Late November, 1998

The streets of Glenmuir were slick with cold rain, the kind that seeps into your shoes and settles deep in your bones. Lee Maciver sat on a crumbling concrete step behind the housing blocks, his knees tucked up to his chest, jacket zipped all the way to his chin. He wasn’t crying. Not anymore. He’d run out of tears two nights ago, the moment they zipped the black bag closed over his mum’s body and wheeled her out like she was nothing more than a problem solved.

She’d died with a half-smoked cigarette in her hand and a glass bottle smashed on the floor. No note. No parting words. Just silence, and the bitter stench of her absence.

At eleven, Lee had already learned not to expect softness. Life had scraped most of that out of him early. But death—it scraped what little was left. No family. No money. No plan. Just him and a flat that smelled like mildew and a mattress that wasn’t really his. The social worker told him he’d be placed soon. But in the meantime, he wandered. Watched. Listened.

And eventually, he said yes.

The man who offered the deal didn’t look like anything special. Cheap leather jacket. Cold eyes. But his words were simple. Direct. "Want to make some money, kid?" Lee didn’t ask questions. Didn’t need to. A week later, he was making runs. Passing off envelopes. Learning faces, names, codes. Numbing himself to what it all meant.

December 3rd, 1998 Lee Maciver dealt his first proper package. Tucked into the pocket of his too-big hoodie, he carried someone else's escape down damp alleyways and through back doors. The man paid him fifty quid in cash. Said there’d be more. Said Lee was smart. Said he’d go far.

Lee didn’t believe him.

But he kept the money.

Early September, 2007

The rain still came down in Glenmuir the same way. Cold. Relentless. But Lee wasn’t the same boy anymore. Nineteen now, all sharp jaw and sharp eyes, with a leather jacket slung over broad shoulders and a cigarette forever tucked behind his ear. His helmet rested on the seat of his motorbike, boots damp from walking the edges of town. He had cash in his pocket and bruises on his knuckles. A few more tattoos on his skin. And no illusions left.

He still lived in the flat. Still kept the lights off most nights to save on bills. But now it was his name on the door. No one else’s.

People knew his name in whispers. Knew what he did. Knew not to ask too many questions. He didn’t run for anyone anymore. They came to him. Trusted him. Feared him, maybe. It was all the same.

But at night, when the streets emptied and the buzz of engines faded, he sometimes stood at the back door of the same building he used to cry behind. Same broken step. Same bricks, just more crumbled now. He lit a cigarette with steady hands, blew smoke into the wind, and stared at the space where his mum used to sit—legs crossed, eyeliner smudged, telling him stories she barely remembered.

There were no more stories now.

Just silence. And the weight of every choice he'd made to survive her absence.

Some nights, he swore he could still hear her laugh. Other nights, all he could hear was the echo of the boy he used to be—too small, too scared, and too willing to trade his childhood for a few folded notes.

He never took his helmet off at races. Not because he was scared. Not because of the law. But because the anonymity made it easier. It let him pretend, just for a moment, that he wasn’t that boy anymore. That he wasn’t a dealer. Or a ghost of someone’s son.