Forbidden Alliances // Alfie Solomons Peaky Blinders

(76) This is exactly what I said would happen

*edited 03/19/23*

The roads were slippery but to Freya's luck, no one occupied them so if she swerved or skidded across the ice, she didn't hit anyone in the process.

Before she reached the border of Camden, she was weeping and sobbing as if someone had died. The guilt was heavy and she felt like utter shit to have put Alfie in a situation of danger. But when she passed through the border, poof. Gone.

Her face went slack and her eyes went dull and lifeless. The tears stained her cheeks and cracked her skin as she sped through the cold, bitter, and icy streets of England, but the crying stopped. Her heavy breathing had subsided, her crying was termination, her stuffy chest was cleared, and she felt nothing.

Then she would start up again. Her eyebrows would pinch together, her eyes would crease, her lips would turn into a prominent frown, and her chest puffed up in small, stuttering intervals.

Then it would disappear again and she was left with a dull expression on her face. It was erratic how her emotions fluctuated and Freya was aware of it. It scared her how unhinged she had become. She couldn't worry about herself though, not when someone wanted Alfie dead if Tommy did uphold some end of some deal.

Everything, every emotion except motivation was gone until she reached Birmingham. She skidded a whole foot across a sheet of ice as she pulled her car into park in front of the building with her surname plastered above the doorway.

She wiped her cheeks clear of any remaining tears a while ago but they were burning with frost. She wrapped her body up in her jacket, tightly enclosing her shaking hands inside the sleeves as she walked inside with purpose.

It was warm when she entered, the smell of ink and coal overwhelmed her but the small fires behind all the desks eased some of the pungent smell. She was quick to find Tommy's office but was interrupted when both Lizzie and Michael looked up from their desks only a few feet away from one another.

"Oi, Freya!" Michael called out, craning his head up from the papers on his desk.

"Freya..." Lizzie said as well, moving slowly as she sat back in her seat and rose to her feet with concern. "Where have you been? You look terrible-"

"Tommy in there?" She pointed to the closed doors of his office. Her voice was snappy and straight to the point but she hadn't meant for it to come out so sharply.

"Wuh..." Lizzie shook her head with concern. "Freya, where have you been?"

"Away," she replied lazily, moving for the door and ignoring their secretary's concern.

There he was. Tommy Shelby, staring cooly down at the documents on his desk, a cigarette between his lips, and a phone pressed to his cheek as his eyes traveled to the door.

"Freya he's-!" It was Michael's voice but she had shut the door before he could warn her.

"What do they want from you?" She was loud and stern as she approached his desk, not caring that he was in the middle of a conversation.

Tommy's eyes were drilling into the backs of hers with vexation. It was like looking down the barrel of a double-barrel shotgun. It was perfectly lined up with her eyes with only a trigger between the buckshot and her face.

Only an idiot would get closer to the shotgun, limiting the distance between them and death. And yet Freya got close, not knowing whether she was being brave or idiotic.

"We agreed on twenty." Tommy continued to stare up at Freya like a snake ready to strike, keeping his tone of voice as even and confident as possible as he addressed whoever he was on the phone with.