𝑽𝑨𝑳𝑬𝑵𝑻𝑰𝑵𝑨 | 𝐓.𝐒 |

𝒙𝒙𝒗. 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓-𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅

𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝, but time had done little to soften the edges of Thomas Shelby's grief. At 73, his once sharp gaze had dulled, lines etched deep into his weathered face, but the weight of his past still hung heavy on his heart. The years had stolen much from him—friends, family, and the empire he once ruled with an iron fist. Yet, in the quiet of his bedroom, one thing remained untouched by time: a portrait, a silent witness to the story he could never escape.

It was a painting he had commissioned years ago, a portrait of Valentina, the woman who had slipped through his fingers, just like everything else he'd ever loved. She stood frozen in that frame, her gaze forever soft, her lips turned up in the faintest smile. She haunted him, not as a ghost but as a memory he could never shake. The image hung on his wall, watching over him, a reminder of the life that might have been. It was the closest thing to her he would ever have again.

Thomas stood before it, his old bones aching, the weight of decades pressing down on him like a thick fog. His hand reached out, trembling as it hovered just beneath the painted frame, as though, if he reached far enough, he might feel her warmth one last time. But there was nothing. Just the cold, hard surface of reality. He couldn't touch her, couldn't find her, no matter how many years he had spent trying.

"She who does not want to be found cannot be found." The words echoed in his mind, the bitter truth he had come to accept. Thomas Shelby could bend the world to his will, could make men disappear, build empires, and destroy enemies with the snap of his fingers. But he could never make her come back.

There had been rumors, of course—whispers that floated through the air like the smoke from his ever-present cigarette. Some said Valentina had taken her own life, unable to bear the weight of their loss. Others claimed she had fled to another country, leaving no trace behind, vanishing like a wisp of smoke in the night. But none of them had ever mattered to Thomas. It didn't matter where she was. She was already gone.

And yet, she had never truly left him. She lived on in the quiet moments, in the empty spaces of his heart where nothing else could ever grow. Every breath he took, every beat of his heart, was a reminder that she had been there, and now she wasn't. He was haunted not by her absence, but by the lingering presence of what could never be again.

The truth was, Valentina had never needed to run far to disappear. She was right there, etched into every corner of his memory, every decision he made, every regret that gnawed at his conscience. She had vanished from the world, but never from him.

For decades, he had been bound to her—still wrapped around her little finger, even now. No matter how far she had gone, no matter how many years had passed, Thomas Shelby was still under her spell. He was a prisoner, not of the empires he had built or the wars he had fought, but of the love he had lost. And for all his power, for all the lives he had changed or destroyed, he could do nothing to change that.

He had searched, oh, how he had searched. But he had known from the start—deep down, in the quiet part of his soul—that he would never find her. She was lost to him, a fragment of his past that he could never reclaim, no matter how many times he replayed that final night, or how much he wished he could have done things differently.

And now, as he stood before the painting, an old man broken by time and loss, Thomas knew the worst truth of all: Valentina was still with him, and she always would be. Not in the way he wanted, not in the way he needed, but in the way that tore at his soul and left him empty, hollow.

He loved her still, after all these years, and he always would. But she was gone—gone in a way that no one could bring back, not even Thomas Shelby. And so, with every glance at the portrait, every breath he took in the silence of his empty room, he felt the ache of her absence. It was a pain that never left, a constant companion to his aging heart.

Because the truth wasn't just that she was gone. It was that she had never left. She was still there, in every unspoken word, in every regret, in every piece of him that was lost to the world. And as long as he lived, he would be hers—bound to the memory of her, wrapped in the invisible chains of a love that had slipped through his fingers, like sand in the wind.

Their love was never meant to be, a fleeting dream against the backdrop of fate's cruel hand. They were star-crossed lovers, drawn together by an invisible thread, only for it to be severed by forces neither of them could control. Some whispered in hushed tones that Valentina had been his reckoning—his karma for all the sins he had sown across the years, for the blood on his hands and the deals made in shadows.

She was the storm that came into his life when he thought he had seen it all, but no amount of power or wealth could prepare him for the price of loving her. She had been both his salvation and his undoing, the only person who could touch the part of him that no one else ever saw—the broken man behind the ruthless Shelby mask. But loving her had come with a price he hadn't been ready to pay.

Perhaps it was the universe balancing itself, punishing him for the lives he had ruined, for the ghosts that haunted him. Valentina was the embodiment of everything he could never keep. She was never meant to stay, just like everything good that had slipped through his grasp. Maybe that was his curse—to love her fiercely, only to lose her in the end.

She had come into his life like a spark, igniting something in him he thought long extinguished, and just as quickly, she had burned out, leaving nothing but the ashes of what could never be. It was as though fate had placed her in his path not as a reward, but as a reminder—a reminder that not everything could be controlled, not even by Thomas Shelby. And for all his might, for all his victories, there were some things he could not conquer.

Their love was not just impossible; it was doomed. And deep down, perhaps they both had known it from the start—that love born from chaos was bound to collapse under its own weight. Thomas had built empires, but he couldn't build a future with her. The world was too harsh, too unforgiving, and for men like him, there was always a price to pay.

In the end, she wasn't just the woman he loved; she was his reckoning. The world took her away from him the way it had taken so many others, as if to say that love wasn't for men like him—not real love, not the kind that saved you. Instead, it shattered him, piece by piece, and she became the ghost he would chase for the rest of his life.

Thomas Shelby had been many things—a leader, a tyrant, a king of industry—but in Valentina's absence, he was nothing more than a man lost to the tides of fate. She had been the only one to see him for who he really was, and maybe that was why the universe couldn't let them have each other. Because loving her had always been his greatest risk, and losing her was his greatest punishment.

Thomas Shelby, once the most powerful man in all of Birmingham, had been brought to his knees not by an enemy, but by love. And in the end, that was all that remained.

𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒅.