Forbidden Afflictions // Alfie Solomons Peaky Blinders

(21) Prognosis

Polly came home with a man she met at the pub. She was high on coke and drunk on martinis but she was a grown woman. Nothing Freya or Michael could have said would have made much of a difference.

Freya slept in the guest room in Birmingham with her blade wrapped tightly in her hand and with her doors and windows locked. She didn't rest well but she got enough to function when she woke.

Michael beat the sunrise and almost got lucky in missing Freya. When she decided to get dressed and put her things back into her suitcase, she found Michael lacing up his shoes. Neither of them smiled at the other but they felt a strange sense of relief when the past night bled into the morning.

"You're up early," Michael commented, giving her his eyes as his laces became innate to him.

Watching how careless he was with his shiny shoes and dapper suit made Freya's smile tremble. She used to be him. She used to do his job and dress like that and not have to think when getting ready. She used to look like him and now all she cared to wear was a button-up and a vest with her father's watch. She no longer spent time making sure her shoes were shined and new or worried about drycleaning or ironing her uniform. She had hung it up, not knowing it would be Michael who would wander inside and try it on for size.

"Habit," she replied timidly, struggling with her pride as Michael stood to size and moved for his coat. "You're up early."

Michael hummed, opening the front door to retrieve the post and the morning paper, hoping the drizzle outside didn't ruin the pages too badly. "I have first shift at the den and then I have some work at the offices this afternoon with the Chinese," Michael explained mindlessly, figuring Freya had equal enough reason to know than to not know. It wouldn't have mattered all that much to someone who no longer involved themselves in the business of a gang.

Freya huffed out an amused breath of air and grinned. "Are you selling the Chinese opium or has he kept that strictly for employees only?" Freya wondered, not knowing where the curiosity came from considering she didn't plan on stepping foot in that betting den for as long as she still had free will.

Michael peered up from his paper with suspicion. "Tommy's considering an expansion in trade," Michael informed her. "Sell it at a premium price. Why?"

Freya set her bag down on the couch before pulling out a piece of parchment and a pen. She scooted to the edge of the seat and bent over the coffee table she once found Polly snorting coke off of.

"You'd become competition with the Chinese if you do that. Either your prices are lower and you both make less income and sell more than them, thus beginning a war, or your prices are higher than theirs and the system of the market eats you up," she explained, keeping her eyes on the paper as she wrote a note to Polly for when she awoke. "Buying and selling with your neighbors is risky," she added. "If you want premium opium and not have the Chinese all over you, I'd suggest imports, if I were you."

Finally, her eyes met his. He had a little smirk on his face as she spoke. It was so natural for her to be in the trade industry and yet he knew better than to think she would ever come back. Someone would have to have died for that to ever happen. And to Michael's misfortune, everybody seemed rather healthy.

"What about import cost?" Michael challenged, tilting his head with interest now as Freya finished up the letter and sat back slightly to give Michael her full attention once more.

"Imports aren't the same, therefore you'll be able to increase the price to compensate for the import without threatening their market value. Just put some fancy word on it like 'exotic' or 'limited' and slap a few extra pounds to the label and keep the Chinese stuff for yourselves. And if they want to complain and talk some rubbish about trust or partnership, just send the blokes who can't afford it their way. Or if this is about connections, make even selling it on the side."