Page 25 of Corrupt

‘Uncle Rich’ hadn’t been welcome for a long time.

Might never be.

“They’re good.” For a heartbeat, he was the old Lennon. The one who’d once been my brother. “You should consider it.”

“Babies?” I snorted. “Get enough of that with Maisie. Kid’s nearly crawling now.”

“Yeah. Amara sees her down at some stay-and-play in the church hall.”

I nodded, my gut twisting. “Funny how life goes full circle, right?”

Lennon turned fully towards me. “Why you here, Rich?”

I hesitated, then let it out. “Darren’s hearing.”

“Come to support him, have ya?”

“You know as well as I do, he deserves nothing but a cell. He was handed a dozen outs. Took none. Didn’t spare a thought for Keeley or that baby. And he sure as fuck didn’t spare one for me.” My voice dropped. “I’m here to rectify his thinking.”

“You’re here to threaten him. Don’t dress it up.”

I exhaled. “And if I go down, what happens to Kee then?”

Lennon’s expression shifted. Pain, anger, something darker. And I glanced back through the glass as Tristan finished speaking to some bloke in a suit, shook his hand, and walked off towards another courtroom. Lennon caught it. Caught me watching.

Caught too much.

“I’m gonna give you one chance right now.” He turned back to me. “One chance to speak. And I’ll forget every fuck-up between us long enough to listen. To be your mate. Your fucking conscience, if I have to. Like when we sat on the tower rooftop, thinking the city’d be ours. When we talked shit that mattered and shit that didn’t.”

My chest tightened. The cracks under my skin splitting wide.

“I’ll listen to you.” He stepped closer. “The same way you listened to me when I told you I was in love with Monica and you had to break it to me she’d been screwing Jerome behind my back. I’ll be that ear for you. If you want it.”

Want it?

Christ. I wanted nothing more than to sit with Lennon again and talk until the sun came up. To fix whatever was left between us. Go back to being idiots on rooftops before the world carved us into pieces. But how the fuck could I? Not standing here. Not with the things I was doing, the reasons I was here, with guilt crawling up the back of my throat. And not when half of what I felt was a mess, and the other half I didn’t know how to say out loud.

I looked down at the concrete, trying like fuck not to break open in front of him.

Lennon dropped his voice to a knife’s whisper at my ear. “You think you’re a big man, yeah? Razor ruling the street with his fists and gear.” He tutted. “But I know Richie. And Richie’s a big fucking coward.”

My head snapped up, eyes locking with Lennon’s as if he’d grabbed the back of my neck and forced me to look.

“Say it,” he said, voice low, steady, impossible to dodge. “And maybe I’ll think otherwise about you. Might think you have a heart.”

“Len…” The word scraped out of me, rough, too close to pleading. I’d never done that with him before. I didn’t want him tearing me open here. Not where anyone could see the fucking mess inside.

He snorted. “Don’t worry, Rich. I know anyway. He did it for you.”

A jolt hit me straight in the ribs. “What? Who?” How and why would Tristan tell Lennon about me. About him. Maybe even Levi?

Lennon glanced back at the building where Tristan had disappeared, then turned to me. “He came to me. When he thought you were dead.”

My stomach dropped. The world lagged half a second behind his words.

“What…?” I managed. How would he even know…?

“Like you said, life’s full circle. And if you’ve got one ounce of care left in you, you’d stay the fuck away from him. Looks like he’s got a life. A decent one. A moral core. Don’t gut that out of him.”