Kimber's Daughter - Tommy Shelby x Reader Fan Fic

Chapter 2

When finally I regained consciousness, I was slumped awkwardly across a wooden chair, my arms at a stiff angle before me. I moved, my mind catching up to my eyes, to the scent of paper and whiskey, and found my hands were cuffed to the table leg. My spine ached from the angle I had been resting, letting a twinge of protest as I straightened and glanced around me. It all came flooding back to me at once as I took in the younger Shelby boy on the other side of the room, resting in a wooden chair similar to my own. He was staring at the ground. Fucking peaky blinders.

I cleared my throat, dry and raspy from lack of water. How long had I been unconscious?
"You have to let me go." His head jerked up. "Please. You've got it all wrong."
He shifted uncomfortably. John, I remembered his name was. "Can't, I'm afraid. We need Kimber to back off."
Beads of hysteria rose up in my chest. "And you think this is the way to do that? You think he gives a shit about me?"
John sighed and stood to his feet. "You're lucky the others didn't hear that. They'd kill you instead, to save the trouble." My blood ran cold.

As though on cue, a door opened at the end of the long, dusky room, and Tommy and Arthur entered. Scurrying closely behind them were two women, both who stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of me. The older woman's mouth dropped in horror.
"Fucking hell, Tom. What the fuck have you done?"
He lit a cigarette. "Now, Pol, it wasn't-"
Polly strode across the room and came to stand before me, taking my face in her hands and tilting it in the light, as though I were a horse she considered buying. I threatened to crumble into a heap of tears, to beg them to release me. I'd heard of the Shelby's. I knew what the Peaky Blinders were capable of. Things just as bad as my father, if not worse. And so I stiffened my jaw and swallowed my tears. I would not shed them in front of the Shelby's. I would not break.

"Release her," Polly demanded, turning to stare Tommy in the eye. "We are not kidnappers, Tommy. This girl has done nothing wrong."
"That we know of," said Arthur, shrugging. "No daughter of Kimber's could be totally innocent, eh, Pol?"
"That is not for you to decide," Polly replied harshly.
"Relax," Tommy spoke. His pale eyes raked over me just as they had in the barn, unreadable now as he had been then. "We're not going to harm her. Not if she behaves. She'll just stay here for a day or two, show her father we mean business. Then we can release her, we'll have a hold over Kimber's races, and everyone can go home."

"You think there won't be retaliation?" I asked. My voice trembled with anger, not fear. Tommy considered me as I spoke, continuing to smoke his cigarette. "My father may not care about me, but he cares about his pride. He won't let you get away with this. He'd blow my own head off if it meant taking yours as revenge. You've made him look vulnerable, unable to protect his own family. That won't do."
"Well guess what, girl?" Arthur said, voice raised. "He is vulnerable. And he did leave his family unprotected. Practically ripe for the taking, you were."
"So this was your idea, then," said Polly. "I might have known."
Arthur shifted. "Yeah, it was mine."

"It doesn't matter who came up with the idea," Tommy said. "We executed it together. As family. That includes you, Pol."
"Like hell it does." Polly glared. Then, after a moment, she threw her hands up in resignation. "I suppose we can't well give her back now. Does Kimber know?"
"Not yet," Arthur said cheerfully. "Not that it was us. Thought we'd save the honours for Miss Kimber here."
I glared at him. "Go fuck yourself, Shelby."

A moment of silence. My glaze fitted to Tommy who looked almost impressed. It didn't matter. I hated them all. Loathed them. Even Polly, who could have been an ally, decided to be loyal to her nephews rather than the innocent girl taken hostage.
"That's the spirit," Arthur hissed. He grasped the telephone and placed it in front of me, his fingers moving to the dial. He held the speaker at my ear. "Say hello to daddy."

I heard the crackle on the other end, the many rings, the familiar voice of my father suddenly rushing through the line. "'Ello?"
"Father?" My voice trembled.
He gave a small sigh. "Where the fuck you been, girl? I've had my boys looking all over for you."
"I... something's happened." I swallowed. "I'm with the peaky blinders."
He was silent for a moment. "You fuckin' what?"
"They took me." I glared each of them in the eye as I spoke. "They've taken me back to small heath. They're holding me hostage until you give up your business."
Despite myself, I waited. I waited for my father to ask if I was okay, if I was safe. I waited for him to tell me someone would be coming to get me and to hang tight, to know he would rescue me, that I would be safe.
It didn't come.

"Put 'im on the phone. Thomas, the leader. Put 'im on."
My heart sank. My dull eyes flickered to Tommy. "He wants to speak to you."
Tommy sauntered across the room, flicking his cigarette into the ashtray and retrieving a new one immediately. His fingers grazed my cheek as he slipped the phone into his grasp.
"Hello?" He asked.
There was silence in the room for a moment as Tommy listened to whatever my father had to say. It dragged out before us, the Shelby sister growing restless in the doorway, her fidgeting the only reminder she was here at all. Finally, Tommy let out a short puff through his nose that might have been a chuckle.
"Right. Goodbye, Mr Kimber."

He put the phone down. I waited.
"You'll be here with us a few days yet," Tommy said. His voice grew calmer, almost gentle, as though speaking to a lame horse. "Your father's down in London. Seems in no rush to get back."
I hung my head. I wished I could spit at his feet, secure in the knowledge he was only saying it to dampen my spirits. But I knew better. It was as though my own father didn't want me.

And that made me the property of the Peaky Blinders.