A/N: Sorry for taking so long to post a new chapter. July and August have been hell for me. Now that things are getting better, I won't take so long to update again. I hope you like the chapter and thanks for your support and patience.

XXIII
SIXPENCE COIN

July 13th, 1931.

Beyond the events I will recount in this entry, it feels particularly good to resume my journal writing after so many days.

I wish I could say that my absence has been due to my new job taking up a lot of my time and energy, and while this is true, it's not the main reason for my absence.

Working for Millie Lawson is not easy, and by that I don't mean that the woman is a bad boss, but on the contrary, she is so good to me that sometimes I feel I owe her something.

In the week I've been working at her bookstore, Millie has adopted a maternal posture towards me and is always on top of what I'm doing, explaining every detail and letting me know the latest gossip in town. It's not that I abhor her behavior, but my mood is not able to keep up with hers, and the distraction I sometimes suffer has caused me to make mistakes that can be detrimental to her business.

I suffer from an enormous sadness and that's why I couldn't write until today. Since I resigned from the Company, I catch myself absorbed in my thoughts and it is only when I perceive a slight tingling on my face that I discover that I'm crying.

These thirteen days without seeing Thomas let me know at what level my soul is capable of missing him, and I don't say this only for the carnal: I missed his voice, I missed his eyes, even when they are not looking at me; even when they are behind his glasses. I missed the smell of tobacco flooding the office and mingling with his cologne. I missed his silence when he spends hours locked in his office. I missed the way he made me feel human, so complementary to him that I felt necessary.

To be honest, it made me uneasy to know he had so easily accepted my resignation and my distance, even though the fact he forgot about me was the best thing for both of us.

That's why I was so upset that today, after so many days, he decided to show up.

I was putting some books on the higher shelves at the back of the shop while Millie, from the attic that served as storage, was suggesting to me which works to put in the storefront. I must confess that, although I responded with a strong affirmative to everything she said, I wasn't really listening to her.

I climbed a ladder to reach the top of the shelf, and then the bell on the door rang. I was on my back and at a considerable height, which meant that if I turned around I was likely to fall to the floor. Cursing inwardly, I hurried to put all the books in their proper places to attend to the unwelcome customer, and it was while I was putting away the last one that Millie poked her head out of the attic hatch. I saw her pale and arch those eyebrows that she used to draw with black eyeliner.

"Mr. Shelby!"

I thought nothing of it and turned, and under the ladder I saw Thomas with his cap in his hands and his eyes fixed on me. My ankles trembled from the suddenness of my movement on the narrow wooden step, and suddenly I felt myself fall.

Thomas reached out his arms and tried to break my fall but he only made things worse. In half a second, the two of us were falling together and Thomas, on his back, hit a small bookshelf that went backwards, scattering all the books and causing an unbearable noise.

"Goodness!", Millie exclaimed in her shrill voice, "Olivia! What have you done?" she scolded me as she came down the attic stairs.

I was alarmed, not only by the fact that I had landed on top of Thomas, but because I knew from the way Millie had spoken to me that she would not forgive me for landing on top of a client. I tried to sit up but, shocked, found that Thomas had his arms around me and was preventing me from standing up. I looked at him in a questioning mood, and there was no trace of surprise in his face, but rather a certain sadness.

"I'm sorry", I apologized once I managed to free myself from his grip.

Thomas stood up and grabbing me by the arm, helped me to my feet.

"I'm very, very sorry, Mr. Shelby". Millie rubbed her wrinkled hands together nervously, and I've never seen her in that state since I'd started working there. "Forgive Olivia. She's a bit of a mess, but she's a good girl".

I turned my attention to the woman, with annoyance. It was true I was just learning how her business worked, but I was far from being a 'mess'.

"Don't worry". Thomas cleared his throat. "It wasn't my intention to knock over all those books" he said, referring to the bookshelf he'd inadvertently pushed over.

"Oh, that's no problem! Olivia will pick them up", said Millie, and with that, she gave me the order to get to work.

"Did you hurt yourself, Olivia?", Thomas asked me suddenly.

As I was about to pick up the books, I turned my eyes to Thomas, and found him looking a little downcast. Millie, for her part, looked at him, and then looked at me curiously.

"No, I'm not hurt. I'm fine. Thank you", I replied as if I were an automaton and tried my best to ignore him.

"I've come to buy a book", said Thomas. I could tell he didn't like the way I ignored him. "Do you have 'The Divine Comedy'?", he asked Millie.

I knew very well that Thomas already had that book, and he was aware of it, so I wasn't surprised he asked for that copy on purpose, wanting to let me know that his visit to that place was not just a coincidence, but that he had gone there to meet me.

"Of course we have it. It's a classic". Millie searched the shelves but couldn't find anything. "Oh, well. Looks like we sold the last one we had here", she said with a nervous chuckle. "I'll go up to the storage room and see if we have another copy. Please wait".

I took a deep breath of air as Millie went up to the attic and I was alone with Thomas. With my attention on the books, I did my best to ignore his presence and the feel of his eyes on me. He soon approached me and, kneeling on the floor, I saw his freshly polished shoes.

"Come back, Ollie", he said.

"No".

He bent down and then his face was level with mine. I continued to pick up the books, and he seemed to hate that because he stopped me by grabbing my hand. I shuddered at the sensation of his skin touching me.

"You want me to apologize for what I said? Then, I apologize".

I couldn't detect any real remorse in his voice, and it annoyed me to no end. I hated that he was giving in just to get me to come back to him, as if my pain was a whim and I was a spoiled child.

"I don't want anything", I released myself from his touch, and still avoiding looking at him, I heard him sigh heavily.

"Can you tell me why the hell you're doing all this?"

"I'm doing it because I don't deserve all this shit, that's why", I looked at him and he looked back at me confused. My attitude threw him off and it seemed as if he was unable to see the pain his words had caused me.

I stood up just as Millie came downstairs with the book Thomas had requested.

"Here it is, Mr. Shelby. That'll be sixpence. Olivia will charge you", the woman said with a smile. "Michael hasn't been here in a while. Please, tell him I thank him for recommending this hard-working young lady to me".

A shiver ran down my spine as I realized what Millie had said.

"Was it Michael who recommended Olivia?", Thomas asked and, squinting, turned his gaze to me.

"That's right. He told me that the poor thing had lost her job and he couldn't take her on in your Company".

"I see".

Millie said goodbye to Thomas and with a quick step, as if she wanted to get out of the situation as soon as possible, she went back to the attic. Thomas walked to the counter with the book, and I stood in front of the cash register, ready to charge him.

"Since when have you been so trusting of Michael?", he asked, visibly annoyed. His brow was furrowed and his jaw was tense.

"That'll be sixpence, Mr. Shelby", I ignored his questioning with my best poker face even though my heart was threatening to burst out of my chest.

" 'Mr. Shelby?' " Thomas snorted, somewhat annoyed and disappointed. "Are we back to that point, 'Miss Westerling'?"

"Yes", I nodded and feigned indifference. "To the point we should never have left", I added.

I witnessed him shake his head, as if my words were unbelievable to him, and I detected something akin to pain in his countenance.

"What the fuck did he say to you?"

"Who are you talking about, Mr. Shelby?", I attacked him again with formality. I didn't know how I managed to keep my feelings in check: I wanted to run away, to hug him, to cry, to hit him.

"From Michael". Thomas rubbed his eyes, impatient. "What did he put in your head?"

"Mr. Gray didn't mention you at all", I reported. "In fact, he didn't even inquire why I quit. He was just nice to me and got me this job".

"Nice?", Thomas repeated, with emphasis. "Michael wants to fuck you, Olivia", he blurted, his voice so loud I feared Millie had heard.

"Michael is a married man", I tried to counter his argument with such desperation that I didn't realize what a stupid thing I just said.

"Well, so am I, and yet that didn't stop me from fucking you", he was indignant.

"I'm going to ask you to keep your voice down, please", I requested with reddened cheeks.

"I'm not going to do it", Thomas put down the book angrily. "What's the matter? Do you regret it?"

Thomas waited for my answer, leaning slightly over the counter and staring at me. His anger was noticeable, in addition to the fit of jealousy he was suffering, but there was something else in his features that made me aware of his pain at my indiference and the resolution I had made to stay away from him forever.

For a moment, my conviction wavered and I almost went back to him with that crush that had turned me into an idiot, but I remembered what Thomas had blurted out before he went out my bedroom window and the flame of resentment flared inside me.

"With or without laudanum, Grace lives in me. She's part of me. And neither you nor anyone else will make me forget about her".

"That'll be sixpence, Mr. Shelby", like a soulless being, I rephrased the same sentence I had uttered a few minutes before.

It seemed that Thomas had come to the conclusion it would be useless to continue insisting and breathing heavily, as if trying to contain an emotional outburst, he reached into his wallet for a coin, which he handed to me with a clenched fist. The moment I went to take the money, he grabbed my hand again, and before I could react, he intertwined his fingers with mine.

"My office doors will still be open if you decide to come back", he said in a calm voice, though his caress felt tense.

Thomas took his book away, and I stood there behind the counter, my soul shattered and a sixpence coin in my right hand. If it hadn't been for Millie coming out of the attic when she heard the bell on the door as it closed, I would have been overpowered by the immense need I had to stop him and talk to him.

"He's gone at last", said Millie. "That man gives me the creeps".

"He's not a bad guy", I had to defend him.

"Are you sure?". Millie shook her head. "Do you know what he did to my friend? He took her son away from her", she said. That answered the question I'd been wondering about for a long time: Michael's adoptive family.
"Michael and his younger sister were rescued from the hands of their delinquent mother when they were children. The little girl ended up in Australia, on the other side of the world, and died there in who knows what conditions. Michael, whose name for me always was and always will be Henry Johnson, was adopted by my friend and her good husband. Everything was going great until that criminal showed up", she said, referring to Thomas. "Shelby got Michael involved in his gang. They own Birmingham and are to blame for all its misfortunes".

What Millie had said to me stayed in my head for the rest of the afternoon. Although I had wanted immensely to refute her words, I couldn't afford to expose myself like that. Michael had ignored my link to the Shelby Company Limited at the time he recommended me to Millie and he had done so because he knew that if she linked me to the Peaky Blinders, I would still not have a job.

I spent the afternoon that way: pensive and yet absorbed in my encounter with Thomas. And just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse, the phone rang.

"Oh, Michael! How are you, darling?" Knowing that Michael was on the other end of the line made me a little uncomfortable. "No. Olivia's going out late tonight because I need her to help me do inventory". I looked at Millie when I heard my name, and she turned to me, pulling the tube away from her ear: "Michael says he'll pick you up at nine to take you home".

"Tell him there's no need", I hastened to refuse, but, to my dismay, Millie didn't hear me, or pretended not to hear me.

"All right, dear. See you", and she hung up.

"Millie, I'm going home by my own", I told the woman angrily.

"I don't want to be responsible if something happens to you in your way home, Olivia. And Michael's your friend. Don't be so proud", Millie drummed her nails on the counter.

Needless to say, Michael and I were not friends, but it was to be expected that the old woman would think so: he had gotten me a job, and now he was picking me up in his car. The only reason Millie didn't think we were lovers was because she knew Michael was married.

I had to keep my mouth shut and try hard not to let my bad mood become too noticeable as I tried to concentrate on the damn tedious inventory. When we finished, Millie turned off the lights, pulled down the blinds, and we both left the store to find Michael's black car in front of the bookstore. The same car Gina had almost run over me with.

Feeling the bile burning in my throat, I opened the car door and got into it without looking at Michael.

"Good evening, Olivia", he greeted me.

"Good evening, Mr. Gray", I replied to his greeting as a matter of simple respect.

"To Ada's house, right?"

"Mr. Gray, this wasn't necessary", I said as he started the car.

"And how were you planning to get home?", I saw him shrug. "The tram doesn't run at this hour, and taking a cab would cost you half the money you made today. Besides, I needed to talk to you", I couldn't hold back a heavy sigh at that remark. "Tommy confronted me today. Somehow he found out that you work at the bookstore and I was the one who got you the job".

"I know", I replied.

"You're not going to tell me how he knows all that?"

"It was Millie herself who told him, today, when he showed up at the bookstore". I hated to fill Michael in on what happened that day, but I didn't want to lose my job either. "Although I have no idea how he found out I work there", I added as I looked out the window.

"I suppose it was Ada who told him".

"No". Michael seemed to enjoy accusing people without proof of any kind. "I asked Ada to say absolutely nothing to her brother about my new job, and I know she didn't. When I resigned, it was you who told me I should leave Birmingham because if I stayed here, Thomas would come looking for me. Apparently he did. I'm sorry your cousin confronted you about helping me get a new job, but Thomas's personality has nothing to do with me".

I had to turn my head as I heard Michael chuckle under his breath. Apparently he'd been amused by what I'd said, and that bothered me. At no point had the situation lost any seriousness for me.

"Tommy doesn't mind that I helped you, Olivia", he said with a smile on his face. "He's convinced that my actions have an ulterior motive, one that goes beyond helping a poor woman escape from him. He took a second to look at me. Do you know what he thinks I'm looking for?", he asked, as if we were suddenly playing a guessing game.

I turned my attention back to the window, embarrassed. It was then that I realized that we were in an area of Birmingham that looked nothing like the neighborhood where I lived with my friend.

"No", I lied as I nervously tried to locate myself.

"He thinks I want to sleep with you", he said, "What do you think?"

"Mr. Gray, where are we going?"

"I want to show you a place".

It was not long before I discovered that we were in Small Heath, in a part I had never been to before. The lanes were much darker and more precarious than those surrounding the Company's building, and the lack of street lighting meant that the drunks and prostitutes walking along the pavements were mere black silhouettes against the mist. Every now and then, a flash of orange light emanated from a metallurgy factory and a couple of men, blackened from head to toe, hammered hot iron against an anvil.

Michael stopped the car in front of the best-lit building in the area, which appeared to be a crowded pub. When we got out, the people who at first were watching us with violent curiosity, looked away and turned away from us as if we had leprosy. They had obviously recognized Michael as a member of the Peaky Blinders.

Michael opened the door and let me into this strange place. It was like an oasis of opulence in the midst of the miserable desert of Small Heath: the bar had been made from a single piece of marble, and the furniture was so fine that I was surprised to see coal workers drinking on velvet-upholstered chairs.

"What is this place?" I asked Michael over the din.

"This, Olivia, is The Garrison".

Still not understanding what we were doing there, Michael surprised me again, and instead of leading me to the bar as I would have expected, he put his hand on my back and guided me into an adjoining room to the right of the front door.

While I was worried about who we would meet, I was even more worried when I saw that there was no one there.

"A bottle of gin", Michael asked through a small window in the wall, which faced the bar.

"Please, Mr. Gray, tell me what all this means", I said, almost in agony. I was afraid.

"Easy", he said in a calm voice. In his hands he already held two glasses and the bottle of gin, which was the Shelby's distillery. "Sit down. We're going to talk".

"I don't understand what we need to talk about", I resisted, taking a couple of steps back.

"About us, Olivia", he said matter-of-factly.

"Us?"

"Yes, about us". He took a seat around the large table and filled glasses with drinks. He motioned for me to sit across from him, but I opted to stay where I was, near the door. "As I told you in the car, Tommy thinks I want to sleep with you. And I told him he's right".

"What?" I couldn't believe my ears.

"I'm going to repeat his words to you verbatim: 'If you put one of your filthy fucking hands on my woman I'll write your fucking name on a bullet'", Michael commented casually and took a sip of his gin, then loosened his tie a little.

"Why would you tell him that, Mr. Gray?", I tried to convince myself that what he had said to Thomas had been a lie to provoke him.

"Because it's the truth".

"I don't believe you".

"What would I gain by lying, Olivia? The truth is, you're not the most beautiful woman in the world, but you have something, I'm not sure what, that makes you attractive". Before my astonished gaze, he pulled a small vial out of his pocket, and I thought it was laudanum. Terror paralyzed me as he scattered a whitish powder on the table. "Gina, my wife, is beautiful, elegant, intelligent, and amazing in bed", he began to comb out the cocaine with a razor, "but she's a traitor".

I understood, then, what the strange behavior of the man in front of me was due to: Michael had somehow assimilated that his wife had lied to him and his entire family. As he snorted a line of cocaine, I could see the immense anger he felt towards himself and the sadness he could not assimilate.

Polly had told me that her son doesn't love Gina and I think she's right. Michael doesn't love Gina, but she is his partner, and apparently the only person who can understand him, or pretend to understand him. The realization that he had been used by her for a profit that, once again, revolved around Thomas, had made the hatred he already felt for his cousin even greater.

"You don't find me attractive, Mr. Gray", I said. "You can't possibly be attracted to me, not just because of my looks, but because I don't have anything that would be interesting to you". He arched an eyebrow and looked at me. "You want a new ally in your ridiculous fight against Thomas, and you saw me as the perfect subject. Not only am I your cousin's ex-lover, but you suppose I'm also quite easy to seduce. You think that if we sleep together, I'll be everything Gina was to you and even more, since you see me as much more manipulable, don't you?"

Michael was silent for a few seconds as the noise on the other side of the door became more and more unbearable. Suddenly, I saw him smirk.

"You have no idea how wrong you are..."

The door next to me burst open and I jumped. Startled, I backed away, and I couldn't contain my dread when I saw that those who had entered the room were Thomas, Arthur, and Finn.

At first, Thomas was oblivious to my presence and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw his cousin sitting at the table, a glass of gin and the cocaine in front of him. Immediately, he turned his head, and I witnessed confusion and anger flash across his face as he saw me there, alone with Michael. Arthur and Finn were also looking at me.

"What the fuck is going on here?", Thomas asked.