𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙮, John Shelby

- 16

- CHAPTER SIXTEEN -

- IN WHICH THEY HAVE A MEETING

. . .

THE WALK UP to the Shelby Parlour was swift, Rory and Polly making sure both baby and mother were wrapped up warm and ready to meet the outside world again before they made their way up the cobblestone path and slipped through the back doors of the house.

Ada was left in the kitchen with Karl, a cup of fresh tea balancing on a half broken placemat ( which had been caught in the intersection of Finn and John messing around with guns, the younger accidentally sending a bullet through the china that had been poised against a windowsill, resulting in the elder of the two receiving a horrible scolding from Polly soon after ). And then the two women skimmed through the kitchen doors, attempting to keep the mother hidden from sight.

"Don't worry boys you can come back to it later." Polly muttered to a collection of the workers as they wandered past, Rory sharing a polite smile with them as they dropped collections of folders onto one of the desks.

The Miller fiddled with rolled edges of her blouse sleeves, fingers rolling across the satin, grounding to a holt at the edge of an office doorway, left shoulder falling onto the wood.

"Right." Tommy spared a glance in her direction, letting it dance over the various other adults, following the movements of John as he weaved through the crowd towards her. "I've got you all here today because this is the day we replace Billy Kimber."

A pit of wallowing gilt filled Rory's stomach as her cousin's name rolled off Tommy's tongue, a dark feeling of utter treachery hitting her as she realised that originally sticking to the plan of following the Peaky Blinder's every move, making a mental note of every horse to win a race, for every ounce of money to leave the building and to enter it, had been forced down the drain hole as soon as she stepped foot in Small Heath.

She had never felt so completely dreadful, the mere thought that the expected turn out of that day could've and always would've been stopped if she remained devoted to her family and the Birmingham Boys. She may not have liked Billy much, but he was the one to find her a stable home, the one to offer her a job. And somehow she had painted herself as the villain in the scenario when he should've been it. Now the family would be torn apart at the news of the eldest cousin being murdered, Rory knowing exactly how it happened whilst pretending like she knew nothing of it.

How she had become so immersed in the Peaky Blinder's lifestyle, how she slotted into place in Small Heath, how even the strangers and most irrelevant inhabitants of the village felt a strong urge to keep her protected from the hands of the people they all knew she worked for.

The guilt was autocratic, flooding through her stomach, draining into her brain as overwhelming thoughts numbed her mind, inhaled the psychotically enthusiastic sentiment held above not only hers but everybody else's heads as Thomas Shelby began the speech that would lead them to war.

No one had noticed.

It felt like they had.

The ginger bittersweet taste adorning her mouth as her fingers wrapped around the doorframe, the pounding of her temples telling her over and over to walk out the door and single-handedly send Billy and his men back to the other side of Birmingham. She wanted him to admit defeat, allow Tommy to take over the racetracks with his head held high instead of finding his cold body six feet under.