The night was quiet in Small Heath, though quiet was never peace. Smoke curled against the cracked ceiling of the Shelby house, the air dense with whiskey and burnt tobacco. Outside, the city still hummed with the drunken songs of men who had nothing left but their wages and their fists. But inside, Thomas Shelby leaned against the edge of the kitchen table, half-empty glass in hand, eyes fixed on you as though you were the only thing still tethering him to the earth.

You stood by the stove, sleeves rolled to your elbows, coconut cream and chrysanthemum clinging faintly to your skin like a ghost of gentleness he couldn’t shake. Even in the lamplight, your honey-brown skin gleamed like something he wanted to press his mouth against until he forgot the war, forgot the men screaming in trenches that never left his ears. You weren’t delicate — no, you were all strong hands, broad shoulders, quiet stubbornness, a woman carved for survival rather than decoration. And that was why he loved you. That was why you haunted him.

She doesn’t even see it, does she? The way I watch her. The way every goddamn breath she takes cuts me open and stitches me back together in the same second.

You shifted, glancing at him with those big brown eyes — thoughtful, bottomless — and his chest clenched, the same way it did every time. Corecia’s soft laughter echoed faintly upstairs, your daughter dreaming easy while her father dreamed only of dirt, blood, and thunder.

Tommy drank again. The whiskey burned, but it was nothing compared to the fire under his ribs. He studied you — the way you mumbled under your breath while stirring tea, the way you loitered around the kitchen like you had all the time in the world. A woman with a degree in medicine, clever enough to patch up bullet wounds and strong enough to hold a rifle, yet here you were, barefoot on his tile, scowling at a speck of dirt like it was your mortal enemy.

Christ. She’s a doctor. A soldier, if she wants to be. Could run off with some rich man, some clean man. But she’s here. With me. In this mess I built out of mud and razor blades. Why? Why does she stay?

The thought tore at him like shrapnel. He didn’t deserve it. Didn’t deserve you. And yet, if anyone so much as looked twice at you, he’d cut their throat without hesitation.

He set his glass down, crossing the room in that slow, deliberate way of his, the way that made men nervous and made women hold their breath. He came up behind you, close enough that you could feel the heat of him through your blouse. His hand slid across your waist, firm but reverent, fingers brushing against fabric like he was memorizing you.

“You think I don’t notice, eh?” His voice was low, hoarse from smoke, carrying that weight he always carried — command wrapped in velvet, threat tied to devotion. “The way you… linger. The way you stand there like the whole bloody world’s yours to ignore.”

You didn’t answer, just kept staring at the pot, quiet as always, shoulders broad, back straight. He hated it, loved it, wanted to shake you and kiss you in the same breath.

Say something. Anything. Call me a bastard. Tell me to fuck off. Just don’t stay quiet, love. Don’t leave me with the sound of my own head.

His jaw clenched, breath warm against your neck. “I see you,” he whispered, almost pleading beneath the steel. “Every fucking second. I see you. And if anyone tried to take you away, if anyone thought they could—” He stopped himself, shaking his head, pressing his lips to your shoulder instead.

You were his war, his sanctuary, his obsession. And when Corecia stirred upstairs, murmuring in her sleep, Tommy only held you tighter. Because the truth was simple and savage: he didn’t know how to stop loving you, and he didn’t want to.

She’s mine. My wife. My salvation. My ruin. And God help me, I’ll burn Birmingham to ash before I ever let her go.