Roguish Women- Tommy Shelby

The Truth

Francis Lynch was a wreck. She could barely stand or hold her head up and it had been three hours since the police had left. Three hours since one of the detectives informed her of her husband's accident. In the wee hours of the morning, Ryan Lynch, drunk as a skunk, had fallen into the Boston Harbor and drowned.

"What am I going to do?" She wailed from her seat at the kitchen table. Her head was in her hands.

Her eighteen-year-old daughter was sitting on the floor, her knees tucked to her chest. "It'll be alright, mom." She said quietly. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her father was never the person he was meant to be. He worked twelve hours a day then spent his free time in the pub. He was never particularly loving toward his only child. After all, she was simply a mistake in his eyes. Young and reckless, he got Francis pregnant and his Catholic father guilted them into marriage.

But Kate was still sad. She still loved him.

"It won't be alright!" Francis cried. "We'll lose the apartment, we'll lose everything!"

"No, we won't." Kate stood up shakily and tried to comfort her mother. "I promise we'll be alright."

~~~~~

"I worked to help pay the bills and to pay my neighbor for ballet lessons," Kate explained. She sat down on the bed as she started to explain everything, she had lied to him about. "My mom worked too but my father brought in the most money."

Tommy wasn't sure he expected the story to go so far back. In his experience, the farther back a story went, the more lies there were. But he tried to keep an open mind, she was being honest with him even if he was hesitant about it.

"When my father died, we would've become homeless in a couple of months."

Tommy frowned. "You didn't tell me your father died." As far as the story went, or at least the one he was led to believe, Kate's father was the reason for all of her troubles. Someone who was caught up in the American mafia, who placed all the burden on Kate.

"Just, just listen."

He nodded and went to sit beside her on the bed. The last thing he wanted was for a confrontation so soon after reuniting with her. That's why he had wanted to at least delay the truth. But he also didn't want her to feel guilty either.

"I'd known Frank Wallace and his brother Steve for a long time. They were already established as the Gustin Gang by that point and they controlled most of South Boston. I met Frank through my neighbor who taught me lessons. He had helped her rent and legal issues. So, I went to him after my father died."

~~~~~~~

"Girl like you shouldn't be dealing in those sorta things, Katie," Frank warned.

They were at one of the bars the Wallace brothers owned. One of the places Kate's father frequented. Kate looked around the place, wondering if this was the last place her father had been before he left and fell into the Harbor.

"I don't think I have a choice." She replied quietly.

"I'll help you find a good job with better pay." He assured her. "Don't worry about your landlord either, I'll pay him a visit if he gives you trouble 'bout the rent."

To anyone else, it would've sounded like the perfect scenario. Having friends in gangs sometimes had its perks. But Kate shook her head. "I don't want that, Frankie. You know how long I've been training to dance. I'm not going to give that up so I can work myself to death like..." She paused. "Whatever."