Page 99 of Crave

I let the silence do the work. Cormac hated being rushed. Hated panic more. He liked men who could breathe through the squeeze and talk strategy, not nerves. So I sipped my coffee as if I’d been born to stall.

“And you know this how?” Cormac lifted his mug to his lips, not yet believing what I was saying.

I shrugged. “I’ve got someone.”

Cormac’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? Have you now? Little insider intel, eh? You got a nice bit of skirt feeding you crumbs from the high table, have ya? Let her stitch you up while we waited around with our thumbs up our arse, eh? How nice. Moist cunt, was it?”

He was baiting. Wanted me to flinch. To dish the dirt. I didn’t give him either. Instead, I laid it out clean and quick, no room for holes nor for Cormac to fill them.

“If you want a plan that gets Ghost locked up, his gear gone and us taking over without a shred of a trace to us, then listen.” I sniffed, rubbed my nose. “We pull every man off the patch.” I was right back in my lieutenant mode. Might have failed school. Might have more cloth between my ears than anything else. But this? I knew how to do this. “Tyler cancels pickups. Tell the kids the stock’s gone off, no runs for seventy-two. Move our stash out of Bethnal Green to the safe unit on Roman Road. Double locks, Tyler’s crew only. Burners rotated. Any phones that have touched Ghost get crushed and SIMs shredded. New burners distributed on a strict need-to-know. Cash moves through runners, split in three: one third in a courier drop to relocate when it’s cold, one third in cold wallets, one third for wages and expense. No bank draws, no paper. Everyone signs for nothing.”

His face changed while I talked. The maths settling like coins in his head. Money speaks to him the way it does to the upper classes, too.

“We make Ghost look like the lone dog left in the fight.” I leant forward, prodding my finger on the table. “He’s the one with product on the street, with vans and phones pinging his yard. The Feds roll in clean, headlines run hot, his lot gets taken. He disappears. We step in quiet. You don’t need a war to take turf. You need the silence after a busted crew. Run it tidy: micro drops, keep price tight for a month to lock heads in, then squeeze margin back up. Fifteen to twenty thousand new punters on Roman Road and Bethnal Green inside two weeks if you run it sharp. That ain’t guesswork. It’s supply and demand when one supplier goes loud and the other goes soft.”

Cormac leant back, smile curling. He laughed then nudged the heavy next to him. “You hear that? Razor’s got friends in the right places. Got himself a little worm in his ear.” The laugh cut off like a switch. His eyes snapped to mine. Dead. Pale. Precise. “Who you got inside, lad?”

I didn’t answer. Some things you keep behind your teeth the way you keep a round in the chamber. Ready, loaded, never shown.

Cormac clucked his tongue, amused or irritated, hard to tell. “She must be one beautiful fuck if this is true. And if it is, she’ll come in handy, eh? Add her to my collection of corrupt soldiers in suits.” He stood, buttoned his jacket. “I’m gonna go wash my hands.”

No, he wasn’t. He was going to scrub any trace of us from his skin. Civilian words. Criminal meaning.

“Do this right, Razor,” Cormac met my stare, prodding a finger on the table, “and maybe I’ll make sure you’re standing when the chairs are handed out.” He flicked a tenner on the table, the gesture insultingly casual. “And if you don’t… I’ll find a place for you to lie down.”

Carrot and blade.

If it goes clean, I get my slice.

If it doesn’t, I don’t get to stand at all.

“Oh, and your little sister?” He buttoned the last clasp on his coat and I clenched my jaw so tight I felt a crack. “She needs a place, don’t she? That baby needs a nice garden to toddle around in when she finds her feet. And your mum could use some space of her own. You do this right, Razor, and you can offer them both better than a knock off buggy.”

Promise or threat?

Same difference.

I watched him go, the room shrinking with every step he took towards the door. When it closed, the air thinned, and everything tasted like metal. Coffee and fear grinding on my tongue. Tristan’s voice came back to me, soft as a ghost: You don’t owe them your life.

Maybe not.

But I owed Keeley hers. And Maisie’s. And my mum the chance to claw hers back.

And I owed Levi something I could never give him. A cleaner line, a way out for the ones still stuck in. I just hoped to fuck Tristan had been right.

I looked over at Tyler. “You found Darren yet?”

He shook his head. “No, boss.”

“Fuck.” I curled my hand into a fist, knuckles burning. Darren. My weak spot. Still missing and tied to me and Ghost both. “Keep looking.”

“And if we find him?”

“You lock him down.”

Tyler grinned, rubbing his palms together as if I’d handed him gold. Then he left. I took another sip of coffee, bitter to the last drop, and caught Joe watching me from behind the counter.

“You trust this?” he asked.