#who probably never understood the harm white catholics did and continue to do to those communities

[peakyblinders1919]

Business Liaisons- Part 3

You woke with a headache again, this time not from the alcohol. You could feel the stiffness in your neck. A blinder had escorted you and your men back to your hotel. You had stripped and washed off the blood and muck, climbing naked into your bed.

Your eyes cast over the discarded dress and you got up, investigating the offending item. It smelled like whisky, cigarettes and blood, you felt a pang of guilt and overwhelming sadness, the last you had heard Tommy was in surgery, it had hit his stomach and missed his organs but he had lost a lot of blood. 

There would be far more blood on the streets for this; you had already pieced together in the hospital that it was probably a revenge shooting; some fool loyalist to Sabini or Alfie Solomons who had idiotically chosen the wrong side. 

Your hotel phone was ringing and someone was pounding the door. You grabbed a thick dressing gown and wrapped it around you. 

“What?” you growled at your bodyguard as you yanked open the door. 

“Please Miss, it’s Mr. Capone on the telephone.” you sighed, rushing back to the sofa and motioning to your man for some water as you grabbed the heavy receiver. 

“Y/N? Y/N???” he shouted, god it sounded good to hear his voice.

“Si Al, sono io.” you sounded tired even to yourself. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have sent you over there with those god dam gyspies. Should have kept you here.  Torno a casa aora!!” You laughed a little. 

“This aint no laughing matter! What you laughing at Y/N?? You almost got shot, you think I’d let that happen to you here in Chicago? They’d all be dead.”

“Alphonse, calmati cugino, they’re good people. Tommy’s a good choice in business partner, it was my fault, we were dancing, he was off his guard.”

“Dancing??!?!” Al shouted into your ear again, “What was he trying with my baby cousin?!” you rolled your eyes, if his men knew how their tough boss worried over his female family, he’d never live it down. 

“Al, I’m ok. I’m staying ok? I’ll come home as soon as I can. I’ve tasted the gin, it’s good stuff cousin, I’ll make sure the first shipment leaves before I do. Plus I have unfinished business, they’re our associates now Al, I don’t know who this guy thought he was but…” Your cousin greeted that last statement with a knowing bark of laughter- you did not take kindly to threats or violence against people you protected. 

“Signorina?” Marco stuck his head in the door and you held the receiver away from your ear. 

“Lo abbiamo.” You nodded. 

“Al, I gotta go.” You passed the phone over to your head bodyguard as you went to go get changed. 

  The hospital was silent, it was nearing 1 in the afternoon, the hangover had worn off but the sound of Arthur’s belligerent yelling and then his sobbing the night before still rung in your ears. 

The eldest Shelby had followed the gurney as far as he could. “Not another one, not another one.” He kept repeating it, he didn’t want to lose another brother, you understood his pain. You had sat with Polly and Ada, quiet, as your guards produced whisky and coffee. When the doctor had pronounced that Tommy would recover, you had taken Polly aside and mentioned your idea. She had nodded deftly once and you had left the family to be alone.

You knocked lightly on the door and entered the private room. Tommy was sitting up in bed and you couldn’t help but notice the tattoos on his alabaster skin, the smattering of chest hair and the white bandages which now covered the better half of a toned and muscular torso. He looked up at you, away from the papers he held in his lap and then looked to the corner of the room. There was a blinder sitting there, with a shot gun across his lap. You looked back at Tommy not sure if you were welcome but he only nodded at his soldier to leave you and motioned you forward. 

You sat heavily in the chair next to him, your hand coming up instinctively to rub the back of your neck. You didn’t like seeing Tommy injured, he was always in control, strong, you couldn’t identify the emotion you were feeling but it was creating tension all the way down your spine. 

“I’m glad you’re going to be ok.” You said it genuinely, avoiding the blue eyes that were searching your face. 

“Polly tells me you pulled the trigger yourself.” You look up from the pristine bed sheets then, catching his eye. He’d lit a cigarette and was taking a slow drag waiting for your reply.

You cleared your throat and sat back, crossing your legs, his eyes flitting from your face to your legs and back again. “Is that cigarette part of the prescription for recovery?” you teased gently, not wanting to answer his question. 

He stared at you defiantly giving you that slow blink you had already come to associate with only him. 

“I don’t let my men do what I can and should do for myself, if I give the order then I carry it out, unless I can’t for whatever reason,” you wave your hand superfluously but Tommy knew you were referring to killing Luca.

 “That man, that wannabe assassin fucked with you, he fucked with the Shelby’s, on our ground, he was on some renegade mission despite not knowing that it was Alfie that had fucked you over and how dare he? Does he know who we are? Sabini was scum, low level, near sighted, idiotic, self-absorbed scum.” You almost spat on the floor in your anger but remembered you were in a hospital. 

“No one comes for us, no one. Especially not like that. Not when the family is around, Finn was there and Ada, she has a son for fuck’s sake. So yes I shot him.” You make the sign of the cross, clinging to as much of your catholicism as you could to not displease the spirit of your very catholic mother. 

Tommy nodded but said nothing, looking at you with interest in his eye, you felt your temper in the heat spreading through you but reminded yourself that it was over now. 

“Tell me, Y/N, do all your family members go red in the cheeks when they’re angry like you do? It’s dangerous to have such an obvious tell.” He teased you. 

His voice even more raspy than usual. You rewarded him with a genuine grin before plucking the cigarette from his hand and walking away with it. You stubbed it out in the ashtray that was on the furthest table from the bed and leaned back against it, arms behind you for support. “You’re quite something Tommy Shelby.”  he quirked his eyebrows at you.

Shaking your head you continued, “As we would say in America, you’re a real little shit sometimes.” He laughed, you hadn’t been expecting it and from the look on Ada’s face as she came through the door she hadn’t expected it either. It was a light, lilting sound; you could almost imagine him as a teenager, that sweet, mischievous laugh preceding him during better times. 

“Little eh?” He questioned back and you grinned at him, forgetting yourself. “You will come stay at the house.” You opened your mouth to protest and noticed Ada’s eyes flicking between the two of you.

“It’s not safe, especially when I’m in this condition, you will come stay.”

“I have guards Thomas. I will be fine.” His lips turned up a bit at the way you used his full name.

“You will come and finish our business. I do not have a death wish, I won’t let harm come to Al Capone’s family while they’re in my town.” 

“I’ll get some men to drive you and your boys over.” Ada added with finality.