forbidden { michael gray } ON TEMPORARY HOLD

f o u r

As soon as Talya got home after the meeting, she marched straight up to Annie's room.

Annie's eyes widened as she looked up from her newspaper to see her cousin looking positively furious. "Have a seat."

Talya did as she was told and flopped into the couch by the window. "I am so sick of everything."

"What's happened?"

"I saw Michael at the meeting. He'd been beaten up by one of our men. Then he kissed me. Then Alexei attacked his cousin. And now my father is saying we are to kill any of Thomas Shelby's men if they enter our territory."

"Shit. Did you kiss him back? He told Isaiah and I you had punched him last night!"

"I don't know! I was sort of distracted by the fact Alexei was in the room next to us.
I might have done." Her voice was filled with exasperation and her eyebrows were so highly raised it was a wonder they didn't disappear into her hairline. "Now my head is fucked and I can't even see him without getting lynched."

"Just wait a few days and see if it calms down before you see him again."

So Talya did wait a few days, but nothing calmed down. In fact the gang on gang violence reached an all time high. Two of their men had been jumped; a vicious bar fight broke out in Digbeth and there had been a shooting in Small Heath suspected to have been the dirty work of an Ivanov. The tensions were so high she was surprised that was all that had happened. On the invisible borders between their territories, there had been patrols from both sides constantly stopping pedestrians and asking them to prove they weren't somehow affiliated with the opposing gang. It was madness.

But Talya couldn't stop thinking about Michael. It seemed that every time she tried to push the thought of him to the back of her mind, the opposite happened. In her dreams she saw his lips; as she worked she could smell his cologne of aftershave and cigarettes. That was when she knew she was in trouble. Deep trouble.

That Wednesday, three days after the catastrophic meeting, Talya was making her way home from work. It was late and nobody was around; she'd had so much paperwork to fill out to keep the gang activities out of the local newspapers that time had completely escaped her.

But as she walked through the empty streets of Digbeth, she noticed two men lingering at the lip of the street she was about to take a shortcut down. Her father's words echoed in her mind: 'never continue walking into a situation you are wary of'. So she didn't. Instead she cut down one of the side-alleys and began the now elongated walk and went on her way.

She kept walking without distraction for about 5 minutes, until she heard footsteps behind her. With a quick glance over her shoulder, her fears were confirmed. She was being followed. All of what she had been taught growing up flooded to her; if she was ever being followed she was to run, scream, escape. But by now the men were only a few metres away and easily had a height advantage on her so if she tried to run they could catch up with no problem. Her only option was to turn and face them.

Spinning around on her heel, she faced the men with raised eyebrows. They both looked quite taken aback, as though they had been expecting to chase her. "Who are you?"

They didn't reply, in fact she hadn't expected them too, but kept walking towards her until they had her backed against a wall. "Natalya Ivanov."

Talya was terrified. Her hands were shaking and her knees were trembling. But she would be damned if she showed fear in front of these strangers. So she held her head high, put a hand on her hip and stared the one who said her name in the eye. "What do you want?"

"We have a message from Tommy Shelby."

In that moment, Talya noticed one of them had a knife in his hand. She knew she had to play it smart, or it was game over. This wasn't the time for her politeness, nor her sharp-tongue. This was the time for her to be as diplomatic as possible until she could escape and run far, far away. "I don't suggest you deliver the message unless you want to end up dead. In fact, I suggest you turn around and go home, and let me do the same."