✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

27.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

                SHE HAD EXPECTED HERSELF to feel some sort of overwhelming fear flooding through her body when she caught sight of the man before her, but that did not seem to be the case, much to Felicity's surprise. Not when the male just so happened to be the one she had seen just a week before. . . and for the first seventeen years of her life, of course. 

"So," John Woods said as he settled back against the wall with an expression of pure, malicious superiority upon his cold features, and it was then that Felicity wondered just how on earth she could possibly be related to this man. Whilst they shared the same hazel irises, she reckoned that was as far as the similarities would go, and even then it was a bit of a stretch to call them related on that basis, as his held fire and storms, whereas hers held the warmth and compassion that Tommy had decided only added to her alias as the angel of Small Heath. 

"What in hell's name do you want?" Felicity said, desperate to spit the words at him but knowing it wouldn't get her anywhere. 

"I just wanted to talk. With you, that is."

"Cut with the crap," she immediately retorted. "You've hardly uttered a word to me since this whole horrid business began, so it would be great if you could drop the pretence and tell me just why you had me whisked off the streets with a pistol pressed to my temple."

"If there was an easier way to have done it, I would."

"Do what? Talk with your daughter, or kidnap her?"

"Stop with the dramatics ― this can hardly be called kidnapping. I'm talking with my only daughter for just barely an hour, and anyone who speculated the event and knew the comings and goings of Small Heath would assume I had some last minute doubts about the wedding between me and Mr Thomas Shelby. Of which they would be partially correct."

Anyone who knew John Woods knew that his words came laced with poison and double―meanings and everything in between. Which was why Felicity only glared at him as she waited for him to continue. 

When he didn't, she gritted her teeth together angrily. "You still haven't told me what you want, though."

She seemed to be presenting far more confidence than she actually had, and for this she was ridiculously grateful for. 

John shrugged. "I'm offering an agreement. Call it one for business, perhaps."

Felicity narrowed her eyes at him ― this was most certainly not what she had been expecting. In fact, she wasn't sure just what she had been expecting to emerge from this abrupt whisk off the streets, and whilst an imagination could do wonders when it comes to producing wild and perhaps unrealistic expectations, it was at least a start. However, she had nothing: not a hint of anything. 

"You've already made one," she eventually said. "With Thomas ― you know that. One that you shook on and swore to honour, nearly half a year ago now."

"This can be seen as me expanding that agreement, then."

"In what way?"

"Well. . . it's either you help me to bring Shelby Company Limited to its knees," he took a sharp breath, all the while not breaking the glare he held with his daughter. "Or we'll bring him to his. Once and for all."