Page 101 of Claim

More likely, I decided, this wasn’t about exposure. It was pressure. Another line of approach. Wolfe, reaching for me through the one person he knew still had access. A reminder of where I stood, and where I was expected to remain.

Stand down.

Steer the case.

Encourage a guilty plea.

Let Razor do the time his superiors wanted him to do. Let him vanish quietly and allow the world to continue exactly as it always had. Drugs moving, money flowing, Wolfe’s pockets lined and clean.

I took my time before replying.

Because whatever this was, rushing would only give it shape.

I’m sorry I can’t be there. You’re correct in your assumption. For now, I think it’s best we maintain clear boundaries. I hope your treatment continues to go well. T.

I didn’t add a kiss. Or soften it with anything unnecessary. My father had never had patience for that sort of thing, but the bluntness felt abrasive once I’d sent it. Particularly given his health.

Still, I’d made the choice.

Not only was I waiting for my time with Razor, but now also my family.

I dropped the phone face-down onto the chaos of papers spread across my coffee table and turned back to work. Drafts. Notes. Authorities. The law had always been reliable in that way: it absorbed attention without judgement. It asked for precision, not feeling.

So I let it take all mine.

My father’s message hadn’t been the only correspondence over those four weeks. Lennon kept me informed on the other side of my life. Nothing overt. He never crossed the boundary I’d drawn by putting Razor on the phone to me. But sometimes the updates read dictated rather than relayed.

Razor was complying. Meticulously.

He stayed out of Hackney and every other postcode he’d been barred from. He made no contact with anyone from his former life, apart from phone calls to his mother and sister. No names, no shadows, no mistakes. He did exactly what he’d been told to do: stayed put.

And in doing so, he made himself useful.

Lennon reported the practicalities with faint disbelief. Razor had become their live-in handyman. A cabinet built from scratch for the boys’ room. The bathroom plumbing finally fixed. Amara’s list tackled from top to bottom. Painting, paving slabs laid in the garden, a swing set erected with the care usually reserved for structural integrity rather than children’s joy. It sounded exhausting. Prison might have felt simpler.

The thought made me smile.

And then, inevitably, it made me ache.

Because every line told me the same thing: he was trying. Not Razor. Not the man they’d built a case around. But the man I’d spent that weekend with in the Chilterns. The one I was hopelessly in love with. Strip away the name, the reputation, the violence, and what remained was him. Richie. Good in a way that didn’t belong in any of this.

But there was danger in what he was doing. Maybe he knew that. Because he wasn’t only sending a message to me, but to his superiors. And to Lord Wolfe. He wasn’t negotiating. Wasn’t folding. And whatever the formalities were still to come, Richie Slade was not going down quietly. He was walking away from the Firm and refusing to take the fall for them.

And if he wasn’t backing down, then neither was I.

So by the time the Plea and Trial Preparation Hearing came around, I was a determined wreck.

I arrived early. Habit. Control.

Crown Court always carried a particular atmosphere at that stage of proceedings. Less spectacle than a trial. More tension than preliminaries. This was where cases stopped being theoretical and calcified. Where lines were drawn without ceremony, but with consequence.

I took my place behind counsel’s row in gown and wig, files tabbed, notes memorised rather than read. I told myself, again, that this was procedural. That I’d stood in courtrooms like this before. That I knew how to compartmentalise. This was any other hearing.

Then Imogen arrived. Gowned. Composed. And leant into me. “Good.” She glanced at my files and nodded. “You’re on your feet for this.”

“What? You’re not—?”

“I’ll be there.” She squeezed my shoulder. “But this is your hearing. Your client. Your strategy. And Tristan, whatever happens today, keep it procedural. We do not perform. Do not react. We let the court do its job.” She peered at me over her lashes. “Can you do that?”