✔️ | 𝐛𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐛𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞; peaky blinders

･ ｡ﾟ°• ♔ •°─── 𝒆𝒑𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆. 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓

soundtrack: sptfy.com/bbf33

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𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄
𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫
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"For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man." —1 Corinthians 15:21

In a city called Birmingham where the smoke hung low in the sky like clouds, Tommy Shelby built his kingdom, brick by back-breaking brick. Contrary to popular belief, he was not an entirely selfish man: he did it for his family. He did it for his men. He did it for his—his something, certainly. Wife? Fiancé? His Beatrice, who everyday sat in the big chair in her office like it was a throne. Though Tommy could not clear the skies for her, he certainly came close: children played in the streets as if every day were sunny, and there were no drunken fights with the Peaky Blinders except for the occasional brawl between brothers, always smoothed over by a glass of company gin.

Tommy Shelby was no miracle worker but that didn't mean that the miracles didn't happen. On a Tuesday in October, while Trixie read about the uprisings in her mother's country in the paper and waited for the runners to deliver the cash from the tracks to the office, a man in black stalked the streets of his own hometown. Little Finn Shelby pointed at him as he passed—a jagged scar marred his face, rendering one eye useless and his nose crooked. Affixed to the stump where his elbow had once been was a wooden arm and a hook.

He frightened the children he passed. They had grown up watching the scars of the war heal, but they had never seen anything quite this bad: a man who had just come from visiting his own empty grave, whose mother had wept and screamed at the sight of him at her door. While they knew fondly the language of liquor spoken on their fathers' and brother's tongues, they did not often encounter the men whose scars could not be covered one way or another—by clothes or opium or whores at the brothel.

Oh, he should've known better than to walk this part of town in broad daylight. The city had changed, and so had he—the man now enjoyed the taste of his cigars, savored the bitterness of food cooked through, ached with every step. Not even the plush carpet of the Shelby Company offices could help that—though he found the red enviably luxurious. At the desk sat a tall, thin woman with a pretty, long nose and short brown hair. Lizzie Stark: Secretary, said her nameplate.

"Ms. Stark?" he greeted.

She dragged her gaze from the page in her typewriting machine, though her fingers kept moving in a rapid blur across the keys. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No," said the man in black, kinder than anyone expected from a face with those scars. "But I'm looking for someone. Is there a Beatrice Price here?"

Ms. Stark snorted a laugh, her fingers still typing. "There's a Beatrice Shelby here, sir, but no Beatrice Price."

Shelby? thought the man. Surely that was a mistake. "Could you tell her I need to see her?"

"Depends on who's asking," Ms. Stark replied. "Mrs. Shelby's a very busy woman."

The man cleared his throat, uttered the name he had read off of his headstone not an hour earlier. "Luca," he said, voice like honey. "Luca DeSilvio. Tell her—just tell her that I've finally come home to marry her."

Ms. Stark arched an eyebrow and pointed behind Luca's shoulder. "Tell her yourself."

He turned. A gasp seemed to suck the air out of the room. Tommy Shelby's favorite teacup, passed down from Martha Shelby's mother and her mother before her, fell to the floor and shattered.

END OF BOOK ONE

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A/N: hiiiii okay i know a lot of you were guessing this but. surprise! what does this mean? what's happening? what happened? what will happen? good news! you can find all the answers to those questions in book 2: from embers which will be posted in a few minutes (hopefully not long after you finish reading this).

to buy myself some time, i'd like to announce a giveaway yayyyyy. you all have made writing this so much fun and i wanted to have a chance to give you guys something in return. winners will receive one printed and professionally bound paperback copy of baptism by fire, and all you have to do is read the instructions below :)

information: giveaway is open internationally! one winner will be selected from each hosting site (wattpad, ao3 or ffnet), and entries are limited to one per person. winners will be chosen via a random number generator and notified both publicly (via author's note) and privately (via direct message) on this account!

disclaimer: i don't own peaky blinders i'm not affiliated with it i'm making no money off this it's just for fun please dont. sue me lol

rules: follow the second book in the series/subscribe to the second book in the series/vote for the intro and prologue of the second book in the series and comment your response to the question at the bottom of the prologue! super easy. the giveaway will close midnight PST on august 5th, and winners will be notified within 24 hours :)

thank you all again for so much support over the last year, i am so excited for all that is to come and hope you are staying safe and happy.

much love,

ava