✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

41.

CHAPTER FORTY ONE.

               FELICITY'D NEVER SEEN SUCH a sight in all of her twenty four years of living. Not once, which surprised her, considering that she had been on the arm of the Shelby's for over a year now and so she would have had to watch a demonstration at some point. Riots were meant to be common, she supposed, but she had never seen one. . . which she blamed utterly on the fact that her childhood had been spent with her not having any insight at all to the family business, leaving her to do nothing but run about the streets with blinkers over her eyes as her childhood innocence had not been matured to let her realise what she was seeing when she caught sight of demonstrations happening around her. Jack had always told her they weren't nothing to worry about and Felicity, like a fool, had believed him, so it had been left at that.

"Lizzie, Felicity — you two stay here," Tommy now instructed the pair, as he moved about the room in a huff, crossing from one side of the room to the other.

The blonde rose, frantic, despite his orders that made it so perfectly clear that he didn't want her involved in this. "What's happening?"

Tommy frowned, debating with himself whether or not he should share it with the girl. Eventually, though, he decided to do so, and so turned to her and to Lizzie. . . although, despite his efforts to distract it, his sights were mainly focused on the blonde.

"The lads at the factory started a riot," he explained hurriedly. "And our boys decided to help them, even with Arthur yelling like a mad man behind them. So me and John have to go down there and stop both them from making it worse, and him from killing a man."

The two girls glanced at one another — the eldest Shelby brother's anger being a force to be reckoned with wasn't a secret. Everyone in the city was perfectly aware of what he was capable of once he got riled up enough, and so they either went out of their way to keep it from bubbling over the top, or went ahead and prodded him until it did so.

"Stay here, guard the shop," Tommy demanded once more, interrupting her thoughts. He left them no time to argue as he took to the streets behind his brothers, grumbling as he did so.

"I truly think I could stop that riot quicker than any of them could," Lizzie declared to the room. . . or rather, to just Felicity, as it was only her that remained.

She bit her lip, amused and eager to see where the Stark girl was about to go with this. "You sound cocky," she commented with a soft laugh. "Why?"

Lizzie shrugged. "It'd be easy, I reckon."

Felicity edged her to continue. "How so?"

"Why, it would be!" She kept reinforcing. "I'd just flash 'em my tits and they'd be too busy ogling to be actually rioting."

The other girl choked as laughter overcame her. "Lizzie!"

"It's true! They'd be far too occupied to actually remember just what they had gotten all angry about, you see. Foolproof plan, I think, and no one gets hurt. . . unless one of them gets handy or something. I guess I'd have to dash once I did so." Lizzie faked remorse, still reviling in her friend's amusement.

"I shouldn't think you'd get out of there without being arrested," Felicity hummed.

"Not me, I won't," Lizzie affirmed confidently. "Mainly because I reckon that I've fucked every pig there is."