This story is dedicated to all the women in abusive families, relationships, and cultures. You have the courage to disappoint your families to become your true self. The journey is difficult, debilitating, and dangerous, but we deserve to live a life that isn't founded on fear, sacrifice, and obligation.

Lucia wasn't happy when she heard the little Irish rat had given Thomas Shelby a son. She was even more unhappy when news of a wedding was to happen. So, when her brother Angel said he was in love with Lizzie Stark and that they would go to the wedding together, Lucia's unhappiness peaked. She wouldn't allow it. The first generation Sicilian decided that she would have a word with Tommy to settle things.

Besides, her heart ached for him. Even after all this time she still loved him.

It was Polly who had fostered a deal with Vicente Changretta and the Birmingham Italians during the war. When Arthur, Tommy, and John came back from France and found the Peaky Blinders thriving above all the other Birmingham families, they all walked with their heads held higher than the rest of the poor bastards that came back to the dirty streets of Birmingham.

Now, Tommy's home was large and his property was vast. It was the greenest thing Lucia had ever seen. She couldn't help but scoff bitterly. If she was born Romani, it could have all been hers. If she was born Irish, it could have all been hers. But Lucia was born Sicilian and Tommy himself had said it would be "bad for business." With his words pressed in her mind, Lucia hesitantly stepped up to the front door under the towering portico.

She was suddenly nervous to see him again. More so, she was nervous to come face to face with the blonde Irish traditrice Tommy was set on marrying. Thankfully it was one of the many maids that answered the door and directed her to the expensive furnishings before Thomas Shelby could make time for her. Though she made attempts to live a godly life as the good Catholic girl she had been raised to be, Lucia could no longer suppress the powerful wave of jealousy that flooded up in her chest. From where she sat she could clearly spot the portrait above the grand staircase which depicted Tommy, the Irish woman, and their son between them. As she was transfixed by the portrait, the Irish woman came down the stairs and their eyes met. Grace's blonde hair was effortlessly coiffed and she, rosy and angelic, glided towards Lucia with curiosity in her eyes.

"Are you waiting to see Mr. Shelby?" the mistress of the house inquired.

"I am," Lucia answered softly, fighting desperately to suppress the tears welling up in her brown eyes. She nearly gave her emotions away before regaining her composure quickly after.

Grace looked the visitor up and down, briefly wondering if it was one of Arthur's many whores coming to cash in the large sum of money the Shelby's possessed. "I'm afraid he's busy. We're planning a wedding."

The curtness in the future Mrs. Shelby's voice angered Lucia but her Sicilian father had taught her better than to show it. "I'm an old friend here on business," Lucia Changretta squared her shoulders and stated plainly, "and you of all people should know Tommy puts business first."

Grace's green eyes narrowed on Lucia but the tension broke when Arthur opened the door to the office and cocked his head to the side, gesturing the guest into the room. Lucia, feigning civility, forced a small smile at Grace and began in through the door. Remembering her anxiety to see Tommy, Lucia, in a wild panic, threw her gaze along the paneled walls while her heart leapt at the sight of Tommy, standing formidably behind his desk. The light streaming in through the window behind him darkened his features.

"John. Arthur." Lucia, who had frozen mere steps past the door, nodded familiarly to both Shelby brothers before directing her eyes to Tommy. "We need to talk."

Without a word, Tommy Shelby sat down and made a gesture to the empty chair across his desk beside Arthur. She was familiar with his silence - it was expected. It took her very little time to recognize it as a willing response. Lucia walked up to his desk, ignoring the seat Arthur had pulled out for her in his gentlemanly way, and got directly to business.

"My brother, Angel, ain't going to your wedding with that Lizzie Stark girl. I won't allow it."

Tommy leaned forward in his grand leather chair, folded his hands over important documents, and looked up at her with empty eyes. "Then we're in agreement."

Not in the least bit surprised at his lackadaisical attitude, Lucia abruptly sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and lit a cigarette. It wasn't in her nature to ask permission. Tommy knew this. "Invite me instead."

A raucous cacophony of snorts and chuckles flew in the air between John and Arthur. Even Tommy cracked a smile.

John clapped his hand on her shoulder familiarly. "You havin' a laugh, Luc?"

Red-faced in embarrassment, Lucia charged on, smashing her cigarette into the ashtray which sat on the desk, "look at you Shelby boys in your posh house and flashy cars. Conveniently forgetting where you're from and who fed and clothed you when you were hungry and shoeless. Back when you were biscuit-arsed lads running through the streets." Her words caught in her throat, perhaps due to shame because she had been no better back then either. And now she wasn't living in a splendid house bathed in a sea of perfectly manicured green grass. "Aye, you don't owe us nothin', but have some forethought," she spoke directly to Tommy now, her dark eyes pleading with him to understand, "have some wisdom. If you don't keep up appearances with the Brummie families, you know damned well an uprising will start."

"And we'll pound 'em back down," John leaned down to sneer into her ear. "'Cause we're the Peaky fuckin' Blinders."

Lucia slowly turned toward him with a formidable glare. "You're nothing without us. The Blinders can't face Sabini by yourself let alone the Brummegen Boys and the Sloggers when they inevitably decide to stamp you out! You boys have gotten too cocky and you've forgotten the streets that made you."

Tommy finally spoke, easing himself into the tension that settled between the four of them. "We've checked his background. Your brother has had five different names in the last six years and he's got connections with Sabini. Did you know that? You're just as dangerous by association. Why would I let you come to my fuckin' wedding?"

Under the numbing scrutiny of Thomas Shelby's gaze, Lucia nearly laughed. There was nothing behind those eyes anymore. No kindness, no gentleness. It was just...empty. A beautiful, empty piercing blue canvas. She felt homesick for the man he used to be. "You know I left the family business a very long time ago."

"And yet here you are speaking on behalf of the Changretta's. Family," Tommy emphasised, "is not something you walk away from."

I wanted to be a part of your family, Lucia wanted to shout. All she could disdainfully mutter was, "the idiot's are in love, Angel and Lizzie."

"I don't care."

"He will insist on coming."

"We will make sure he won't. That, I assure you."

She was all out of responses. She wanted him to stop looking at her. She needed him to stop looking at her or she'd burst into tears. Lucia nodded without protest. There was no convincing Tommy Shelby when his mind was made up. She'd know that since she was a girl. Standing in defeat, she held her head high to feign a smile, "congratulations are in order. There's a wedding gift for you in the stables."

"Is it from your family or from you?"

Her eyes narrowed on him and didn't answer. He was trying to implicate her. Easing back on her heels, Lucia walked away from Tommy, out of his large house, past his perfect lawn, and began the long walk back to Birmingham.

The journey to the Shelby mansion had been quick on the back of a chestnut Anglo-Arabian filly. With a gleaming coat, balance, and excellent muscle definition, any fool could see how beautiful a mover she was. Lucia knew Tommy would be pleased when he saw her in the stables. A smile pulled at the corners of Lucia's lips imagining his surprise at the sight of that sweet filly. She was a polite thing and calm to boot. After months spent finagling with a dealer in France for much too much money, a small part of Lucia hoped it would be enough to win Tommy back. She laughed pathetically at this notion, knowing she'd come too late. It was too late the moment he had had a child with that Grace woman.

Lucia remembered the night Tommy came to her in the canals near Charlie's Yard. She was sitting along the river, feet dangling down nearer the uncertain depths. She wondered what would happen if she fell inside. Who would save her? And then Tommy fuckin' Shelby sauntered beside her, took a drag off his cigarette, and held it down to her. Suave as all hell, he was.

"She's gone," he had said with empty eyes dragging across the darkened Birmingham woods.

Lucia pulled a long drag from the cigarette, hoping the warmth would flow down to her cold chest. "The Irish girl?"

"Aye." He pinched the cigarette from her fingers and finished it off, throwing it down into the water with finality.

Lucia stared out before them to soak in the broken glints of moonlight on the Cut. "What'll you do now?"

"Well," Tommy began, "I was hopin' you'd ask me to come home with you."

Lucia laughed in disbelief. "So you can be inside of me but think of her? You havin' a go at me, Tommy?"

But she had taken him to her small flat anyway. Walking hand in hand, Lucia and Tommy navigated through the streets they played on together as children. They slipped from shadow to shadow, using the darken alleys to sneak small kisses and to press their bodies closer together with longing. With Tommy Shelby, there really was no reason to sneak around Small Heath. Nobody would dare say a word if they saw Vincente Changretta's daughter stealing around with a Shelby.

But there was an exciting feeling of indecency that welled in Lucia's chest from it all.

Unvirtuous. Wanton. Salacious. Those were just some of the many things Lucia wanted him to growl into her ear.

He would always touch her like a man dying of thirst. A coy smile would always pull on his lips when he'd reach down to graze his fingertips along the soft inside of her thigh. Lucia would breathe deep - desperate to steady herself under Thomas Shelby's blue eyes, but her excitement was always too obvious with him.

"Do you like that?" Tommy would ask. His voice would be slow and deep, just as deliberate as his fingers which were steadily gliding further up between her legs. Lucia knew he could feel the warmth. He loved to tease her - loved to ask questions he already knew the answers to. "Tell me," he'd say as he coaxed her head back, pressing his lips along the sensitive spot on her neck and gently licking her ear.

Lucia would be reeling on the inside, full of lust and passion and desperation to feel him. That was her favorite part. The tightness, the pressure, and the inevitable give as he slides inside her. "Please," was how she would plead. Her eyebrows would furrow slightly and her lips would form a small pout; she was always impatient when it came to Tommy Shelby and it always made him laugh. He would take a moment to kiss her nose and then her lips. He would wrap his fingers around throat, gentle at first with the smallest pressure to keep her steady, and he would rock his hips back and forth against her. It was always enough to forget she was cross from his teasing.

Lucia was nearly lost in her memories when the sound of galloping hooves rumbled behind her. She turned to see Tommy aback a black warmblood - a prized horse retired to the Shelby stables. Tommy reined the warmblood to a stop beside her and dismounted with all the poise and deliberacy of a man with something to say. There was a smile tugging at his lips, likely from the sight of the filly, but he tried, and failed, to hide his pleasure at her wedding gift.

"Did you like her?" Lucia spoke first to break the silence.

Tommy looked away, the smile giving way to the corners of his lips. "She's beautiful."

"Aye, she'll be good for the races if you train her properly." She swept her arm out toward his large property, "goodness knows you can afford it."

Another silence fell in the space between Lucia and Tommy. A flush spread across her cheeks from her previous memories of them together intimately. It seemed as though, now that they were alone, that longing and tension returned. Tommy looked her up and down in a much different light than his future wife had earlier. He let his gaze linger on her dark eyes then down to her sharp nose, on which he remembered planting many small kisses to make her smile, her lips, plump and pink, and then finally the soft throat she would beg for him to wrap his fingers around. Lucia, having followed his eyes, was looking for anything else which would help ground herself under his pointed study.

"I know what you have to do," she finally remembered he was about to be a married man, "but please don't hurt Angel."

Tommy put his hands into his pockets before looking up and down the road they stood on, "we'll try to reason. If that doesn't work, you know what we'll do."

"Don't rough him up, Tom, he -"

Tommy Shelby put a hand up to stop her mid-sentence. "This is the life you were born into, Lucia. And this life is the one I was made for. There are no exceptions."

"Not even for me?" Lucia meekly entreated in a last ditch effort. Angel was her little brother after all. It had only been the two of them since Luca was sent to America to escape the law and explore the money to be made in alcohol in New York. Lucia knew how headstrong, foolish, and lovesick Angel was. She wasn't happy about him choosing Lizzie Stark, but Tommy had been right earlier … family was not something you could just walk away from. So she had to try her best.

Much to her surprise, Tommy shifted closer to her and gently cupped her face in his hands. His breath fanned across her face and a sharp pang of lust erupted in her chest when his thumbs caressed the sensitive spots on her neck - just as he used to. Lucia was never good at fighting the pleasure she felt with Thomas Shelby. Involuntarily, her eyes fluttered shut and she cocked her head to the side to reveal the supple areas of her neck for Tommy to explore.

Tommy Shelby and Lucia Changretta stood in the middle of the lane alone, out of the view of the house where the future Mrs. Shelby was making wedding preparations. It wasn't the dirty shadows of Birmingham's alleyways anymore. Tempted to continue simulating the sensitive spots on her neck, Tommy hoped to elicit a moan from between her lips. He remembered her hot breath in his ear and her arms wrapped around him. For all those years she had fit so perfectly against him. And now, he found it was still true. He couldn't forget how passionately and desperately she wanted him. And he couldn't forget how miserable and disheartened he had been without her.

A long moment passed before Lucia opened her eyes to meet Tommy's gaze. With the saddest smile, Lucia wrapped her fingers around his wrists and brought his hands down. She had hoped it was enough to give him some assurance. "I do still love you, Tommy. It's a shame we'd be bad for business."