The Girl and The Gangster

Summary: After being turned down from every secretarial role in Birmingham, Alice becomes desperate. Unable to provide for her sick mother, herself and more importantly, her young child, she takes a chance on joining the Shelby Company ltd. But when she runs into a familiar face, her whole world comes crumbling down around her.

Chapter Two

Seeing Alice again had sent his mind into a tail spin; was she here because she knew he would be or was this all one big coincidence? He couldn't stop thinking about the look on her face when she realised it was him sitting in Tommy's office. Michael took a long drink of the smooth whiskey and looked at his cousin; he was just staring at him, clearly unamused by Michael's new lack of focus.

"What was all that about?"

"It's nothing Tommy. She's just a girl from the village."

"Just a girl? Is there going to be a problem with having her here?" he reached across the table for the bottle and poured himself another drink.

Michael shook his head, glancing back towards the door. "Not unless she has a problem. I know how to keep things professional."

"Right, well how about you finally tell me about business in New York?"

"Business is booming, Tommy. We're making legitimate profit and I've employed men that we can trust to run the production of the gin." Michael reached into his pocket and handed Tommy an envelope that contained important details. "All profit goes into this account which you can access at any time."

He opened the envelope and read over the details, impressed by how well Michael did across the sea. "Did you run into any problems?"

"Your reputation has already spread after the news broke of Changretta's death. No one's going to be messing with us."

"Then our business is settled, I'll let you get back to Pol. I know she's been waiting to cook you this dinner since the day you left." Tommy joked light heartedly.

"I better not keep her waiting," he got out of his chair slowly and straightened out his jacket; he knew that he was going to have to walk past Alice and he didn't know why, but he felt nervous, "you and I know how she gets when she's kept waiting."

"For your own safety, Michael, you better go now. We'll have drinks in the Garrison to celebrate properly."

When Tommy's door opened, Alice didn't flinch and she didn't look up at the figure that loomed at the edge of her desk, she just kept working on her paperwork. Michael cleared his throat and took his hat from his head, holding it in front of his body as he stared at her.

"Aren't you going to look at me?" he asked quietly.

"I'm busy, Hen-Michael…" she sighed and slammed her pen onto the table, her face resting in her palms as she tried to figure out what she was going to say to him. Should she tell him about Johnny, or should she wait to see how rotten he had become? She finally dragged her eyes towards him, feeling slightly sick when she met his eyes. "What do you want?"

"Why are you here?"

"Because I needed a job and nowhere else would hire me."

"Why not? I know that you're qualified; Tommy couldn't stop singing your praises."

"That's my business."

He sighed and scratched at the back of his neck, he was starting to feel frustrated; she obviously remembered their breakup differently than he did. "Why are you getting on like this? You left me, remember?"

"You are so naïve, Michael." Alice said under her breath as she shook her head. When Tommy emerged from his office, she almost felt relieved until she remembered that she had to confess something to him.

"Alice, Polly said you wanted to speak with me." He looked between the two of them, feeling like he had intruded on a delicate situation. From what he could see, the two of them weren't hitting it off, but Michael promised that there would be no trouble.

"Yeah, Tommy. I'll come in now." She lifted the letter from her desk and got up, her eyes unwavering from Michael's.

"I just want to talk." Michael said calmly as he watched her stroll around her desk, towards Tommy.

"I'm not ready to talk." Before he could say another word that would make her change her mind, she stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. She was going to have to get over the shock of seeing him again before she could pour her heart out to him. Alice feared the rejection, she couldn't handle any more.

"Have you ever met my brother, Tommy?" she asked as she watched his eyes skim the contents of his letter. Alice could tell that even he was struggling to read to poor handwriting.

"Once and it wasn't pleasant for anyone involved." He let the page fall out of his grasp and looked at Alice with an exhausted look. "What are you going to do?"

"Polly says it's just Danny showing me who's boss."

"And who is the boss?"

"I haven't saw my brother in a long time and I'll be damned if he dictates what way I choose to live my life. He's not the one that must worry about Johnny going hungry or putting clothes on his back. It's me, so I'm the boss." She crossed one leg over the other and tucked a stray stand of dark hair behind her ear. "He can worry about his own kids."

"Do you think he'll cause trouble?"

"Knowing Danny, he'll try but he won't come down here. He's not that stupid."

Tommy nodded in agreement and took his cigarettes out from his pocket. He handed one over to her and leaned across the table to light it for her before lighting his own. "I've had worse than Danny Finlay, and I'll encounter more. Where my worry lies is with you."

She raised a brow and let the smoke trickle out her nose. "Me?"

"It makes me think that you could still have loyalties to your brother; he is family after all. Or, instead of coming for us he could be smart and go for you."

Alice rolled her eyes and looked away from Tommy's face. "I told you where my loyalties lie and as for Danny coming for me," she smirked and shook her head, "he can try but he doesn't scare me. His band of gypsies don't scare me, they're my kin too."

"I don't want you getting irate with me, but I've been betrayed before by a pretty face and I'm just testing you before I put my fate in the palm of your hands."

"You're helping me provide for my family, I'm not stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds me." She got onto her feet and put her cigarette out in his ash tray. "Is there anything else before I go back to my post?"

"I just have one thing to ask you before you go, and it's been something that I've been wondering since I saw the look on your face when you saw Michael."

She placed her hand on her chest and hoped that he wasn't going to ask what she thought he was going to ask. "What's your question?"

"There was something romantic between you and Michael, wasn't there?"

She nodded and closed her eyes for a moment. She wasn't out of the woods just yet. "There was, a long time ago. Is that an issue?"

"No, he says you're just a girl from his village; that it won't cause tension."

Those words stung her a little bit and she tried her best not to show that it did. "The tension between us will be put to bed."

"This company can only run smoothly if we're all on the same page. We're tight knit. We're family. Understood?"

"Understood."

"No more drama?" he raised a brow and waited for her reply. When she just nodded, he waved her off, watching her as she stepped out of his office. Tommy knew better, there was always drama when it came to women. He just hoped that Michael would be man enough to handle it.

Pol set his plate in front of him and as he eyed up the pie, she had slaved over all afternoon, her face dropped as he grimaced, running his fork through the middle of it. She watched him, sitting in front of him to make sure he ate it, a slight frown crossing her lips when he wouldn't.

"What's wrong with it? I spent all afternoon getting that ready for you." She complained as she started to cut up her own piece of the pie.

"I'm not hungry."

"Not hungry my ass, you've probably ate nothing all day."

"I lost my appetite, alright? I appreciate the effort, but I can't eat it." He pushed his plate away and leaned back into his chair.

"Did Tommy say something to you?"

Michael screwed up his face and looked away from his mum. "No, he didn't."

"Then what's gotten into you? You know that you can tell me anything." When he didn't say anything, she set down her cutlery and rested her elbows on the table. "Are you in trouble?"

He knew what Pol was like, she wouldn't let his attitude go and he couldn't tell her that it was Alice that was making him feel like this, she would only make things worse between them. He was just going to have to be as vague as possible. "It's a girl. I saw a girl that I used to know who broke my heart and she won't even speak to me."

"Why won't she speak to you?" it was the first time that Michael had shown any real interest in a girl, part of her was excited at the prospect of him finding a wife; it was about time but she didn't want him to put his heart on the line if the feelings weren't going to be reciprocated. By the way he was acting, she could see that he was in love still.

"She says she's not ready to talk."

"And are you just going to wait and let things go unresolved or are you going to find her and tell her how you feel?" she challenged him with a raised brow, Polly wanted nothing more than to see Michael happy.

"I don't even know where to start looking for her."

"You're a Peaky Blinder for Christ's sake, it wouldn't be hard to find out." She placed her hand over his and looked at him seriously. "Show this girl that you care and maybe she'll talk."

He picked up his fork and started to dig through the pie again once he got a bit of his appetite back. Michael needed the advice, he had never got over his heartbreak, he didn't have the chance to. Just after she left, he met Tommy and his life changed. With everything that was going on around him, he didn't get that opportunity to work past his emotions and now that she was here, in Birmingham, those emotions bubbled to the surface once more. He wanted to work things out with her and if he didn't, he knew he'd regret it for the rest of his life. When they were together, he had someone to turn to, she knew everything about him; he wasn't willing to throw that connection away, she wasn't going to escape him anymore.

She lay in her bed with her son curled up close to her side as she stared at the flame of her candle. Alice had no idea what she was going to do when it came to Michael, she felt enough guilt for keeping her pregnancy a secret from him in the first place but now Johnny was here and she had to put his needs in front of her own; she did try to find him once or twice because the child needed a father to teach him things that she couldn't, but now she knew why she couldn't hunt him down. When she looked at his face, relaxed and in a peaceful slumber, she could see Michael all over him. He had his nose and his lips, but his hair was as dark as her own. At least she had passed on some of her genetics.

Her peaceful night was interrupted by a knock at the door and a moment later, she could hear her mother yelling from the settee downstairs. Alice got out of the bed slowly and moved as quietly as she could, the child needed his sleep. When she got downstairs, she closed the door that led into her mother and answered the knocking to see Michael.

"How did you find me?" she kept part of the door closed over her body as she stared at him in disbelief.

"Doesn't matter, can we speak, please?"

She sighed and glanced at the staircase, knowing that if Johnny heard the slightest bit of noise that he would be awake. "Let me get my coat and we'll talk outside the house."

He didn't have much say in the matter because she closed the door before he could agree. He took a step back from the door and placed his hands into his pockets, looking over the house while he had the chance. When she finally came back out, he couldn't help but smile; now was his chance to win her back and to put her mind at ease. He would've been a fool to believe that she was unaware of what he had been through in Birmingham. Michael knew what his mother was like, any opportunity she got she would talk about her son. They strolled along the footpath slowly and in complete silence until one of them was brave enough to speak; it felt like they were seventeen all over again.

"Why did you decide to come to Birmingham?" he looked down at her and noticed the way the street lamps illuminated her gaunt face. He could tell that her life had been much harder than his, he was set up for life and she was barely getting by. She was so thin, clearly didn't eat as well as he did.

"I've tried to find work everywhere; Manchester, London and Liverpool… Birmingham was my last chance. You remember my brother, don't you?"

"Danny? Hard face to forget. Used to come to the village in a big caravan. Your mother used to go wild with rage when she saw him."

"Yeah, well him and his gypsy tribe have made a real name for themselves. Respectable businesses took one look at my last name and shit their pants." She flicked some hair out of her eyes and looked up at Michael's face, she took in his image properly, for the first time in years and found herself getting swept up in her feelings. She looked away from him and kept her eyes to the floor as she recomposed herself. "Tommy was the only one that wasn't scared to take me on, although he almost didn't hire me because of how many times I was sacked. Probably thought I was a gangster." She realised who she was talking to and remembered who she was working for and laughed at herself. "That wouldn't have bothered him either."

"A gangster working for a gangster, maybe it would've put him off." He replied with a smirk.

"Would've been bad for legitimate business."

"He likes you, you know. He thinks you're too good for Birmingham."

"Yeah, well he doesn't know everything, does he?"

"You'd be surprised. You know, when I saw you walk into Tommy's office, I half thought that you were here for me." He peeled his eyes away from her face and placed a cigarette between his lips.

"I did look for you a few years ago, went back to the village and asked the woman who raised you where you had gone. She told me that if I wanted to stay alive, that I shouldn't fall down the same rabbit hole you went down. I didn't know what she meant until I saw you sit across from Tommy. But why would you think that I came back for you when you didn't come for me?"

"Life got in the way. Family business kept me distracted." When she started laughing again, he stopped in his tracks and raised a brow at her. "What? Why are you laughing?"

"I'm not laughing at you, Michael. I'm laughing at how stupid I am."

"Why do you think you're stupid?"

"Because I know what you do for a living and I don't agree with a lot of it; the killing and the booze, let's not forget about the drugs. I've saw the ledgers, Arthur takes the odd bit of snow when Tommy needs him to get crazy. I've only worked for your family for a few weeks to see the madness that goes on."

"We're not all like Arthur."

"But have you killed a man because Tommy's ordered it?"

"No," when she tilted her head at him, he knew that he couldn't lie to her; if things were going to work out the way he wanted them to, he couldn't lie to her, "I've killed a man because I've wanted to."

When she started to walk away from him briskly, he had to jog to catch up to her. He didn't understand why she was so upset, her brother was just as bad as the Shelbys, even her father wasn't a saint. He took her by the arm and made her stop. They needed to work things out between them or Tommy was going to get rid of her.

"Why are my actions causing you so much grief?" he watched the tears race down her cheeks and when she started dabbing at them with the back of her sleeve, he handed her a handkerchief.

She dabbed at her eyes and let out a sad sigh. "Because I'm not the only one that I've got to worry about getting hurt anymore."

"What are you talking about, Alice?"

"Did nobody tell you about me?"

"Tell me what?"

She bit her lip and looked him in the eye. There was no taking back what she was about to say, and she had no idea how he was going to react. "I have a son, and this might be hard for you to take in, but he's yours."

Michael felt all the blood drain from his face, the news was hard for him to digest. "We have a child? That's why you went back to the village, isn't it?" he ran his hands through his hair and took a long drag from his cigarette before throwing it on the ground. "Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant? Why did you run off and leave me? I would've married you, if you had of told me."

"I'll explain everything to you, just not here on the street."

"We'll go to my office and get something to drink," he nodded as he kept his eyes glued to hers, "and you can explain why you kept our son a secret from me for so long." He didn't want to shout at her even though he felt like it; he knew what Alice was like and she never would've kept a big of a secret from him. There was more to the story and he couldn't let his anger cost him the truth.

A:N Thank you for the support and the reviews on this story. Next chapter should be uploaded in a few days and more of Alice's story will come to the surface. Thanks for reading.