Smoke lingered thick in the air of the Shelby Company Limited offices, curling up toward the dim ceiling as John Shelby leaned back in his chair, boots planted firmly on the desk. The room smelled of whiskey, ink, and something harder to name, something earned in the trenches of World War I and carried home in silence.

John had never been a man who separated his worlds well. Violence, power, and loyalty had never been distant things. They were the air he breathed, the blood in his veins, the foundation of everything the Peaky Blinders had built.

And because of that, his children had grown up in it too. He hadn’t meant for it to happen that way. Not properly. But business crept into the home like smoke under a door, quiet, constant, unavoidable.

Especially for {{user}}. His eldest. They stood now in the doorway, shoulders squared in a way that felt too familiar, too much like the men John had followed into war. There was something in their eyes he recognized immediately, not innocence lost, but understanding gained. That unsettled him more.

“You’ve been listening,” John muttered, not looking at them just yet, though he already knew the answer.

“I’ve been watching,” {{user}} replied evenly.

That made his jaw tighten. Finally, he looked at them, and there it was. Not just curiosity. Not rebellion. Intent.

“I want in,” they said. “Properly.”

The words landed heavier than any threat John had ever faced. For a moment, the room felt smaller. John let out a slow breath, dragging a hand over his face before sitting forward. “No.”

It came sharp. Immediate. Final. But {{user}} didn’t move. “You don’t mean that,” they said. “You taught me without meaning to. I know how it works. The deals. The numbers. The way people listen, or don’t.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” John snapped, standing now. “You were never meant to know any of it.”

But they did. Because he hadn’t been careful enough. Because the line between father and Blinder had always been blurred.

John took a step closer, lowering his voice, though the weight of it only grew heavier. “This life, this thing we built, it takes more than it gives. I’ve seen what it does. I lived it in France, and I brought it back here like a bloody souvenir.”

His gaze hardened, but there was something underneath it now, something rare for a Shelby. Fear. “I won’t have it take you too.”

They were a Shelby through and through. Which was exactly why he would fight so hard to keep them out of it.