Prologue

Dorothea

Her favourite time of day was when the night was at its blackest.

It made things easier.

It was easier to become the ghost that she was. Unattached from this world and watching on the sidelines, across the street from an unsuspecting young couple too caught up in each other to see her.

Or walking through an alleyway that had become the setting to an unfortunate souls untimely end by a bullet or a blade just minutes ago.

Or sitting on a slate roof as close to the moon as possible so it could tell her the secrets it had seen.

With a sigh Dorothea rose to her feet. She rolled up her sleeves and then pushed them back down before beginning to pace along the shingled slope. Below her the Dirtyhands boys were hooting and hollering in the courtyard, they were celebrating a birthday of the bosses little brother and she had no intention to go and join them. She had made that perfectly clear by kicking down some of the roof tiles in warning every time they tried to coax her down. She worked for them, but that didn't mean she was one of them.

The weather that night was uncharacteristically warm and humid. Her coat and vest had been discarded in a shadowy lump beside her with her leather gloves neatly placed on top, trousers rolled up to her calves and blouse unbuttoned as low as possible without showing off too much of her breasts, just enough to allow the sticky skin the chance to breathe while she hoped for a cooling breeze.

She had little care for the opinions of those who did every now and then catch a glimpse of her in such attire. Logically it would be far more outrageous for her to scale a wall or climb a rooftop in a flowery dress and heels than don men's clothing. Besides, she had given a significant amount of money from her coffer to the seamstress around the block to make sure her suits were tailored to a more feminine shape.

As she stretched over to her coat pocket to retrieve a cigarette and light, she watched the men and their women of the night below her, absentmindedly noting how much they resembled ants, scurrying around in search for something sweet, be it money to gamble away, a woman to bed or a bottle to empty.

Oh how she wished they were as disposable as ants, if only she could be rid of them by a step of a boot, but she was under contract, she was indebted and for now there was nothing she could do but suck it up and deal with it because it was a better life than her previous one.

Wasn't it?

It had to be. Dorothea scratched her scalp, continuing till her fingers brushed all the way through her hair, leaving the fine strands at the base of her neck and wiping away the beads of sweat. It was times like this when she was glad that her hair had been given the chop, long locks in this weather would have had her suffocating.

She had took to walking back and forth along the edge of the roofline, blowing puffs of smoke in the air and imagining she was a circus girl performing a tightrope act, she knew that atleast someone from below was watching her, and she wondered if it would be wise to perform a showing flip or handstand to either entertain them or unsettle them. Then she wondered if it was the heat that had caused such a ridiculous idea. Dorothea laughed at herself, flicking ash over the edge of the roof and then maneuvered to head back up to the top of the slope.

She paused hearing footsteps coming closer from below.

"Come down from your nest bird, boss wants a word." The voice was half slurred, drunk and if she had cared she would have matched it to a name, but she only remembered their names when it was important.

Dorothea nodded, then unsure if they could pick out the gesture in the darkness when alcohol had hindered their capabilities; she raised her hand with the glowing cigarette butt, signalling to them then snuffing it out and then moving to fix her disheveled appearance. The coat was left where it was, she was too hot and she could always collect it later.

"He hasn't got all night you know!" Another yelled, and she rolled her eyes at their drunken impatience- it had only been 1 minute and 47 seconds. Before they could complain again she decided against using the fire exit or the piping to make her exit. Instead she was throwing herself over the edge, whilst one of the two sent to fetch her muttered 'fucksake' and the other said ' jesus'.

She struck the ground in front of them elegantly, knees bent into a crouch before she stretched up on her tiptoes and then planted her feet firmly on the floor.

She followed them through the wide set doors of the club that was known as their base of operations, allowed them to lead her towards the staircase that led to the boss' office and that was when they had stopped.

Alone. He wanted to speak to her alone.

Unease started to settle upon her but she refused to show it, plastering a grin on her face and hoping her lipstick had been smudged just enough to make her look scary but not insane.

Then she ascended the staircase, wrapping a gloved hand along the bannister while she glided up. At the top of the staircase she followed the carpeted floor to the office doors which were closed shut, forgetting her smile as she sucked in a breath, turned the handle and pushed.

"There's my Hawk." Benedict Hayle looked up at her, seated behind his desk as she entered the small space. His gleaming grin was just as grating on her nerves as his voice, which never seemed to change tone or pitch no matter what his mood was.

"Boys told me you had a job." Dorothea stated nonchalantly, gingerly picking up an antique hand mirror from a shelf of collectibles and examining her appearance. Her skin was shiny and a cold bath beckoned her, but she had to survive whatever this was first. She scrutinised her features in the mirror once more; a calm and collected mask, well that was a start.

Benedict's grin grew and he ran his fingers through angelic gold hair, a deceitful contrast to the truth in his soulless blackish brown eyes that were fixed on her as if her facade would start to peel away and crack if he lingered on her long enough. She had no doubt that eventually it would. Then he stretched back, swinging on the back legs of his chair, hands hitting the table with a loud smack as he pulled himself to his feet.

Dorothea didn't allow herself to flinch.

"Drink?" He asked, pouring two glasses of an amber liquid from a pitcher without even waiting for an answer.

She didn't even want a drink, she just wanted to know what the godawful job was going to be, she knew it was going to be hellish because he was keeping her waiting, he enjoyed how irritated she got when she was left waiting in suspense. And he would always wait the longest when the jobs were the worst.

But still Dorothea couldn't deny him, so she gingerly accepted the glass when he pushed it towards her, muttering a thanks and then inspecting it. She swirled the liquid looking for a sheen of discolouration, lifted it to her nose to try and catch a foreign scent.

He watched her as she went through the motions of habitually checking for poison in her drink, touching the amber liquid with the tip of her tongue, then sipping a small amount and gargling it before finally deeming it safe to swallow.

"Good girl." He praised, like she was a pet that was performing a nifty little trick. She glared at him as he smirked and downed his own drink, because that was exactly what she was in a way; his little bird of prey, his pet.

"Should be a fun little job for you this one." Benedict said after a short while, wiping the sweat from his brow and stepping nearer. She didn't like the look on his face as he said that.

"Oh?" She cocked her head with mild interest, hoping it wouldn't be mistaken for worry.

"Nothing too hard Hawk, just need some information, all you need to do is sneak into The Ice pala-"

"That's funny I could have sworn you were just about to say you wanted me to sneak into The Ice Palace." Dorothea joked to keep the mood light, to fool herself into thinking that place had no hold on her anymore, that she could say it's name without shuddering. She had managed not to shake but a knot twisted her stomach and she suddenly felt dizzy.

"I did. Problem?" He raised an eyebrow and it disappeared under the sweaty blonde curtain on his head. Benedict's jaw clenched and she knew this was where she was supposed to back down.

But she couldn't.

Dorothea was furious, she was disgusted. The Ice palace of all places, and he expected her to not have a problem? Of course she had a fucking problem, that place was the cause of all of her god damn problems.

"No. I can't do it- not the Ice palace, I can't go back there."

Her head shook feverishly and she cursed herself for dropping guard so quickly, this was exactly what he expected wasn't it? She looked up at him and saw he was furious, and expectant. Benedict was waiting for her to apologise, waiting for her to remember she was his and then accept the job dutifully like she had with others before. But this wasn't like the others, he was sending her back into hell.

Standing up straight she swallowed and mustered as much ferocity as she could.

"I won't do it. Not the Ice palace, get yourself another thief, or in this case idiot."

"You don't have a choice, you know that." Benedict's monotone voice seethed maliciously, he took a step closer to her and she had to force every fiber of her physical being to stay rooted in place.

"Don't have a choice?" Her words spiked and she could hide her terror no longer.

"If I go back there do you really think Winter would let me walk back out? I'd be dead! I'd lose everything i've worked to achieve, i'd lose my life Ben-"

Dorothea was slammed into a wall, smacking her head and she gasped at the sudden impact, not able to recover as the air she was trying to reclaim was trapped by the hand around her throat and it was bruising, crushing, leaving her dizzy and frantic. The glass in her hand fell to the ground with a shatter, sending soaked fractals and the remainder of the whisky spreading across the floor.

She fumbled with her hands, roaming over her hips and searching frantically. Shit. She'd left her daggers in her coat.

He had said something but she couldn't make out what it was. The sound rattled around in Dorothea's head, distant and muffled compared to the blood ringing in her ears, the burning emptiness in her lungs.

He growled unhappily and pushed her higher up the wall. A hiss left her mouth between her gasping and her gloved fingers clawed at his hands, his arms, and her feet which had been lifted off the ground kicked out as she tried to escape.

A hand moved to her hair, pulling her head back and forcing her to look at him.

"I need someone who knows the ins and outs of that place to get in, get my documents and give them to me. No one knows that place like you do."

Benedict's face was angry and mottled through the black spots tainting her vision, her eyes streamed with hot tears as she struggled for air, as she struggled to tell him to let her go.

"I bought you, took you from that place, and helped you build yourself a legend. That means you do what I tell you." He snarled in her ear, and she let out a pathetic sound of a strangled whimper as her vision started to blur even more.

"So, you're going to sneak into The Ice palace, you're not going to get caught, then you can come back here and maybe just maybe I might consider that the end of your debt and you can go fuck off to wherever the hell you wanna go."

"Cause if you don't i'll hand you over to Winter free of charge and you can go back to being a filthy whore."

He released his grip then, tossing her like a useless doll and she fell back limply, on the verge of unconsciousness. Using the remainders of her strength to keep herself propped up against the wall, she glowered, tenderly lifting her hands to her throat as she feverishly gasped, feeding her starving lungs much needed air.

A pouch of money was tossed at her feet and she fixed her stare on it, seething and not wanting to look at the bastards face.

"Get your shit together by tomorrow night." Was the last thing he said before leaving the office, slamming the door shut with such ferocity that it shook on it's hinges and rattled the wall.

Knowing she wouldn't be bothered by anyone for the next few hours, she let the tears fall and started to sob. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to kill them all and just be free of them.

A/N: So, a little bit of backstory for you on my oc the lovely Dorothea, before we meet the Peaky Blinders. I tried to do something a little different to whats already out there and I hope you guys like it, feel free to let me know your thoughts!

-LLTJ