━━━━━━ ༻ 008 ༺ ━━━━━━
" Night Visitors "
A SILVER FORK'S CLICK ON FINE porcelain had a distinct sound to itself that has bathed the Alloways hotel suite for the past hour in a crescendo symphony. Their room-served dinner may have started silent, but as soon as they were nearing desert and their third glass of sparkling white wine, their symphony of cutlery finesse was joined by a final crucial instrument: their voices dragged across a conversation meant to catch each other up.
"I've heard Freddie Throne's in prison," Gene chose a rocky start for their lazy talk, something that Jackie did not even allow to linger as a thought, continuing on a completely different topic. She's heard enough of that story after all, mostly from Tommy himself, who was taking the fall in his family's eyes for something he did not cause. It so seemed that Freddie had embedded himself further into the Shelby family than simply being a comrade to Tommy, as she recalled they were back in France, and it was for that new connection's sake, established through Tommy's sister, that the arrest of Freddie Thorne was a downright disaster.
"And I've heard our men have all successfully settled close to Birmingham, hence I took the liberty of making the reservations for that hunt we thought of organising. Five cabins, one night..."
"Five cabins?" Gene interrupted. "When Lester said you have a spending issue, I thought he was just being his overly exaggerated self again, but..."
"I've invited the Shelby's to join us," rolling her eyes beforehand, Jackie defended her spending choice. "Unfortunately, I've had no success in persuading or impressing their aunt, however, I am most excited to let you know Thomas, Arthur, John and most likely John's new wife as well, will definitely be joining the hunting recreation."
For the entirety of her explantion, Gene proceeded to slowly shake his head in complete disapproval and occasionally even disappointment, making it a challenge for Jackie to keep her conversation easiness throughout without dipping her tone into annoyance. "Your like for a certain Shelby hasn't gone unnoticed, I assure you, sister," he eventually sighed.
"This has nothing to do with Tommy," Jackie argued, letting her fork down and going for her glass of champagne instead.
"I would have believed you right now had you not been calling him that since the deal with Ehmann."
"Well, you are wrong anyhow," she didn't back down, quickly gulping down from her wine to answer. "Which is why I lead our business and not you, little brother. You lack the vision for investments," Jackie lifted her chin in pride. "Thomas is in a really bad place with his family right now. His business relies heavily on family. Those are two facts that, existing at the same time can cause trouble to the profits of his dealings and by consequence, our profits as their middle-man sellers as well. In the long run as well, getting to know our perhaps first business partners in the international export will come to be incredibly useful. Men tend to bond over violence and men who know each other in such environments are less likely to get paranoid about each other."
"This has everything to do with Thomas Shelby though," Gene argued his own point with conviction. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be considering his offer like this."
"He warned us that the police have received a tip due to an IRA member drunkenly talking about the Liverpool shipment in a bar and that saved us great losses and trouble with the law around here as well," Jackie defended again, however this time growing disinterested in her plate, thus leaning back in her cushioned chair. "Moreover," she raised her hand to gesticulate through her speech, "he gave me no reason to doubt his intentions. His profits are promising and he can afford what he's been interested in buying."
"Only love can ever make someone this blind..."
"Blind?" Now, she had to frown through her outrage.
"Yes," Gene nodded, in utter disbelief that she was surprised to hesr him call her that. "Jackie, we have no need of expansion right now."
"Here's the second reason why you don't lead this family business," she held two fingers up, then pointed at her brother. "You lack a vision for the future."
"Alright, let's leave that aside then. Let's assume you never once mentioned expansion into international export through contractual buyers and scheduled shipments, but the idea has been with you for long before you met Mr. Shelby," Gene raised his hand, though he had just picked up his cigarette from the ashtray. "What about Mr. Shelby acting and behaving on your little mental chessboard like a maniac? Unpredictable, strange, cunning. He's everything we should be avoiding and there's proof right before your eyes of this." He paused, surprised to see no realization yet sparking Jackie's eyes. "His plan to overthrow Kimber."
"Oh, come on," she rolled her eyes once more. It was her turn to shake her head in disappointment. "He's got no reason to want to do the same to us. Kimber has something he wants. We, on the other hand, have something he needs."
"You," Gene laughed some of the smoke he sucked out of his cigarette. "Jackie, if only he wished to marry you, maybe I would lower my defenses. But he saw you as a woman in charge of a successful business and he knows his way inside our dealings is through your heart, rather than through your pocket. He's a devil, this one. The dangerous sort."
"Are you done being a gloom?" Jackie puffed. "What's gotten into you, anyway?"
"I'm worried sick for us," Gene admitted breathlessly. "For you most of all, because you've let him get under your skin. You like him. For goodness' sake, I will go as far as to bet that you've fallen for him."
Jackie looked from Gene's right eye, to his left, then down at her plate. Her appetite was gone, so she picked up her glass of wine and finished it. What could she say anyway? What could she possibly say when she knew what was true? She's been having dreadful nightmares and longer periods of time spent in bed unable to sleep, merely for thinking of just how devasted she'll be to leave. She's grown used to Tommy's rare smile, to the warmth of his hands... since the barn, they've seen each other often and with a twist now forming in her stomach, perhaps she could innerly admit that her brother was correct.
However, as soon as she placed her glass down, Jackie's features numbed and her eyes looked up devoid of any clear emotion. "What Tommy and I have is strictly professional. I am getting to know him, that's all. I want our business to evolve, not stagnate, and I do think, from what I have observed so far, that he's the means through which we can achieve that."
"What if I told you there's more to this, eh?" Gene sighed. He looked to his side, towards his jacket, draped on the back of his chair. From one of its inner pockets, he retrived a piece of paper, which he got up and extended across the table to her.
"What's this?"
"While you were off getting hay in your hair with Thomas Shelby, I did what you asked of me and more," Gene sat back down with a heavy sigh. "Whilst conversing with Kimber's accountant over which ports he thinks would have been more accesible for our transport—"
Jackie barely even read the first word on the telegram she was holding that she looked up from it, more curious about a topic she completely forgot about having asked her brother to look into for her. Should she actually close a deal with the Peaky Blinders, she reckoned they'll need more than a single dock in Liverpool. Diversification is the key to avoiding law. "So which ports?"
Gene hurried to satisfy her curiosity, "Southampton and London are the best he said, but London's off limits. Too much territorial war there between strong names."
Jackie hummed thoughtfully and leant back to get herself comfortable while reading.
"As I was saying..." She listened to her brother sigh on, "One thing led to another and he slipped. He told me, somewhere between a joke and a genuine advice, that I should tell you to stay away from the Shelby's. I thought it would be a vendetta, a biased hatred, but then..." Gene trailed off, seeing Jackie's eyes widen. "He knows about their grand plan," he spoke slowly the gasp waiting to fall off her lips.
"Who told him?"
"Good question," Gene pointed towards her. "One without an answer, I am afraid. Either the accountant knew and he didn't want to disclose that to me, or their informant went straight to Kimber, either way, this means trouble Jackie."
"Well, we have to tell Tom—"
Gene let his fist fall on the table and the cutlery they abandoned make one last shriek under the shockwave of his hit. "Stop for one second about that guy and just think, Jackie!"
"Don't talk to me like that," she gripped the arms of her chair, the piece of paper falling from her frip to the floor. Her tone may have been mild and casual, but the warning behind it was loud.
"He has a damn spy in the heart of his beloved Peaky Blinders, Jackie!" Her brother shouted in return, getting up. "First this plan of his being discovered before it came to fruition, then Freddie is arrested. This spy is telling everything that moves around the Shelby's, so what makes you think it didn't mention us? I don't buy it you know. I don't buy it that it was a drunk IRA member who talked too much about their deals with us. No," he shook his head, tone scarcely showing signs of falling back down. "You spent too much time around them, this spy must have heard at least one of the conversations you had with those guys. With Tommy. And now that Freddie's in jail, we know the spy is unbothered to appeal to the police."
"Alright, that's alarming," Jackie nodded in admission to his point, watching perplexed how her brother got more and more fired up. "But I don't see how that should make you defensice towards my investments. This is how I raised our family up from the dirt after the war—"
"A dirt you put us in."
Jackie stood up so fast her chair fell over behind her.
In the aftermath of that noise, silence lingered. Gene with his arms on top of his hips and his breath heaving on the rhythm of his rage; Jackie with a still posture, unblinking fury in her eyes.
"Be very careful about what you say next, Gene," Jackie warned. "You're starting to sound an awful lot like Lester and while he's older than us and gets a pass on a lot of things, I am older than you. You should show me some respect."
"I will and I am," Gene shook his head. "But you're running us into all sorts of bad through this infatuation for a man that doesn't love you—"
"Get out," Jackie pointed towards the door.
"Excuse me?" Gene leant back, perplexed.
"Get out and get some clean air, because clearly, your mind's become fuzzed in here all day making you believe you can question my decisions left and right," she shook her head, then crossed her arms at her chest. "If you don't like how I run my business, I'll tell you what I told Lester. You're free to leave. Get a real job. Find yourself a wife. Have children. Provide for them the best you can with the work your few skills allow you to get. Don't stand here and critcise the moves that have brought us this fsr like you know anything about what it takes to run this business. So yes, Gene, I need you to get the fuck out of my face, because had you not been my brother, I would have killed you for speaking to me like this. Get out of here and don't come back until you're sane again, a normal brother who doesn't try to destroy every affair his older sister has. I'll fuck who I please and I'll make business decisions like I always have, because it works. You and Lester are my advisors, but your advice is never going to be my word of law."
"Kill me, huh?" Gene shook his head. "Kill me you fucking might with this madness. Kill us all, in fact!" Snatching his jacket from his chair caused that one to fall back on the floor in one more dramatic sound to mark his march to the door, slammed behind him on his way out.
Jackie was left alone, shivering at first in fury alone. How dare he talk to her like that? How dare he say such awful things like how Tommy was manipulating her, how there was no real attraction on his side or how his mere presence was a dangerous thing?
A couple of exasperated tone-deaf screams later, Jackie left a completely destroyed dining table and a mess she will definitely have to tip the maids for cleaning in the morning for the bathroom, which she entered with the piece of paper in hand. She read it a thousand times over while soaking in her bathtub, but the words never changed, nor did the facts.
Eventually, she winded up in the middle of her bed, drowning in silk sheets, softness and thoughts buzzing around her mind like bees. It was there that her loneliness truly dawned on her. The suite was a gaping void left aching to how empty it was with just little her in it and no other flicker of light dancing in a deep and dark night. It was then that her mind backtracked everything she said and her hands had to climb to her face until her palms soaked in fresh tears.
She overlooked her older brother's comments so many times, but to hear Gene doubt her judgement was a blow to the confidence necessary to make any of these decisions. Infuriated as she was, she felt appalled by the sensation of doubt's noose suffocating her. What if she was the one in the wrong?
Like an answer to her most restless worries, knocking on the door helped Jackie open her eyes and even sit up. The knocks echoed through the whole suite, now fully dedicated to the darkness of a late and quiet night. Though she did try to squint at a clock out of a more prominent instinct of being reasonable, Jackie could only make out that it was indeed late, most likely past midnight.
Dazed from crying, from the alcohol, from the worries, instead of hearing knocking on her hotel room's door in the dead of night prompting her to grab a gun, she reassured herself that her brother, though with a key of his own, came to his senses and returned to undo the damage already done.
Her barefoot steps were slow and short, but she got herself to the door, unlocking it swiftly. The sight awaiting her once she pulled the door open was perhaps the only thing that could have possibly raised her pulse enough to give her a passing moment of clarity.
His name was on her lips but she had no time to speak it.
Thomas Shelby looked up from the ground and waited for no words to be exchanged before he stepped inside the room and stole his name right off her lips. His kiss pressed in hot breath and with an arm quickly wrapped around her, Jackie was guided a step back — sufficient to close the door behind him —, then a little further, until her back was pressed against a wall and he stopped for a breath they both much needed.
"I say to hell with our business deal," Thomas whispered to her, his voice existing amongst low octaves and his lips trembling to gravitate back, closer to hers.
Jackie's own lips were on fire with sensations that walked miles between tenderness and passion, between pure infatuation and a heavenly solution to everything and anything. Thomas Shelby kissed her and it all tasted like he had just slipped between her lips the drink of Gods. Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest, but into that frightened shock mixed a resurfacing fire. He lit a part of her that has been out for so very long.
"Fuck that business deal," Jackie agreed once her breath half levelled. She felt his sigh of relief — he had clearly held his breath for her answer — fall right on her skin while she went in and resume their kiss in the dark, leading it into an unleashing passion, ravaging them both.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Yes, we are seeing next chapter *why* Tommy said what he said and did what he did, BUT FIRST, SERIOUS QUESTION Y'ALL:
Do we want the full scene of Jackie and Tommy there?
I am basically 100% comfortable with writing it, but putting up a poll cause i am 50/50 between *is it relevant???* and *it's definitely relevant*.