CHAPTER TWELVE.
"FELICITY, LEAVE IT." THE other blonde barmaid frowned at her friend as she paced the floorboards, her curls bouncing as a worried scowl lined her lips.
Hardly an hour into her shift at the Garrison and Felicity Woods was already itching to leave, to go and find out about what ever chaotic, destined-to-fail plan Tommy had up his sleeve. She had absolutely no intention whatsoever on the man walking into the meeting that was no-doubt a trap, or at the very least a conversation that most definitely would not result in an outcome that pleased both parties. However, due to the fact that Thomas Shelby had purposefully stalked off without uttering a word to the girl, meant that she hadn't a single hope of barging through the doors and dragging someone out before something occurred.
That hadn't stopped her from declaring that she would do such a thing to Grace, who had merely sighed before promptly forbidding her to leave.
And so the girls busied themselves behind the bar, keeping bored conversation among themselves as they poured drinks and mopped up the spillages that would occur only moments later. Grace kept her friend politely amused by recalling the stories of her time in Ireland, and Felicity laughed and returned these with tales of her own.
Hours later and the pair were even more bored than they had ever imagined, what with the dull repeating tasks having little to entertain them for long. And as the doors burst open and inaudible cries rang through their ears, both girls turned to one another, hardly expecting this to occur yet not feeling as though there should be any urgency to their next actions. Both Felicity and Grace had seen their fair share of pub brawls and so only assumed this to be another one.
It wasn't until the next words rang out that Felicity finally caught onto the fact that this was not a mere scuffle between drunkards.
"Is there any man here named Shelby?"
Felicity's heart dropped as her eyes found the door and watched as a sharp, impatient demand was shouted throughout the pub.
"I said," the man bellowed once again. "Is there any man here named Shelby?"
The blonde glanced from him to the two men that stood on either side, and as the realisation hit, she bit back a low groan. Now was really not the time for the men of her past to be walking back into her life - whether on purpose or not, she did not know, but she hoped it was the latter. It took Felicity a moment to collect herself before she put a step forward and left the safety of the crowded bar so that she stood in the flickering amber light of the bare bulbs.
"The Shelbys aren't in tonight," Felicity asserted with as much confidence as she could muster, hoping to whatever god was out there that she would not stumble upon her words.
The man pursed his lips together in impatience.
She continued hesitantly, "If you'd be willing to wait, I can get you drinks?"
Felicity prayed that he would not recognise the girl who stood before him. It was a feeble hope, but considering just how little attention he had paid her in the first eighteen years of her life, it had a slight possibility of paying out. John Woods had hardly uttered more than eight half-hearted sentences to his daughter in the final few months of her residence at the Woods home, choosing to spend his time on business, alongside his sons that had little reason to do anything else.
Sure enough, the realisation had not settled in the man's eyes, yet Felicity knew that the likeliness of this luck lasting was close to zero. "How long will they be?"
"I couldn't say," she revealed as she ushered men away from the bar. "No more than twenty or so minutes, I suppose?"
John Woods merely acknowledged her words as he took a seat at a table that resided in the middle of the room. Not making any hint of interest in the room's inhabitants, he turned his attention to fishing a crisp box of cigarettes from the pocket of his overcoat. Struck a match, held the device near the end, watched as the glowing amber aura alighted and the cigarette dispersed a brief puff of smoke into the air.
The blonde busied herself with retrieving glasses and plucking cloudy bottles from the cupboard by their necks, before slamming them onto a tray. She tried to ignore the low conversation that her father was having with the men that joined him, and instead turned to Grace, pulling her closer so to lower her voice as she spoke.
"Go home," she murmured.
Her friend's eyes widened. "But Harry said. . ."
"I don't give two shits what Harry said. I don't know what this man wants, Grace, and until I do, you shouldn't be here."
"I can't leave you, Felicity, not with these men."
"I said go home," Felicity insisted once more, throwing a quick glance backwards before returning her gaze to the other blonde. "Look, I'll be perfectly fine. I can handle myself if anything gets out of hand, but I have no intention of dragging you in with me."
Grace stumbled upon her words but when the other continued to insist that she return back to the safety of her home, the Burgess girl finally gave in. Squeezing her friend's hand reassuringly, she pulled the apron off and dropped it on a discarded chair before snaking through the room, away from Felicity.
No more than two minutes later was Felicity collecting the tray in her arms and making her way over to the table.
"I thought you said he'd be here by now," John Woods accused, scowling up from where his gaze had previously rested on the wood.
The blonde pressed her lips together to push the sigh back from where it hovered on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she chose to plaster a sweet, apologetic smile upon her face. "I said I hadn't a single clue as to when he'd arrive," she corrected.
She wished she knew when he would, though, because whilst her anxieties about whatever might occur were increasing rapidly by the second, so was the fury that was beginning to flood through her being. Tommy had specifically told her where he would be going today, and had specifically required that she stayed either at the Garrison or in the Shelby home, where she would be out of trouble and of harm's way. So when the man of whom he had claimed to be meeting stormed through the frosted glass doors of the pub with an angry bellow and his indjex finger resting on the trigger of a handgun, it made not only her heart drop, but also her jaw as she realised the lie that had rolled off of his tongue as easily as anything.
Just minutes later did the girl find herself jumping out of her skin as the doors burst open and the sullen face of Thomas Shelby met her eyes.
"What's going on?" Tommy uttered in a monotone, but it was not long before his gaze fell on the man before him.
"Shelby, I'm guessing?" John shook out his jacket before rising from his chair to acknowledge the entrance of the gangster.
"That'd be me."
"And you're the boss?" He continued. "I'm told there's three of you, but only one in front of me, so I'll have to assume you're Tommy? And I'm guessing that you're the boss because you're looking me up and down like I'm a fucking tart."
The man of whom had barely uttered more than six words since he had entered merely nodded as he pushed through the crowd. Not that he needed to - it parted without a word as men slunk back into the shadows, not daring to meet either of the two men that now faced one another.
"All of you, go home," he ordered, to which each man that had remained did not bother arguing with. They dispersed from the scene without another word, leaving only the men glaring at one another and a single blonde to hover nearby. Neither of the two men that stood apart from one another took any notice of her, so she merely remained in silence.
"I want to know what you want," Tommy responded calmly to the man's earlier question, as he pulled a chair out from opposite John Woods.
"There were suspicious betting patterns the Kempton Park races," another man conceded in response, pulling Tommy's gaze away from the other. "A horse - Monaghan Boy - he won by a length twice and then finished last, with three thousand pounds bet on him."
"You fucked with Billy Kimber's races," John Woods then interceded. "Meaning you fucked with my business."
Tommy regarded him coldly. "Which one am I talking to?" He raised an eyebrow at all three that sat in front of him. "Which one of you is the boss?"
"I'm the fucking boss!" The outcry burst from his lips without a moment's warning. "And you fixed a race without Kimber's permission, meaning you fucked with each man that was meant to profit from it. You fucking Gypsy scum."
Felicity's breath caught in her throat, familiar to these kinds of outbursts yet not expecting one to occur at this very moment.
"What? You're living off the war pensions of these poor old Garrison Lane widows?" John continued, his anger getting the better of him and only continuing to grow as Tommy made no reaction. "That's your fucking level! You fixed the races, and you're to be shot against a post."
Praying to anything and everything that he would not dare to follow up on this promise any time in the future, Felicity watched as Tommy regarded him, his mind no doubt racing.
After what felt like an eternity, he rose so that his gaze was level with the other man's.
"Mr Woods," he uttered, fishing a minuscule object from his pocket and throwing it towards him. "Take a look at that."
Felicity kept her gaze on her father as he took in the object as it glinted in the dim light. From where she stood, her lips still pressed together with silence, she could make it out to be a bullet, but she hadn't a clue as to what significance this had in the slightest. John Woods, however, regarded it with intrigue: the anger slowly dying from his eyes and instead being replaced with a mere sense of coldness.
"That's a bullet," Tommy continued. "With my name on it."
A cry burbled up from her lungs and it took everything in her to repress it. She hoped that it was old, or that whoever had left it for the man was now dealt with, or something, anything other than the only possibility that seemed to come with the name on that bullet.
"It's from the Lee family. Now, you're at war with the Lees, aren't you. . . or at least, Mr Kimber is."
The silence that came with this roared through her ears.
"The Lees are attacking your bookies and taking your money, Billy Kimber's money." The faintest glimmer of a smile - one that Felicity took to mean he knew he had the upper hand - was beginning to flicker across his features. "None of you can control them - not you, not him, not his men. You need help."
Felicity glanced wildly between the two men, hoping that what she was perceiving from his words was incorrect. Surely he would not go against the Lee family - not when he had just secured his brother a marriage to Esme Lee, and had promised peace between the two families.
"You're at war with them," Tommy repeated. "They are doing a lot of talking at the fairs, they have a lot of kin. They're saying the race tracks are easy meat, because the police are busy with strikes. Now, we have connections, we know how they operate. What do you have?"
John Woods didn't utter a single sound in answer to the open question.
"Nothing, as far as Billy Kimber and his men are concerned. You haven't got a single truce to prevent the war that'll soon break out between Kimber and the Lee family. You haven't got a hope in Hell at putting me - or any of my family - to a post and blowing our brains out."
Felicity might as well have been watching the man as he thought, as his mind whirred and his thoughts calculated themselves in front of the very man who had stormed into the Garrison only a half hour beforehand. Yet she didn't have any idea where he was going - that was the thing, no one did when it came to Tommy Shelby.
"What are you attempting to propose?" John eventually questioned, not bothering to listen to the men beside him, who were feebly trying to discourage him from biting at the bait.
Tommy's ghost of amusement returned. "A marriage agreement. Between your family and mine."
"What good will that do for you?"
"For one, it would prevent a war between you and the Lees. . . if a deal is not made and it came to such a war, then the Shelby family would no doubt support the Lees."
⎯
"You're full of shit," John Woods eventually spat, pushing away from the men once again and firing an outraged glare at the raven-haired gangster who had been awaiting his response.
Tommy regarded him with disappointed interest. "I had been hoping we could come to an agreement.
"Over what?" The other insulted. "Over one of your Didicoy whore sisters marrying one of my sons?"
"I wouldn't even think of offering my sister to a marriage with your son," Tommy glazed over the remark - or perhaps, he merely decided that it was not worth the hassle of sparking an even bigger argument with the Woods patriarch. "Nah, it'd be your daughter, Mr Woods."
"My daughter?"
"Felicity, isn't it?" Tommy raised an eyebrow.
The girl had glanced up at her name, met the man's eyes, and all that she could retrieve was the sense that he had no intention of backing down against her father later that night. She didn't know whether to admire or despise that particular fact, because it came with the risk that he could pull himself and his business into a spat that she didn't want him getting dragged into.
John Woods nodded. "Haven't seen her in a short while," he admitted, without the slightest hint of remorse coating his words.
Before Felicity could stop herself, the words piled from her tongue and out into the open air. "Wouldn't even recognise her in the street, would you?"
All eyes turned to her, and she might have been imagining it, but the light left Tommy's eyes as he fought to glance at the newfound annoyance in John Wood's cold hazel irises. That was the only thing Felicity shared with her father, and it was the thing she despised the most. Being told you had enchanting eyes once a year came with no joy, not when you knew they were identical to the one man you despised the very most.
"What's the barmaid doing in 'ere?"
At this, Felicity raised an eyebrow. "I didn't actually expect you to prove my point," she scoffed, although deep down, disappointment ran free. "What is it - three years without a single interaction and it's like you've never seen me in your life."
"That's not my daughter," John hissed after a moment of dumbfounded astonishment. "There isn't a Woods bone in that girl."
"Yet there would be if I were to be married to Mister Shelby here, wouldn't there?" Felicity spat back. "You'd claim I was the strongest claim to the Woods blood if it just so meant protecting your business."
Tommy glanced at her with annoyance. "Felicity, go home," he interrupted her
She turned on him. "Or what? I'm here, he's here, you're here. Settle this fucking marriage agreement, drink it off with a few too many bottles of spirits and then I'll lock up."
"There's no need." Tommy pushed away his chair from the table and arose properly. "We aren't going to be getting anywhere any time soon."
The man took the blonde's arm and gently ushered her away from the table, away from the very man who had spent eighteen years either shooting disinterested scowls at her, or avoiding her gaze completely. Now, John Woods did neither - he merely watched as the pair exited through the frosted glass doors and out into the chill of a December night.
"I had hoped to work with you, Mr Woods," Tommy concluded in a monotone. "You started with nothing, and built a legitimate business alongside Billy Kimber. It would have been an honour."
Felicity rolled her eyes as they exited. "You missed the part where you waited for his ego to rise and say that you would have been working for him," she complained to Tommy.
"And you missed the part where you weren't supposed to let your anger get the better of you," he countered with a sigh.
"That was hardly my fault."
"That was every bit your fault." Tommy conceded. "I was supposed to leave today with two deals in hand that would ensure a war would not break out."
"Well, perhaps if you mentioned that you wouldn't be arguing into the night with the man you claimed to be seeing earlier that day, you would have secured such deals."
"I only lied so that you wouldn't try and interrupt anything."
Felicity pulled a face at the irony of it all. "And yet that failed."
"Clearly."
The pair walked in silence for short while as the sky above them only continued to dark with each minute ticking by into night. Eventually, though, Felicity glanced back at the man, of whom had an expression that was more at ease than it had been in a long time.
"Why'd you stop?" She asked gently, without warning.
Tommy turned his head towards her in confusion. "Stop what?"
"You could've kept going back there, kept persisting until he gave into some sort of deal. But you didn't. Why?"
He held his breath as he pondered what sort of answer would satisfy the girl enough, or at the very least one that would calm her nerves. She wanted something, anything, any reason that would justify such an action that had jeopardised his business - perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently. Yet he didn't have such an answer.
"You didn't need to be a part of any argument that might take place," he eventually offered. "You're too. . . nice. It wouldn't be fair on you - not when I've already dragged you into too much."
A huffed laughter left the girl. "Harry said the same thing," she mused after a moment.
"Hmm?"
"He said I was too nice, said he'd be doing me a favour."
"He was right. I didn't do you any favours by pulling you in so deep," Tommy sighed. "Angels do not belong in slums where nothing but trouble brews, Felicity."
She raised an eyebrow. "Just because I'm not the villain does not mean I'm any bit of a saviour, Tommy," she murmured in half-hearted retaliation.
He laughed and the sound resonated through her, spreading a strange sense of contentment as it dawned on her that for once, Tommy's walls were down.
"Yet Lis, we've already established I'm no saint."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
it's half term it's half term it's half term
it's half term it's half term it's half term
by fuck i'm happy & hoping i can get
more chapters out soon ugh. also yes i
was listening to girl almighty whilst
writing this bc it gave me so much
motivation lmao uh. . . i love you!!!