A Man's World - Alfie Solomons one shots.

1 - Rum Is For Bad Decisions.

Working for Thomas Shelby, you had to remember to turn a blind eye. You first learned this when walking into the stables at night to take the hay out of soak to find Arthur and John beating up some man in the middle of your yard,

"Sorry love, it's business." Arthur's gruff voice had explained, you said nothing, carrying on filling the mangers with hay. You had felt them staring at you. "Listen, sweetheart, you're gonna have to piss off for a minute while we finish tending to this lovely gentleman," John explained patronizingly, as the bloodied man retorted in a thick Russian accent. You had scuttled away that night, returning later on to see blood left on the ground.

So, recently when Tommy bought a man to the stables you had steered clear like always. You overheard them talking about racing the filly, as you turned around the corner into the closed-off stables. Tommy's eyes meet yours as you nodded and swiftly turned around, deciding instead of filling the water baths up to wash tack in the barn. You felt the man next to him watch you. He had a strong build, and his beard gave him a rugged look, Contrasting his smart coat and cane.

After a while of shining saddles and bridles, you heard footsteps stroll past the entrance of the barn "yeh, of course," you heard a gruff voice come from the man "why the fuck you need massive barns Tom I'll never know, not even used for housing my whiskey."

You heard Mr. Shelby chuckle, "I'm a busy man, not a storage company, Alfie."

You grabbed the dirty water bucket and headed to walk past the two men,

"Mr. Shelby... sir." You nodded to both of the men before slipping past them. Thomas hated it when his staff hung around when he was doing business and you and colleagues always had to vacate any room he entered if he had some man by his side, but this time the man seemed to be following you. Always 10 minutes behind you, walking into the tack room or stable block just after you, Tommy being dragged behind him.

Thankfully the man left not long after entering the barn but it wasn't until a week later he showed up again.

This time you were arguing with the gamekeeper about keeping kids off the paddocks. The boarding school was 2 miles away and many boys would sneak into the paddocks at lunch, terrorizing the horses. You were too caught up in telling him off to notice Thomas and the man watching you from behind.

"Do you have any fucking clue?" you remember shouting, the tall ginger man desperately keeping a poker face while you shouted at him. "Do you have any clue how hard it is to break in a horse when you have little shitty boys running after them every day?" your hands communicating your erraticness

as you roared at him "Why don't you do your bloody job right for once and keep fucking teenagers off the land like a good gamekeeper rather than sitting around all day like a bloody wanker? you need to step the fuck up and do what you've been employed to do before I cut your dick off and feed it to your precious pheasants!"

"yep... alright." he replied, his voice lowered almost trying to convey that he's still the manly one, his eyes were flickering behind you. You turned around to see Thomas with his hands in his pockets looking at you proudly and the man next to him stifling a laugh

"Miss Y/L/N," Tommy started, a smug smile still on his face "That was quite a show."

"Quite a show? That was fucking marvelous!" The man with the beard bellowed, grabbing Mr. Shelby's arm to steady himself as he bent over laughing.

"I'm glad to see boldness in my staff, carry on lads." Thomas gestured to you and the gamekeeper. The man walked up to you to take your hand shaking it confidently.