One ever cooling cup of coffee sat to the left hand side of the small, white cloth covered table – the only one occupied in the dwindling hours of the night, the grand rich red interior of the hotel lobby unable to showcase it's true splendour to the few eyes that remained in the place to see it. Verity being one of them.
She sat on the small bistro-style table, by the large window that looked out onto the city she used to call home, soaked in the pale milky light of the moon and the few dull amber spots lit by honey-glow street lamps. The usual bustle of the place had faded at night, this high street she often frequented in the past was always packed with businessmen, common folk and the rich alike during the daytime. However, at night, it was baron wasteland – drenched in deepened blue hues and onyx black under the lightless sky.
In fact, the only reason Verity had returned here – was to use it as a safe place to quickly depart from. She had only ever known London, and to know now that even her home city wasn't technically a safe place for her made her heart and gut wrench. All she had known for the past year nearly was a world that had been moulded for her, shaped to the liking of others and then stripped back to reveal the cruel reality. She was a woman with her diamonds and her pearls – but she had nothing of substance to take from any of this heartache. No family, no home – nothing.
Sniffling back a fresh onslaught of tears, Verity turned her attention back to the piece of paper that sat under her nose. She was currently writing a rather scrawly, tear splashed note to the last person she felt she could call a friend in this turbulent world – Scarlett. Verity's hand motioned quickly as she noted down the mess of words in her brain, mainly hoping to jot down the key points that she was leaving and she would contact Scarlett again once she reached a safe place... whenever that would be.
Her shaking hand reached out for the cup of rich coffee and took a few tepid sips, feeling sick to her stomach with all that had happened, so by this point she was forcing herself to eat and drink – the adult in her scalding the child for being so foolish as to think she would never be bitten by the rabid dog that came in the form of Thomas Shelby.
The porcelain of the cup clinked as it settled back into the pristine white saucer, the only sound in amongst a dwindling hotel lobby – the only other regular yet ambient noise being that of the man behind the bar in the corner setting the clean glasses back onto the shelf with a little chinking sound every now and again.
She was so focused on getting the last of her words out, she didn't tune in to the sound of a fresh set of footsteps – smart business shoes clicking off the polished wooden floor of the hotel lobby. They soon stopped in their tracks, and pivoted the person in them to look directly at the dishevelled figure of the former psychologist slumped over her letter.
"Well I don't bloody believe it," the voice came then, a sound that twisted Verity's gut in sheer annoyance. Not this....not now.
Irritated and not in the mood to entertain his chiding, Verity's glared up – well aware of her tear stained face, reddened nose and spiky wet lashes.
"Didn't think I'd see you again here," Eli Valentine remarked as his deep chocolate brown eyes surveyed the Eden Club's former sweetheart singer with unwavering attentiveness. The Tranquillity Base club owner looked around the space, a strand of his perfectly gelled dark hair falling into his face. "I expect Shelby's in tow somewhere?"
It wouldn't be long before that name had to be mentioned.
Verity's grizzled internally, but instead sighed laboriously at the unrelenting annoyance and nosiness of Mr Valentine.
"Don't play coy," she snapped, in no mood for games, "I know you know what happened to the Eden Club, for starters." She eyed him up with a vengeance, faltering a little on her words as a defeated look crept in. She wanted to argue her point to an extent but she was so tired, exhausted of everything – especially the likes of this brute who just fancied rubbing her up the wrong way.
"Not that it's any of my business now anyway," her voice was a flat reflection of her current sublevel mood. "It's all over with. The Eden, my job, Tommy. Everything."
Her green eyes flashed up to see Eli gazing down at her with interest, his grey coat draped smartly over his arm, his slim and lean figure encased in a smart royal blue suit with a crisp white shirt. He looked impeccable as always – but that was always the way with horrible people like him, greedy, slimy men. They always got what they wanted, and they knew that – therefore they never dressed like they were expecting anything short of wonders.
He paused for a long moment, and much like the Shelby that Verity had fled from, he picked a cigarette from the inside of his suit jacket with poise, seemingly drinking up this new information like a fine whisky. Using her expertise, Verity read his expression like a book – the corners of his lips twitching into a smile, the occasional flash of delighted glee behind his eyes. This was what he wanted to hear.
"I'm sure you'll get summat' else." He replied, his tone a low northern drawl, "There's always my club..."
There he went on, mentioning it again. It was almost like he had planned for all this.
Then the final puzzle piece fell into place, and Verity confirmed with herself. All of this, the fire at the club, it had to be Eli.
"You did it, didn't you?" Verity asked him, plainly and simply enough, "You had the Eden burnt down for your own gain." She gazed up at him with unreadable eyes, and it was clear to see Eli searching them to try and ascertain what her move would be.
"What reason do you not have to tell me?" she laughed sarcastically, "I'm boarding a train in 45 minutes for a different county. My life here, my ties with the Shelby's are in ashes along with that bastard club." She emphasised her point clearly enough, "You could just do me one last favour and give me the peace of mind. I was accused wrongly of burning that club down myself." The bitterness crept back in as Verity remembered the way Arthur had nipped at her heels like an angry little terrier.
There was silence from Eli for a few moments, just puffing away on that cigarette like he had all the time in the world. Growing tired after a few moments, Verity folded her finished letter up and tucked it into her handbag, deciding there was no use in trying to level with a man who always had, and always would be – a nobhead.
She went to grab her few cases before she was otherwise interrupted by the voice she was not expecting to sound itself again.
"They were getting warm." He announced, a phrase that baffled Verity so much even her expression could not hide the irritated confusion. "I mean, they were getting warm when they accused you – y' know, not far from the truth."
"You're not making any sense." Verity snapped, her hands retreating from the handles of the cases for now to hear out Eli's words.
The rival club owner quipped a smirk as he pulled the cigarette from his narrow lips.
"I burned down the club, but I didn't just do it f' me." He remarked, "All along, Arthur should've been looking a lot closer to home."
Verity blinked rapidly, searching frantically in her head. Who could he possibly mean? Tommy wouldn't ruin one of his own businesses? He cared too much about his powerful empire to do that...
"I say sod that letter you were just writing and pay Scarlett fuckin' Ebson a visit." Eli then bluntly said, winking at Verity in a dark and venomous fashion. "I'm sure she can tell you some more." He started to chuckle – like a bastard who had just ignited the fuse on a stick of dynamite, knowing full well the bridge it was about to blow into smithereens.
The psychologist got no other word in then, for as he had glided into her space – he then swanned off again, with that gaited step of a cocksure, arrogant prick who knew the power he had.
As she watched the club owner climb into the back of the shiny black car, she sure hoped that would be the last time she saw Eli Valentine.
But for now.... She had one last stop to make before her train arrived.
-
As if in key with the heaviness in her heart, the night skies above began to open and rained heavily down onto Verity as she made the short jog from the door of the black London cab to the white-fronted exterior of Scarlett's home.
A sickness brewed in her stomach as Verity ascended those steps, if Eli's words were to be true, she was sure another piece of her would die that day. Scarlett was the only thing Verity had been able to call her consistent friend and support in the ugliest time of her life. She had no reason to believe Eli, not until she heard it straight from Scarlett.
The windows of the house, although covered with fine drapes – glowed a homely, honey golden indicating the life that went on behind them. Life that would not be expecting Verity, or the words she had to offer on this rain soaked doorstep.
She rang the doorbell, hearing the faint chimes from inside that large hallway she had walked through many a time through the trying parts of her recent life. A serious of clinking and metallic knocks, and the door came open – and much to Verity's combined relief and anxiety, she was faced with Scarlett, which was much better than if Arthur was there.
"Verity!" Scarlett sounded shocked, and not in the pleasant way either. The anxiety that this could be real was worsening by the second, as Verity wrapped her arms around herself and hugged her rain covered coat closer to her body.
"What are you doing here? It's so late-" Scarlett whispered, and through the tiniest gap in the door she had left ajar, Verity could see her friend was wrapped in her silk dressing gown, her long brunette hair loose rather than in it's usual conformed and stylish ponytail.
"I'm leaving Scarlett," Verity said, "I found out some horrible things about what Tommy has done to me and I can't stay." She said, her voice wavering from the cold but also from the fear of what may come. "... and also some things I fear you may have done."
Scarlett's face dropped, the colour drained from her olive skin and her eyes seemed to dull of their shine.
"Verity...?" she sounded anxious, "What...?"
The look of guilt spread across Scarlett's face in the same way an ink spill engulfs a piece of parchment. The fear growing inside her chest was spreading at every moment, as Verity now knew Scarlett had indeed been hiding something.
"I ran into Eli Valentine before." She started, "He told me some things... about the fire. Made it sound as if you were involved." Verity's face was stony and withdrawn of emotion as she watched Scarlett's eyes dip to the floor, as she shook her head nervously
"Please.... No, he promised me no one would know..." Scarlett whimpered, it was like some kind of silent prayer to herself. The singer's hands went down to her abdominal area and clutched slightly.
"Scarlett." Verity's voice was scalding now, revoking all warm and friendship. "You asked him to do it?"
Uncaring, Scarlett stepped onto the rainy porch too – shutting her front door and concealing the light from the pair as they stood in the rain and cold together.
"Verity please... you have to understand, I made a mistake," she babbled, one hand reaching back to find the brick wall railing that followed the stairs from the porch, as if to steady herself. She looked white as a sheet. The other hand protectively covered her stomach, and the barely there bump.
"You need to start explaining because you watched them accuse me, Scarlett!" Verity called, having lost her temper. "You sat by and said nothing whilst I was being wronged!"
The rain seemed to be getting louder, heavier with their voices and the tension thick in the air.
"I made some stupid drunken deal with Eli on the night of the party at his club, when Arthur just drank, fought and drugged himself up!" Scarlett quickly returned, her voice wrought with frustration. "I asked him to burn down the club, I wanted to get back at Arthur for the way he kept hurting me."
Verity pieced the story together, looking at this ghost of herself that Scarlett was reduced to.
"I didn't think he'd go through with it... I was drunk and bitter." She added, raising her doe eyes to Verity. "And then things got better between me and Arthur... and the baby now on the way," she once again traced her fingers hesitantly over the fabric of the nightdress that covered her abdomen. "I had too much to lose to confess what I'd done."
The sting in Verity's heart was unmatched – she understood in some ways why Scarlett had done what she had done, but it was the knowledge that Scarlett was going to let her take the wrap for it. It sickened her to the stomach, how she could so easily brush her best friend aside now things were all peaches and cream with Arthur again.
"So it's okay to just throw me to the lions? Watch them tear me limb from limb?"
Scarlett shook her head, her throat lodged with all the words she wished she could say to undo the damage she had caused.
"Verity you know I'd never intentionally hurt you like that!-" Scarlett gasped, so full of hurt, pain and disgust for herself she was almost choking on every word that wanted to scramble from her lungs.
Tearing away and marching down the steps, Verity had heard enough. None of Scarlett's 'reassurances' were making any sense. All of it was intentional. The turning of the cheek, the silence – looking away from the mess in front of her and sweeping it quietly under the stairs for some other poor sod to deal with. Verity was tired of being the one to fall victim to everyone else's shit.
"First fucking Tommy and now you!?" Verity lashed around as she marched back in the direction of the cab. "I've had enough of the constant lying to my face, I'm done with being the idiot who always wants to see the good in people." Her voice was raw with emotion, eyes glassy and she could no longer tell if her face was wet with tears or from the cool droplets.
At this point, Scarlett was obviously in tears over the realisation she was losing her closest friend – and the fact she made no further attempts to follow Verity made it all clear to the psychologist that Scarlett had picked her side. She stayed firmly planted in Arthur's talons. Where she would always be.
"You may be happy playing in their game forever, happy lying and deceiving everyone you care for but that's not me, Scarlett." Verity snapped, her brunette hair now a drenched sweep of rats tails, her makeup running like a widow's at a funeral and her body freezing with the rain that had soaked it's way through her clothing.
She was done here, she had heard enough tonight and all she wanted to do now was turn away from this place and it's bitterness, cruelty and sadness and get to somewhere where she could reinvent a life for herself. A life she would graft on her own, from the very bottom, if she had to.
Wordlessly from then on, Verity climbed back into the backseat of the taxi and pressed the driver onto the station with haste in order to catch her train.
Her last vision of Scarlett that night, through tear filled eyes and a sickened stomach – was the Italian-American hugging her arms around her petite body, hunched in frozen sadness on the porch and just staring longingly at the sinking vision of the glossy black taxi – merging into the night.
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END OF PART FOUR
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A/N: I am so sorry, I know a lot of you (including myself) treasured what these two had but I had to do this because I've got some things in mind tailing off from this bump in the road of their friendship.
Thank you all so much for being so patient. I hope this rather boring little chapter suffices for now.