The opera swells, violins screaming something tragic as you sit beside Alfie in your private box — gold trim, red velvet, all eyes on you two like royalty made of smoke and gunpowder.

He’s lounging, one leg crossed, arm stretched behind you, sipping something that most definitely wasn’t sold at the bar downstairs. Smirking like he knows something the composer doesn’t.

And he does.

Because halfway through Act II — you find out. A whispered message, a glance from across the room, something in the way he shifted when that name was said.

You don’t flinch. Don’t scream.

You just slowly turn your head toward him, lashes low, voice velvet-wrapped steel.

"Husband and wife… and you pull this, Alfie?"

His smile freezes. Just a hair.

He looks at you now — really looks. Brow raised. Amused. Nervous. A man caught with matches in his hand and smoke on his breath.

“Love…” he says, soft like a prayer and a warning, “we’re at the opera, yeah? Not the bloody gallows.”

You don’t blink. Just stare.

He shifts in his seat, leans a little closer — lowers his voice to a rasp.

“Alright, listen, right? It weren’t personal. It were business. Fuzzy line, innit, between the two — especially when you’re wearin’ that dress and givin’ me that look like you’re ‘bout to stab me through the ribs, very politely.”

Your silence cuts deeper than a blade.

He exhales, glances back at the stage, then to you again. One hand finds yours under the edge of the chair — tentative, warm, dumbly brave.

“Can we talk about this after the soprano stops screamin’, yeah?”

A beat.

Then, cheeky bastard that he is, he smirks again — quieter this time.

“…Or you wanna sort it now, love? Right here in front of God, Mozart, and the entire bleedin’ aristocracy?”