Page 84 of Corrupt

I nodded, even as my gut twisted.

Unwittingly, she was training me for what I didn’t want to admit I might one day need to do. To stand up and argue that a man accused of organised crime had been misread. That the story around him was built on inference and fear rather than fact. That he deserved to be seen as he was, not as the worst version of what people assumed.

And the truly terrifying part?

I wouldn’t be making that argument to a judge. I’d be making it to my friends. My family. My father. Another flashing sign, as if I needed one, that whatever had happened with Razor had to end.

It couldn’t survive the light of those rooms.

I swallowed, forcing the words out through the tightness in my throat. “I’ll draft something.”

“Good. And Tristan?” She peered at me over her glasses. “Keep your head. You look… elsewhere today.”

Elsewhere? Yes.

I was everywhere but where I needed to be.

A man I shouldn’t care about had vanished from my life. My father was ill. Wolfe was messaging me as if I were a piece on his board. And here I was, preparing to stand up in court and argue that people weren’t always what the Crown said they were.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

It hurt, actually.

But I got through it.

Surprisingly well, if I’m honest. Imogen even gave the faintest nod of approval, which in our chambers was the equivalent of applause.

And the week went on.

Wednesday, I met Henry for a drink in a bar in Chiswick. Let him talk. Let him pour out his misery about ending things with Zara, which he insisted was necessary for reasons even he didn’t seem to fully understand. I gave him the right consolations, nodded in the right places, and pretended my insides weren’t scraping against bone. He didn’t know I was drowning in the same ending. No idea I was grieving something I’d never been allowed to name.

So I kept it shut and we discussed Father instead. That did the trick. Henry immediately shifted into rational-medical-comfort mode, quoting studies and remission statistics as if reading from a holy text, assuring me there was an excellent prognosis. It didn’t help. But I appreciated the intention.

I checked my phone on the way home. Two messages from Wolfe. Ignored. None from Razor. Of course.

I went to bed feeling hollowed out.

Court weighed down the rest of the week, and by the time Friday came, I was grateful for the reprieve of going to The Royal Marsden in Chelsea, a specialist cancer hospital smelling of money and hope, though not always in that order. Private wings, quiet corridors, soft lighting designed to make distress look tasteful.

My father had always bought the best. Even now.

I walked the sterile hallways towards the treatment bays, shoes tapping too loudly against the polished floors. I hovered at the curtain for a moment, steadying myself, bracing for whatever I was about to see.

Then I slid it aside.

My father looked up.

And for a moment, I didn’t recognise him.

Angled slightly in the recliner, shirt collar unbuttoned, cuffs folded back with deliberate neatness, the cannula taped into the back of his hand, saline ticking through the line with mechanical patience, the colour had drained from him. His jacket lay folded over the adjacent chair as if he intended to put it back on at any moment. As if this were temporary.

But he looked smaller.

Not physically, but as though the essential qualities that had made up my untouchable father had been quietly shaved away. The sharp edges I’d grown up orbiting had blurred. Authority softened into something almost fragile.

I hated that softness.

Hated that I could see it.