Page 14 of Crave

Not my saviour.

And as Ollie jumped out the fire escape, trying to salvage the wreckage of his things, I knew I wouldn’t stay caged in this room. Not tonight.

Freedom smelt of sweat and brick dust.

And I craved it.

Chapter FOUR

Razor

By morning I’d driven half the borough twice over, the Audi eating up wet streets, cigarette ends piling in the ashtray. I couldn’t decide whether to dump the gun in the canal or keep it close. Both options made me sick. So I ended up here, outside the greasy spoon, engine ticking as the sun dragged itself up grey over Hackney.

The place crouched on the corner where two estates met, all peeling paint and frosted windows fogged with grease. Steamy Joe’s Café, though no one ever called it that. It was just the caff. A heartbeat in the middle of concrete. The smell of fried bacon bled into the cold, lights buzzing tired behind glass. Inside, everything was sticky with history: cracked vinyl booths, laminate tables slick with oil, mugs sweating onto saucers. The walls wore years of nicotine and gossip, and the lino had been scrubbed thin by the same boots still coming and going.

This was neutral ground. My word made it so.

No beef through the door unless it could be fried and plated.

On the surface, it was builders and cabbies, mugs of tea and fry-ups. But everyone knew the back booth by the toilets was where the real orders got placed. Bag drops, burner exchanges, transfers wrapped in napkins and passed under plates. The caff ran smoother than half the high streets; it was where street gear turned back into clean cash, where packages came in courier bags, and where messages moved quicker than WhatsApp ever could. The fry-ups fed the workforce, but the back room kept the trade alive.

Old Joe ran it. Once, he’d been crew. Muscle on the line before me. Did nine years inside, came out on tag, and landed back here, “rehabilitated.” Stupid system. Drop a man back into the same postcode that made him and expect change. That’s why I was stuck too, cause where the fuck could I go? Not that I was new anymore. Twenty-six in this life was halfway to retirement. And retirement usually meant a box in the ground. Still, I was young enough to make sure no one forgot the caff had protection, and old enough to know why it mattered.

Joe knew the rules. Keep it quiet, keep it clean, don’t bring heat through the door. I gave him cover when he needed it. He gave me the one place I could think three steps ahead without a gun to my back. Everyone used the caff. Dealers, couriers, even a few bent posties and coppers. Money came in greasy notes, went out clean through the till. No one looked twice. Because in Hackney, a place smelling of bacon and diesel could hide anything.

Even a kingdom.

I killed the engine and carried the box in with me, tucked it under my arm like dead weight. The bell above the door rang, and the warmth hit me, frying oil and burnt toast. A few old heads hunched over newspapers, and a pair of binmen in high-vis finished their fry-ups before shift change. Behind the counter, Joe glanced up. He’d lost all his hair, but his forearms were still thick from years inside where lifting was the only pastime. He’d done his time, walked away, and somehow kept hold of this café as his last empire. Joe had respect you couldn’t buy.

“Razor.” He nodded once. No smile, just that. “You look like you’ve been chewing glass.”

I slid into my usual table by the window in the corner, dropped the box at my feet, and let my head hit the cracked vinyl. “Tea, Joe. Strong.”

He brought it without a word, dark liquid in a chipped mug, steam rising between us. He leant on the table, gaze finding the box. “That supposed to be in here?”

“Probably not.”

He was right. I shouldn’t have brought it in. But I couldn’t sit in the car any longer, staring at it, trying to decide. If I’d left it in the boot and the filth pulled me over, and in this borough that was likely, I’d be banged up before I could blink. Wouldn’t matter whose it was. Or if my prints were on it or not. Possession alone would get me locked and bolted. But I couldn’t dump it either. Because guns were escalation. Guns were my hard no. And one had landed in my home. Where my niece suckled on milk not far off.

That wasn’t chance.

It was a message.

And I’d heard it. Loud and fucking clear.

I nudged the lid open an inch. The glint of steel said enough.

Joe whistled. “Christ.” He scraped a palm over his bald head, skin shiny under the strip light, tattoos crawling up the back of his neck. The crossed hammers inked there weren’t just West Ham pride; they were a warning, a relic from when football was an excuse and the real game was splitting skulls in firm wars. His way of saying fuck off without opening his mouth. “What you doing with that, eh?” He nudged his chin. “That’s asking for trouble.”

“Not mine.” I snapped the lid shut. “Tripper.”

Joe’s face soured. He slumped into the chair opposite, the wood creaking under him. “Fuck. You know what that means, don’t ya?”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Joe’s voice dropped, gravel and winter. “Once that comes out, it don’t go back. Knives and fists? That’s street rules. Guns? That’s war. Cops get hungry, papers get loud. Everyone wants blood. You hold that, Razor, you ain’t just keeping your patch. You’re inviting Ghost to drag you into the gutter. You want them calling you ‘Bullet’ instead? You got your name for a reason.”

I swept my hand across my face, tasting the stale tobacco on my fingers. He wasn’t wrong. People loved the story. A teenager with a cutthroat razor blade, a rival cut clean, name stuck. Razor Slade, merciless, slabbed in headlines and street chatter. Few bothered to hear the rest. Truth was messier. I was fifteen when the prick my mum had been seeing tried to take advantage of her. She was out of it on bottle and something darker; Keeley had been slapped about and locked in the next room, small and scared. And he was over Mum, hands around her throat, telling her to take it or he’d use Keeley instead. I didn’t stand there and wait for charity or coppers. I grabbed the cutthroat razor he’d left in our bathroom from his last stay here and sliced his face with it. Because it was that or watch my mum breathe her last and the fear that my sister could have been next.