Page 66 of Claim

I pinched the bridge of my nose, breathing through it. “Yeah. She’s right.” My voice went rough. “Thank you. For taking her. How is she? And Maisie?”

“Scared. On edge. Misses her big brother.”

“I miss her too.” My throat burnt. “And I want to be there. For her. For Maisie. For you. For your boys. I want that, Len. I want it so fucking bad.” Tears slipped free. I wiped them away with my sleeve, furious at myself. “I want to get this right.”

A faint beep cut in. The warning tone.

“Please, Len.”

There was a breath on the line. A long one.

Then the beeps started their countdown.

“Len?”

The line clicked dead.

I slammed the receiver back into its cradle. Hard. “Fuck.” Then punched the wall. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I rounded on the guard before he could stop me. “I need another call.”

“No. You’re done.”

Fuck.

They marched me back to seg, cuffs biting, limbs heavy, every step echoing. And somewhere between the corridor and the steel door, the decision settled in me—solid, undeniable.

I had to get out.

Of here.

Of the firm.

Of everything that had shaped me, owned me, corrupted me from the inside out.

Nothing good ever came from poison.

Not even the pretty kind.

* * * *

Tristan

The twenty-four hours since I’d left the prison passed in a blur of discipline and denial.

I’d written the attendance note in the car before the image of Razor’s injuries had time to settle properly in my mind, documenting swelling and blood and the precise language of segregation as if accuracy alone could contain it. I’d forwarded it to Mercer with a single word in the subject line—urgent—then gone straight back into court, standing on my feet through two procedural hearings as though nothing inside me was splintering.

That night I cross-checked the original bail refusal, annotated the CPS objections, and drafted a briefing note for Imogen, stripping the emotion out and leaving only the risk. Risk created by the state, risk it had failed to manage. And yet, even pared down to black-and-white argument, my heart beat hard behind my ribs.

It probably didn’t help that I’d done all of it wearing Razor’s black shirt again.

By morning, I was running on coffee, adrenaline, and the thin, dangerous line between professional detachment and something far more exposed as I walked back into chambers, ready to argue for a man I wasn’t supposed to care about at all.

The moment the door closed behind me, Imogen gestured to the chair opposite her desk without looking up from the papers she annotated. “Talk to me.”

Mercer was in there, too. Seated to my left, laptop open, glasses perched halfway down his nose. He gave me a brief nod.

I sat. “Richard Slade was moved to a different wing two days after our initial conference.” I began with the most concerning update. “Without explanation. The stated reason was ‘operational necessity.’”

Imogen paused her writing. “And?”