Page 49 of Claim

“Enjoy the afternoon.” He squeezed my arm. “Your brother’s very pleased you came.”

And with that, he turned away. Conversation closed. Position taken. Consequences already in motion.

Wolfe knew I was on Razor’s case.

Not because the paperwork had travelled. It hadn’t. Everything had been done properly. Above board. Conflict checks observed. Walls maintained. Until the day I walked into that prison visiting room, there had been no contact between us at all. No calls. No messages. No overlap that could be challenged or traced.

In theory, that should have insulated me.

It didn’t.

This was too fast. Too precise. And too deliberate to be gossip. Wolfe hadn’t stumbled across the information. He’d gone looking for it. And once he’d found it, he’d chosen exactly how, and when, to deploy it.

He’d told my father.

Ordinarily, that would have meant very little. A raised eyebrow. A whispered warning. The sort of knowledge living in the realm of reputation management rather than real threat. But Wolfe didn’t traffic in ordinary knowledge. He trafficked in leverage. And that made the unease settle properly, cold and unwelcome.

Wolfe knew enough. More than he should have, given how carefully I’d kept the lines clean. Not just that I was involved. But why that involvement mattered. How it reached beyond procedure. And how it would hurt to have any other outcome than the one I was ensuring it would get.

But the question wasn’t how he knew.

It was what he intended to do with it.

And who he planned to destroy in the process.

chapter nine

Razor

I knew it was stupid.

I knew I was acting like some fucked-up, sentimental cunt.

But whatever.

I lay on my back on my top bunk, one arm tucked under my head, the other holding the card up in front of my face. The light was thin; the early morning sending in a weak grey leak through the mesh and bars. It was enough to make out the lettering. To trace it with my thumb.

Tristan Hale-Fitzroy.

Barrister.

Embossed. Clean. Raised as if meant to last.

I’d turned that card over more times than I’d slept.

There’d been a lot of fortunate shit since the night I’d met him in that alley and thought he was a rent boy. I’d been stabbed. His mate had been a doctor. He’d tipped me off about a quiet sting that helped me scrub my gear off the streets I was trying to take back. He’d dragged Billy Amos out of a mess that would’ve killed him and dropped him into Lennon’s gym instead. Might’ve saved that kid’s life. His family’s too.

And yeah. There’d been the other part. The part I didn’t pretend hadn’t mattered. Him in my bed. In my arms. Letting me see things no one else ever had.

A lot of accidents. A lot of things lining up.

But this?

Him on my case. Sitting across from me in a prison interview room with a file open and my name typed inside it. That wasn’t an accident. That was a circle closing.

I didn’t know if I wanted it.

They’d said it was my call. I didn’t have to agree. And the sensible thing, the thing I should do, was say no. Keep him clean. Keep his name out of my dirt. Not drag him into my shit that would stain him in ways money and polish didn’t wash off. Nor turn whatever we were into a transaction. Client and counsel. Liability and risk. I should want him far away from this. From me.