WRITTEN FOR ME ( thomas shelby )

004 ━ Take Her To Church ..

━━━━━━ ༻ 004 ༺ ━━━━━━
" Take Her To Church "

          "IT'S A GOOD DEAL," Tommy sighed back into his seat on the first bench row of the chapel, watching Jackie stand up from beside him just as he did so. "Fair terms," he added while she carried his offer with her on three drags steps taking her near the metal bar fence around the altar, a barrier on which she pressed her palms and leant.

Her eyes would say much about what she thought of this offer he gave her then, so she made sure he could see nothing of them while she still dissected the options she had. Jackie travelled the attention of her sight rather absently upwards, until the ecclesiastical murals woke her up from the depth of her thoughts with an ironic smile, "Do you usually bring partners here in hopes that under God's eye they'll become subservient to your demands?"

Tommy retorted himself to merely gulping for the immediate moment which followed. Should there be complaints to the slowness of his answer — though he doubted Jackie would mind the silence while she thought over their terms and conditions —, at the very least he had the excuse of having more than just icons of Saints he hasn't prayed to in a long time to look upon and get lost. "It's a good deal," he eventually repeated through a sigh.

"I heard you the first time," Jackie rolled her eyes and dropped her gaze to the floor of the altar and to her own hands holding the fence. "No matter how many times you say it, it won't change the fact that reoccurring buyers are bad for business."

"Because you are new to the game?"

"Because people are untrustworthy," she quickly corrected him, promptly turning around. "We have a whole war attesting for it."

Tilting his head to the side, Tommy measured her only as a perfect perk to having his gaze reach hers, "Sooner or later, you will have to sell twice to the same buyer, and you will have to take that risk of both knowing and being known."

"I get it now," Jackie shook her head with a condescending puff, supposedly holding her most ironic laughter. "You brought me here to preach to me..." Yet despite her vocal disapproval, she could not deny his words were true and she certainly couldn't hide that which had already passed her judgment several times before, thus dictating just how much she cared about her buyers being the responsible sort of people, not just the money pigs that wouldn't mind dragging her family's name through mud with their stupidity too.

"Without some reoccurring clients, you would be leading your business to bankruptcy, Miss Alloways," Tommy pressured on. Words have long since lost their edge to him and the spiteful façade Jackie was hoping on weaponzing against him was at best an arousing thing to behold when he knew she was, at her core, being convinced.

"And you care why?" Jackie fired back, pushing herself away from the railing in order to begin a dragged stroll across the floor opening between the bench and the off limits altar. "Don't bullshit me with those half asses reasons of profit or expansion, because you and I both know this partnership will not be profitable to you in the first years a significant amount anyway. Pinning the dangers of the work against what you would be earning out of it leaves you on quite a loss in the first trimester. So, why do you care about how I run my business? And be honest this time." She pointed up at the cross overlooking them, "He's watching."

"Then I'll confess," Tommy nodded. "I need someone."

"Strangers?" She accentuated the word she thought would suit their status best. "Such as myself?"

Amused by her rapid retorting to his words, Tommy subdued a little chuckle before continuing. "You're a woman, alone in Birmingham with over ten thousand dollars in cash. Only you also have something else I need."