THE FRENCH KISSERS ― Thomas Shelby

22. the soldier's minute

"Rose." His voice was a whisper of life; his breath the anchor. He grabbed her face, dry fingers against the softest of skin. Their noses touched; she was of all colors in the blue of his eyes. "Oi, Rose, look at me. We'll find her, aye? I promise ya. We'll bring her back safe."

"I'm not Charles, Thomas." Her mind had no way to grab the anchor, so she let it go. Delicate fingers closed in on his arms, like a snake that bites its own tail to stop her from biting others. She pushed his arms away. She was getting good at it. "Don't make me promises you can't keep."

She let the anchor fall and jostled through the crowd, dodging familiar faces with questions she had no will to answer. A policeman shouted at her; she didn't stop. Then Audrey shouted, and Rose halted.

"Rose, Rose! The café..." She ran to her, teal eyes brimming with prescient tears. "Evelyn...?"

Rose started walking again. She wanted to stop and hug her sister like she deserved to be hugged, but the clock didn't wait for anyone.

"Rose, what happened to Evelyn?"

"She's dead." Her tone was frigid, colder than a gush of wind on a lonely night. She reached for the car door, almost yanking it off the latches. An abyss opened between the lips of all the Kissers gathered at the sidewalk. "Same thing with the distillery workers. Same with my horse. Same with Andrea if we don't get to her fast enough."

An outburst of questions and cries rained down on her; each new one nailed her to the cross.

"What?" Rose froze upon that voice; upon the tatters of the familiar accent that fell from it. "What fookin' happened with Andrea?"

She turned around, to the tall boy coating the sun. The peaked cap dropped from his fingers, the freckles on his skin engulfed by furrows.

"The Saurets have her."

Finn looked from Rose to Thomas and lunged towards the only person he could blame.

"You said she'd be safe!" He towered over his older brother, cheeks red and incensed. Behind him, Isaiah tried to grab him. In front of him, Thomas didn't move. "You fookin' said she would be safe!"

"It wasn't his fault." An ironed voice built a barrier between the brothers. Raphael appeared at the sidewalk holstering a gun, the purple stains on his face raising more brows. "It was mine. Now you can fucking stay here and argue, but I'm going to find Andrea."

Finn clasped the cap from the ground and accepted the gun Thomas shoved into his hand. "Not alone, you're not."

***

Behind clouds of steel, a pale sun rolled languidly towards an invisible ocean when Rose stopped the car at the side of the canal.

"Are you sure it's here?" Renée asked, protective hand over her belly.

"Yes." Rose looked out of the window. She shouldn't have come. None of them should have. "Tavish knows I'll think of this place. He'll be waiting for us. If there is a direct conflict, he'll have the advantage. So, Raphael, we can't barge in. We need to—"

"Save the strategies for Sun Tzu," Raphael said from the back seat, yanking the door open and jumping out. "She's my sister."

"Wait for us, you fucker!" Finn shouted, running after him with Isaiah.

"Merde." Rose stepped out before looking back. "Renée, stay here."

"Rose—"

"Think about the baby."