Park Chinois, Berkeley Street, Mayfair
22:04 – May 11th, 2026
The restaurant hummed with expensive restraint.
Old money pretending not to notice new money.
Mayfair girls pretending not to stare at rappers they absolutely recognised.
Men in tailored suits discussing investments over lacquered duck while drill tracks played quietly in chauffeured cars waiting outside.
Everything in the room was performance.
And Trey Croft understood performance better than most people realised.
He moved through the restaurant slowly beside Stephanie, one hand resting lightly against her lower back as they headed toward the exit. Calm. Controlled. Never rushing. Never looking impressed.
The kind of composure money couldn't teach.
The Patek Philippe Nautilus on his wrist caught the candlelight as he helped her into her coat.
Not flashy.
Just expensive enough that the right people noticed.
Trey noticed several tables watching him discreetly.
A footballer near the back.
Some influencer girls whispering.
A pair of suited businessmen doing the subtle double-take people did when street reputation collided with luxury environments.
Because even here
Even in Mayfair
People knew who Sosa was.
Not everyone.
But enough.
Twenty-two years old.
Hackney born and raised.
London Fields.
Leader of his age group since seventeen.
Shooter.
Trapper.
County lines runner turned organiser.
The police believed he was connected to multiple shootings across East London and Tottenham. They knew about the drugs. The kilos. The lines stretching outside London. But knowing and proving were different things.
And Trey had always been careful.
Witnesses forgot things around him.
Phones disappeared.
Stories changed.
Cases collapsed.
That was the streets.
But the streets weren't the only reason people knew him.
Music had put his name outside Hackney.
Features with Headie One.
Studio sessions with K-Trap.
Links with Clavish and Youngs Teflon.
Not full industry yet.
But close enough that people in London nightlife recognised his face before they recognised the danger attached to it.
And underneath all of it—
Underneath the chains, watches, enemies, girls, violence, and reputation—
Was the thing Trey almost never let himself think about anymore.
His voice.
Not rap.
Not drill.
Singing.
Real singing.
The kind that made rooms go quiet.
The kind teachers talked about years later.
The kind that once had an exhausted music teacher in Year 9 staring at him like she'd just discovered buried treasure in a Hackney classroom.
"You understand," she'd told him once, "that people spend entire lifetimes searching for what you naturally have?"
At fifteen he'd stopped going music club.
At sixteen he caught his first case.
At seventeen he stabbed someone over a postcode argument that barely even mattered anymore.
Life moved.
Dreams got left behind.
That was normal where Trey came from.
"Come on then," he said quietly to Stephanie.
She looked up at him knowingly.
"That tone again."
"What tone?"
"The one where you stop pretending you're listening to anything I'm saying."
Trey smirked slightly.
"I listened."
"What did I just say then?"
"…Don't know. But you looked good saying it."
Stephanie burst out laughing.
"You're actually shameless."
"True."
She shook her head but stayed close against him as they stepped outside into the cold Mayfair rain.
Rain hammered against Berkeley Street in violent bursts, streaking the neon lights of Mayfair across the black paintwork of Trey Croft's Range Rover like blood sliding down glass.
Park Chinois was still buzzing behind him. Wealthy tourists. Footballers. Rappers. Girls dressed like they belonged on yachts in Monaco instead of standing in the cold London rain.
Trey barely noticed any of it.
His attention was on Stephanie.
On her laugh.
On the way that black dress wrapped around her body like it had been stitched onto her skin.
Fuck…
He smirked to himself as she slid into the passenger seat.
"Why you smiling like that?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
Trey leaned against the open door slightly, diamond bracelet glinting beneath the streetlights.
"Cause when we get back to yours, I'm violating you."
Stephanie burst out laughing. "You're actually disgusting."
"You knew that already."
"Mhmm."
She bit her lip slightly before shaking her head. "You got one thing on your mind."
Trey looked down at her thick thighs crossing slowly beneath that dress.
"One thing only."
She rolled her eyes but she was smiling.
That smile almost made him forget what kind of life he lived.
Almost.
Trey shut the passenger door gently.
And that instinct hit him immediately.
Years in Hackney had trained it into his bones.
Something was wrong.
The street behind him had gone too quiet.
Not silent.
Just… wrong.
Trey's eyes shifted subtly toward the reflection in the Rover's tinted windows.
Movement behind him.
Fast.
Purposeful.
Hood up.
Right arm low beneath jacket.
Everything slowed instantly.
Street instincts took over before conscious thought caught up.
Gun.
He turned sideways immediately, trying to reduce his profile.
The shooter raised the handgun.
Muzzle flash exploded against the rain.
BANG.
The bullet slammed into Trey's upper chest.
Pain detonated through his body like a sledgehammer.
The force spun him violently sideways into the Rover.
Stephanie screamed inside the car.
BANG.
Second shot.
Lower.
Hot.
Wrong.
Trey stumbled backwards.
And then he saw the shooter's face clearly beneath the hood.
Marcus.
Pembury yute.
Nineteen at most.
One of the youngers tied to old beef.
Eight months ago one of Marcus' boys got shanked up and put in hospital after trying to move reckless around London Fields.
People had been waiting for retaliation ever since.
Looks like tonight was collection day.
Trey was already falling.
But years in the streets had burned certain reflexes deeper than thought.
His Glock 19 came out smooth from beneath his jacket.
Not flashy.
Practiced.
Professional.
Because Sosa had survived this long for a reason.
Marcus rushed forward trying to finish him before Trey could recover.
Too late.
Trey fired three times while collapsing.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
The first shot caught Marcus in the forehead.
The back of his hood exploded red instantly.
The other rounds tore through shoulder and chest as his body folded violently onto the pavement.
Dead before he hit the ground.
Trey hit the pavement a second later.
Rainwater mixed with blood beneath him.
The world became distant around the edges.
People screaming now.
Someone shouting for an ambulance.
Stephanie scrambling out the car.
"Trey! TREY!"
Her hands pressed against his chest desperately.
Blood soaked through her fingers immediately.
"Trey stay with me please please "
He could barely hear her properly anymore.
Everything sounded underwater.
But he looked at Marcus' corpse lying nearby and a weak grin pulled at his mouth anyway.
"At least…" he coughed blood slightly, "…I packed him too."
"Trey stop talking oh my God someone help!"
People were gathering now.
Phones out.
Nobody getting too close.
Typical London.
Trey barely heard them.
His thoughts were drifting already.
They ain't putting me on no fucking memorial page alone.
That mattered more than it should have.
But street reputation was poison like that.
Then another thought hit him.
Damn.
A painful little laugh escaped him.
All that ass…
And he wasn't even gonna make it home tonight.
He almost laughed.
Because genuinely
The thing annoying him most right now?
He wasn't making it home tonight.
All that food.
All that wine.
Stephanie looking like that.
And now he was dying in the rain outside a Chinese restaurant in Mayfair.
Life was ridiculous.
His breathing became shallow.
Warmth spread through his body strangely.
Not warmth.
Blood loss.
Stephanie was crying over him now mascara running down her face.
Trey stared upward toward the London skyline.
And suddenly memories started surfacing.
Not dramatic.
Not cinematic.
Just fragments.
Estate staircases.
Sirens at night.
His mum shouting at him for fighting.
Music rooms after school.
His boys hyping him up after freestyling.
Girls staring the first time they heard him sing properly.
Teachers saying he had a once in a generation voice.
Studio engineers going silent after recordings.
And then
Drugs.
Violence.
Money.
Loyalty.
Revenge.
Pride.
The streets wrapping around his life tighter and tighter until everything else disappeared underneath it.
A younger version of himself surfaced somewhere deep in his mind.
Fifteen years old.
Headphones on.
Singing because he loved it.
Before reputation became survival.
Before carrying guns became normal.
Before people started calling him Sosa more than Trey.
I could've really done this music ting properly…
That thought hurt worse than the bullets.
Then another thought arrived immediately after.
Still…
His eyes drifted toward Stephanie one final time.
Would've been nice to take her home first though.
Darkness swallowed him whole.