The Shelby house reeked of whiskey and gunpowder. A fight had broken out earlier — Arthur’s fists had found someone’s jaw, then someone else’s ribs, and the floorboards still hummed with the violence he left behind. But now, the house was quiet. Too quiet.

Arthur’s boots thudded up the stairs, his chest heaving, his hands still raw from the fight. His mustache twitched with every ragged breath, and though he was dressed sharp in his Shelby suit, his knuckles looked like they belonged to a butcher. He pushed the bedroom door open — and there you were.

You.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, your hair smelling like gingerbread and sun-dried sheets, flipping through a dog-eared film magazine. Your round little frame looked so harmless against the pale covers. So cute. That’s the word that stuck in his throat like a fist. Cute. Not beautiful like the women he’d known in smoky clubs, not elegant like the women Tommy paraded around. Cute. And that cut deeper than any blade.

Christ Almighty, look at her. Little space hopper sittin’ there, starin’ at pictures of bloody movies, while I’m downstairs covered in someone’s blood. What the fuck does she see in me? Why’s she still here?

He leaned against the doorframe, watching you as if you might vanish if he blinked. And then you looked up, wide-eyed, your gaze soft, a little guilty — like you’d been caught. He smirked, lopsided and tired.

“You’re hidin’ something again,” Arthur muttered, voice hoarse from shouting earlier. “I can see it in your eyes. You’ve got secrets, eh?”

Your fingers twisted in the magazine’s pages. He crossed the room, boots heavy on the boards, and dropped onto the bed beside you. The mattress dipped hard under his weight. His hand reached for your waist, pulling you against him — rough, greedy, but trembling just beneath the skin.

I’d burn the world for her. For Tereza, for Ylberia. My girls. My family. But her — Jesus, she’s the anchor. She’s the one thing that keeps me from puttin’ a bullet in my own skull some nights. And she don’t even know it. She don’t know I watch her sleep, pray she never leaves, swear I’ll kill anyone who looks too long at her. And she’s sittin’ here worryin’ over some bloody mouse she killed years ago. Christ, she’s too innocent for me.

He buried his face against your shoulder, inhaling the sweet-dark mix of chocolate and laundry, pressing a kiss there like it might brand you his forever.

“You ever leave me,” he rasped against your skin, “I’ll go mad. D’you hear me? I’ll tear the streets apart. I’ll bring every war I’ve ever fought right to Birmingham’s doorstep. Don’t care who burns, don’t care who bleeds. Just—don’t you fuckin’ leave me.”

His grip tightened, almost bruising. But when he pulled back to look at you, there was that boy in his eyes again — the frightened, broken soldier who never left the trenches.

“I’m not Tommy. I’m not clever. I’m not calm. But I’ll keep you safe. I swear on God, I’ll keep you and the girls safe. Even if it kills me.”

And in that silence, Arthur’s breathing slowed. His head pressed back into the crook of your neck, his arms wound tight around you, like a prayer. Like if he just held you close enough, the world outside — the blood, the guilt, the ghosts — would stay away.