Eye of the Storm | Thomas Shelby

VII

1911

Silas Maxwell is not fond of Small Heath, Birmingham, England. He knows most people would look at him funny for preferring the ways of their gypsy kin than a steady, stable home that his mother tried to provide. Yet, his mother had picked a gorger to get them out of the grass, woods, and comfort of the forests. Picked a man that just wanted a beautiful woman on his arm. Henry didn't care about him or his sister. It still baffles him why the man pursued his mother knowing she had two kids.

He hates Henry with a passion. It's why he had taken the streets of Small Heath. Being in the streets is how he met the Shelby brothers. They were of gypsy blood as well. Their grandfather was a king! They spoke their native tongue and he and Arthur were the same age. Arthur was a little crazy if Silas was being honest with himself. Sometimes, he didn't know if it was from the power he felt from their little razor gang or their fucked up father. He is sure that it is probably both.

He knows that before the move to Small Heath, he knew the love of his parents. Even after his dad died, his mother didn't change. The love and attention were the same. Nothing seemed amiss. It wasn't cold where they were at. He just didn't understand the need to move them from the comfort of their kin. He didn't see what Henry could provide that they didn't already have.

Yet, maybe, he could understand in ways. There were things - opportunities - that living in civilian life offered that traveling didn't. He thinks his mom wanted to give him and his sister that life she never had.

His sister, Evelyn, did deserve more opportunities than traveling could provide. The world was slowly becoming more progressive with the rights of women. His sister didn't need to be married at 15 and popping out kid after kid to a husband, who wouldn't do much for her. Evelyn could further her education. She could be somebody.

Instead, the wishful thinking got them nowhere.

He has been up in London. London was slowly becoming home. It is preferred over the smog of Small Heath.

He is slowly making a name for himself in the boxing world. No losses yet. He is undefeated and with that came many connections to the criminal underbelly of the world.

He is celebrating his 25th win when some scrawny, scrappy boy approaches him. The accent alone told him that it was someone from the Blinders coming to bug him. So, at first, he didn't think too much of it. He knows Tommy would sometimes inquire about who ran what in London. He thinks the man is plotting expansion. Silas prefers not to entertain those ideas. The last thing he needs is to get involved in some stupid war about who owns the streets.

Silas rolls his shoulders and tells the boy to spit it out.

Yet nothing could have prepared him for the boy to come bearing the news that his sister was pregnant. Not only is she pregnant, but would soon be married to none other than Thomas fucking Shelby at 17 years old.

. . . 

1919

The first night Tommy couldn't bother to look at himself. He couldn't look at his hands. His hands couldn't stop shaking.

When he woke up, Evelyn's grey eyes wide with terror, his hands tight on her neck, he knew he wasn't dreaming. The one thing he feared since he returned home he had done.

He ripped his way away and he could already see the redness - his fingerprints around her throat. She had coughed and heaved. And since women were so fucking stupid sometimes she had tried to comfort him.

He could have fucking killed her.

He had immediately grabbed his coat, boots, and his fucking opium and escaped to Charlie's yard.