red↳ thomas shelby

- XXVI. -

"Stand where?"

"Let's go. Come on." Tommy grabbed Zara's hand and ushered James out of the flat.

"Don't listen to him, James. He'll get you killed!"

♔♔♔♔

Zara could tell as they got closer to Alfie Solomons' bakery in Camden Town, James became more and more unsure.

"Hello Ollie." Tommy kept walking past him to get into the building but Ollie was quick to stop him.

"Hang on. Just you and Zara, yeah?" Ollie pointed to James. "He stays out here."

"You stay here." Tommy pointed at James, and Zara gave him a reassuring smile.

The couple followed Ollie as they came into a room filled with the barrels of rum. Tommy stopped a second and kneeled down next to a barrel to tie his shoe. Ollie waited in annoyance as he waited for the couple to catch back up with him. From behind his back, Zara and Tommy shared a knowing smirk.

Tommy and Zara sat in front of Alfie Solomons in his office. Her cousin paid them no mind as he filled out paperwork, lazily leaning back in his chair. The phone on Alfie's desk rang.

Without looking up, Alfie said, "That'll probably be for you, won't it?"

Tommy stood up and picked up the phone. "Arthur? You're out." Zara rested her hands on her bump and waited.

"Right, so that will be your side of the street swept up, won't it?" Alfie said. "Where is mine? What have you got for me?" 

"Signed by the Minister of the Empire himself." Tommy handed Alfie a piece of paper.

Alfie put on his glasses and examined the document. "Yeah?"

"Which means that you can put your rum in our shipments and no one at Poplar Docks will bat an eye." Zara said, still running her hand over her bump.

"You know what? I'm not even going to have my lawyer look at that."

"No, it's all legal."

"You know what? Mate, I trust you. That's that. Done." Alfie finished.

Zara internally rolled her eyes.

"So, whiskey." Alfie pulled a bottle out of his desk. "There is one thing, though, that we do need to discuss."

"What would that be?" Tommy lit a cigarette.

"It says here 20 percent paid to me of your export business."

"As we agreed on the telephone."

"No, no, no. See I've had my lawyer draw this up for us, just in case." Alfie took a document out of a drawer in his desk and passed it to Tommy. "It says here that a hundred percent of your business goes to me."

"Are you fucking kidding me, Alfie?" Zara laughed at her cousin.

"Don't worry about it, all right, because it is totally legally binding. All you have to do is sign the document and transfer the whole lot over to me."

"Sign just here, is it?" Tommy asked, looking at the paper.

"Yeah."

"That's very funny, Alf." Zara said. "We'll give you a hundred percent of our business?"

"Yeah." Alfie folded his arms.

"Why?" Tommy asked, not looking concerned in the slightest.

Ollie pulled out a gun and pointed it at Zara's head. She rolled her eyes.