THE FRENCH KISSERS ― Thomas Shelby

13. all things trouble

"I had all of these dreams," Rose nodded, mind lost some point outside the window, as if she could look right into her childhood and touch the dreams in it. "I used to stay awake at night, imagining how life would be, if one day I'd play in an international orchestra and travel through the greatest cities in the world. But when we're kids we think we're so big. We're not. When we grow up, the world swallow us, and we just go along with it."

"It's the world that's too small for you, Rose, not the other way around." Kaya shook her head, in that tenacity Alfie Solomons seemed to have taken such a big liking to. "In fact, the world is too small for all of us."

"Preach!" Reaching underneath the counter, Arwen took out a bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne in it as if it were the most natural thing to do at ten in the morning.

"Wait, when did you put that in there?" Sienna asked, but Arwen simply winked before opening the bottle with a satisfying pop; the cork flew across the room, and Kaya dodge it by mere inches. Then the doors of Le Petit Paris burst open, and the cork fell at the feet of a dapper blue-eyed man, standing on the throne of the silence that reigned right away.

Kaya was the first to roll her eyes. "Does he always have to be so dramatic?"

Thomas looked down at the cork, then at Sienna, who had gotten behind the counter after murdering an improperly amused Arwen with her eyes.

"Am I interruptin' something?"

"No, please, come in." Sienna's voice was polite when Thomas sauntered into the room. His stare flickered between the ladies like the fastest of dragonflies, and then stopped on Rose like the slowest bee on a flower. She looked away first. There was too much of him in his eyes. "How may I help you, sir?"

"I need new suits for me and me men," he said, looking around the boutique as if evaluating if it was a good enough place for his feet to step on. "For a party I'm having at me house."

Before any of the ladies could stop her, Arwen had moved to the counter, leaning against it with the bottle of champagne opened in her hands.

"A party? What's the occasion?"

Thomas barely spared her a glance. "A fundraising event. For the Grace Shelby institute."

"May God rest her soul," Arwen said, raising the bottle before taking a long sip from it. There was nothing grievous about her tone. Just like there was nothing dangerous about Thomas' face, and yet everyone in the room could feel the danger. Rose cleared her throat and walked over to Thomas to hand him the check she had just filled.

"A donation. For the institute."

He took the paper from her hand, not blinking at the large sum. Not blinking when their eyes slid over each other. Not blinking even when he had a gun to his head. It shouldn't be possible. How a man like him could walk the face of the earth when all that made him human was buried six feet under it.

"I understand you don't pay for suits, Mr. Shelby." Thomas averted his eyes from Rose to Sienna. "You'll pay for these."

Her stare was unwavering, even against the turbulent waves in his. Sienna had worked too hard on her business to let him walk all over it. Besides, Rose was there. The king of Birmingham had little authority under her rule.

"Aye." One of his hands sneaked inside his tweed jacket, taking the wallet out in slow, deliberate moves. He started taking the notes out, one by one, placing them down on the counter.

"Finn says you never pay for suits," Andrea stated. "Something about the suits being on the house or the house burns down."

"Finn says a lot. And if we burned this house down, our Peaky arrogance would be among the ashes." He took one last note, adding it to the pile. "For the lady over there."