The Enemy's Assistant
☾‧₊˚ ⋅ 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Thomas Shelby x fem!reader
☾ Warnings: canon-typical violence, mentions of assassination, guns, death, blood, threats, Tommy pointing a gun at reader, undercover spying, political tension, Mosley being Mosley, strong language, intense kissing, suggestive content, 7K Words
☾ Tags: @spn-reader
☾‧₊˚ ⋅ ───────────── ⋅ ˚₊‧☽
Mosley had brought you into the room with the kind of careless pride powerful men had when they believed everything around them belonged to them. His coat had still been damp from the Birmingham rain, his smile polished and mean, his voice carrying over the low fire and the clink of glasses as if the room had been built for him alone.
“This is Miss Y/n,” Mosley had said, barely looking at you when he spoke. “She keeps my appointments in order. Letters, invitations, men who think themselves more important than they are.”
You stood at his side with a small leather book tucked against your ribs and your hands folded neatly over it. Your dress was modest, your hair pinned away from your face, your expression pleasant in the way women in offices were often expected to be pleasant. Seen, useful, never remembered too clearly.
Tommy remembered you.
He stood near the mantel with a cigarette between his fingers, watching Mosley with that stillness of his that made most men talk too much. He gave nothing away at first. Not when Mosley crossed the room. Not when he offered his hand. Not when Mosley started speaking about politics and unity and a future he clearly imagined with himself standing in the middle of it.
But his eyes moved to you once.
Only once.
It was enough.
You held his stare for less than a second before lowering your eyes to your book, pencil poised as if you had only been waiting for instruction.
“Whiskey, Mr. Shelby?” you asked later, when Mosley had stepped out to speak with one of his men in the hall.
Your voice was soft. Sweet, even. It carried none of the sharpness you kept hidden beneath your tongue. Tommy turned his head slightly as you approached the cabinet, and the smoke from his cigarette curled between you.
“You know what I drink?” he asked.
“I know what most men drink when they’re made to wait.”
“That right?”
You poured two fingers into a glass and brought it to him without hurrying. “Mr. Mosley believes waiting makes a man easier to read.”
Thomas took the glass from your hand. His fingers brushed yours, brief enough to be an accident if either of you were the sort to believe in accidents.
“And you?” he asked.
You looked at him properly then.
“I think it depends on the man.”
For the first time since he had entered the room, something in his face shifted. Not a smile. Thomas Shelby did not give those away easily. But the corner of his mouth moved as if he had found something worth considering.
Behind you, Mosley’s footsteps returned.
You stepped back before anyone could accuse you of standing too close.
After that, Tommy began to notice you in pieces.
Your hand placing Mosley’s letters in front of him.
Your eyes moving across a room quicker than an assistant’s eyes ought to.
The way your smile appeared sweet from a distance, then vanished the moment no one important was watching. The way you laughed when Mosley expected it, nodded when he wanted agreement, and lowered your gaze when he wanted to feel taller than everyone else in the room.
You were good.
Too good.
Tommy came to understand that after the third meeting.
Mosley liked to keep him waiting. It was a performance, all of it. Let the Birmingham gangster stand in a room surrounded by books and polished wood, let him feel the difference between inherited power and taken power. Mosley never understood that Thomas had spent his life in rooms where men tried to make him feel small. He knew how to stand through it without giving them the satisfaction.
You knew it too.
That was the part that irritated him.
“You’ve been waiting twenty minutes,” you said one afternoon, closing the door behind you with your hip because your hands were full of papers.
Tommy looked up from the chair he had not properly settled into. “Have I?”
“Yes.”
“Counting for me?”
“I count everything in this house. It’s part of the job.”
You crossed the room and set the papers on Mosley’s desk, lining them up with unnecessary care. Thomas watched the movement of your hands. You wore no rings. No obvious allegiances. No mark of a husband, father, or brother claiming your time.
“Does he know that?” Tommy asked.
You looked over your shoulder. “Does who know what?”
“That you count everything.”
Your mouth softened. “Mr. Mosley knows what he finds useful.”
“And what does he find useful about you?”
You turned fully then, leaning back against the edge of the desk. It was improper. Small enough that most men would call it nothing. Obvious enough that Tommy knew you had done it on purpose.
“I have a pleasant voice,” you said. “I remember names. I smile at men who like being smiled at.”
Tommy took a slow drag from his cigarette, eyes fixed on you. “Is that all?”
“No.”
He waited.
You pushed off the desk and moved toward the drinks cabinet. “But I don’t think we know each other well enough for the rest.”
You offered him whiskey again. He took it because refusing would have felt like giving you too much.
For weeks, it continued like that.
A glass passed from your hand to his.
A glance held half a second too long.
A warning hidden inside an ordinary sentence.
“Mr. Mosley is in a foul mood today.”
“Mr. Mosley has invited new men tonight. They like to listen at doors.”
“Mr. Mosley has been asking who you trust most.”
Each time, Thomas looked at you as if he meant to pull the truth from your throat with his bare hands.
Each time, you gave him just enough sweetness to make him wonder whether he had imagined the blade beneath it.
By the time he asked you to meet him alone, you had been expecting it for days.
He did not make it sound like an invitation. Men like Tommy Shelby did not have to dress commands as requests, and men like Mosley rarely noticed when a woman was being spoken to as if she had a choice.
Tommy waited until Mosley had left the room and the two of you stood alone in the office, the fire burning low behind him, smoke gathered near the ceiling.
“There’s a place on Watery Lane,” he said. “Private room upstairs. Tomorrow. Nine.”
You closed Mosley’s diary.
“Is that business, Mr. Shelby?”
His eyes moved over your face. Slow, controlled, unreadable. “Depends what you bring with you.”
“And if I don’t come?”
“You will.”
You should have disliked his certainty.
Instead, you thought about it for the rest of the night.
The private room was warmer than you expected. Smaller too. A table near the window, two chairs, a lamp turned low enough to leave the corners in shadow. Thomas stood when you entered, not because he was polite, but because he liked having control of a room from the first moment.
“You’re late,” he said.
“By four minutes.”
“I noticed.”
“I thought you might.”
You took off your gloves finger by finger, laying them on the table. Tommy watched the movement. He had removed his cap, but his coat was still on, the shoulders sharp beneath the weak light. He looked less like a politician here. More like the man Birmingham whispered about when doors were locked and children were sent upstairs.
“Drink?” he asked.
“Now you’re pouring for me?”
“You’ve done it often enough.”
He moved to the small cabinet and poured without asking what you wanted. Whiskey. Of course. He carried it to you and placed it on the table, not in your hand.
You smiled faintly. “Careful. I might think you’re trying not to touch me.”
Thomas’s eyes lifted to yours.
“I don’t do much by accident.”
“No. I know.”
“That include coming here?”
You looked down at the whiskey, then back at him. “Especially that.”
The quiet stretched.
Outside, a car passed on the street below, wheels hissing over wet stone. You were aware of the room, of the door behind you, of the gun Tommy carried because men like him were never truly unarmed. You were aware of your own pulse, steady but not calm, and of the small folded paper tucked inside the lining of your coat.
Tommy stepped closer.
“You flirt with me in Mosley’s house,” he said. “You warn me when his men are listening. You look at me like you know something I don’t.”
“I know several things you don’t.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
“Is it?”
His gaze dropped to your mouth.
The air changed before either of you moved. It had been changing for weeks, one look and one glass and one careful sentence at a time. Thomas’s hand came to the back of the chair beside you, not touching you, only closing the space enough that your breath slowed.
“You want me to ask nicely?” he said.
“No.”
“Good.”
He leaned in.
For a second, you let him.
His face was close enough that you could see the tiredness around his eyes, the restraint in his jaw, the way he wanted and hated wanting in the same breath. His mouth almost touched yours.
You put one hand against his chest.
Tommy stopped immediately.
Not by much. Only enough to look at you.
“Before you do that,” you said quietly, “you should know I’m the reason Mosley doesn’t know about your plan.”
The room went still.
Thomas did not move for his gun at once.
That almost scared you more.
His eyes stayed on yours, and every trace of warmth left them so quickly it felt like watching a door slam shut. His hand dropped from the chair. He stepped back, slow and measured, and when the gun appeared in his hand, it was not dramatic. No flourish. No wasted movement.
The barrel pointed at your chest.
“You’ve got ten seconds,” he said.
You did not move your hand from the front of his waistcoat right away. Then, carefully, you lowered it to your side.
“Tommy—”
“Don’t.”
His voice was low enough to be more dangerous than shouting.
You swallowed. “The information never reached him.”
“Who told you?”
“No one told me.”
“Who else knows?”
“No one who can speak of it.”
The gun lifted a fraction. “That answer wants improving.”
You let out a slow breath, forcing yourself not to look at the weapon. “A message came through Mosley’s office three nights ago. It wasn’t addressed to him directly, but it was meant for a man who would have carried it to him by morning. It mentioned a rally. It mentioned a stage. It mentioned your name badly disguised, which tells me either someone is foolish or someone wanted you dead before the plan ever began.”
Tommy’s eyes sharpened.
You reached slowly toward your coat.
“Hands where I can see them.”
“I have proof.”
“And I have a gun.”
“You’re not the first man to point one at me.”
“No,” he said. “But I might be the first who doesn’t miss.”
That one landed.
You kept your hands visible, then nodded toward your coat. “Inside lining. Left side. If you want it, take it yourself.”
For a moment, he only stared at you. Then he stepped close, the gun still trained on you as his free hand opened your coat. His fingers moved beneath the lining and found the folded paper.
He pulled it out and stepped back.
The silence that followed was worse than the threat.
Thomas read with the cigarette smoke from the ashtray curling beside him, his face giving away nothing. You watched the muscle in his jaw move once. Only once. Then he lowered the paper.
“Where did you get this?”
“I told you.”
“You expect me to believe you intercepted a message meant for Mosley out of kindness?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
You laughed once, softly. There was no humor in it.
“Because I’ve spent months watching him prepare a country to kneel. Because I’ve typed invitations for men who speak of hunger like it’s useful. Because I’ve stood beside him while he smiled at people he would happily see beaten into the street. Because I know what he is, Mr. Shelby, and unlike most of the men around him, I don’t find it impressive.”
Tommy did not lower the gun.
“You work for him.”
“I work near him.”
“Same thing.”
“No.” Your voice sharpened before you could stop it. “It is not.”
His eyes held yours.
You forced yourself to soften your tone. Not sweet this time. Just honest enough that he might hear it.
“I got into his office because men like Mosley underestimate women who bring them tea and remember their appointments. They talk over me. Around me. Through me. They leave letters on desks because they don’t believe I can do anything with them except file them neatly.”
“And what have you done with them?”
“Copied them. Burned them. Sent them where they needed to go. Stopped some before they hurt people who never knew they were in danger.”
Thomas watched you for a long moment.
Then he lowered the gun, but he did not put it away.
“You should have come to me sooner.”
“You would have killed me.”
“I still might.”
“You won’t.”
His expression hardened. “Careful.”
You stepped closer, slow enough that he could stop you if he wanted. “You need me.”
“I need men I trust.”
“You don’t have many of those left.”
That struck something. You saw it in his eyes before he buried it.
You took the folded paper from his hand and placed it on the table between you.
“You have a plan,” you said. “It almost failed before it started. I can get you the room assignments, the guard rotations, the names of the men Mosley trusts most. I can tell you which door he uses when he wants to seem brave, and which one he uses when he is afraid.”
Tommy’s gaze moved over you again, colder now, measuring.
“And which one will he use?”
You met his eyes.
“The one I tell him to.”
For the first time that night, Thomas looked at you like something other than a problem.
He looked at you like an opportunity.
That was the beginning of the arrangement.
Not trust. Never that.
Not then.
Tommy did not trust you when he brought you to a back room at the Garrison two nights later and let Arthur stand near the door, glaring at you like he was deciding where to hide your body if you breathed wrong. He did not trust you when Polly studied you across the table, cigarette in hand, eyes narrowed as if she could read the sins in your blood without asking for a name. He did not trust you when you laid Mosley’s schedule on the table and pointed to the weak places in it.
But he listened.
That mattered more.
“Why’s she helping us?” Arthur demanded.
You looked at him. “Because I want him dead.”
Arthur snorted. “That all?”
“No.”
“Then give us the rest.”
Tommy’s voice cut in before you could answer. “Arthur.”
His brother looked at him, jaw tight, but went quiet.
Polly leaned back in her chair. “Men like Mosley don’t keep women close unless they think they own them.”
“He doesn’t own me.”
“No,” Polly said, eyes steady on yours. “But he thinks he does.”
You held her stare. “That’s why this works.”
A small silence followed.
Polly looked at Tommy then, and something passed between them without words. You could not read it entirely, but you understood enough. She did not like you. She did not trust you. But she knew a useful woman when she saw one.
The next week moved carefully.
You returned to Mosley’s office every morning with your sweet voice intact and your hands steady. You poured tea for men who spoke about power as if it were a birthright. You took notes on meetings that made your stomach turn. You smiled when Mosley praised your efficiency, and you watched the door, the windows, the men with folded arms and polished shoes.
At night, you met Thomas.
Sometimes in the Garrison. Sometimes in his office. Once in the back of a car with rain tapping against the roof while he smoked beside you and asked the same question three different ways to see if your answer changed.
It never did.
“You enjoy this?” he asked one evening.
You were sitting across from him at his desk, Mosley’s revised schedule open between you.
“Being interrogated?”
“Lying.”
Your pencil paused.
“To him?”
“To everyone.”
You looked up. Tommy’s shirt sleeves were rolled to his forearms, his waistcoat open, cigarette resting between his fingers. He looked tired in a way that did not soften him. It only made him more dangerous, like a man who had not slept because sleep would have forced him to stop thinking.
“I don’t enjoy much of it,” you said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is. You just don’t like it.”
His mouth twitched faintly. “You always speak like that to men with guns?”
“Only the ones who keep asking for my company.”
“I ask for your information.”
“And yet I’m still sitting here.”
He looked down at the papers, but not before you caught the brief flicker of something in his eyes.
Interest was too simple a word.
Want was too honest.
Whatever it was, it had not gone away after the gun. If anything, the danger had made it worse. You felt it in the pauses, in the way he watched your hands when you passed him papers, in the way his voice lowered when you stood too close behind his chair to point at some detail he had missed.
You felt it in yourself too.
That was inconvenient.
Wanting Thomas Shelby was not part of the plan. Want had no place in rooms where people were plotting death and betrayal. It made you aware of things you had trained yourself to ignore: the roughness of his voice in the early hours, the smoke on his clothes, the slight turn of his head when he was listening more carefully than he wanted anyone to know.
The night before Mosley’s rally, Tommy walked you to the door of his office.
He did not have to. The hallway was empty. His men were downstairs. You knew the way out.
Still, he followed.
At the door, you turned back to him. “Do you still think I’m going to betray you?”
“Yes.”
The answer should not have made you smile.
“You say that very quickly.”
“I think quickly.”
“And if I wanted to betray you?”
Tommy stepped closer. “You would have done it already.”
“Maybe I’m patient.”
“No.” His eyes moved across your face. “You’re tired.”
Your smile faded.
That was the thing about Thomas. He did not always see the whole of a person, but when he saw something, he saw it too clearly.
“I can finish this,” you said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because finishing it doesn’t mean you walk away clean.”
“No one in this plan is clean.”
“No,” he said. “But you still look like you think there’s something left to save.”
You looked away first.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Then Tommy reached past you and opened the door.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
You looked at him again. “Tomorrow.”
The night of Mosley’s rally came three days later.
By then, every part of the plan had been touched by your hands.
Not obviously. Never obviously. You had learned a long time ago that obvious women were remembered, and remembered women were questioned. So you moved carefully. You changed a name in a diary. You misplaced one note and delivered another too late. You smiled at a guard who liked your voice and convinced him he had been posted at the wrong door, then thanked him so sweetly he apologized to you for the mistake.
By the time Mosley walked into the hall, every man around him believed he was exactly where he had chosen to be.
He was not.
Tommy stood across the room with a cigarette unlit between his fingers, dressed like every other man who had come to hear Mosley speak. Black coat. Flat cap. Face unreadable beneath the low brim. He did not look at you for long. He did not need to. You had gone through this three times in his office, twice in a back room at the Garrison, and once in the dark back of a car while rain ran down the windows and Arthur muttered that the whole thing smelled wrong.
It did smell wrong.
That was what you could not shake.
Mosley was too calm.
Usually, before a speech, he liked an audience before the audience. Men gathered close, listening while he adjusted his cuffs and said something cruel enough to make them laugh. He liked being admired in pieces before stepping out to be admired in full.
Tonight, he stood apart.
His gloves were already on. His coat had not been given to you. One of his newer men, Carter, stood close to his shoulder with his mouth near Mosley’s ear.
Carter was not supposed to be there.
You looked toward the east corridor, where he should have been posted. Empty.
Your stomach tightened.
Across the hall, Tommy noticed the shift in your face. It was small. Barely there. But his eyes moved at once toward Carter, then toward the corridor, then back to you.
Arthur was near the rear doors, pretending badly to belong there. His jaw was tight, his shoulders restless beneath his coat. He looked ready to break something simply because waiting had become too much for him. Thomas gave him the slightest shake of his head.
Not yet.
Mosley turned then, and the crowd beyond the curtain swelled into applause before he had even appeared. He smiled at the sound as if it were a hand reaching for him.
“Miss Y/n,” he said.
You stepped forward. “Yes, sir?”
His eyes moved over you, slower than usual.
For the first time since you had entered his service, you felt truly looked at.
“Stay close tonight.”
Your mouth curved before your nerves could show. “Of course.”
“Mr. Carter seems to think there may be trouble.”
Carter looked at you then. He was a thick-necked man with watchful eyes and no talent for pretending. His gaze lingered on your face as if he were trying to place something he had only half seen in the dark.
You gave him the same gentle smile you gave all Mosley’s men.
“What sort of trouble?” you asked.
Mosley laughed softly. “The usual kind. Men who mistake noise for power.”
His gaze flicked, briefly, across the hall.
Toward Tommy.
There it was.
You felt the plan shift beneath your feet.
Mosley knew something. Not everything, perhaps, but enough to be careful. Enough to change the shape of the night without telling anyone who did not need to know.
Tommy saw it too.
For the first time, his cigarette moved from one hand to the other.
A warning.
Mosley stepped onto the stage under bright lights and the crowd rose for him.
You followed to the edge of the curtain, your hands folded neatly in front of you, your heart beating hard enough that you had to control your breathing. Mosley began to speak, voice smooth and carrying, one hand lifted toward the hall as if he were blessing them. Men leaned forward. Women watched from the rows. Cameras flashed. Applause came when he wanted it and faded when he lowered his hand.
He was good at it.
That was the sickening part.
He knew exactly when to pause. Exactly when to smile. Exactly when to turn hatred into something that sounded almost noble if a person wanted badly enough to believe it.
Tommy’s men were meant to move during the second swell of applause. Mosley was meant to finish the first portion of his speech, step back for water, then continue. During that pause, the guards at the west side would be pulled away by a disturbance Arthur had arranged, and Mosley would be guided toward the east passage after the speech ended.
That was where Thomas would have him.
Clean. Fast. No crowd in the way.
But Mosley did not reach for the water.
He kept speaking.
You watched Carter step closer to the stage stairs.
Then another guard moved beside him.
Then another.
They were closing the wrong passage.
Your throat tightened.
Across the hall, Arthur noticed too. His eyes went to Tommy, impatient and furious. Tommy remained still, but you could see the calculation sharpening in his face. The plan was slipping, and every second it slipped, Mosley moved further out of reach.
Then Carter looked directly at you.
This time, he knew.
You saw it settle into his face: the suspicion, the recognition, the satisfaction of a small man realizing he had found something large enough to make him important.
He turned toward Mosley.
You moved before he could reach him.
There were only a few steps between you and the side table where Mosley’s notes had been laid out. You picked up the top page, crossed behind the curtain, and stepped into Mosley’s line of sight with your head slightly bowed.
“Sir,” you said softly.
Mosley’s voice continued over yours for half a sentence before irritation cut through it. He glanced back, smile still fixed for the crowd.
“Not now.”
“I’m sorry, sir. It’s urgent.”
Carter was almost at your side.
Mosley’s smile held, but his eyes changed. He came back from the lectern slowly, still performing calm for the people watching him.
“What is it?”
You held out the paper. “A message from the rear entrance. They’re saying the west corridor isn’t secure.”
Carter stopped beside you. “No one sent that.”
You turned to him, letting confusion touch your face. “It came through just now.”
“No, it didn’t.”
The crowd stirred, sensing the break in rhythm without understanding it.
Mosley’s gaze moved between you and Carter.
For one terrible second, neither man spoke.
Then Mosley looked down at the paper in your hand.
It was blank.
His eyes lifted to yours.
You knew then that you had pushed too far.
Mosley did not shout. He did not accuse you. The worst men rarely did when they believed they had already won. His hand closed around your wrist with enough force to make your fingers tighten around the paper.
“How interesting,” he said quietly.
Carter reached for your arm.
The shot that followed did not hit Mosley.
It struck the light above the stage.
Glass burst overhead, and the hall erupted.
People screamed. Someone fell. The bright glare above Mosley snapped out, plunging half the stage into smoke-colored shadow. Men surged toward the exits. Chairs scraped and toppled. Carter cursed and grabbed for the pistol beneath his coat.
Tommy’s first chance was gone.
Mosley yanked you hard against him, using you for cover as he backed away from the lectern. His hand was still locked around your wrist, painful now, his calm finally cracked open enough for you to see the rage beneath it.
“You stupid girl,” he said into your ear.
You twisted, but Carter caught the back of your coat before you could break free.
At the rear of the hall, Arthur moved.
He did not move neatly. Nothing about Arthur was neat. He hit the first guard like he had been waiting all night for permission, driving him back into a row of chairs. Another man turned on him, and Arthur caught him by the collar, roaring something you could not make out over the panic.
Tommy was crossing the hall toward the stage.
Not running. Never running. Moving with that terrifying purpose of his through the breaking crowd, one hand inside his coat, eyes fixed on Mosley.
Mosley saw him.
For the first time that night, true fear moved across his face.
He shoved you toward Carter and turned for the side passage.
Carter’s grip tightened around your arm. You drove your heel down hard onto his foot and threw your elbow back into his ribs. He swore, loosening his hold just enough for you to tear away from him. His hand caught the edge of your sleeve, fabric ripping as you stumbled forward.
Mosley was already at the passage door.
The door that was not meant to be used.
If he got through it, he would reach the private stairs. If he reached the stairs, he would reach his car. If he reached his car, every death that night would belong to everyone except him.
You ran.
Carter came after you. You heard him behind you, his breath harsh, his shoes slipping against scattered glass. You did not look back. Mosley had one hand on the door, pulling it open, when you reached the side table and seized the heavy brass lamp from it with both hands.
It was ugly. Awkward. Too heavy.
You swung it anyway.
It struck Carter across the shoulder instead of the head, but it was enough. He staggered into the curtain ropes, dragging half the velvet down with him as he fell. The curtain sagged, blocking the stage in a heavy sweep of fabric and sending more people into panic.
Mosley turned back.
His face had changed completely now. No polish. No grand future. Only a man furious that the world had refused to obey him.
“You little bitch.”
He reached inside his coat.
Tommy’s voice cut through the noise.
“Mosley.”
Mosley froze at the sound of his name.
Thomas Shelby stood several feet away, gun in hand, smoke and panic moving around him. His cap had gone, and there was blood at his mouth from where someone must have caught him in the rush. He looked nothing like the patient man who had stood in Mosley’s rooms pretending to be impressed.
He looked like Birmingham had finally come to collect.
Mosley pulled you hard in front of him before Tommy could fire.
Your back hit Mosley’s chest. His forearm came up across you, tight enough to steal half your breath. You felt the shape of his gun near your side, not pointed cleanly, held by a desperate hand trying to make a shield out of you.
Tommy’s gun did not lower, but his eyes flicked to yours.
For one heartbeat, everything narrowed.
The screaming crowd faded. Arthur’s fighting faded. Carter’s groaning faded. There was only Tommy across from you, Mosley behind you, and the small space between a plan and a disaster.
Mosley laughed once, breathless and ugly.
“You brought a woman into my office and thought I wouldn’t smell betrayal on her eventually?”
Tommy’s eyes did not move from yours.
You understood before he spoke.
Not the details. Not a command. Just the look. The same look he had given you across Mosley’s office when you passed him whiskey. The same one he had given you when he had a gun to your chest and decided not to pull the trigger.
Trust, if Thomas Shelby could ever allow it to look like that.
You let your knees give.
Mosley was not expecting it.
His arm slipped as your weight dropped suddenly against him, and his gun jerked away from your side. You twisted hard, ignoring the pain in your wrist as he tried to hold on. His shot went wide, cracking into the wall so close to Tommy that dust spat from the plaster near his shoulder.
Tommy fired.
Mosley stumbled.
For a second, he stayed upright.
It seemed impossible that he could. The man had built himself so entirely out of certainty that even his body looked offended by failure. He stared down at the dark spread across his shirt, one hand pressing there as if he might hold death out by force.
Then he looked at you.
Not at Tommy.
At you.
That was the part you would remember.
All those rooms. All those letters. All those cups of tea and quiet footsteps and smiles he never thought to question. In the end, Mosley understood too late that the woman beside him had never belonged to him at all.
He tried to speak.
No words came.
Tommy fired again.
Mosley hit the floor hard.
The sound of it cut through the chaos in a way the gunshots had not. Men turned. Someone screamed his name. Carter tried to push himself up from the fallen curtain, saw Mosley on the ground, and stopped as if his strings had been cut.
Thomas crossed the space between you and Mosley without looking at the body first.
He caught your arm. “Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
His eyes moved over you anyway, quick and severe, searching for blood that belonged to you. Behind him, Mosley lay beneath the broken light, one hand curled uselessly against the floorboards, his grand speech scattered in loose pages around him.
Arthur appeared at the side of the stage, breathing hard, coat torn, knuckles split. He looked down at Mosley and then at Tommy.
“Tom?”
Tommy did not answer at once.
He looked at Mosley then.
So did you.
Oswald Mosley, who had spoken of nations as if they were rooms to be rearranged for his comfort, who had worn hatred like a fine suit and expected history to thank him for it, stared at nothing beneath the stage lights that had not fully gone out.
This time, there would be no escape through a side door.
No failed shot.
No warning delivered in time to save him.
This time, Mosley was dead.
The building erupted all over again.
“Go,” Tommy said.
Arthur was already moving, dragging one of their men toward the rear passage. Somewhere outside, police whistles cut through the shouting. Carter shouted for help, but the sound was swallowed by the crowd forcing its way toward the doors.
You turned toward the corridor, but your legs did not feel entirely steady beneath you.
Thomas noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He took your wrist, gentler than Mosley had, and pulled you through the side passage before anyone could close in. You stumbled once over the edge of the fallen curtain, but Tommy caught you without breaking stride. The two of you moved through smoke, shouts, running men, and the strange ringing silence that seemed to have settled inside your own head.
At the end of the passage, he pulled you into a small room that smelled of dust and old paper.
The door shut behind you.
For a moment, all you could hear was your breathing and the panic outside.
Tommy locked the door.
Then he turned to you.
“It’s done,” you said.
Thomas looked at you.
Outside, men were running. The building shook with panic, boots and voices and the beginning of history changing shape in the hallway.
“It’s done,” you said again, quieter this time.
Tommy’s face did not change much. You had not expected relief from him. Not the simple kind. Men like Thomas Shelby did not let one dead enemy empty the room inside them. There would be another. There was always another. But something loosened in his shoulders, so faintly you would have missed it if you had not been watching him for weeks.
Then his eyes hardened.
“You took too long in the corridor.”
You stared at him. “That’s what you have to say?”
“You were meant to be out before the shot.”
“I had Mosley’s coat in my hands.”
“I don’t give a fuck about his coat.”
“I couldn’t run too early without drawing attention.”
“You could’ve been taken.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You could’ve been shot.”
“But I wasn’t.”
The silence snapped tight between you.
Tommy moved so quickly you barely had time to breathe. Not toward his gun this time. Toward you. His hand caught your jaw, not harsh, but firm enough to still the argument in your throat.
“Don’t stand there and argue with me about how close it came,” he said.
His voice was quiet. That made it worse.
You looked up at him, your breath uneven now for reasons that had nothing to do with the hallway.
“You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
“Because Mosley’s dead?”
“Because you nearly joined him.”
Your mouth opened, but no answer came.
Thomas’s thumb rested beneath your chin, lifting your face a fraction. His eyes moved over yours like he was looking for something he did not want to name.
“You lied to me,” he said.
“Yes.”
“For months.”
“Yes.”
“You let me sit in rooms with that bastard while you stood behind him pouring drinks like you didn’t know what he was.”
“I knew exactly what he was.”
His grip tightened slightly, not enough to hurt, only enough to remind you that he was trying very hard not to lose control.
“And what am I?”
You should have been clever. You had always been clever with him. Sweet voice, soft eyes, lowered lashes when Mosley turned his back. A hand brushing too close to Tommy’s sleeve as you passed him a glass. A smile held half a second longer than it needed to be.
You had survived by choosing every word before it left your mouth.
But you were tired.
Mosley was dead.
And Thomas Shelby was looking at you as if he had spent weeks deciding whether he wanted to ruin you or trust you, only to discover both answers led to the same place.
“You’re the man who finally did it,” you said.
Something changed in his face then.
The control did not leave him all at once. It slipped, barely, at the edges. His eyes dropped to your mouth, and your breath caught before you could stop it. He noticed. Of course he noticed. Tommy noticed everything, especially the things a person tried to hide.
“You came here to tell me that?” he asked.
“No.”
His thumb moved once against your chin.
“No?”
“I came here because I thought you might want to know what Mosley’s men will do next.”
“And after that?”
Your voice lowered. “After that, I thought you might kiss me properly this time.”
For a moment, he did nothing.
Then he kissed you.
It was not gentle, and it was not careless either. Tommy kissed like he made decisions, with frightening certainty, as if the moment he chose to do something, the world was expected to move around it. His hand slid from your jaw to the side of your neck, his fingers firm beneath your ear, holding you there while his mouth took yours with all the restraint he had been wearing since the first time Mosley introduced you.
You stepped into him without meaning to.
Or maybe you had meant to all along.
Your hands found his coat first, clutching the lapels, dragging him closer until there was no polite space left between you. Tommy made a low sound against your mouth, not quite a groan, more like frustration finally finding somewhere to go. His other hand came to your waist, and he turned you in one smooth movement until your back met the nearest table.
Papers shifted beneath you. An empty glass rolled, hit a stack of files, and stopped.
You pulled back just enough to breathe.
“Careful, Mr. Shelby,” you whispered. “That might be important.”
Thomas glanced down at the scattered papers, then back at you.
“Not tonight.”
You barely had time to answer before his mouth was on yours again.
This kiss was worse. Deeper. Slower for only a second before it turned hungry again. His hand moved to the small of your back, pulling you hard against him, and you felt the sharp breath he took when your fingers slid up into his hair. The careful part of him was still there, you could feel it in the way he stopped himself from going too far too fast, in the way his hand paused at your waist as if waiting for you to push him away.
You didn’t.
You tugged lightly at his hair instead, and Tommy’s breath left him through his nose as his mouth moved from yours to the corner of your jaw.
“Tommy,” you said, and his name did something to him.
He stilled for half a second.
Then his mouth found your neck.
You closed your eyes, one hand gripping the table behind you, the other still caught in his hair. His lips were warm, rougher than you expected, and the scrape of his breath against you made your thoughts scatter in a way no threat ever had. You had stood in rooms with fascists and murderers and men who would have had you killed if they knew what you carried in your coat lining, but this was what made your knees feel unreliable. Thomas Shelby with his mouth at your throat and one hand fitted to your waist like he had been thinking about touching you long before tonight.
“You’re still angry,” you breathed.
“Yes.”
“Is that why you’re kissing me like this?”
His mouth paused against your neck.
“No.”
You opened your eyes.
Tommy lifted his head, his face close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath. His eyes were darker now, the anger still there but no longer pointed like a weapon. It had softened into something more dangerous because you did not know what to call it.
“I’m angry because you nearly got yourself killed,” he said. “I’m kissing you like this because I wanted to do it the first night you handed me whiskey and smiled at me like you knew something I didn’t.”
Your lips parted, but nothing came out.
That almost made him smile.
Almost.
His thumb brushed once over the corner of your mouth, and his voice dropped. “No answer for once.”
You should have had one.
You always had one.
Instead, you leaned forward and kissed him yourself.
Tommy accepted it with a quiet inhale, his hand tightening at your waist as you pulled him closer. This time you set the pace, slower than his, letting your mouth move over his until the tension in his shoulders started to ease beneath your hands. He still tasted like smoke and whiskey and violence barely survived. You wondered if you tasted like the same.
His fingers slipped beneath the edge of your jacket, not undressing you, only touching enough to make it clear he wanted to. You caught his wrist, and he stopped immediately.
The room went still around you.
Thomas pulled back just enough to look at you.
“No further?” he asked.
Not offended. Not impatient. Just asking.
You looked at his hand beneath yours, then at his face.
“Not tonight.”
He nodded once.
No argument. No wounded pride. He simply moved his hand back to your waist and leaned in again, softer this time, kissing you like the answer had not made him want you less. If anything, it seemed to make him more careful with it.
That was almost worse.
You kissed him until your mouth felt swollen and your breath came unevenly, until the room no longer felt like a room hidden behind a murder, until the panic outside became distant and Tommy’s cigarette had burned down untouched in the ashtray.
When he finally pulled away, he did not go far.
“You said you knew what his men would do next,” he said.
You let out a quiet laugh, still holding onto his coat.
“That is what you want to talk about now?”
“No.” His eyes dropped to your mouth once more. “But I’m trying to be practical.”
“How noble of you.”
“It won’t last.”
You smiled despite yourself.
Tommy stepped back only enough to pick up his cigarette. He looked almost composed again, except for his hair where your fingers had disturbed it and the slight roughness in his breathing that he had not fully managed to hide.
You straightened your jacket and reached for the scattered papers beside you.
“They’ll look for someone inside his office first,” you said. “Someone close enough to move messages and confuse the guards. Which means I can’t go back.”
“No,” Thomas said. “You can’t.”
You looked up. “So I’ll need a desk.”
His brow shifted.
“A desk?”
“If I’m going to be your new assistant.”
Tommy stared at you for a moment. Then he gave a low, humorless little laugh and looked down as he tapped ash into the tray.
“You think I’m going to hire a woman who lied to me for months?”
“You hired men who have done worse for less useful reasons.”
He looked up at that.
You held his stare.
“And none of them looked nearly as sweet pouring your whiskey.”
The corner of his mouth moved, barely.
He took one slow drag from his cigarette, eyes never leaving yours.
“Monday,” he said.
You tilted your head. “Monday?”
“Be in my office by eight.”
“And if I’m late?”
Tommy stepped close again, close enough that the end of his cigarette burned between his fingers at his side and his mouth hovered near yours.
“Don’t be.”
Then he kissed you once more, shorter this time, but with enough heat behind it to make Monday feel very far away.