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THE TRUCK HIT YET ANOTHER bump and Tommy's stomach did a nauseating flip, feeling vividly every rock that cracked under the heavy tires. His hands still shook — Tommy had noticed it when he went to check the hour on his pocket watch and the numbers blurred before his eyes — and all he could do was press them into one another, shoulders slouched, a defeated man.
One might have thought he was praying. Those that did know him knew Tommy Shelby believed in very few things and God was hardly on the list.
It had just passed the sixth hour and Tommy knew it must have gone through smoothly. Why else would he be here? While the Irishmen hauled him out of the truck, he knew Caterina was surely already out of Epsom with May, and it was the only thing that mattered.
He could only hope that she was safe and sound, surrounded by his brothers, down in the Garrison, far from the vile reach of Sabini or Campbell, from the danger of a reach of a gun and her traitorous father, hiding from justice somewhere in the country.
If this were to be his end then he would go gladly, for she was set to be the heir of his company, to continue with the idea they created in the early hours of sleepless nights, a legacy he would never get to see bloom. But she would be safe, and that would be enough.
Tommy Shelby was sure he was ready to die on many occasions through the past years — every time he entered the tunnels, or when he was held at gunpoint by Sabini's thugs — but what he saw now made his breathing stop.
Beside the hole lay a mountain of dirt with a shovel leaning against it, its gaping maw offering promises of most sure and definitive kind.
For the first time he knew, he didn't want to die. Not now, not when there was so much to lose. Not when there was a something and someone to back home to after the end of the day.
"I nearly got fucking everything." Oh, he was well aware he was bound to die one day, waiting for the inevitable hand of righteousness to strike him down on every turn for the lives that were taken by his red right hand.
"Any of you boys in France?" he asked, tearing his gaze away from the grave to look at his executioners. They remained as cold as the air around them, unmoving. "You know, I wouldn't mind a cigarette," Tommy remarked, hopefully.
After a moment of silence one of the men that brought him there responded. "The Somme. Black Woods." Tommy took in the information solemnly.
"Somme, the Bulls."
"Smoke," the man retorted gruffly, Irish accent scraping against Tommy's ears. Just when he thought he was rid of all the Irish bastard, it was the Irish bastards that would be his undoing.
"So fucking close."
He wanted to laugh; there was something bubbling in his chest, constricting his lungs until they ached, a strangled sound unlike the dignified Thomas Shelby who ruled over Birmingham with an iron fist and an ambitious mind.
