It was well into the night before Cliona Burgess, talked to Thomas again. He came striding, as he always did, yanking her away from the lively room much to her protest. She followed him down the darkened corridor.
"I'm not helping you" She spoke, walking slowly on purpose. The woman noticed the look in his eyes, he was after something.
"You haven't helped us in awhile, why so? Because you've lost the lust for a revolver in your garter or because you know Grace doesn't like it" It was true. She was avoiding getting her hands dirty because of her sister.
"Why should it matter to her, when your hands are always bloody" She spoke catching his pace, not daring to look at him, directly. Thomas looked amused for a moment, before turning to her.
"I'm the same man, she met the first time." That was also true, Thomas was a criminal when Grace met him, yet she still fell. Cliona on the other hand, may have always been trouble, but she didn't come out of the womb a gangster.
"Fine. You made your point. What needs doing?" She asked reluctantly, the two of them walking out into the cold night air.
"The Russian-" He began, but Cliona held up a hand sharply shaking her head.
"I'm not fucking helping you with Russian business" The woman scoffed. She knew better than to get mixed in things like that, it was way over their heads.
"The Russian in this place is to be put down. I've made a deal, no going back. Business, Cliona, fucking business." Her eyebrows knitted together in an unsatisfactory glare.
"On your wedding day. I didn't think Thomas Shelby would stoop that low" She felt disheartened that he hadn't involved her in the situation sooner, but he was wise not to. If it had been earlier in the day, she would have been gifted with sobriety and her senses would have been extremely wired.
"You thought wrong" Indeed she had.
Cliona heels met with the hard wooden floor, sounding an echo off the white wall of the house, that was almost a maze. A faint bang sounded and the woman's pace quickened a revolver aching at her chest.
"Wouldn't it be more fun to imagine a gangster with a gun" A young voice sounded ahead, a chuckle following. Cliona's body emerged from the shadows to meet Michael with an unfamiliar soft faced girl, no more than 21. She was high, she knew that much.
"That's not just poetic but Ironic. Michael, can't you keep your dick in your trousers for a night?" She asked blankly, as the younger boys eyes hardened. It was true she used to like the boy fondly, but he was getting too much like Tommy every day and the prospect concerned her.
"You remind Tommy who's being doing the most of the company this year" He spoke, his accent thicker and coarse, far from the 18 year old boy that had come to find his biological mother. She stepped back, turned raising her middle finger up, before disappearing back into the dark. By this time another gunshot echoed the halls, two more and people would worry. Her revolver was already out in all its shiny glory, as her eyes lay upon the Russian, Kaledin and Arthur Shelby. The foreign man's dark eyes met hers a sense of plead and desperation between them both.
"In the name of God don't shoot" She cocked the barrel with a spin, before a shot rung the hall, a hole between the mans bushy brows.
"I'm an atheist " Was the last thing he heard.
It was dawn, and the breath of the woman, spiraled in a white smoke into the crisp air. A fire of amber and crimson burned within her pupils, heating her face and body, but it was far from comforting. She looked over at Charlie and Arthur who fed the beast, lighting a cigarette each. Then she looked back at the grand house, to one particular window where Thomas Shelby stood. The woman gave him a small nod, before turning her dark curls sliding from her shoulder. Her feet took her down the stoned court yard, to the stables, where though the smell was less than welcoming the inhabitants ruled her heart. A hand fell from a black leather glove, sliding up the nose of a white speckled mare, calmly.
"I killed a man" She whispered, her breath still visible. "I thought it would end, but it never does. There's no rest for the wicked" She whispered against the graceful animal that was enjoying her stroke. "I thought, I thought" She let out a laugh shaking her head, before falling silent.
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"Finn, for goodness sake, when will you stop growing!" Cliona exclaimed at she got out of the black shiny car, one of three, that had parked up in the lifeless street of Watery Lane. The lanky younger Shelby shrugged with a chuckle. He was a boy of little words, but she did not blame him. His brothers spoke for him. And besides, Cliona wasn't so sure Finn had this lifestyle in him, and it didn't matter that he was a Shelby. She hoped adult hood that loomed in wouldn't destroy all the boy's innocence. John shoved her forward onto the pavement as he got out of the car and let out a grunt. John Shelby was married, perhaps not always happily, but married with kids all the same. The door of the betting shop opened and Cliona and the Shelbys walked in, before Cliona was urged into Thomas office, along with Polly. Her eyes fell to the safe that was busting with more money than Cliona had ever seen within it.
"You're gambling all of it on one robbery?" Polly questioned to her nephew who nodded blandly a cigarette already in his mouth.
"I'm a gambling man Polly. Cliona?" He questioned forward to the younger woman, to get her approval. Other than Polly and Grace, she was smart and he trusted her with everything. His life, his money.
"Isn't that illegal?" Was all she spoke her lips upturning into a smirk, making her way out into the busy shop, dipping through the busy workers. Alas the girl would never see a robbery.
