ɪᴛᴀʟɪᴀɴ ꜱɪʀᴇɴ

quinto capitolo

Alfie Solomon's office sat above the bakery like a throne room made of glass and smoke. Below them, ovens burned and men moved with practiced purpose, but the smell in the air wasn't bread, no it was molasses and alcohol, sweet and heavy. The bakery was a front. And everyone who mattered knew that. What Alfie really ran here was a rum distillery. He had already given Thomas Shelby a full tour, speaking loudly and proudly as he walked him past copper pipes and locked doors guarded a little too closely for simple flour storage. For show, he had even torn off a piece of bread and pressed it into Tommy's hand, smiling as if this were nothing more than business between respectable men. Then he had poured him a glass of dark rum, thick and strong, the real product of the place.

And now they sat facing one another in the office.
Alfie behind his desk, solid and unmoving, hands resting on the wood as if he had grown there. And Tommy opposite him, still pale from hospital sheets and stitched wounds, cap low over his eyes. He looked thinner, sharper somehow, but his posture remained straight, controlled. Pain didn't show on him unless he allowed it to. The air between them was heavy not hostile, not yet but careful. Because neither man had come for bread.

"Well I heard very bad, bad things about you Birmingham people." Alfie said, rubbing at his beard with two fingers. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Tsk tsk aye." he added, shaking his head in exaggerated disapproval.

"You are gypsies right?" Alfie asked next, his eyes drifted past Tommy toward the glass walls of the office. Outside, Ollie his right hand and cousin on his mother's side stood waiting, a dark shape behind the pane, watching for the smallest signal. The bakery noise carried faintly upward, the dull rhythm of work below.

Inside, Tommy said nothing. He took out his cigarettes with steady hands, as though the question required no reaction at all.

Alfie folded his hands over his stomach and leaned back in his chair, studying him.
"So what" he went on lightly. "do you live in a fucking tent or a caravan?"

The mockery was deliberate. Alfie knew exactly who the Shelbys were, and more importantly, what they had become. He'd first taken notice two years earlier, when Billy Kimber was shot dead in the streets and the name Shelby began circulating beyond Birmingham. He knew they lived in Small Heath. He'd seen the photographs in the papers the narrow streets, the cramped little house, the so-called betting shop right next to it pretending at legitimacy. And from the curl of his mouth and the lazy cruelty in his tone, it was obvious what he thought of it. In his mind, even a tent pitched out in the rain would've been more luxurious than that shithole they called home.

"I came here to discuss business with you, Mr Solomon." Tommy said evenly, taking a drag before clearing his throat.

"Well" Alfie clapped his hands together and leaned forward, eyes sharpening, "rum is for fun and fucking, innit ? So whisky." He grinned at his own joke, lifting a finger as though he were about to deliver some grand revelation. But instead, he reached into his desk and drew out a bottle of whisky, setting it down between them with deliberate weight.

"Let's talk first, aye." Tommy said, lifting his hand lightly not a refusal, just a pause.

Alfie stopped mid-motion, his fingers still curled around the neck of the bottle. The grin remained on his face, but something behind it shifted, sharpened and his eyes narrowed just slightly as he studied the man opposite him, recalculating the game in real time. With a short, irritated huff, he slid the bottle back into the drawer instead of pouring. He dragged his fingers through his beard, scratching at it as though the entire exchange had personally offended him. Who the hell drank whisky in the morning, anyway?

"Suit yourself" he said, the arrogance still there, as he shoved the drawer shut.

Tommy didn't react. His face remained blank, unreadable, the cigarette resting loosely between his fingers as smoke curled toward the ceiling. He watched Alfie without hurry, without irritation, as if the theatrics across the desk were expected. Only his eyes moved, slow and deliberate, taking in the office, the glass, the men standing beyond it.