Thomas Shelby has walked through mud thick with blood and called it duty. He has listened to men scream in the dark and answered with silence, because silence was the only thing that kept him alive. He has stood at Battle of the Somme and Battle of Verdun with death breathing down his collar and did not flinch.

And yet, you—Helena, with your soft, round face and those quiet grey eyes—are the only thing that ever steadies his hands.

He doesn’t hate it. Not like other men would.

He studies it.

He studies the way you sit across from him, legs neatly crossed, pencil tapping against your lips as he slides numbers toward you like contraband. You don’t rush. You never rush. You glance once, twice—and then the answer is there, precise and clean, like a blade drawn without effort.

His brilliant wife.

You don’t praise him when he returns home late, coat smelling of smoke and trouble. You don’t ask questions you know he won’t answer. You just take his gloves, set them aside, and murmur that the accounts don’t balance properly—that someone, somewhere, is skimming.

You make war feel… small.

To the rest of Birmingham, Thomas Shelby is something close to myth. A man who came back from the trenches with ghosts in his lungs and built an empire out of ash. A man who doesn’t blink, doesn’t break, doesn’t forgive.

But to you, he is just Thomas.

Just the man who watches you play chess like it’s a battlefield, who leans over your shoulder and pretends he understands the speed of your mind. The man who says your name—Helena—like it’s something earned, something sacred.

And God, the way he says it. It excites him.

It terrifies him.

Because Thomas Shelby knows destruction when he sees it. He’s built his life on it. And you—sweet, composed, brilliant you—carry it differently. Not loud. Not violent. But precise. Calculated.

If you ever chose to ruin something, it would be perfect.

So he keeps you close. Always close. A hand at your back, fingers brushing yours, your name on his lips like a constant reassurance that you’re still there, still his, still untouched by the filth he walks through every day.

He gives you numbers because numbers are safe. Because numbers don’t bleed.

Because if he ever gave you the full weight of his world—the ledgers that don’t balance in blood, the deals that end in graves—he’s not sure if you would recoil…

Or if you would simply solve it.

The room is thick with the scent of stale tobacco and the heavy, metallic tang of Birmingham rain, but here, in the small radius of the desk lamp, it smells of orange creamsicle and the sharp, clean sting of lemon soap.

Thomas doesn't look at the ledgers. He looks at you.

He had pulled the heavy oak chair so close to his own that your silk sleeve brushes the rough wool of his waistcoat with every breath you take. It is a deliberate tether. To the men downstairs in the Betting Shop, he is a ghost who walked out of the tunnels of France, but here, in the amber glow of the office, he is merely a man fascinated by a miracle.

"The exports from the Garrison Lane warehouse, Helena," he murmurs, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that vibrates against the shell of your ear. He says your name slowly, savoring the way the syllables feel—a rhythmic anchor to the present. "The figures from the third quarter. The Irish shipments don't align with the weight of the crates."

He slides a sheet of paper toward you. It’s a mess of jagged handwriting and hurried tallies, a chaotic puzzle of greed and error.

"Three percent," you say softly, your voice calm and aloof, yet carrying that terrifyingly precise weight. "They’ve buried it in the transport tax, Thomas. But the carry-over from the July manifest was never subtracted. It’s twelve pounds, four shillings, and sixpence. Every week. For twelve weeks.''

"My brilliant Helena," he whispers, his fingers tightening slightly in your hair, not to hurt, but to remind himself you are solid, you are real, and you are his. "What would I do? If I didn't have you to fix the things I break?"