Adopted By Polly Gray

Chapter 23: The Interrogation 

Polly was praying in church when one of the Peaky Blinders men came in and told her to head back to the betting den. She was hoping that the boys had found this Mr.Cooper and that he would tell the family where Starlene was but instead when she got into the betting den it was a man she had never seen before with a seated in the corner of the room with one of the peaky men on either side of him. The nameless man had a swollen face, thorn up clothes, and was covered in blood. Judging by the wounds this man had she could tell it was one of her nephews doing.

"Thomas, who the hell is this?" Polly asked as she took off her hat and coat and put them down on her spot at the table.

Tommy cleared his throat and looked around the room to make sure the entire family was in the room once he realized everyone was accounted for he began the meeting, "Right, everyone this is Antonio Marrero. He met with our Arthur and his men today and wasn't willing to talk and as you can see things got out of hand, but now that we're all cleaned up and settled I figured we could have a chat with our new friend here."

"Why the hell should I talk to you lot? You all attacked me for no reason!" Antonio argued.

"Because if you don't talk, I'll make sure I get you to talk this time like I tried to do on the street!" Arthur yelled at the injured man.

"For fucks sake Arthur let Tommy handle it huh? Looks like your ways didn't work the first time." John chimed in.

Polly sat there smoking her black cigarette watching the men all yell over each other. Arthur continued to be a hot head craving violence to dominate the conversation, John is trying to get Tommy to get on with the meeting, Tommy is trying to calm his brothers down, and Antonio is adding fuel to the fire by throwing out insults when he can get a word in. The other men just stood there with stoic looks on their faces. The youngest of the Shelby's, Finn resorted to resting his head on the table, bored with the entire thing. As Polly smoked and listened through the yelling none of it peaked her interest until Arthur mentioned something about this Antonio knowing Cooper. She immediately put out her cigarette and shot up from her chair and slammed her hands on the table.

"ENOUGH!"

Everyone in the room jumped and the noise fell silent. Tommy was always known to have meetings with the family under control but this one had gone off the rails. The leader of the Shelby gang saw the look on his aunt's face and knew that this was her meeting to take charge of now. He was to be her support as she took charge.

"Arthur you said this man knows Cooper?" Polly asked once the room had completely calmed down.

"Yeah Aunt Pol. We got multiple reliable sources saying they saws Cooper and Antonio here. Apparently they have spoken a few times before from what we've gathered."

Polly slowly walked from behind the table over to Mr. Marrero the only noise to be heard was the sound of the heels of her high heeled boot's hitting the wooden floor. Antonio watched with fear creeping into his eyes as Polly stared him down as she approached him. She knelt down slightly in front of the scared man and grabbed his face with her right hand locking her thumb and index finger into place on either side of his chin in a tight grip forcing him to look at her the entire time.

"You will tell us everything you know about this Mr.Cooper and you will tell us all of it right now. Do you understand me? Every detail you know. If you even dare to lie or hide anything from us, I will send the boys after you and you won't be as lucky as you were today, got it?"

The Shelby's matriarch voice was pure ice. Every word added more of a chill than the last. It was sickly calm yet threatening all at once. She will watch the world burn if it means getting Starlene back and if Mr. Marrero was the first to go up in flames, then so be it.