past him to where my father stood by the bar, coughing again. Soft but persistent. He looked up enough to give me the smallest nod. He’d sent Wolfe to me or at least welcomed Wolfe’s advances.

“I’ll check my diary,” I said.

“I’ll send a car.” Wolfe squeezed my arm, then leant in close enough for his breath to ghost my ear. “They have a fabulous dessert menu.”

Didn’t I already know that?

He walked away without waiting for my answer.

And I stood there in the quiet, the party din muffled behind me, Wolfe’s touch ghosting my skin and my father’s cough echoing faintly across the marble, thinking, absurdly, how Razor’s world had been dangerous in a way I understood.

This one felt far worse.

Because it felt inevitable

Chapter Eight

Razor

Friday and Saturday were the usual shitstorm.

Restaurant heaving. Club rammed. My gear flowing out the doors as if I were handing out sweets on Halloween. Money rolled in faster than we could rinse it at the Velvet Lounge, which meant Monday had my name on laundry duty again. Standard.

Normally after a weekend comprising a couple of bust-ups, two evacuations, and one idiot threatening the bar staff over a tab, I’d crash all Sunday and let the world burn without me. Tyler had handled most of the aggro. I’d only stepped in when some punter got grabby with one of our girls. I don’t like men who think that because they’ve spent a few quid on overpriced vodka, it bought them the right to put their hands on women without asking. Obvious reasons, innit. So I sorted that one myself. And that bloke won’t be touching anyone, including himself, for a good long while now.

But, yeah, sleep didn’t happen.

Not with that big fuck-off bag of Pretty Poison crystals sitting in my Wick apartment, humming through the walls as if it had a heartbeat. Couldn’t take my eyes off it. Couldn’t shut my head up.

Or if I was honest, it was the vigil playing on my mind.

And on Sunday morning, I stood on my balcony in nothing but boxers, fag between my fingers, looking out over the canal, wondering why I’d agreed to it. Early-morning quiet stretched across Hackney Wick in a way that felt wrong on a Sunday. I tried to psyche myself up, the same way I did before walking into a fight knowing I was gonna take some hits. Cause Lennon inviting me…? That was a test. I knew it. An open door he didn’t have to offer. But stepping into that church meant facing every single person I’d left behind when I traded the estate for nicer walls and a view of the canal.

I flicked the cigarette butt out into the air, watched the ember fall into water as dark as tar, and went inside to get dressed. In black. Easy choice. It was mostly what I owned anyway. From black hoodie and jeans to black shirt and jeans. No thinking required.

Then, I got in the car and drove.

Hackney grew familiar the deeper I went. The estates, the barbershops, the chicken shops that never closed. All those places I’d walked past a thousand times with Lennon at my side and Levi half a step behind. Roads that should’ve felt small but now felt too big.

St John’s rose ahead of me, lit from below by those old yellow floodlights making the stone glow as if the whole place breathed. Big arched windows. A tower watching over Mare Street. The wide stretch of lawn where kids used to race their battered bikes and aunties would park themselves on benches for half the afternoon, gossiping and keeping watch. I used to cut through here on the way home from school. The place always looked too holy for boys like me.

Today, it looked worse.

Cars lined the pavement shoulder to shoulder. People crowded the steps. Warm, trembling gospel chords spilt out of the open doors, carrying on the thick summer air.

My stomach twisted.

But I’d come this far.

I killed the engine and thought about wrapping myself in the leather, but it was sweltering hot, so I left it and walked towards the one place holding the one person I didn’t know how to face:

Levi.