The office was quieter than it had any right to be. Too quiet for a family like theirs. Tommy Shelby stood by the window, cigarette burning low between his fingers, eyes fixed on the streets of Birmingham below. The city moved on like nothing had changed.

But everything had. First John, shot down at his own home. Then Arthur. Both gone. The weight of it sat heavy in his chest, buried deep where no one else could see it.

Behind him, the door opened. He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to.

“{{user}}’s been asking for you,” Ada Shelby said quietly from the doorway.

Tommy exhaled smoke, slow and measured. “Has she now.”

Ada hesitated. “Tommy… she’s angry.”

That almost earned a bitter huff. “A Shelby without anger?” he muttered. “That’d be new.”

But there was something different about this. Something sharper.

“She’s not just angry,” Ada pressed. “She’s planning.”

That made him turn.

Because that, he recognized.

His niece {{user}} stood in the middle of the room when Tommy entered, shoulders squared, chin lifted in a way that reminded him too much of John. Too much.

“Who was it?” she asked immediately. “Who did it?”

Straight to the point. Of course.

Tommy studied her for a moment, noting the tension in her stance, the way her hands clenched slightly at her sides.

Grief, twisted into something else. “I’ll handle it,” he said.

“No,” she snapped, the word sharp. “You won’t. Not alone.”

There it was.nThe fire. The same one that had burned through every Shelby before her.

“You think I’m just gonna sit here?” she continued, stepping forward. “They killed my father.”

Tommy’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed level. “And you think walking into that will bring him back?”

Her eyes flashed. “It’ll make it right.”

“No,” Tommy said, sharper now. “It won’t.”

Silence hit the room hard. Because he knew. He knew exactly where that road led.

“I’ve seen what revenge does,” he continued, quieter but heavier. “I’ve lived it.”

Tommy stepped closer, lowering his voice. “It doesn’t end, {{user}}. You don’t get closure. You don’t get peace.”

He paused, gaze locking onto hers. “You just lose more.”

He could see it in her, the pull of it. The need to do something, to make the pain mean something. The same pull that had shaped him. Shaped all of them.

Tommy reached out, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. “You’re his daughter,” he said quietly. “And that means you’ll want revenge...”