Page 32 of Corrupt

My fault. I should have left straight after Darren’s hearing. And yeah, I could pretend I stayed back to “arm myself with knowledge,” to get the lay of the land for when the kid went inside. But the truth?

It was all Tristan.

Everything lately drifted his way.

Rush-hour traffic was a bitch, crawling through London at a pace making me want to put my fist through the steering wheel. By the time I swung into the Velvet Lounge, the doors were open. Lights on. Music leaked out onto the pavement. Not ideal. Not when I wasn’t inside to oversee and Tyler had already told me I had a visitor waiting. So I shunted the car into my space out front and made for the staff entrance, taking the stairs two at a time, pushed into my office and walked into my nightmare: Cormac O’Rourke sat behind my desk.

Not in the chair opposite. Not pacing the room. Behind my fucking desk.

Doyle was in the room too. Parked on the sofa, legs crossed, pretending to read the Metro as if today’s headlines were more interesting than my impending execution. He didn’t look up. He turned the page with those thick fingers of his, the ones having broken more noses than I’d had birthdays. If Doyle was here, it meant Cormac wasn’t taking chances.

Tyler hovered by the open door, giving me a look that said I was in deep shit. Properly deep. At least I was in a suit today and not that too-small T-shirt from the other night. Small mercies. I was already funeral-smart.

Cause my first thought when I walked in?

They’d been watching CCTV.

They were about to pull up footage of me pressed against Tricky, easing into him, fucking him fast and filthy, loving every goddamn second. And if that was what they’d seen, well… First cover there’d be a new dish on the menu. Razor à la Tartare.

“Boss.” I nodded, keeping steady.

Cormac didn’t look at me. He kept his eyes on the bank of CCTV monitors. Restaurant floor, club entrance, VIP stairwell. Watching my territory as if it were his. Which technically it was. But the way he sat there…It felt as if he was weighing something. Turning it over in his mind like a coin he might toss.

Heads, I lived.

Tails…

And even though I was ninety-nine percent sure I’d avoided every camera the other night, Cormac could have ones I didn’t know about. Hell, Doyle probably installed half of them. The thought prickled down my spine. Had someone gone behind my back? Had Elliot run straight up the chain to tell Cormac I’d ordered that prick Wolfe thrown out? And Wolfe being someone that I should probably know, meant the people in this room did know.

My stomach tightened.

Because if that was the case… this wasn’t a meeting. It was an evaluation.

And I knew how evaluations went in this world.

Finally, Cormac spun in my chair, one lazy turn to look me up and down. Same old face. Same thick-rimmed glasses framing dead, calculating eyes. Same ginger hair and stubble, going greyer by the minute. Same mad bastard smile.

“You’re late,” he said.

And, fuck me, the room suddenly felt far too small.

“I had court,” I said. “For Darren—”

“I know where you were.” His voice was so calm it made my lungs contract.

I stepped further into the room. “Everything alright?”

Cormac’s stare sharpened. “I got the highlights of last night.”

My pulse thudded once. Hard. But I kept my face still. Last night could mean anything. Plenty happened. Better to wait than to walk into the wrong trap.

Cormac spun lazily in my chair, eyes drifting back to the CCTV monitors. “Thirty percent is a decent price.”

I sifted through the mental chaos, found the right thread. Ah. The Trentham deal. The new supply chain for his Shoreditch joints.

“Should give us a tidy sum, yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck, then immediately dropped my hand, remembering how Tricky’s fingers had been there earlier. “Or, well… give you a tidy sum.”

Cormac grinned. “Indeed, laddo.”