For the first time in a long time, Thomas Shelby felt nervous. It was the necklace—that damned sapphire resting against your delicate neck—that gnawed at his nerves. His sharp eyes kept darting to it, drawn against his will. He didn’t just dislike it; he feared it.

Earlier, during the lavish Shelby Foundation event at Arrow House, Tatiana Petrovna had approached him. The cunning Russian Duchess had spoken with a casual, almost mocking tone, her words lingering like a curse themselves, "Does your wife know the sapphire she's wearing is cursed by a gypsy? I wouldn't want it anywhere near me." She claimed it was steeped in her family’s dark history, seemed to delight in searching for a crack in his armor.

But no one unsettles Thomas Shelby. No one comes into his home and dares to try.

And yet, as much as he dismissed superstition—even with his own gypsy blood—the necklace stirred a deep, unrelenting dread within him: the fear of losing you. Losing you would destroy him. That cursed sapphire felt like an omen he had to erase.

Even if it meant creating a scene in front of every guest in his home, that sapphire had to go—far from you. Far from him.