forbidden { michael gray } ON TEMPORARY HOLD

n i n e t e e n

Talya hopped on the spot whilst sending a paranoid glance over her shoulder as Michael opened the door. "Hurry up. It's cold."

"I know it's cold," Michael chuckled as he finally got the key in the hole with his shaking hands. "Get in and stop moaning."

She scurried in. "You sure there's no one out there?"

"I am." He confirmed, firmly shutting the door behind them and locking it. "Worry not, fair maiden."

Talya rolled her eyes before kissing him on the cheek. "Thank you for tonight. The meal was lovely."

They had gone out to commemorate the one year anniversary of their first meeting, which had ended so abruptly. Talya couldn't believe how far they had come, but she was glad they had. Aside from the figure she had seen outside their house a few weeks ago which had really unsettled her, things were going well for the two of them.

"Go upstairs, love. I'll make us both a drink and make sure everywhere is locked up."

She obliged and hopped up the stairs and into their room. Once she had taken her makeup on and slipped into her silk nightie, she snatched the newspaper from her dressing table that she had been painstakingly poring over before their meal and flopped into bed to carry on where she had left on. She had been meticulously reading every single article for the past month in an attempt to find any further information about the war between her family and the Blinders' war. Things may have been well between Michael and Talya, but there had become so much sectarian violence between the Ivanovs and Blinders that no one person could keep track of it all; the local newspapers had taken a shining to the story and were reporting on every bar right, every cutting and every car bomb being set off. Talya was just hoping there were no names she recognised from either side of the conflict whenever she read the articles. Despite how much she loathed her family, she wasn't sure she could handle seeing her brother being named dead at the hands of a Blinder.

Nothing in the newspaper caught Talya's eye, it was just the usual business advertisements and the overly-dramatised witness accounts of gang violence, until she came across a name that rang like an alarm bell in her brain.

"PHILANTHROPIC FATHER HUGHES CONTINUES TO DEDICATE HIS TIME AND MONEY TO BIRMINGHAM ORPHANS."

She had seen his name here and there in the papers before, but this time it struck a chord in her. This was who she had heard Tommy talk to Michael about the time he spoke to him on his own! Mentally taking a note to bring it up to him, she folded the newspaper in half and placed it on her bedside table as Michael walked in with two mugs of tea.

-

A few hours later, Talya was absentmindedly tracing the outline of Michael's bare shoulders with her fingers as he laid between her legs, his head resting comfortably on her stomach. He was falling asleep, but Talya's mind was racing as she stared up at the night sky through the crack in their curtains. She never managed to get much sleep these days, such was her trepidation over the gang war. Worry consumed her at night, but she never told Michael that. He had enough on without having to deal with her lack of sleep. Compared to some of the problems this war had caused them, it seemed stupid to mention.

"Are you awake, Mike?"

He murmured slightly in response.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You already have, but go on."

"I was reading the newspaper before, and I saw something which I recognised. A name." Michael leaned his head back slightly to look at her as she spoke. "Father Hughes. He's a priest. I heard Tommy mention him to you once, but you never told me what he said. I was just wondering..."