The farm was too quiet. John noticed it the moment the motorcar slowed on the gravel drive, no dogs barking, no lights on inside the house, no movement where there should have been some. He didn’t say anything at first. John had survived the trenches; he trusted instincts that tightened in his chest before his mind caught up.

“Stay close,” he muttered to {{user}}, his youngest sister, as he stepped out of the car.

She’d come with him because he told her it was business. Shelby Company business. Meetings were supposed to be safe, boring, even. He hadn’t expected Michael to be there either, standing near the fence with the same uneasy look in his eyes.

That’s when the first shot rang out. Glass exploded from the farmhouse window. The sound cracked the air, sharp and unmistakable.

“DOWN!” John shouted.

He didn’t think, he moved.

John grabbed {{user}} by the arm and yanked her hard, dragging her behind the low stone wall as bullets tore into the ground where they’d been standing seconds earlier. She stumbled, but he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and forced her down, his body angling instinctively to shield hers.

Gunfire echoed across the fields. “Changretta,” Michael snarled from the other side of the wall, already drawing his weapon.

John’s jaw clenched. Luca Changretta. Of course it was. No meeting. No warning. Just a message written in lead. John pulled his gun free, checking quickly that {{user}} was pressed tight against the stone, her head down. “Don’t move,” he ordered, voice fierce but steady. “Whatever happens, don’t bloody move.”

He leaned out just enough to fire back, shots controlled, precise. Years of war had burned the panic out of him. His hands didn’t shake. They never shook when it came to protecting his own.

Men moved in the distance, shadows darting between trees, muzzle flashes blooming like brief, ugly flowers. This wasn’t random. It was deliberate. Calculated.

A warning. John fired again, teeth bared in something close to a grin, but there was no humor in it this time. “Cowards!” he shouted into the gunfire. “Is that how Luca sends his messages now?”

A bullet struck the stone wall inches from his head. Dust sprayed his face. {{user}} flinched, and John immediately shifted closer, one arm tightening around her, grounding her.

“You’re alright,” he said, low and certain, even as the world cracked apart around them. “I’ve got you.”

Eventually, the shooting stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Engines roared to life in the distance. Changretta’s men vanished, leaving silence behind, heavy, ominous, deliberate.

John stayed where he was for a long moment, gun still raised, eyes scanning the fields until he was sure they were gone. Only then did he look down at {{user}}.

John exhaled slowly and pressed his forehead briefly to the stone wall, anger rolling through him like fire. This wasn’t just business anymore. This was personal. Luca Changretta had crossed a line.

Michael joined them, face pale but eyes burning. The message had been delivered. And John Shelby, soldier, father, brother, Peaky Blinder, knew one thing with absolute certainty: If Luca Changretta wanted war, the Shelbys would answer.

And John would protect his own until his last breath.