𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐟𝐞

Thomas Michael Shelby watched the sun rise through the net curtains hanging from the impossibly large window in his home office. 

The sun got caught in the sliver of smoke that rose from the cigarette in his right hand, a china cup of Earl Grey brought in by a maid whose name he didn’t bother to learn remained untouched in front of him. 

He absentmindedly thought he should remind the maids that he didn’t need anything in the morning. Other than a cigarette, or three.

These days he didn’t need much to function, really. Just a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of whiskey and perhaps some brown opium; to keep him calm.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Tommy knew that the random gaps in his memory was the consequence of his continued sleep-deprivation and general amount of stress. But he didn’t care. Or rather, he couldn’t afford to care about that at the moment. 

His wife had died in his arms not even three weeks ago and here he was in his ostentatious leather chair, already thinking about another woman. Even in a gangster’s book it was considered immoral. He felt like he was metaphorically spitting on Grace’s flower-adorned grave.

And he had loved Grace. Once. Back when he still lived in Watery Lane in a house that was never silent, unlike Arrow House. It was there in that cramped bedroom that he found love after France.

But after she came back from the Americas something had changed between them. They still made love, acted like husband and wife, but deep down he knew he didn’t love her. Not anymore. He’d kept Grace around of course; she was a good companion and the mother of his child. He’d rather have eaten a bullet than let his son grow up without his mother.

Turns out he didn’t need to take that bullet, considering someone else did it for him, namely his former wife.

It made him think he was too dangerous for anyone to love. Anyone who dared get close to him either ran for the hills after seeing the danger or ended up in a casket buried 4 feet deep.

It was why he pushed everyone away, kin included.

And yet, she didn’t care one bit. She still waved at him with a merry hello each time he passed her, a great contrast with the dreary Small Heath. It baffled Tommy to this day how a serious man like Henry Briggs could have such a ray of sunshine as a daughter.

It’d always been that way, even before he got sent to France to fight in the mud. And secretly, even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself, it made his day just that bit better. It made him think of something else than just business, or men fighting for their lives in the trenches.

Each time she opened that lovely mouth to speak to him, his hands balled up into fists with his nails leaving crescent marks in his palms, just so he didn’t touch her. Or take the basket filled with fruits and vegetables he’d seen her carry sometimes.