weaponised - a peaky blinders story

one

"Right, enough games, what the bloody hell do you want and who the fuck are you?" An older looking woman asked her, bright red lipstick coating her lips and a cigarette hanging from her fingers, eve knew exactly who this was.

"18 years ago, Thomas Shelby had sex with a common whore called Amber Aliff." She began, thanking the tall gentleman for her drink before attempting to wash away her nerves. The whole family looked at her in disgust after what she had just said. "9 moths after that, she gave birth to a little girl. 6 years after that, Amber left with that little girl."

"So you know about my ex wife, and my daughter. Why are you here?" Thomas finally spoke.

"Don't you want to know what happened to your daughter, mr Shelby?" She asked him, taking another sip of her whiskey. After leaving the nunnery, eve never felt intimidated, not by the drunken men who tried it on with her, not by workers who threatened her for any given reason, not by the women who tried to pick a petty fight. But for some reason, stood in the room make her stomach flip and her knees almost buckle from beneath her.

"Go on" Tommy waved her hand, the family shifting and seeming much more interested in what the brunette in front of them had to say.

"After amber left, she moved to a small town in France, Evangeline stayed there with amber for two years who then met a man named Marcus Asher, horrible scum. They moved back to England, where they lived for 8 years. On Evangeline's 16th birthday, she shot and killed both Marcus and Amber and took off." After stating that she had killed people, a few gasps were heard throughout the room, the family each seemed more than invested in the story she was telling.

She had been planning on how to tell them that she was Evangeline for years, never being able to decide on what to say. For some reason, spilling her whole life story seemed like the right thing to do in the moment, and she was far too deep into it to stop it now.

"She was caught by a station master and sent to a nunnery up in Berlin, awful place. It never showed up in any files because she went under the name Adeline Maltbie. Anyway, she managed to get out of there and has since been here, there and everywhere trying to get back to small heath, she hasn't had much luck." She finished off, skipping over any minor details that she didn't feel like sharing.

"And how is it, yeah, that you know all of that, eh?" Arthur spat out, tears brimming his eyes at the mention of Evangeline, much like most of the family sat around the table.

"Ask me my name, art." She replied, staring him straight in the eyes.

"Fuck off!" John gasped, standing up as fast as he could before storming up to the girl, a large smile on his face. "Tell me it's you, lina. Please." He asked her, gripping her shoulders. Eve nodded.

John was quick to wrap her up in an embrase, the rest of her family still sat staring at the girl. John let go of the hug but made sure to keep an arm wrapped around her shoulder.

"Oh you lot can't seriously tell me you don't believe her." His smile dropping as he saw the rest of his family's faces.

Ada stood up, wiping a stray tear away from her cheek as she marched over to eve, wrapping her in an extremely tight hug, her tears now falling freely.

Arthur stood next as Ada went to sit back down, John still stood there, looking between both Polly and tommy in almost disgust.

"You can't be fucking serious, Tommy that's your little girl! That's lina, how could you deny that?" John questioned his brother as Arthur picked eve up and twirled her around.

"Yeah John? How do you know that for a fact?" Tommy asked him back, his eyes never leaving eve, who was now giggling at something Arthur had said.

"Because I'm not a fucking idiot, Tom!" He replied, shaking his head at his brother.

"She's our Evangeline, Tom. I can feel it." Polly said, a smile overtaking her face as she walked over to the girl. A tear fell as she placed her hand on eves cheek.

Eve smiled at Polly, taking her into a hug before turning to her father, who still wasn't convinced that it was actually her. "I knew that you'd question the fuck out of it. I'm not stupid, I know about what your lot do and if I'm being honest I wouldn't trust me either. I haven't got much evidence," she began, placing her suitcase on the table and pulling out a file. "It's not much, it's just the nunnery file for Adaline Maltbie. Now I know that isn't going to convince you much since that could be anyone, but I've threw in a train ticket from way back when and there's one of ambers necklaces in there, I stole it before I took off." She said, sliding across the folder to tommy, her family now back in their seats but this time with rather large smiles on their faces.

The men that surrounded the table had a mix of different emotions plastered on their faces. Some were stoic, some were bored. A few seemed to be overjoyed and then, Isaiah stood smirking at her, a cigarette hanging from his lips.

"Fucking hell" she heard tommy mutter, he was pinching the bridge of his nose, the small pendant necklace clutched in his palm. "Come here" he told her, necklace still clasped in his hand and a few stray tears slightly dripping from his eyes, taking every single person stood in the room by surprise.

As eve reached him, she genuinely thought someone had stolen her lungs from how hard he squeezed her. "You don't understand how much I've missed you." He mumbled into her shoulder, his voice slightly breaking.

"I've missed you more, dad."

After the family had composed themselves and kicked everyone else out, promising a drink later on in the garrison, the group all sat around the table, eve now having a chair.

"The file said you ran away after killing a preacher." Tommy spoke, deciding to announce what she had done to the whole room.

"Yeah well, I've lived with evil most of my life and the six months I spent in that place was the worst of it all." She told him, a cigarette hanging from her hand that clutched her glass of whiskey.

"Do you want to talk about it, love?" Ada asked her, sending her a sympathetic smile as she lent over to rub her shoulder.

"No, no don't worry, I'm better for it." She smiled at her, finishing off her glass of whiskey and continuing to talk to her family for an hour or so before they headed off to the garrison so eve could catch up with everyone who had missed her.