Aurelia Cruz is a well respected club owner and madame in London, but she has things she holds very sacred and sacred things that hold her.
Thomas Shelby is a Birmingham gangster making his way up in the business world, and is trying to expand busin...
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Thomas was accepting his fate with a sunken heart as he sat in that police car with the Right Hand. As the car came to a stop and the doors opened, he was almost reluctant to step out, but he did and he looked around at the green empty field and the grave the size of his body dug and unmarked. "Were any of you boys in France?" Thomas asks to get no answer. "Allow a man a cigarette?" He tries and one of them answers. "La Somme. Backwoods." The man says with a bit of sympathy in his tone. "The Somme. The bulge." Thomas tells him. "Smoke." The agent permits. Thomas takes a cigarette, and it sets in that he's about to die and be buried in an unmarked grave away from home like the soldiers in France and a bittersweet rage begins to envelope his heart. "So fucking close." He scoffs behind his cigarette. "So fucking close." He says to the agent next to him as he takes a drag of his cigarette. So close to bringing his family up, to being a respectable man, so fucking close to everything he ever wanted since he was a boy.
He turned his back to his grave and looked at the sky, thought of that last moment with his Aurelia. "Oh, and there's a woman. Yeah. A woman...." He says with his eyes closed the images of Aurelia playing behind his eyes. "Who I love. And I got close." He says, his voice slightly breaking as he opened his eyes. "Nearly got fucking everything!" He shouted at the sky as if he were shouting at God himself. The sound of a cocking gun made Thomas shut his eyes again and there she was again in the dress they first met in, and he could almost smell her perfume, hear her voice. While Thomas no longer believed in God, he believes in the existence of his goddess so he prays to her, his Aurelia, silently for a moment before turning to his executioner. "Oh, what the fuck?" He says as his final words of acceptance. "Get it done, boys." Thomas orders throwing his cigarette away and walking next to his grave throwing in it the items on his person including his chain watch. "Comrade, we have our orders. You know how it is." One of the men say offering no comfort. Thomas nods before taking another look around. "I know how it is." He confirms before he's pushed to his knees, and he closes his eyes for the last time. "In the bleak mid-winter." Thomas says to be his final words.
The gun goes off twice and Thomas' body is pushed into the grave. For a second he believes himself dead but when he sees two of the right hand dead and the other pointing a gun to him and talking, he thinks he might be alive. "Mr. Churchill was told by an angel to keep you safe. You're lucky he's very fond of the Angel, Mr. Shelby." The officer said with slight spite in his tone to a disoriented Thomas "Get out of the grave, you tinker!" He speaks. Thomas gets out and his body is in a haze as he begins to walk away, he only makes it a few feet before he falls to his knees and curses at the ground crying in relief that he can live for at least a little while longer.
"Ada, have you heard from Thomas?" Aurelia asked as she sat with a cup of tea in her hand. "Not since-" The phone rang, and Ada went to pick it up. "Speak of the devil." She says facing Aurelia making the woman get anxious. "No, Aurelia and I were just- yeah she's here with Pol. O-okay, alright Tommy." Ada holds the phone out to her friend and Aurelia gets up and walks over to get it. "Thomas?" She asks and a relieved sigh leaves Thomas' mouth. "I love you, so much, Aurelia Cruz. So fucking much." He says and Aurelia's eyes water. "I love you, too." She says with a laugh as tears make their way down her face. "Go home, love, I'll meet you there soon." Aurelia smiled with tears in her eyes and hung up the phone with her instructions. "I take it he finally told you he loves you?" Ada had asked as Polly stood beside her in fresh clothes. Aurelia only gave them a blushing smile and the nod of her head. The two women wrapped Aurelia in a hug for a moment. "I have to go he's going to the house, and I have to cook for Mari." Aurelia says once they all pull away. They nod and Polly pulls Aurelia into another hug. "Thank you." The matriarch said into the Angel's ear and Aurelia only hugged her firmer.
"Momma!" Marianna hugged her mother as soon as she walked through the door. "Oh, mi princessa I'm so sorry I'm late!" Aurelia apologized hugging her little girl back. "Oh, Aurelia! Are you alright dear? Dougie said you left in a rush?" Mrs. Goodwin asked hugging the single mother herself. "Oh, I'm perfectly fine, Mrs. Goodwin. Just something I had to do is all." Aurelia assured her and Mrs. Goodwin was glad the young woman was alright. "Well, I best be off darling, it's getting too late and I'm getting too old." Mrs. Goodwin joked giving Aurelia a kiss on the cheek. "Sleep in tomorrow, Mrs. Goodwin. I'll take Marianna to school." Aurelia said wanting the older woman to rest and take care of herself and the woman agreed wishing Marianna goodbye before leaving.
Aurelia and Marianna were almost done cooking dinner by the time knocks raptured the front door. "Hold on, bebe. Don't go near the stove." Aurelia warned and Marianna nodded her head letting her mother walk out of the kitchen and she secretly snuck around the corner to see what her mother was doing. As soon as Aurelia opened the door Thomas Shelby engulfed his woman in a hug breathing in her perfume and holding her to his body and finally, he felt alive, for the first time since France he was alive. "Holy fuck, I thought I was... hgh I thought..." Thomas couldn't even finish the sentence, but Aurelia knew what he was failing to say. She pulled away and looked at him seeing the bleeding cut on his brow and gingerly swipes some spilling blood away. "I take it Churchills man made it in time?" She asked and Thomas nodded. "How did-?" "Winston's an artist. Likes painting the female form specifically my girls and their female forms." She said with a smile making Thomas laugh. "I love you." He tells her and she smiles as he leans his forehead on hers. "I love you." She says giving him a kiss that he returns with such emotion it deafened her senses for a moment.
The two only pulled away when they heard a small voice gasp, and they turned their heads to see a shocked Marianna looking back and forth between Thomas and her mother. "Oh, bebe, um-." Aurelia nervously stammers not knowing at all what to do in this situation. "Is Thomas my papa?" Marianna asked and before Aurelia could deny the notion, Thomas squatted down to be around Mari's height and smiled at her. "Would you like me to be?" He asked sincerely nervous for the nearly five-year old's answer. Mari looked at her mother who had tears in her eyes and was hiding a smile and the little girl looked back at Thomas letting her own wide grin take over her face. Marianna ran and jumped into Thomas' arms giving him the tightest hug her little arms could muster. "I knew you were my papa." She whispered and Thomas hugged his daughter with tears rolling down his face and laughter escaping his lips. Aurelia cried watching as everything she wanted since she was a little girl in a Spanish village was right there before her and it was hers, perfectly and crazily hers.
