What a day, and what an end of a journey.

God, how you would sneak around so that your father wouldn’t find out about your little love affair. You still held those days that Tommy would take you to the pictures close to your heart. He would walk you home afterwards under the guise of it being too late for a lady to be by herself, but in truth, he just wanted to steal a goodnight kiss from you.

Even before that, you recalled how—to your parents’ deepest displeasure—you would constantly run around the streets of Small Heath with him and his brothers as a young girl.

It was the norm for you to return home a few minutes later than agreed on. The pretty ribbons your mother would carefully place into your hair each morning would be undone from roughing around, and your knees scraped bloody every darn time. Your mother had told you then already that the Shelby boys were bad news, but you hadn’t listened to her.

She hadn’t exactly been wrong, you thought, as your gaze drifted over the drunks stumbling into the Garrison. What once had been a simple pub now looked far too lavish for a dreary, smoke-filled place like this—courtesy of the Shelby clan, of course. Taking a sip of your drink, you wondered how your life had turned so drastically.

You hadn’t ever been too well-off. Your parents were honest workers, but simple people nevertheless. Tommy shared a similar upbringing to yours in that regard. Then, he climbed the social ladder like the clever man you had always known him to be.

And once he had done so, he hadn’t forgotten you like you worried he might. No, he draped you in the finest of silks and hung the heaviest, most refined of jewels around your neck.

And life like this was nice at first, thrilling even.

But then reality came to slap you in the face.

You knew of the things Tommy did. Hell, you’d been there when the humble beginnings of the Peaky Blinders came to be. But you had always been blissfully oblivious to the darker details of his business.

And the truth is… you didn’t want to know.

You didn’t want to consider the things he did in dark alleyways or on muddy, secluded fields. You didn’t want to even wonder whose blood had stained his hands before. For those were the same hands that would always brush off your dirty knees upon falling to the ground as a child. They were the ones that held you at night now.

You’d rather focus on what’s right there, would rather remember all of Tommy’s good deeds. He was still a good man deep down. Surely, the man who had left to serve his country was still there. He had to be.

You truly believed in that with unshakable determination.

Until that night. Until you had walked in on him and his brothers carrying a fucking corpse down to the docks. The middle-aged man’s face had been sliced open repeatedly, deep cuts oozing blood. And right between his bushy eyebrows: a hole the size of a bullet.

You’d thrown up on the spot. While John and Arthur took care of the body, Tommy could barely keep you from hyperventilating any further. No, you mean while they got rid of the corpse. Shit, even in your mind, you were sweet-talking the horrible atrocities Tommy had committed.

Playing pretend and ignoring his line of work was much easier when you hadn’t witnessed it firsthand. Tommy said that with time, the memory of that night would fade away from your mind. He was wrong. The sight of that man haunted you still, though it had been months.

Tommy’s calloused hand brushed your hair out of your face as he suddenly appeared on the barstool next to you. Taking the glass out of your hand, he gulped down the rest of your drink.

“C’mon, we’re retiring for the evening, darling,” he told you. He had already stood up again before you could protest, but you weren’t going to either way. The night was becoming tiresome anyway, with Tommy leaving you by yourself to whisper back and forth with Arthur.

You pulled your fur coat closer around your form as the cool night air hit your flushed skin on your way to the car. Silence filled the Bentley on your drive to Arrow House—his hand settling on your thigh heavily.

Still lost in thought, you barely registered your arrival at the large estate you now called your home. Your husband’s hand squeezed your thigh before he asked you in a low timber, “Y’all right, sweetheart?”

Eyes meeting his icy ones, you nodded quickly. You cleared your throat, and then reassured him with a smile, “Yes. I… I’m fine.”

Tommy was too smart of a man to buy that. He was also too selfish not to accept your words. After all, he was very much aware of the reason behind why you were acting so off recently.

He, in his male pride, also thought he knew just the way to distract you from it. And so, he led you to the dim bedroom before he took off your coat for you. His fingers brushed against the smooth surface of your shoulder sensually. That was when you knew what he was planning.

If Tommy spoke a corporeal language besides violence, it was sex. And he had truly mastered it by now.

Fingers fumbled with buckles hastily, clothes flew across the room. You gave into it willingly. Giving yourself over to Tommy was second nature to you by now. You could always trust him to take good care of you.

Suddenly, you found yourself on all fours. Tommy’s hand gripped you by the nape firmly, while his hips slammed against your bum in a rough tandem. By the time of your climax, your thighs were shaking vehemently from how overwhelming the pleasure had become. And that was only the first one. Tommy Shelby was a very greedy man.

Much later that night, you were heaving while staring at the wall. Your hair was messy from having had your face pressed into the pillow, and your thighs dripping with your combined releases. You were wrecked.

But while Tommy thought a bit of time or sex—as mind-blowing as it was—could just fix this, you knew that it wasn’t quite as simple.

Tommy Shelby was yours long before he became the man he was; before the money, before the murdering, before the Peaky Blinders. You loved him then, and you loved him now.

But if loving him meant living the life of a gangster’s wife—staying quiet and keeping your head down, while blood continued to run down the family business—you knew you were damned.

Tommy stroked your back in a gentle manner he reserved only for you.

“Rest now, dove.” You didn’t sleep a wink that night.

Because right before slumber could take you away, the picture of him would flash in your mind. A vision of horror; nasty cuts across his face, wide, unblinking eyes staring right back at you, and the nauseating coppery stench of blood filling your nostrils.

Only it wasn’t a vision. It was your reality.

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