Page 40 of Corrupt

I wasn’t prepped for this. Not any of it.

She leant in again, whispering. “You see him?”

I kept my eyes forward, bouncing the baby on my lap. “Yeah.”

Keeley studied me with those big eyes of hers, still soft in ways the world hadn’t beaten out of her yet. Fifteen when she had Maisie, sixteen now and not so sweet as it should be. She’d had her childhood cut ten years short. Raised half by the streets and half by our mother too wrapped in her own demons to raise anyone. She wore clothes and makeup making her look older, tougher, as if she belonged in a sixth-form common room or a uni bar, not retaking GCSEs when she could find the time.

But underneath all that armour, she was still a kid.

A kid whose baby daddy was staring down a stretch in prison. Adult prison.

“He look scared?” Keeley looked straight ahead as she asked, as if she couldn’t bear to really know.

I swallowed. Darren’s face behind the glass, hard and cocky around the edges, had haunted me all night. That flicker underneath. The bit that knew this wasn’t a youth wing he’d swagger through. This was grown-man time.

“Everyone looks scared in there.” I made a face at Maisie as she pulled on my nose. “Even when they’re fronting.”

Keeley chewed her lip, mascara flaked at the corners of her eyes. “His mum can’t afford no proper brief. Not one of them posh ones, anyway. The ones who get you deals and stuff.”

Tristan’s voice drifted back then. Explaining some section-something of fucking SOCPA as if the law was a puzzle he could solve with enough coffee.

“Plea deals aren’t really a thing,” I heard myself say, then quickly, “But I’ll sort something.”

Keeley’s head whipped round. “You always say that, Rich.” It came out half-hope, half-accusation. “You ain’t God. You can’t fix court. Nor him keeping his big mouth shut.”

“Didn’t say I was fixing it.” I swiped a bit of drool from Maisie’s chin. “Said I’d sort something. I know people. Might be someone can talk to his brief. Make sure they don’t hang him for more than he did.”

“He did enough.” Keeley adjusted the bow on Maisie’s bald head. “But he’s still her dad.”

The baby chose that moment to grab a fistful of my shirt to jam in her mouth as if trying to eat her way out of this whole mess. Keeley watched us for a second, a crease cutting through all that teenage armour. “You’ll really try, yeah?”

My throat tightened. “Yeah, Kee. I’ll try.”

I had no idea what that meant. Try what? Fix it? Smooth it over? Pretend it wasn’t already spiralling? All I knew was that whatever I did would land me right back where I always seemed to end up—wedged between loyalty and survival, and the immovable force of Cormac O’Rourke.

Darren wasn’t just some idiot runner who’d got greedy. He was my sister’s boyfriend. Father to my niece. Family, whether I liked it or not. But he’d still crossed the line. He’d walked into a rival crew’s territory with the Firm’s secrets sitting heavy on his tongue. In any other circumstance, that would’ve been the end of him.

Clean. Quiet. Permanent.

Maisie let out a loud gurgle. Proper echo-y, wet. And the sound shot up into the rafters, bouncing off the high ceiling so sharply it spun every head in the first few rows. Lennon looked back first, eyes focusing on me, steady and unreadable. Amara turned too, her smile small and sweet. Lennon then gave a single nod, tight and heavy, and turned away again, back to the picture of his brother glowing in the candlelight.

And a flash, a punch of memory I didn’t go looking for, stabbed me in the chest.

That night Levi’d kissed me.

I’d known I was into fellas long before that. Had the usual scraps of experience, tucked into shadows and never named. But Levi… that was different. I was eighteen, him seventeen, staying over at his house after some late-night FIFA tournament gone to shit. Lennon was out cold on the mattress beside me, snoring. I got up to take a piss and nearly walked straight into Levi coming out of the bathroom. Half-asleep, half-smiling, leaning on the doorframe as if he’d been waiting for me.

We had a moment. And he was close enough I could smell the mint on him. Then he kissed me. It weren’t clumsy. Nor even hesitant. Nah… he was sure. Surer than either of us had any right to be at that age. And Jesus, it hit different. Hit deep. Made the ground tilt under my feet in a way messing around in shadows never had. After that, it stayed exactly where he left it. Out of sight. Behind closed doors. Never a relationship, nothing anyone could point at. Pretty sure he was seeing others too. Didn’t matter. We pretended it wasn’t anything.

I swore I’d learnt my lesson.

That I’d never let myself slip or let something small turn into something that could swallow years of my life.

But here I was, staring at a picture of the boy who taught me exactly how fast that could happen, and knowing I felt the beginnings of it again. That stupid tug under the ribs. The one that doesn’t listen to logic. Doesn’t care if I’ve already been burnt.

I didn’t want to believe it.

Didn’t want to admit it.