Subtle Invitation [Thomas Shelby]

Time

Two weeks had slipped by and neither had Tommy or Lily spoken. The phone at Adler estate had rang constantly, her staff vetting the calls and declining to take a message on Lily's orders.

The first few nights Lily had spent crying in the darkness of her room. Embarrassed that she had willingly given herself to a man who so easily threw her to the wolves.

After the third night, when she had no more tears to shed did she turn to pacing. Sleep was elusive alongside her appetite. In a big house with nothing but her thoughts she wondered if she was going to go crazy.

Albert had a doctor visit to take her stitches out who  had also prescribed her something to help her sleep but she had asked her house maid Mary to dispose of the offence.

Lily didn't want anyone to interfere with her suffering; she wanted to feel it, to learn from it so she never let it happen together.

On the fifth day she remembered as she tipsily stumbled across her studio the weapons that she had allowed the Shelby family to store. It had taken an extra week for her to pluck up the courage to ask Albert to arrange a pick up.

The Shelby's would return to take what was theirs and so Lily could sever any remaining business with them.

Albert had fretted and offered to have them picked up discreetly and shipped back to them but she simply didn't want anyone else to get involved.

Everything Tommy Shelby touched burnt to ashes.

—-

Tommy had spent two weeks in a state of self induced rage. When he wasn't drunkly yelling at an operator for her he was trying to fight off his brothers concern.

This was the deep end and he wanted to go head first. Every passing day the rage grew, with every decline he could feel her slipping further and further away. Lily had gotten so deep under his skin that he could feel her etched in his bones.

Hiding away in the new office that he had purchased with Lily was all that he wanted to do. Arthur was having to blindly navigate his way through the business but he didn't care. Every now and then he would take care of the important stuff but quickly return to his hide out.

Polly had told him to leave her be and even tried taking his office phone but he had threatened to cut her fingers off if she dared.

It was the fourteenth day that he was passed a phone call, the operator stating it was from The Adler Estate. As his heart shot into his mouth he waited with baited breath to hear her voice.

Instead it was Albert, his gruff dulcet tones slamming him back down to earth within seconds.

"Miss Adler has asked that you remove your property as soon as possible Mr Shelby"

"Is she there?" He barked, infuriated at the conversation already.

"No sir, she's out at dinner" he replied back smartly.

Dinner? With who? Had she already gotten over him. The thought of Lily with another man had him bent over his desk. Speechless at the notion.

"Are you free tomorrow Mr Shelby?" Albert snapped as he grew impatient at the silence on the phone.

"Yes. We'll be there for nine" slamming the phone down he rubbed his stubble, picked up the rest of his whiskey and shot it back.

As soon as the brown liquid hit the back of his throat he flung the glass across the office so that it smashed satisfyingly against the door.

Pathetic. That's what he was. Before her he was cold and brilliant. Now he was weak, fretting over her while she was out dining with men.

That's what his drunken haze led him to believe. It helped him pass out at his desk later on in the night.