Avos'

𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐫

//Recommended song: Middle of the Night by Elley Duhe//

"𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬...𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬...𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐞...𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞...𝐢'𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐦𝐞." 

-𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐮𝐡𝐞

ONE FULL DAY.

So many things can happen in the course of twenty-four hours. New life can be brought into the world, a person can be taken too soon, an ancestral tree can be brought down, and a butterfly can hatch.

Enemies can be made, deals can be signed, alliances can be broken, and wars can start.

One day, twenty-four hours, countless minutes, and limitless seconds.

And with each one of those hours, and every passing minute, and all those lingering seconds, the feeling of regret and doubt simmer deeper and deeper under Thomas Shelby's skin. He's not used to being uncertain, he's just not that type of man. When you plan everything accordingly, line up all the dominos, and control the outcome, there's little room for hesitation. When you can see the world with such eerie clarity, nothing is a surprise.

But Oksana Mikhailov is.

After his liaison with the Russians, he had tried to forget about the valuable information he had learned, tried his very fucking hardest, but it hadn't gone anywhere. On the drive back home, the thought and grown and grown until a perfect plan was laid out in front of him. It had been too beautiful, too intricate, too pleasing to ignore.

So, he had patiently waited for Oksana to return from her outing with his siblings. He had gone through the script multiple times, outlining exactly how it would go, planning for every possibility, but she had done the one thing he didn't expect and hadn't wanted to consider.

She blew up.

She hadn't run which fills him with hope, but she had demonstrated just how vile she can be. It was vicious, cruel, blood-thirsty, and ferocious. She degraded and mocked him, made him feel as small as everyone else has attempted to, and tried to break him down until there was nothing left.

Everything she said, she was right. She tore holes in all the defenses he's carefully worked up and knocked him down a peg, leaving him bare and open and prepared for her strike.

And, fuck him, he loved it.

That's not what he regrets about that night because he felt full and content and animated at the fire in her grey eyes and the rage curling her down-turned lips. No, his only regret is that he didn't get the chance to explain the full picture to the furiously stubborn Russian princess.

It hurts, not emotionally, but it does beat against his pride. It bothers him because if she could just listen and see it, he knows she'd realize the opportunity just dangling in front of them. He could have listed it out, explained the benefits and the risks, and she would have bowed to the girlish part of her that wants a bright happy future, and she would have summoned up every demon and every devil at the thought of revenge.