Bancroft - Peaky Blinders Reverse Harem x Reader

Chapter 53

I knock on the open door to John's office before I lean in, wrapped around the doorframe.

"You coming?" I ask.

The other Peaky Blinders insisted on celebrating the fact we now have the whorehouse on payroll, and the rival gang have been officially obliterated. Tommy met with the leader who surrendered at once. And, rather than punish him, Tommy made him a supervisor at one of our factories. Everyone's hailing it as absolutely genius.

But John sighs, moving his pen across a stack of forms. "I have to get these all done first," he says.

I enter the room. "I'll help."

He doesn't speak as I take a seat in front of his desk, pull free a handful of the forms and begin to check for consistency across the accounts.

"You go," I tell him. "I'll finish these and come down soon."

"You sure?" He asks me.

I nod, fixated on the paper. John has to be there — the other men are so amped up, I worry there'll be riots if there's a Shelby missing.

He stands to his feet, then comes round and takes my face in his hands, kissing me. "You're a fucking gem," he says.

I smile, already missing the taste of his lips as he pulls away.

"You call the pub before you leave, alright?" He says. "Have one of us come escort you."

I roll my eyes. "I'll be half an hour, and I'll be fine."

"Promise me," he says, forcing me to look at him. "You're not walking around alone after dark. Not in Small Heath."

"Fine," I say, just because it's John, and I can't say no to him.

He nods. "I'll have a whiskey waiting for you."

"Make it a double," I call after him as he leaves.

I sigh, working my way through the stack of forms. When there's only a few left, the phone rings. I roll my eyes. Surely it's not John double-checking, though I wouldn't put it past him.

"Hello, Shelby residence," I say, tucking the receiver between my head and shoulder as I continue to work.

"If you want your friends to live, don't hang up." My blood cools at the familiar Irish voice. "We have the perimeter of the Garrison doused in petrol, and a lit match ready to go."

The paper falls from my fingers and scatters across the floor. "McGuffin," I say. I force my voice to be even. "What do you want?"

"Just to talk to you, of course," he says. "Stables beside the train station. Leave now, and nobody gets hurt. And don't even think of calling the Shelby's," he warns. "I have eyes everywhere on that pub, and if the phone so much as rings, I'll light it up."

He could be lying. A month ago, I would have called his bluff.

But that could mean endangering them all. John, Arthur, Michael, Ada, and Tommy... not to mention everyone else in that building. Polly.

Am I willing to take that risk?

"Fine," I say. "I'll leave now."

***

Two black cars full of his men are there waiting. I clutch my pistol in my coat pocket, counting. I have twelve bullets. Enough for them all, though they'll be firing back by the time I've taken two of them. I scan my surroundings, looking for cover. But if I'm crouched behind a car, firing intermittently, my bullets will be outmatched.

I walk straight to the front of both cars. My eyebrows are slightly raised. I see movement in one of them, but McGuffin doesn't come from a car. He appears at the edge of the building, with two other men on foot beside him.