sic ‘em, boy.

“Not fucking happening, Tom!”

Tommy rubbed both hands over his face. “I’ll pay you double.”

“Get John to do it,” Arthur begged, hands tucked beneath his armpits as he paced circles into the faded persian rug.

“John’s handling export issues in Wales,” Tommy explained for the umpteenth time, though whether Arthur was intentionally forgetting the fact or had simply lost track of it in the snow-covered landscape of his brain was unclear. Try as she might, Linda was evidently having a difficult time getting him off the stuff. “I’m asking you because I can trust you to have my back, and I know he’ll be happy to see you there.”

Arthur sniffed, petulant. “I don’t give half a fuck what makes him happy,” he grumbled. “I hate ‘im, and I’m not fucking going.”

They’d been at this all morning. Frances had come and gone with offers of tea twice now before giving up and bringing them some whiskey, which hardly had time to breathe before it was gone. Didn’t cool the temperature of the room much, but it did wonders for the headache Tommy was smarting with. Arthur flopped onto the couch, hands fisted on the knees of his trousers like they were the only thing keeping him from blasting through the wall like a mortar shell.

Tommy did feel bad about it, sure. It was his fault for putting him in this position, just as it was his fault for sending Arthur in his place that one time. But business was business, and it needed to be done by someone. Arthur just happened to be the only Blinder he knew wouldn’t wet himself in fear when faced with the sort of hazing in store for anyone playing a second to Tommy. A low bar in Tommy’s mind, but in unique circumstances such as these he was hard-pressed to find anyone better for the job than Arthur, hotheaded though he might’ve been. Arthur was not easily cowed, and certainly not by this man.

“I need you there, Arthur.”

Arthur snapped, snarling and red. “You bring me there, I’ll kill ‘im! With my own hands, I’ll kill ‘im!”

There was a knock at the door. Before he could stop him, Arthur was up out of his seat and storming across the room, whipping the door open with fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the handle.

Sam blinked at him on the other side, practically nose to nose. “Arthur,” he said impassively, only a flicker of surprise at the proximity. “Is Tommy still here?”

“Let him in, Arthur.” Tommy ashed his cigarette perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary, the darkened end crumpled alongside the rest of the pack in the crystal tray.

The tall man glowered for a moment longer before stepping aside, pushing the lank strands of hair from his face. Sam stepped in, cautious but not frightened, even patting Arthur on the shoulder amicably on the way in. Predictably, Arthur bristled, but did nothing about it; he had a brotherly soft spot for Sam, having known him as a shy little boy and now an endearingly awkward grown man. He confessed feeling some responsibility still for the fight in the tent, John replacing Arthur in anticipation of his hot blood getting the better of him only for it to still turn out poorly.

Then again… if Arthur had threatened him at that moment, Tommy wasn’t sure that Sam’s reaction would’ve been any different. In the months he’d known Sam, the man had only ever panicked in three conditions. One was highly unusual on principle; he doubted that there would be any stallions there, regardless. Another was a flashback unlikely to be triggered by a simple sit-down meeting, and men like them didn’t fuck around with the residue of war left on the brain. Too risky and too cruel. Dishonorable, even for their line of work. The third being any time those mysterious notes showed up. Framing an unsuspecting man? Now that was not out of his contact’s wheelhouse by far. But if this hunch was true, and he really was their suspect, then Tommy could accept Sam throttling the man to death for his troubles. Fair was fair.

Sam leaned on the corner of his desk and cast his eyes at the ground, a significant tell of an incoming big ask. Last time, he’d asked to take Grace’s Secret for a gallop— in the height of race season, no less —and the time before that he’d wanted to take Florence into town. Tommy, naturally, had a hard time not indulging him. He’d created a monster, it seemed.

“Was just wondering,” he started, coughing and shifting his shoes about, “I mean— well. It’s been a while since we’ve heard from them. I don’t think they know I’m here.”

They, of course, being their mysterious foes up north. Sam had taken to calling them The Horsemen, unsettled by their revelationist message early that summer and their possessiveness over the racecourse. And he was correct— the one and only time they’d contacted anyone was weeks ago, and they’d sent their letter directly to the house on Watery Lane. The message, Proverbs 28:13, was read loud and clear: come out, come out, wherever you are. Petulant. They were at a loss. Even Arthur, still tetchy from the comedown of their argument, preened at their skilled evasion.

Tommy nodded, sure he knew where this was going. “And you want to stretch your legs a bit, do you?”

Sam flushed at being caught onto. “Well, erm. If that’s okay.”

Tommy might’ve considered that a step too far, a leap too risky, if it weren’t for his lack of backup for this damned meeting, posturing though it may be. And, regrettably, if it weren’t for Sam’s damned hands. Blunt nails on big, calloused hands picking at the crackling of varnish along the edge of the desk. And he knew, didn’t he? Knew how to distract and supplicate. Otherwise he wouldn’t do it so often, skimming his fingers over meaningless trinkets that a second ago had slipped Tommy’s mind. Sam was curious and cheeky. Two observations, independent and fused. Fuck.

He looked at Arthur. Back at Sam. Measured them in his mind, the length of one leg to another. He’d fit Arthur’s navy suit, if just barely.

“How’d you like to go to London with me? I need to visit an old friend.”

When Tommy said London, he imagined clubs and restaurants. That big clock tower, maybe, or the Royal Palace. But the London they’d paid for a swank hotel in was as smoke-sick and gray with rainwater as Birmingham. Perhaps a fair bit bigger, with men and ladies in nicer clothes, but not the glamorous epitome of wealth he’d been taught that the world aspired to. Camden Town, the little neighborhood on the outskirts, might as well be Small Heath if one took away the trash fires and replaced them with the disconcertingly incongruous smell of fresh-baked bread. A bit disappointed, Sam fussed with the way his hair sat under the hat.

It was Arthur’s spare, apparently. Woolen and itchy on the outside, but lined with silk that stuck to his overgrown fringe, prickling his fingers with static as he tried to smooth the flyaways down.

“Quit fussing with that,” Tommy said, eyes never leaving the road. “You’ll cut a finger.”

That— being strapped with weapons head to toe, that is —was perhaps the biggest adjustment he’d had to make about London. Sam had personally never had a friend he felt the need to bring an armed guard around to visit, even just an impostor for show. Then again, Sam had never been a gangster before. The suit, the razor-edged cap, the gun holster digging into the crease of his underarm… all very new. Any confidence the ensemble might’ve given him melted away without a fight at the basement entrance to the warehouse, where two broad, bearded men flanked a nondescript side door. Hasidic, he figured, what with the payot. They eyed him up and down, the slimmer of the two subtly moving his coat aside to reveal the gun at his hip

“Straighten up,” Tommy said, patting the lower curve of his spine. “You’re near two meters tall. Use it to your advantage.” Sam obeyed, face a bit hot at the contact.

Tommy let the men search him, then Sam; a formality at best, because neither the gun nor the hat nor the knife strapped to his calf were confiscated. Hell of a power move, Sam reasoned. Let them wield it all at their own risk. It wouldn’t matter in the end.

Sam’s instructions were simple: do as Tommy says, and no else. You don’t speak to anyone, Tommy explained. You only respond to Rokka. You don’t react. Ever. You don’t escalate. You don’t draw your weapon before me. Arthur warned him, too: don’t trust what the mad fucker says. Grace just laughed when she saw them leaving, shaking her head. Oh, good luck, boys. Have fun.

The distillery (as it now evidently was, with the stacks of barrels lining the narrow basement and the sweet chemical scent of rum flavoring the air) swarmed with workers, aproned like bakers but hands sticky with a thin film of molasses. They seemed not to even notice them, nor pay them any mind besides an occasional glance and below-breath mutter. All except for one man, wiry thin and striding towards them with a purpose. He wiped his hands on a white apron before reaching out to shake Tommy’s.

“Ollie,” Tommy said, “this is Samuel.”

“Mornin’.” The man, Ollie, extended his hand towards him. But Sam had his orders. He stood still, glancing at the man’s hand impassively before looking to Tommy.

“Go ahead,” Tommy told him, Rokka replacing English. Sam obeyed and returned Ollie’s less-than-enthusiastic handshake.

Ollie looked… not quite impressed. Filled with dread, perhaps, by the way he whale-eyed Tommy.

“Warning you now, Tom,” he gestured at Sam, “he’ll have fun with that one.”

“I bet,” Tommy replied, sighing fondly. And what the hell did that mean?

He hardly had the time to ponder it before a shout reverberated through the cavernous tunnel. “Boss on the floor!”

Like a hypnotist had snapped their fingers, the shouting of the distillery went quiet. Eerily so, even with the sounds of light machinery still hissing and groaning in the background. Men sitting around having a lunch break scattered, laborers walking down the center aisle parted down the middle as though cleaved in two. Still looking busy, but conveniently far away from where he, Tommy, and Ollie stood waiting for… someone. And then there he was.

A broad, bearded man at the base of the stairs opposite them seemed to dwarf everything around him. Like a pirate of old with his wide-brimmed black hat, shiny shoes, flecks of blood at the collar of his shirt, and thick, bruised knuckles glittering with gold rings. And then he lumbered leisurely toward them, ursine and heavy-gaited, cane clicking on the floor with an echo at every other step.

“Thomas Michael Shelby,” a voice boomed, the strong cockney accent bouncing off of oak casks and cellar walls. “You got some fuckin’ nerve, mate.”

Tommy’s face would’ve radiated boredom if not for the way the corner of his lip twitched upward ever so slightly. “I assume you got my message last week?”

The man scoffed, now close enough that Sam could see that he actually… wasn’t that tall. He had maybe a few inches on Tommy, but all of the grandness he radiated came from the span of his shoulders and the commanding way in which he carried himself: chest puffed out, head held high. Sam straightened his posture again, remembering Tommy’s words.

“Treacle—“ and that was unusual, humorous for someone so rugged, but he kept a straight face, “—if by message you mean one of your fucking leftovers from… what, Hoxton Gang? Their rat-faced little spy what’s been sniffing around my neighborhood? Then yeah,” he cracked those bruised knuckles, and now Sam could see the rusty dried blood settling in the crevices of his rings, “I got your message.”

“Good.” Tommy did smile then, very faint but noticeable for those who knew what to look for. Something mischievous sparkled in the man’s eyes for a second as he opened his mouth for another quip, but Ollie cleared his throat. The man took a slow look in the direction of Ollie’s pointed sidelong glance, then practically jumped out of his skin.

“Oh, fuck me! What is that?”

Sam whipped his head around, expecting some unseen assailant, but flushed red when he realized Tommy’s associate was talking about him.

“Alfie,” Tommy said, “this is Samuel. He’s a mute.” Mute? Sam shot him a look, but Tommy’s face read stop reacting loud and clear.

The broad man guffawed, clapping Sam on the arm. “Seven hells, mate. Thought you were a ghostie or a ghoul of sorts.”

“And Samuel,” he said, switching languages once again, “this gentleman is Mr. Alfred Solomons, Jr., a business associate of mine.”

Alfie scowled, recognizing his own full name even through the layer of an accent. “Oh, yeah. Real cute, Tommy. Very mature. Bet you’re all geared up to say summat about how I started it, ey? Callin’ after you all proper like a wrinkly old nanny and in turn you play the junior card? Speakin’ your unholy tongues and all, you call me Junior?”

Tommy shrugged, a brand new shit-eating grin plastered on his smug face as Sam struggled to not scowl at the slight. Alfie grumbled, eyeing Sam up and down for good measure before turning on his heel and marching off. Tommy motioned for Sam to follow, Ollie trailing quietly behind.

“New guard dog then, ey, Tom?” Alfie asked over his shoulder, leading them into the labyrinth of the distillery with those wide, limping steps that Sam very quickly began to realize were not put-upon in the least.

Tommy was impassive, even as Sam wrinkled his nose in distaste behind the bearded man’s back. Where the hell did he get off?

“Don’t suppose you’ll be sending our Arthur my way ever again, after the lovely Pesach dinner what’s been wasted on him?”

Aw-fah. What a strange way of speaking!

“Something like that.”

“What tricks have you taught this one, eh? Sit? Stay? Roll over?” Sam didn’t like the salacious rumble to Alfie’s voice as he said it.

“Bite,” Tommy replied, deadpan. “He hasn’t got the hang of let go yet.”

A chuckle as Alfie led them up the stairs, leaning heavily on the cane and shaking his head with a curse. They reached a second floor— an actual bakery, to Sam’s surprise —and then another gangway, where Alfie beckoned them all into his office.

He slumped into a worn leather chair, and with Tommy’s nod, Sam sat ramrod-straight in one of the two wooden armchairs adjacent to the mahogany desk. Alfie liked comfort, Sam noticed, taking in the high quality of the furniture around him. Despite the dust and clutter, it was clear that he took great pride in his belongings. But there was a roughness to the place all the same— bullet holes puckering the wallpaper behind him, panopticon windows cracked in places, flecks of dried blood on the armrest of the chair. Desperate, panicked scratch marks gouged on the inside of the door. Sam shuddered involuntarily. Then he startled, heart in his throat at the rhythmic thump from an unseen corner behind the desk.

Tommy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as a whistle-whine yawn announced the leisurely awakening of a podgy little dog, wet nose nudging at Alfie’s palm for a pat before ambling wiggle-bottomed to Tommy. He indulged the little fawn-furred mutt despite the glare he cast on Alfie.

“Oh, don’t mind ‘im none.” Alfie turned his head to address Sam as the dog sniffed at his trouser leg. “That’s Lawless. He’s friendly. Law! Go to bed, now, attaboy.”

Lawless willfully disobeyed, dancing like a wriggling fish over to Ollie’s position by the door. Some of the tension bled from Sam’s spine; ruthless and of dubious sanity, but an animal lover. Sam could work with that. There was humanity in it.

Alfie cleared his throat, shaking open a newspaper and perusing it behind the rims of his reading spectacles with great interest. He hemmed and hawed, stroking the whiskey-red shine of his beard now and again. A grandfather clock tucked into the corner ticked rhythmically, setting Sam more on edge with each passing second. Tommy cleared his throat.

“Are we doing business, Alfie?” Tommy’s Birmingham drawl gave the image of boredom, but Sam could see the way his fingers rapped agitatedly on the armrest.

Alfie looked up, as though only just remembering his guests. Peeved, almost, like this was some random inconvenience and not a meeting scheduled far in advance. He huffed, tapping the surface of his newspaper with his knuckles for emphasis. “I’ve got a crossword that needs finishing first, Thomas.”

Sure enough, he flipped the paper around and the two were greeted with that trendy new puzzle of squares that Grace and Fia would pour over when they had tea. Only this time, none of the squares had been filled, despite Alfie’s rapt attention to the page.

Tommy looked unimpressed. “You haven’t started it. Are you even writing the letters down?”

Alfie scoffed, tutting at Tommy like this was a ridiculous observation to make. “Don’t need to.” And with that, he returned to his crossword.

They waited in silence, the clock’s staccato tick-tock-tick joined by the dog’s panting breaths and the distant sound of machinery.

Eventually even Tommy had his limits. He sat higher in the chair, hands clasped and elbows on the armrests, a picture of power and control. “We have a deal to discuss, Mr. Solomons.”

Alfie glared at him over the top of the page. “Yeah, we do, don’t we?” Then, finally, he set the newspaper aside, hands folded on his lap. “I’d like to start with the telephone, honestly. You know that thing goes two ways? I leave my messages with your lovely receptionist, and yet you never—“

“Lizzie does her job just fine,” Tommy snapped.

“I know that,” Alfie fired back. “Great secretary, yeah, always keeping your fucking whereabouts lock-and-key-like.”

Tommy said nothing, but that sly smirk was back. Sam shifted uneasily in his seat, sneaking a look behind him at where Ollie stood guarding the door. If the rumors about the King of Camden were true, his temper could flare at any time with the way Tommy seemed to enjoy provoking him.

Tommy caught on to his discomfort, perceptive as always, and gave an assessing glance at Ollie as well. Taking this to mean it was play time, Lawless’s nails click-clacked on the hardwood as he wormed his way between the chairs, licking Sam’s palm and pawing at his shoe.

Tommy sighed reproachfully. “Does the dog have to be here, Alfie?”

Alfie scoffed, once again offended by an apparently stupid question. “Well yeah, ‘s only fair. You have your guard dog and I have mine. We’re even.”

“If that’s even, then what’s Ollie still doing here?”

The aforementioned Ollie shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting between Sam, Tommy, and Alfie before landing on his own shoes.

“Well,” said Alfie, “have you seen the size of your friend? Practically a Great Dane, that one. Are you Danish, mate? Been to Denmark?”

Sam, startled at being acknowledged, ignored Tommy’s warning look and shook his head. “No, sir.” He realized his mistake the moment the words spilled out, ice-cold fear twisting his stomach.

Alfie’s heavy brow furrowed. “Huh. Pity, that. You’d’ve made an excellent net fisherman.” A wink at Tommy. “Hell of a talented mute.”

Tommy was glaring at him. Sam felt himself shrink under the scrutiny, knowing he’d been tricked.

“Don’t engage. Just follow my cues and don’t intervene.” Tommy hissed the command in Rokka under his breath. Then, icy blue eyes back to Alfie, he continued: “I wanted to talk to you about Aintree.”

That caught Sam’s attention. Resigned to following Tommy’s orders, he kept his reactions to himself, but he felt his fist clench into the leg of his pants as his pulse jumped.

“Aintree? Mate,” Alfie rubbed a hand down his face before his nails strayed almost compulsively to claw at an angry-looking patch of rough, inflamed skin on his neck, “you seem to be under the impression that I give a fuck about your lot taking over shit-stinking Liverpool.”

“I’m not,” Tommy replied, cool as water. “But I know you give a fuck about being paid for protection.”

Alfie held onto that little detail, quirking one brow. “Paid for protection, ey? You think I have the men to spare to send to Aintree on a lark, what with Hoxton up our arses in the metaphorical?”

Tommy shrugged, lackadaisical. “Contact your family.”

Alfie bellowed a laugh, slamming his wide palm down on the desk so hard it rattled everything but Tommy, still staring through him impassively. “My fucking family, he says! The wanker, he says contact my family! Thomas, I don’t know how it is with your free-range people—“ he nodded his chin to indicate Sam, who felt angry, defensive heat rise to his cheeks despite himself, “—but I don’t just have a thousand ill-begotten cousins to pull out of thin fucking air from all corners of the King’s country. In Boston I have Solomonses up to the gills, yeah, but we’re not in fucking Beantown, are we?”

“I’m offering you a good opportunity, Alfie. An untouched racecourse and a new region to expand into.”

Alfie pondered that as his eye twitched, staring down at the surface of the desk for a moment. “No. If I am going to dedicate the time to get my men out there, I want to make my profit on the gambling, too,” he said. “But I can’t spare my bookies from Epsom because unlike you Birmingham thugs they live in fucking London like civilized folks, and I don’t have the time to train some illiterate fuck off the streets.”

A muscle in Sam’s jaw jumped.

“Then call up the local bookies in Liverpool or Manchester,” Tommy said. “Invite them to do their business inside the tracks for a fee, and you can collect a percentage of their earnings. I’m sure the Jewish population of Merseyside will have some respect for your standing.”

Alfie looked taken aback, suddenly quite serious. Sam caught a glimpse of the bearlike giant standing at the other end of the hall when they’d arrived, so frightening from afar and now even more terrifying leaning into Tommy’s space. He knew to respect the orders he was given, but Sam mentally prepared to draw his gun.

“Do you think,” Alfie growled, eyes manically wide, “that just because I’m a Jew, I must know every fucking son of Abraham in the country? Ey, Tom? That’s what you think?”

Tommy said nothing. Alfie sat slowly back in his chair, maintaining that unblinking eye contact the whole way. “Because I do, for the record. Fucking know everybody, don’t I?”

Sam let out a quiet sigh of relief. Tommy, unfazed as ever, made a motion with his hands as though to say well there you go. “We can draft an agreement to edit the next time I’m in London,” Tommy said, cocky now that he’d won.

Alfie ignored him for a moment, burying his face in the newspaper again and grousing under his breath about Liverpool and horse money and Boston baked beans. “We can write up a final deal here and now,” he said, peeking over the edge of the paper, “if you indulge me for a mo’.”

An almost imperceptible sigh from next to him. 

“Now,” Alfie said, cracking his neck. “Since you have decided to make me talk business on a crossword sort of day, I’m going to make you,” he pointed at Tommy, “solve a crossword for me.”

Tommy grit his teeth and nodded almost imperceptibly, slow and calculated. Oh, he was properly pissed now. Sam almost missed that look of frustration and superiority in his eye, as though everyone around him was an idiot and he was the only reasonable player in the game.

“Tommy, you’ll guess this one.” Alfie pointed at a chain of squares on his newspaper, now animated and jovial again. “It’s something I like to call you. Starts with a T.” He leaned across the desk to show Tommy the blank crossword, hand covering the clues. How he remembered where each letter went was a mystery, considering Alfie still hadn’t made a single mark in all the time he spent pondering it. “I’ll give you a challenge, right, since you’re a smarty. It’s one of these words between five and seven letters, and I’ll let you guess which chain. And that’s your challenge, yeah, you’ve got to guess: five, six, or seven letters. Starts with T.”

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose with an exasperated sigh. “Is it a variation of my name? Thomas, Tommy?”

“No, silly lad! C’mon, it’s easy but not that easy.”

Tommy gave him a dead eyed glare, thoroughly unimpressed. “Tosser.”

That provoked a full-on chuckle from the bearded gangster. “Funny, mate, very funny. But no, alas, it’s summat a bit nicer. They’d never print that, no.”

“It wasn’t a guess,” Tommy muttered under his breath. Samuel bit his lip to keep from laughing; he’d never seen Tommy so petulant and rude. He looked at Sam, eyes dull and lifeless like an old teaching horse put to one too many rides. “Guess, Samuel,” he pleaded. “Play by his rules. Put me out of my misery here so we can move on. Speak, I don’t care. I hate this fucking game.”

It was difficult, playing an invisible crossword with no schooling to speak of, but the letter T was easy. T for Tommy. T-T-T. Sam thought back to when they’d first entered the basement of the warehouse. The strangeness of Alfie’s speech, the way he picked words like fruit and discarded all but the ripest choices. And then an idea came to him. “…Treacle?”

Alfie looked at him in surprise, as though he forgot Sam existed. With the way he had been watching Tommy, analytical and carnivore-sharp, he very well could’ve. A broad smile spread across his bearded face. “Oh, very good guess, Samson.”

“It’s Samuel,” Tommy corrected, drawing a cigarette to his lips. Alfie snatched it away, chiding him about smoking in a distillery. When Alfie turned his full attention back to Sam, Tommy seemed simultaneously relieved and put-out.

“Shmuel, you’ve made a good guess, but not quite.”

Tommy reluctantly gave him a permissive nod, elbow propped on the armrest and fingers curled as though still holding his cigarette. Sam swallowed, thinking about how easily his fingers curled around that gun. How he pointed it at Sam’s bruised and battered head without a second thought, hooking the trigger, safety off, painting him the villain, calling him a—

“Traitor.” Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat, willing his molten blood to cool, willing his mouth to stop imagining the bitter, metallic taste of a gun. He gulped against the saliva pooling behind his teeth. “Is- is that the one?”

Alfie’s left eye twitched and he scratched at his beard again. Interesting… he’d done that just a few minutes ago when he dangled the idea of an alliance in Tommy’s face. “Not that,” he said, drawing out the vowels. Sam must’ve been onto something.

Sam guessed three times more. ‘Thin’, the wrong number of letters. ‘Champion’, not starting with a T, even though it bloody well sounded like it. An agonized guess of ‘torture’ forced Tommy to restrain a laugh, but that wasn’t the answer either. Before he could try again, Tommy had evidently had more than enough. “Alfie, I didn’t come here to watch you play word games.” Below Alfie’s sight line, he signaled with his hand: that’s enough. Sam frowned, still unused to being bossed about by someone he’d begun to consider a friend.

Alfie’s gaze sharpened and locked onto Tommy’s as he folded the paper up and set it aside with a pat. “Alright, mate. Fine.” He beckoned with his hands. “Give me the pitch.”

Tommy blinked hard, the sharp lines of his face betraying annoyance. “I’ve got Aintree to meself right now,” he said. “That’s the Grand National, plus the Meetings from October through to Boxing Day. But if we take the tracks alone, that’s risky. Suspicious. Now, we can hire your men as our own security, but if you’d rather have the books yourself,” he hung another cigarette between his lips, leaning back in his seat so that Alfie couldn’t snatch it away again, “then I will be charitable and allow you a tenth of the space.”

“Fuck off,” Alfie called out, foghorn loud. “Fifty-fifty.”

“I’ll give you fifteen,” Tommy conceded, even and calm. “Consider it a gift.”

“I’ll consider it a gift when it looks less like another metaphorical gaping fucking maw to feed,” Alfie grumbled, hunched over his desk with hands folded. “Give me something that matters, Tom, because as it stands now I have absolutely no interest in Aintree.” He scratched that spot on his beard, eye twitching again. Sam was immediately on edge.

They volleyed numbers back and forth, a greedy push and pull process to grab up as much space as was available as Tommy quickly smoked his cigarette down to a burnt stub. Sam zoned out, not so captivated by the display as he was by the little autochrome photograph tacked up in a modest frame on the wall behind Alfie’s right shoulder. He squinted. A high-headed buckskin thoroughbred, male. Gelding. Four black half socks, common enough. One white pastern, back left leg, with an odd little stripe of white through an otherwise black hoof. Sam fucking knew that hoof. His heart pounded in his throat. King Solomon. Of fucking course.

“Tommy,” he hissed as Alfie dug in his desk for a fountain pen and a scrap of paper— something about splitting up territory down to the square footage.

“One second.”

“Tom.”

No response. Sam suppressed a howl of frustration. He fucking knew that hoof. He knew that horse. He knew the jockey. Young Jewish lad, good stability. Solid hold on the reins. The duo placed just below George and Tsarina in the rankings. He was at the track that day, and would have every reason to want his rival gone. No interest in Aintree, my arse.

“Tommy, listen to me.”

Rokka. Tommy’s eyes widened a fraction when he looked at Sam, ice blue on raw pearl white. Alfie had been digging through the desk for an awfully long time. Suspicious. There was a pen and notepad already within reach on the desk. Very suspicious. 

“What, Samuel?”

“He’s bluffing.”

Tommy’s eyes followed the path of his stare, and then all hell broke loose. There was a flurry of activity as guns were drawn, Tommy’s at Alfie, Alfie’s at Tommy, Ollie’s at Tommy, and Sam’s at Ollie. A beat, stalemate. Sam could feel his blood quickening just below the skin.

Alfie looked pleased as punch with the circumstances— downright giddy, by the rumbling chuckle and the lax way he wielded the revolver.

“Come now, sweetie,” he drawled, patronizing and sugared, “you think so little of me.” From within the desk, he drew out an embossed envelope, tossing it carelessly across the table. “Now let’s put the guns down and talk about this little slip of paper here, eh? Use our civilized words.” A pointed jab, with a sidelong glare at Sam.

“You’ve gone too far with this one, Alfie,” Tommy growled, ignoring the request. “If you wanted Liverpool to yourself, that’s one thing. But going after me own over it, that’s another.”

Baffled, Alfie wrinkled his nose and put his hands out in pacification. To Sam’s distress, that put the gun in line with his throat. “Alright, mate,” Alfie said, slowly and firmly as though reasoning with an unruly child, “while I usually have many clues as to what’s flared your particular neurosis at any given moment, I’ve been bested this time.”

Tommy didn’t relent, whole body rigid with anticipation. “Psalms 94:1. That’s you, isn’t it? Right out of the Hebrew Bible. I should’ve known.”

“You must be havin’ some sort of a fanatical episode for your heathen arse to be quoting holy books at me,” Alfie warned. “So let’s put the gun away, right? Before we put a hole in someone.”

“You’ve left us messages. Warnings to stay away from Liverpool,” Tommy growled. “All disguised in verses, and now you want to play dumb? Shooting that woman and putting it on us, that’s your idea of a warning? You want the racecourse all to yourself, don’t you?”

Something clicked, and Alfie sagged in his chair, tucking the gun away. “Treacle, this is a new low. If I wanted Liverpool, you think I’d just willy-nilly go and shoot a woman? A politician’s wife? At the biggest event of the year for that fucking dump of a city?” He tsked, shaking his head like Tommy had just thrown a tantrum rather than threatened his life.

Tommy narrowed his eyes for a moment before slowly holstering his own gun. Sam did the same as Alfie scolded Ollie, whose reluctant compliance Sam was not comforted by. Not Alfie, then. Sam’s jaw unclenched a fraction as Tommy apologized for the interruption.

“All’s forgiven. We’re good, yeah. That’s over.” Alfie gave Tommy a cautious once-over. “Whatever the fuck that was. Now take a look-see at that there, eh?”

Tommy opened the envelope and drew out the contract. Sam could see it over his shoulder, but in hushed tones, Tommy read it aloud for his benefit: a Bill of Sale, agreed between some horse breeder up north and one Alfred Solomons, Jr., for a gelding colt.

“Harry’s wife has a nephew,” Alfie said, fiddling about with a paperweight. “Very nice boy. Over in, ah…” he thought for a moment, eyes squeezed shut before he snapped his fingers, “Bristol, yeah, that’s it. Over in Bristol. I promised him that fine creature there as a Bar Mitzvah gift, since he’d been taking lessons. That was some years ago. He’s a proper jockey now. Good investment, yeah?”

“Thought you didn’t talk to Harry much anymore.” Tommy reached a hand up to ash his cigarette in the wordlessly offered tray as opposed to letting it smolder perilously on the desk, the little crystal dish evidently another treasure from Alfie’s cluttered desk.

“Well, you know how my brother is,” Alfie sighed, resigned. “Anyway, he’s a jockey, right? The nephew, that is. Making a name for himself.”

Tommy hummed. “You want me to fix a race?”

”What I want,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, “is for my little investment to take flight. Now you might not know this, being of a provincial people and all—“ he glanced at Sam, already anticipating the way he fumed at the slight, “—but in high society, poncy gentlemen might purchase a share on a high-performing racehorse just like our King Solomon here. Nothing more than posturing and something to talk about with their fellow vapid old men, but they like to think it’ll make them even richer. And as the owner of that treif beast eating and shitting his weight in money, I would greatly enjoy the opportunity to make some of that investment back and support my nephew-in-law’s early career.”

Sam thought about that. Horses were expensive and delicate… how could anyone’s share break even, much less turn a profit, if the owner of the horse wasn’t making much money either? But by the glint in Alfie’s eye, perhaps he knew that.

“I need an endorsement,” Alfie said. “Somethin’ flashy and new like Shelby Company, Ltd., now that draws attention. And I mean, come on, Tom.” He leaned back, looking him up and down. “Folks like you know a good horse when you see one. And folks like them? Those dunderheaded old farts? They’ll believe just about anything if there’s a little mysticism thrown in.” He wiggled his fingers there to emphasize, like some sort of children’s magician.

Tommy sighed, rubbing his temple. “You want me to do… what, the endorsement equivalent of the powder trick for your nephew’s horse?”

Alfie shrugged coyly. “A little rumor of bohemian horse-charming never hurt nobody.”

Tommy crossed one leg over the other. “And what do I get?”

“For you, biscuit, I will accept your offer of limited co-authority over the racetracks. Just to put your maternally-derived fear of being left on your lonesome at ease, you little nudzh,” he said. “80-20 share. Favoring the Blinders, of course. And if you’re on your best behavior at our next meeting, I might even help you unravel whatever the fresh fuck your little outburst was about.”

They waited stock-still and silent for a while, and just when Sam thought for sure Tommy would say no, he spat in his hand and shook Alfie’s. The bearded man’s responding grin made Sam uneasy, but there was hardly time to comment on it when Tommy was already rising, saying his goodbyes, and nodding Sam towards the door. He was well pleased to follow Tommy out, grown sick of the bickering and sore in the head with nerves.

“Ah, just a minute, treacle,” Alfie called after them. “We have something else to discuss. Few things, actually, yeah.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Is this a private conversation?”

Alfie shooed Ollie off without breaking eye contact with his target. The nervous-looking man ushered Sam out with a hand on his upper arm, trailed happily by little Lawless with a slobbery leather ball in his mouth. “Go on, then, Tall Saul,” Alfie called after him, “and mind your keppele on the rafters, won’t you, poppet?”

Sam bristled.

When the door closed behind them, he shook off the grip and whipped around to go nose-to-nose with the lanky baker. “Tommy didn’t fucking say I should leave,” Sam growled, hooking his thumb into the band of his holster— a stupid move, threatening a man on his own turf in plain view of an entire bakery-slash-distillery, but after the display he just saw he wasn’t feeling terribly rational.

Ollie didn’t look surprised, or even bothered by the fact that their… bosses? Co-conspirators? Were behind a closed and— click! —locked door. Instead he turned, exhaustion hunching his shoulders, as he took to the stairs. “Trust me,” he said as he went, “you’ll wanna be elsewhere for a while.”

Sam took one last look at the windows as Alfie pulled down the blinds one by one, sighed, reasoned that Tommy knew what he was doing, and followed Ollie out.

Tommy seated himself again as Alfie kvetched about the bad weather and his stiff leg. The London gangster was typically unafraid to mention his old war injury, but on a bad pain day like this, he often became quite cagey about it around strangers like Sam. Ironic. Even the most irreverent, crude man in all of Camden Town had soft spots that ran deep. It was never something he hoped to exploit. They knew each others' weak points too well for the sort of nonsense that plagued their early... whatever this was.

Tommy cleared his throat. “You wanted to speak further?”

Alfie looked at him as though he forgot Tommy was still sitting there, but just like everything else, it was an act. Another trick up his sleeve to distract and disarm. “Yeah,” he mused, placid like an addled grandfather despite being not much older than Tommy, “yeah I did, didn’t I?” He leaned forward, folding his hands before him on the desk and staring pointedly into Tommy’s eyes. It was a callback to the warning he was given as a boy: never make eye contact with a wild animal. Even as a child, he disregarded that rule.

“This whole…” Alfie made an exaggerated gesture, “…Psalms mess, that’s not me. Alright? I swear that on me dear mum’s grave, that woman gone brown-fucking-bread many years ago and not often sworn upon.”

Tommy hated when he said things like that. Mentions of the grave always gave him a chill; a blast of mildewing air from the depths of a crypt. He nodded anyway.

“But I don’t exactly know what the mess is about,” Alfie continued, tapping his fingertips together. “I don’t suppose you’ll enlighten little ol’ me? You know, the man you pointed a gun at.”

You said you were over it, thought Tommy, but he knew better than to fall into Alfie’s trap. “What do you want to know?”

He could tell that Alfie wasn’t impressed with the non-answer. Rather than countering with another question, Alfie reached behind him with a grunt and pulled a book from the shelf. Tehillim, he called it, and waited patiently for a moment to see if Tommy would hiss and recoil at the sacred name— a favorite little gag of his as of late, checking to see if Tommy was a demon.

“You don’t trust me with your problems enough,” Alfie said, pointing the book at him with the irreverence of a man who saw himself as above any law. He thumbed it open, peering through those incongruously delicate spectacles until he found what he wanted. “Chapter 94, first verse, you said?”

Tommy nodded.

Alfie read. And then read it again. Then another time, now whispering the words under his breath in a language spanning generations. He looked up. “Tommy.”

“Yes?”

“You are so very fucked, mate.”

Alfie’s expression was as blank and wide-eyed as it usually was when he was putting on a show, and despite the seriousness of the situation, Tommy couldn’t help but breathe a laugh. It tugged Alfie’s face into one of those genuinely delighted grins.

The very real threat was unavoidable, though. Tommy would have to consider spilling the whole story out before his ally and rival, and Alfie was looking at him expectantly. It was only a few moments’ standoff, but Tommy gave in. “Alright,” he said, “here’s the problem.”

The more Tommy explained, the more concerned Alfie seemed to grow. The lines betraying his age drew shadows on his face, sober and contemplative, as he stroked his thumb over the scar interrupting the red of his beard— a souvenir of the Great War.

“I really don’t know, Tommy.” He sighed, furrowed brows folding creases into his forehead as he read the passage again. “Never heard of no gangs up there, nor theologians with an axe to grind. All I know’s that your secret admirer is of a Christian persuasion. The Revelations—“

“Revelation,” Tommy said. “Singular.”

Alfie glared at him. “Revelation. The Revelation verse is your lot. We don’t do that. Awful fucking mess, that wicked fever dream.” He thought for a moment, stroking his beard. “Here’s a strange thing,” he said. “The ink was still wet, right. Who the hell brings a pen and ink to a race? Use a fucking pencil.”

That gave Tommy pause. “Racketeers,” he said. “Ready to forge a signature at the drop of a hat.”

Alfie leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “Hah! It is a gang, then. A rival gang none of us know about, with the means to carry out a public assassination and stalk you in your own home.”

Not the most comforting thought. Alfie gave him a knowing look.

“I’ll confess it, Tommy,” he said, “I already know about your so-called assassin.” He flipped his newspaper to the opening page, and Tommy’s shoulders slumped. Search Continues for Hangdog Killer, the headline said, accompanied once again by that damning sketch. “But I know he’s no assassin, because he’s slower than molasses on the draw. Now usually I’d go after the reward money being offered, but I don’t gain much from throwing away a perfectly good secret to hold over you.”

Tommy said nothing, but nodded nearly imperceptibly. It was as close to a truce on their back-and-forth game of betrayal as he was likely to get. Putting all he knew about their involvement— and lack thereof —on the table was Alfie’s way of showing his cards.

“Right!” He clapped once, a manic glint in his eyes. “That’s enough business talk, innit?”

Tommy startled, betrayed only by the slight jump of his shoulders. Sometimes it was difficult to keep up with Alfie’s moods, even the positive ones.

“I want to have a chat with you. I think you know about what.” Alfie had the kind of look on his face that Tommy always associated with trouble.

He braced himself, sighing deeply. “What kind of chat?”

Tommy regretted the question immediately at Alfie’s response: “Been a minute since we had ourselves a little polari, treacle.”

Ah, fuck. Polari. The talk. The language of outcasts: thieves, whores, traveling sorts… and men like them. Omi-polone. Queers.

His father forbade that language in the house— or anywhere, really. It was below them, he’d said. The speech of idiots and hedonists, a bastardization of languages not meant to be mixed about. A slight at Tommy’s mother; she spoke The Talk as well. For a time, Tommy wouldn’t take John with him to the fairgrounds to see the circus performers because he knew it’d be a flogging for him when the little one inevitably began copying his big brother’s conversations. Babbling about their father drinking their gelt away in the bungery, asking their mother to patch a rip in his clobber. You’ll make him a sissy, Arthur Sr. would hiss between bruising blows. Do you want your brother earning his keep in a molly house? Do you want the boy’s whore money in your pocket?

Do you, Dad? He should’ve asked, just to make him confront his sins out loud, but he had the nerve smacked out of him at that young age. Hadn’t yet reached the size Arthur had where he could finally hit their father back. So Tommy decided to keep it to himself. Listened to the sailors talk about dilly boys at the docks. Watched the pickpockets evade the charpering omi. Learned it all while he nursed a black eye.

“C’mon, Tom,” Alfie begged.

Tommy sighed, swallowed his pride, and let the words come to him. “Only a quick polari, aye? And nishta leaves this room.”

Alfie grinned. “There she is. The bitch is back.”

They went about catching up in such a manner for a while, Alfie reveling in yet another game of wits and words while Tommy mostly just tolerated the embarrassment. It was almost soothing, in a way. Alfie’s growling voice maneuvered smoothly, eloquently through the vocabulary of his childhood secrets. Tommy’s speech was more stilted, uncharacteristically reserved. He didn’t run in the sort of circles Alfie did; wasn’t out, as they say. All he’d known had been stuffed into a box to be forgotten, shameful and secret. No London drag ball for him.

“Let’s not cackle on ‘bout nishta,” Alfie urged after a less-than-respectful description of how badly he’d beaten that Hoxton spy Tommy had sent him. “You need to tell me about that dolly chicken you brought ‘round today.” The meaning? Tell me about pretty-boy.

Tommy swallowed around a burning mouthful of whiskey, nearly choking as his heart rate kicked. “What about him?”

Alfie looked at him as though the answer ought to be obvious. Perhaps it was, but Tommy didn’t want to think about Alfie’s ulterior motives. Not towards Sam. 

“Is he ‘so’?” Is he a homosexual?

Tommy made a face. “Samuel? Come on, Alf, that’s naff. Proper naff.” Unfuckable territory, Alfie. Take a step back.

“Pshh!” Alfie leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “On what fuckin’ authority? I took a good vada, I did, and I didn’t find anything I could clock as cod ‘sides the fact he might be a little dizzy.” I got a good look at him. Didn’t seem too bad except that he might be a bit stupid. Is he stupid?

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. He had no stake in what Alfie got up to outside of their unique alliance, but this was angering him in a rather troublesome way. Made something ugly tighten up in his chest, unsure if he was possessive of Alfie’s attention… or the unthinkable other option. “He’s got a palone at home. Dally one, her.” I meant that you should leave off. He’s got a lovely girlfriend. He knew this. So why did it feel like he was reminding himself?

Alfie smirked, vicious and arrogant. “You know that don’t turn me off. With plenty of trade you don’t know what you’re missing ‘til you’ve got ‘em in a doss, innat right? And rough trade? That’s the real bold type.” Plenty of straight men are not so straight when it comes down to it. Right, Tommy? To make his point, Alfie raked his eyes over Tommy’s figure. Blue-collar men like him? They get eager. Tommy rolled his eyes; no such thing as subtlety with Alfie.

“Well, you can’t blag Sam,” Tommy stated, feeling his ears go warm. You can’t have him.

“Why not?” Alfie leaned forward, mischief written on his face.

“He’s not…”

“Could be,” Alfie taunted. “Unless that isn’t your issue?”

“Hasn’t dropped any hairpins,” Tommy countered, raising a brow. He hasn’t hinted at queerness.

“Oh, and you’re absolutely bonaroo at clocking that, are you?” You’re terrible at catching a hint!

“If you would hush and Aunt Nell me for just a second—“ Listen to me! Christ!

Alfie found the weak point and dug in. “Tommy, sweetie, is it possible that you’re all out of sorts about this because you’re alamo for him?”

You’re attracted to Sam, aren’t you?

Tommy shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked, beet red and speechless in a way he hadn’t been since he was a youth caught staring at Arrow Collar Man ads. If it were even possible, Alfie became even more smug.

“Ohh,” he gasped, faux-pitying. “You are.”

“No.” Yes.

And he was, wasn’t he? So sue him. He thought Sam was… pretty, in an odd way. Melancholy features arranged just so, not strikingly beautiful but striking like lightning. It was difficult to pinpoint when he started noticing Sam. Before he took up in the guest wing, certainly. Before he even arrived at the house. Was it when he gripped his hand at the hospital? Or the van? Maybe it was when they sat around the fire and remembered the war? No, he resolved. Before that. Perhaps the moment he saw him.

“I figured as much,” Alfie crowed, “when I saw the way you ogled him up and down. Like he was a challenge. Taming a stray, are we?”

Tommy frowned, and not only for the way he’d been caught. “What, you’re not looking to charver him yourself?” You’re not interested?

Alfie scoffed. “Nanti. He’s got lallies a mile long, sure, but… well, not much of a dish back there, innit?” Nah, he’s all legs and no arse.

“It’s just fine,” Tommy snapped. “It’s a bona dish. It’s normal.” Leave his arse alone, it’s decent enough.

Alfie just laughed. “Fuck me, you’re in deep. You meshigener.” You’re a fucking nut. “But remember, right, that fucking and feelings do not mix.”

Tommy nodded morosely, staring out at the warped world beyond the glass block windows. Fuck, he couldn’t let this get away from him. Already he found himself thinking of Sam more than he should, more than was necessary for a guest in his house. And what if he got too attached? Each of them had their own lives, Tommy engaged and Sam with a baby on the way. This wasn’t anything like the anonymous dalliances of his bachelor days.

“You know,” Alfie said, uncharacteristically sincere, “you’re always welcome in my slice of London. Safehouses, clubs, hotels, the like. Just in case there’s… well, I’ll keep an eye out for trouble, ‘s what I’m saying.”

Tommy nodded, quiet but appreciative. London had proven safe enough so far. If they needed to evade The Horsemen yet again, at least here there’d be two powerful gangs watching Sam’s back. And Florence! Florence and Sam. Both of them. Right.

Alfie must’ve taken the silence as a sign that their business was done, because when a light thud on the desk caught Tommy’s attention, he found himself sitting before a bottle of white rum.

“A drink before you go?” Alfie asked, raising his brow suggestively. “I’m not that loyal stray of yours, but you never seemed to mind before.”

Their conversation… both conversations weighed heavily on his mind, distracting and stomach-twisting. He couldn’t let the proximity get to him. Couldn’t trust himself to be rational if it all went sideways. If he was rejected. If harm came to anyone. Too many moving parts at play, business and loyalty and the beating of his heart all crescendoing every time he thought about the what if, what if, what if.

“I’m getting married,” he said instead of admitting the crushing force of worry on his lungs. Could he even fucking perform, bogged down like this?

Alfie nodded slowly, brows furrowed in confusion. “Right, mate,” he said cautiously, catching the rolling storm of Tommy’s stress on the wind, “we don’t have to. But I will say, six months ago you was also going to tie the knot and it weren’t no bloody moral objections then. And last year we had several meetings, didn’t we, where you cut the business-talk quite short because you needed your fix. Marriage and your little bundle of joy not on the mind back then, yeah.”

Tommy smirked. Yes, he preferred this: Alfie knocked out of that state of supernatural wisdom, back to earth, back to the present. Not playing shrink, just wanting something simple and fun out of him.

“Fine,” he said, holding out his glass for just enough rum to have an excuse, “have it your way.”

Alfie grinned, dark and cunning as he poured. “You never finished guessing the word, treacle. Something I call you, five to seven letters, and I think you know what it is.”

Tommy looked the man up and down slowly, the tip of his tongue running over the backs of his teeth, stopping at one sharp canine. He watched Alfie follow it, setting a fire in his blood that he couldn’t quite blame on the rum. “Tease. The word is tease.”

Alfie downed his own glass in a gulp, expression proud and hungry. “Atta boy.”

Thirty-eight minutes. Not that he was counting. It took Tommy that long to wrap up his conversation and meet him outside by the car, looking for all the world like a man who got into a fistfight after turning away his only backup.

Sam didn’t care about the wait too much beyond the pointlessness of his sitting around. Camden Town wasn’t too terrible, and a portly little fellow named David had apologetically gifted him a loaf of bread for the road and a dram of brown rum from the basement. Something about working men looking out for one another. It tasted like shit, but drink was drink. Besides that, Lawless was rather content to have someone to play with in that time, chasing whatever pebble Sam kicked across the alley and returning for a good fuss on the flank and head. He stared at him with big, simpering eyes before Sam pitied him enough to break off the crunchy heel of the loaf and toss it for him. That’s how he got so chunky, he realized, and had himself a private laugh at the idea of Alfie and Ollie and countless other gangsters buckling to the begging of that precious little face.

When Tommy did return, it was instead the state of him that made Sam angry. Hair mussed, cheeks flushed, tie slightly askew and a button missing from his shirt. Why the fuck did he bring Sam, a man he knew could hold his own, if he was just going to get into a private one-versus-one with the King of Camden anyway? It rankled him something fierce, the casual way in which he motioned Sam into the car. Rankled him worse when he slid behind the wheel with a wince.

He fucking smelled nice, unfortunately. Rum and sweat and a strangely familiar vetiver-musk cologne he was sure Tommy hadn’t been wearing earlier. Where did he get that? A gift from Solomons? A tang of salt, metal… blood from the fight most likely, and fucking vegetable oil of all things. Sam sulked. Did Tommy just bring him around to be bullied by some rum smuggler? He felt ridiculous in the gangster getup, the jacket pinching him in the underarms, the pants too short and in danger of ripping down the crotch if he sat too quickly. Not to mention the hat, static-shock silk lining clinging to everything on his head. He threw the damned thing onto the back seat with the bread as they drove off, his clammy, crumb-dusted palms not a better sensation as he ran a hand over his hair.

“Good conversation?” He sneered, ill-tempered and overtired after too much Alfie in one day. Tommy didn’t dignify it with an answer, but his hands gripped tighter around the steering wheel.

“What happened, ey?” Sam slouched petulantly in his seat. “You’ve seen me fight. I could’ve backed you up in there.” You still don’t trust me.

“Next time,” Tommy chastised, ignoring his questions yet again, “just do as I say. You need to control your impulses or you give too much away.”

Sam blinked incredulously. Next time? “He caught me off guard,” he said. “And besides, I helped you, didn’t I? With the horse thing.”

“The horse thing could’ve gotten someone shot,” Tommy snapped, his low voice warning like rumbling thunder. “You couldn’t just let the insults go, could you?”

“He was talking about us— about Roma, us! —like the dirt off his shoe.” Sam was beginning to rile, fueled by the memories of slurs and clutched purses and globs of spit hurled at his feet. “You sat by and let him say whatever he wanted, and all the while you just looked at him like… you looked at me like—“

“He’s a madman,” Tommy barked. “He says all sorts of things. You knew this and you let him get in your head.”

“You two treated me like I was your dog, Tommy!”

The car stopped with a jolt. Tommy’s glare was a dangerous, electric thing that he determinedly kept fixed on the road.

“If you don’t want to be heeled like a mutt,” he snarled, quiet and definitive, “then don’t fucking act like one.”