METHOD OF MADNESS ━ 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐛𝐲 ¹ (Under editing)

𝓋𝒾. 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓇𝓉𝓎-𝑒𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉: final folley

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : persephone - tamino

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vi. thirty-eight: ❝ final folley ❞

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Small heath, Birmingham

Small Heath drops quite still once more. Aunt Pol was the last person left within the garrison who could think rationally. This same elderly woman paced back and forth, waiting for the evening's girl to show up, whom her nephew, Thomas, undertook the valour of departing the tavern to search for.

The door swung open, revealing Thomas and his wounded torso whilst she sat anxiously on a wooden bench. Marianna James, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found.

The intoxicated sounds of John and Arthur from the corner rippled around the vicinity when they spotted him.

"Drink?"

"Not whiskey. If you check behind the bar, you will find the bottle of champagne Mar stored." Thomas instructed as he went and leaned back in the booth, having taken a drag on his smoke.

Polly opined amusingly behind the bar. "One she bought, but instead it was Mar who saved it."

Thomas replied, nodding. "Today was a good day."

"All of Kimber's men were busy here. So, all the Lee boys took all the pitches at Worcester Races. Mar's stunt lessened the casualties." Anguish spreads all over his picture, but it's not the kind that arises from knowing. No, it's the dread confined to lost treasures: a storm-damaged garden, a horse deemed incapacitated, an art form messed up by one stroke prior to actually reaching the end. "Couldn't have gone any better if we planned it."

Tommy continued his talk while carrying the bottle in front of his brothers. "The Shelby Brothers Limited is now the third largest legal race track operation in the country. Only the Sabinis and the Solomons are bigger than us, boys."

A seemingly genuine smile walked its way across his stone-cold face, "And all my family is here to celebrate..." The smile then faded as he noted, "with the exception of one."

His mouth hardened as he elevated the bottle in a toast, wishing that the woman who had made everything possible was there with them. "To Shelby Brothers Limited! Cheers!"

And for the first time since returning from the war as nothing more than a totally different person, Polly saw the child she used to console in the sitting room of their Watery Lane household. Tommy's face was dour with tragedy as he sluggishly laid his forehead down on the countertop. "Do you think she'll forgive me, Pol?"