Calloway // Michael Gray x Reader - Peaky Blinders Fanfic

Chapter 5

Calloway

"I don't think you understand," I say through the phone receiver. "I need a copy of those accounts today. We are talking about half a million pounds here, and my client will not accept a delay."

My hands threaten to tremble. My voice threatens to break.

The man on the other end of the line speaks in a hybrid of Swiss and heavily accented English, the same excuses, the same empty promises and delegations.

He doesn't understand that I'll go to prison if he doesn't do this.

He doesn't know that a specialised unit from Scotland fucking Yard have flagged the client's money laundering, his offshore accounts, his stock manipulation — and a boatload of other fraudulent behaviour.

He doesn't know that I have never met Oswald Mosley in my life. But every other man in this office, each and every one of whom play golf or go to dinner or to parties with him, have banded together. They handed Mosley's accounts over to me one fucking day before the investigators came down on us like a metric ton of bricks.

And now I am towing a very fine line. One where I publicly shout at the investigators to go fuck themselves, so loud everyone in the office can hear, so loud nobody can suspect what I'm really doing— working frantically to gather evidence to help them.

"Have them telegrammed by five o'clock, or Vanguard will never do business with you again," I say coldly, slamming the receiver down.

A knock at the door. I press my palm to my forehead — I'm already on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I'm beginning to understand why everyone else here smokes cigarettes.

But I cannot afford to have a breakdown. Not as a woman, where I'll be labelled hysterical, incapable. Not when I have so much to prove.

"What is it?" I ask, fighting to keep my voice even.

"A client for Peters. Can you take the appointment?"

"I have the meeting with management at two."

"Perfect, you have one quarter of an hour."

Do not strangle the teller. Do not strangle the teller.

"Very well." My voice is tight. "Who is it?"

"A Mr Michael Gray. He is waiting in reception."

I walk past the other men's offices. Two of them are leaning back in their chairs, drinking whiskey, like they're on a paid holiday. While I'm running around like a blue assed fly.

By the time I reach the reception area, my patience is hanging by a very bare thread. And the man I suppose is my client doesn't even do me the grace of looking up as my heels tap across the tiles towards him — he has a cigarette in hand, an absent look on his face, deep in thought.

Just like the fucking rest of them.

"Mr Gray?"

He turns to me. His eyes flash in recognition.

It's Henry from the seaside.

It's lucky I am already forcing my face into a friendly, neutral masked expression. Because mentally, I scramble — Henry. Mussels Henry. A brief flash from so many years ago, when we were both so young.

And now he's wearing a fuck-you suit and smoking a cigarette.

There must be a mistake.

"Yes," he says. "That's me."

Alright. No mistake.

I make a split-second decision to treat him like any other client. That is, respectfully — or as close to it as I can manage.