Page 2 of Corrupt

Shame.

“A glass of Macallan Rare Cask,” he said loud enough for people to overhear the brand name. “And the sirloin. Rare. Still bleeding.”

The server nodded, then turned to me. “And for you, sir?”

“Same.” I liked things that bled. I handed back the menu to the server and gave her a wink. “Cheers, love.”

She blushed. Trotted off and would probably pass on to all her friends how much she enjoyed working here when I was in. See, The Velvet Lounge was my prize. Not on paper. Couldn’t be on paper. But the ink didn’t matter.

It was the cash running quiet I owned.

Every night, the tills skimmed themselves in coded colours, bagged and sealed before dawn, handed to a courier no one knew and everyone feared. By breakfast, those bags had turned into consultancy fees, cleaning contracts, or half a dozen shell companies scattered across Soho like litter after Carnival. By the time the cash hit the accounts, even I couldn’t trace it back to powder. That was the design. Cards and phones were for people who trusted systems. For people who wanted convenience, not silence. Digital money left footprints. Timestamps, locations, patterns. Cash didn’t. Cash was mute. Cash didn’t ask where it’d been or what it’d touched before it arrived.

In my world, cash was still king because it was the only thing that couldn’t betray me. And no one came through those doors without paper in their pocket. No chargebacks. No frozen accounts. No algorithm deciding something looked suspicious at three in the morning. Cash went in dirty and came out clean, if you knew how to move it. And everyone who mattered did.

So by the time the lights dimmed and the music swallowed the room, everyone knew whose place this was. Not because it was written anywhere, but because in the drugs business, cash still meant loyalty, discretion, and survival.

Elliot Crane handled the daylight. Did the smiling for the licensing bods. Shook hands with the police liaison. Signed the forms with his “just a humble businessman” routine. But every server, cleaner, and bouncer worked double shifts. One for the club, one for me. Half the staff didn’t even know the other half were mine. That was the point.

I was the reason the bottles flowed. The reason the doors stayed un-kicked. The reason nobody bled out on my dance floor unless I’d decided it was useful.

Tonight wasn’t pleasure, though.

Tonight was business. High-stakes, clean-shirt, don’t-fuck-it-up business.

And where we were on The Mezzanine was where the real work lived. Thick glass, low light, line of sight on everything. I didn’t do deals in cars anymore, smoke curling past steamed windows, fingers tapping a steering wheel while I weighed up whether someone needed teeth or time. Up here it was crystal and plush and a better brand of liar. The whole restaurant pulsed around us, gold and red and black, a living organ I’d wired myself to. Michelin starred food, and all. Top chef. Banging grub.

Just wished they’d fill the fucking plate.

The server returned with a bottle of whatever whisky he’d ordered and three glasses, the spare one for the bloke sitting quietly on a stool at the private bar. Niall Doyle. He read his phone, glass cradled in one hand, eyes lifting only when necessary. Those eyes belonged to Cormac. His second in command. He didn’t look muscle, but he had a madness people underestimated because he never raised his voice. Tonight, his job was simple: watch me work, decide whether Cormac’s trust to elevate me even higher was smart money, and figure out if I could talk as well as I could pound a man into the ground.

And into a mattress.

They didn’t need to know the last part.

I’d dressed for the part, though: dark jeans clean enough to count as tailored, polished boots, black shirt open to show enough ink and remind them I wasn’t born in boardrooms. And that long leather jacket I couldn’t seem to give up. I was still a poison bottle, but I came with a nicer label now.

“I must admit…” Trentham lifted his glass, gesturing towards the main restaurant through the pane of tinted glass. “I didn’t expect sophistication on this scale. I’m glad you invited me to see you in your new habitat. Clean lines, impeccable service… you’ve certainly elevated the brand.”

He tried to hold my gaze as he said it. Testing whether the dog bites or just bares its teeth.

Elevated the brand.

Translation: I’d stopped selling wraps out of stairwells and now supplied people who pretended powdered poison didn’t count as illegal if plated next to a scallop and a glass of something French they couldn’t pronounce.

Chianti? Cianti? Whatever.

I pulled my mouth into something between a smirk and a dare. “Yeah. What they want is to feel safe while they’re breaking the law.” I tapped my finger against my glass. “I give ’em that.”

Doyle’s glass clicked softly against the table as he set it down. Could’ve been approval or a warning. Trentham didn’t clock it. And I ignored it. If they wanted to use my skill set, they’d have to learn I didn’t bow to anyone.

A server arrived with a tray of tiny, delicate things. “Courtesy of Mr Crane.”

He put down the sort of poncy hors d’oeuvre costing a fortune that wouldn’t feed a family of four. Funny how that worked: in my tower block, people queued at a food bank for a tin of beans meant to last all week, and here they paid through the nose for a mouthful of rocket they left on the plate.

Whatever. Can’t say it didn’t sting. But I was over it.

I got down to business. “What you after from us?”