Page 110 of Claim

The world tilted and the cold, sickening sensation of the floor vanishing under my feet had me reeling. I snapped my head round. Heart detonating. Blood roaring in my ears so hard I could barely hear my own breath.

“You think I didn’t know?” Cormac tutted again. “You know I don’t tolerate bad gear. You know that. But I’ll use it, Razor. I’ll use anything if it gets me what I want.” He tilted his head. “And letting that go out through you, to get rid of your dirty little liability? That put you exactly where I wanted you. In my pocket.”

I clenched my fists, so ready to swing.

It wasn’t rage.

It was the realisation that none of it had been chaos. None of it had been a mistake, or a lapse, or a crossed wire. I hadn’t been failing his tests. I had been passing them. Every ugly choice. Every compromise. Every time I’d told myself I was containing the damage, keeping people safe, managing the fallout, he’d been counting on it. And every instinct screamed to close the distance. To hit. Break. Make this real in a way words weren’t.

“Then you beat your second to a pulp.” Cormac widened his eyes, loving reliving every shitty choice I’d ever made. “That was some entertainment.” His smile faded as quickly as it came. “Do it again or you’ll stand there and watch Doyle do it. And you know how he likes to play with his food before he eats it.”

Doyle chuckled behind Tristan, metal rasping on metal as he dragged a blade along stone, sharpening it, letting the sound do the work.

So I dropped my head.

My breath came thick, ugly. And I counted. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Then I lifted my chin and did what I had to do. I gave in. Gave Cormac a small nod. His smile came easy. Satisfied. And he stepped aside to let me through.

I walked to Tristan.

Doyle tracked me with the knife loosely in his hand, and I met his gaze. Held it. Long enough to still him. To let him know Razor was in the room. Then I cupped Tristan’s chin in my hand, lifting his face up, brushing my thumb over his lips so he knew it was me. My taste.

“Richie, please…” My name shook apart in his mouth.

It nearly undid me.

But the thing is…men like me, we learnt young. And I learnt the hard way how to let pleas slide off. How to make my face go blank and become what men like this needed me to be, right until the moment they stopped watching closely enough. Like I’d said before, you only need the threat of violence to get men to comply. And moments like this were all spectacle and theatrics. You had to make them believe you would do it.

“Sorry, baby.” I could feel his pulse hammering under my fingertips, frantic, alive. “So fucking sorry.”

I reached past him to the tools and as I closed my hand around the metal pole, my hand stopped shaking. As it always did in these moments. When Richie shut down and Razor took over, allowing me to do what I needed.

Which was to draw my arm back and swing.

Hard. Short. Efficient.

The pole cracked into Doyle’s temple with a sound like wet wood splitting. And at the same time, I kicked up the front legs of Tristan’s chair. He hit the ground with a grunt as Doyle went down in a spray of blood, his body folding wrong, head snapping sideways as he crashed into concrete. Then I spun and hurled the pole at Cormac. He had his gun cocked, aiming at me and the pole struck his forearm mid-raise. He fired anyway.

Bang.

I dropped and rolled, the shot tearing past where my head had been as concrete scraped my skin, gunfire thundering above me. Another shot shattered wood. Then I came up low and fast, launching myself at Cormac before he could reset his stance. I drove my shoulder into his gut and took him down hard. The gun skittered away. So I slipped out the plastic shank from my pocket and drove it into his side.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

I screamed as I did it, too. All the rage and resentment I’d kept buried for too long ripped out of me untamed. I stabbed him until his struggles weakened, until his breath turned wet and panicked, until my fingers were raw and bleeding.

Then—“Rich…”

The call of my name barely reached me. Yeah, it was thin. Broken. But I wasn’t Richie then. I was Razor and Razor don’t listen to no one. Not when he’s head down in violence.

Then the voice pulled me back again, like a hook through the ribs. “Richie, please. I need you…”

I froze.

Turned.