𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐇 𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐒
❝ They're the French Kissers,
that's what they do.
They will lure you in
and then they'll kill you
with a kiss. ❞
━ in which the leader of the french kissers
...
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Staring out of the window, Rose could barely see anything beyond the dense curtain of rain falling down on the gravel. Droplets hit the glass like hail in the French Alps and the wind gusted against the shutters in strong bursts, making them rattle dangerously.
Rose stepped closer. Her sisters used to dance through the raindrops; she used to run away from them. She didn't like the idea of a sky who cried. Now she couldn't stand the idea of a sky who didn't.
"Are you staying for dinner, miss?" In the vast, bleak hall of the Arrow house, Frances' kind eyes and expectant smile comforted her more than hot chocolate by the fireplace. "Charles would like that very much. He's been trying to play violin with the bubbles in the bath."
Rose smiled. Over the past few weeks she had juggled between violin lessons with Charlie, business deals with Thomas, and heated arguments with the Kissers to convince them such thing was a good idea.
Nicolas had been present in the first negotiations, but since it was obvious the two men rather strangle each other's necks than shake hands, Rose had soon found herself alone with Thomas Shelby and his indecipherable eyes, but sometimes, one had to do sacrifices for the cause.
So between shared drinks and back-and-forth repartee, the French Kisser and the Peaky Blinder finally came to an agreement. He would sell her absinthe and liqueur in his pubs and ship them to America, where the Prohibition would make her drinks even more profitable, and in exchange, she would sell his whiskey in her bars and give him access to the ports in the Northern French coast so he could smuggle car spares and single malt Scotch into France.
It came as a shock to her, how easy it was doing business with him, how well her goals and plans aligned with his. The image she had painted of him was dissipating from enemy to ally.
"No, I should go before this downpour turns into a storm."
Lightning streaked across the skies, lighting up the world for mere seconds. Rose saw the wet grass, the beginning of evening. That night the sky was made of hefty clouds, not stars. Then thunder spoke at the same time as him, just not as loudly.
"Too late for that. I think you should stay."
"Stay..." Rose turned around, and the world fell back into its place when their eyes met like they always did, like something in outer space was happening at the same time as them. "Until the storm passes?"
Standing against the large staircase, Thomas let the cigarette say no for him. The smoke tumbled from it with no hurry, dropping a veil between them. "It won't pass until the morning."
