𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐃𝐄 ♚ 𝙩. 𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙗𝙮

ⅲ - 𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳

A week had trawled on since the first eye opening meeting. Tommy had been naturally quiet around others, still reflecting on in awe at Verity's skills – how she had gotten him to open up like that. No one ever outsmarted him.

Until now, of course.

The established businessman had a long and drawn out think over the week, anticipating his next appointment - for both good and bad reasons. He'd sit at his over-large and ornate wooden desk, smoking cigarette after cigarette – taking his time and mulling over the options that hung about suggestively in his head as a cheap whore would do at a bar.

Verity had offered a new perspective to Tommy that he did not even know would be possible. Whilst it had him amazed, it also had him deeply confused. He thought he knew himself well, well enough that his past traumas were not to be spoken of – but buried deep like a time capsule. But there he found himself, oddly vulnerable and finding the urge to seek a little more companionship from a woman who clearly saw him on the more complex and thoughtful side of things. He'd never really been with any woman before who had that level of intellect and understand. It was quite admirable. Plus, his loneliness was getting the better of him at the moment.

So, on that wintery, frost bitten Wednesday afternoon, Thomas Shelby once again marched himself down the street towards Number 2, Tenley Street.

He'd taken a quick and humbling hit of opium after leaving his car which he'd parked streets away – as he had done the week before. Sure, Thomas Shelby had been paranoid about seeing a familiar face the first time around – but now, with the extra added drug in his system, the gangster found himself seeing faces of familiar blokes in the cars that drove by. Or a familiar face hidden behind the monotonous black and white print of a newspaper. He panicked, not allowing it too show through to his stoic exterior, as he threw his head down – signature black cap covering his eyes.

There had been one matter Thomas Shelby had been considering quite some bit over the past week, and that was the venue at which he decided to meet with Verity at. There was no other time in his life he recalled feeling quite so vulnerable as this – apart from the war. Emotionally vulnerable. Tommy did not like crawling so far out of his little comfortable burrow at the Arrow Mansion, to traipse all this way into the beating heart of London where he had plentiful amounts of enemies around. Waiting to find a weakness. A weakness such as this one – the seemingly brutal Peaky Blinder's leader attending counselling sessions.

In that moment, his heart palpitations were heavy – the voices in his head muttered low and the last little remnant of his conscience with it's head just above the water made the executive decision to go with his plan. 

With a little more urgency in his steps, Thomas Shelby one again came face to face with the coal black front door of Number 2. His fingertip pressed hard on the brass buzzer, listening out carefully for the sound of any footsteps following.