mozzafiato ➝ peaky blinders

quattro

sing sing correctional facility, ossining
december, 1925

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A clock was ticking somewhere in the room. And for some reason, it irked him. 

Standing stiffly before the double doors, Nico Changretta swallowed just a little. This wasn't his first visit to Sing Sing; not too many years ago, it had been him behind those doors, and his brother waiting on the other side instead. 

Tick. Tick. Tick.

He glanced at the clock on the wall beside him. 10:57am. Luca would be striding out of those doors any minute now, like the arrogant bastard he was. 

He could practically picture it: he'd be smirking, and swaggering along as if he was walking out of a whore house rather than of one of the most notorious prisons in America. Nico scoffed at the image, shaking his head. 

But the smirk slid off his face as the doors before him remained closed. He wasn't the most patient of men. He liked things to happen fast - a preference that made the mafia business the perfect line of work for him. 

Waiting - standing still, remaining silent, and worst of all, being patient - even for a mere few minutes, was excruciating for him.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

To distract himself, he adjusted his cuff links, and thought of how the prison had treated his brother. While Luca was a leather-willed man, Sing Sing wasn't kind on the nerves. Or kind in any sense, in fact. 

Nico himself had entered those doors with a grin on his face, his measurable record of time spent behind bars as a lad making him cocky. But Sing Sing wasn't like those local Manhattan penitentiaries, where he would spend a few days after a violent bender. He emerged the facility two years later timid, nervous, wary. He had flinched when Angel had clapped him upon the shoulder when he came to collect him. No-one would have guessed he had been imprisoned for double homicide. 

He would have had a longer sentence, had his brothers not stepped in at his trial. Lord knows what he would have ended up like after serving the full twenty-five years. But still, it had taken him months to build back up to his old self.

If a man like Nico could have been whittled down by Sing Sing, he wondered what it could have done to his older brother.

Then, an impertinent buzz sounded from the intercom, and his head whipped up. 

Moments after, the doors swung open. And there stood Luca Changretta, flanked by security guards.

Nico had wondered if he would cry at the sight of his brother walking free, or if his mind would go straight to Gianna. 

But instead, he found himself wanting to laugh.

The guards hauled his brother down the walkway. And just as Nico had guessed he would, Luca walked with a cocky strut, his lips were twisted into that knowing smirk. 

The former marvelled as he took in the sight of his brother; the man may as well have been imprisoned the day before. Aside from his prison clothes - unfortunate, baggy white garments - the handcuffs restraining his wrists, and his overgrown hair, he was still the Luca he knew. He still had that glint in his eyes.

Prison hadn't broken him like it had broken Nico. Hell, it had barely broken the surface of his leathery skin.

As the man was stopped right before Nico, there was a moment where the guards removed his shackles, muttering something to him that Nico couldn't hear. But, still, he waited, hands folded before him.