August 1921

"I smell like that place," Clara whispered, still wrapped in his jacket as they went up the stairs even though the house, to him, was stifling.

"Do you want. A bath?"

Clara shook her head adamantly, almost losing her precarious balance. "No!"

He reached out to steady her as they stepped into the second floor and directed her towards the bathroom. Richard tried to keep from staring at the red and purple ring of raw flesh around her neck. Something had been said about water treatment, and now he wished he'd asked Rose what that meant. The dark bruises around her wrists and ankles could have only come from restraints. They tied her down, and she'd fought against them. The discoloration was worse on her right arm, the bruising fading to green around her forearm. For a moment, he saw broken yellow blisters instead of fresh bruises and closed his eyes to push away the delusion and focus on his wife.

Turning the shower on as hot as it would go he turned back to help her when he heard a button hit the floor as she fumbled undoing her blouse.

Yes, Clara thought as her blouse fell to the floor, now Richard was the last person who undressed her, instead of some nurse preparing her for the next horror. It could all be washed away, she determined, and then they could go to bed, and then she would sleep and it would fade into something that happened to her once.

Stumbling into the shower Clara let the hot water pour over her. She braced against the tile wall in an attempt to stay upright, fighting to keep her legs going out from underneath her. She closed her eyes and stepped into the spray, hoping the hot water would drive away the cold. Drive away the smell. It felt like the antiseptic stench of the sanitarium was embedded in her flesh.

The shower curtain opened and she felt Richard slide in behind her. That was quick, she thought, but she was aware time was still vague in her mind. His fingertip trailed slightly down the inside of her arm, making her shiver in a different way. Then she heard the twist of the metal cap of her shampoo bottle before his hands descended into her hair. She closed her eyes and leaned back a little. Much better than washing her own, she thought dreamily as his fingertips worked across her scalp, and then he guided her head under the water. Wooziness hit her again, and he caught her and wrapped an arm around her ribs.

"Mmm. Are you okay?" he whispered into her ear.

Clara nodded. She wasn't sure how he managed to get her bar of orange soap in his hand, but although it felt odd to let someone else wash her-they'd never done that before-she relaxed into the feeling of the soap working across her body, finally leaning back against him. Suddenly he stepped back.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her hand reaching out for the wall to steady herself as she turned around.

Richard wouldn't look up at her.

"It's not the. Time," he answered.

"Stop acting like I'm made of glass!" Clara snapped as she realized why he moved away. The exhaustion, the drugs, the fear, combined to overwhelm her reticence. "Why are you afraid to want me?"

He shook his head. "Clara. I…"

Still braced against the wall Clara clumsily lowered herself to her knees. Things were going to be normal, she thought. They had to be normal, and she'd do what she must to find normalcy.

The element of surprise worked in her favor. She ran her tongue along the underside of his cock, feeling it jerk against her face before opening her mouth and slowly sliding her mouth over the crown. Hearing him gasp, she put her hand on the back of his leg and pulled him more firmly into her mouth.

It wasn't something she would say to anyone-not even Rose (who explained to her what French style was, one night in a tent erected behind a Belgian field hospital), not even Richard-but she quite enjoyed it. She liked the idea that she could push him past his inhibitions until he made quite delectable noises and would start moving without realizing it. The first time he'd spent at least a minute telling her she didn't have to do it, and then unconsciously thrust into her mouth and bumped against the back of her throat, making her gag.

Clara had to suppress a giggle when she remembered the five minutes he'd spent apologizing. Now she could feel his hands hovering over the top of her head like he was fighting an urge to push her head down further.

Well, she had no such scruples holding her back. She repositioned her tongue along the underside of his cock and breathed out through her nose. The water beating down on her back was cooling and for a moment she lost her bearings as the coldness came back. Leaning forward, she breathed the smell of him and tried to stay in the moment as she pulled him closer.

"Mmm. Stop," Richard managed to get out as he put his hands under her arms. "I, mmm…"

He pulled them back under the water, but the cold was settling back over her and her teeth started to chatter in the now lukewarm water. He helped her over the lip of the tub and wrapped a towel around her.

She wanted to yell at him to stop. Stop being nice. Stop taking care of her before all the tenderness brought out all the feelings she was trying to suppress. There was no reason to cry, she reminded herself, everything was fine. Her father was a fucking liar who stole from her and told her Richard was dead, but that was then and now she was standing here with him and everything was fine. Fine.

But if he treated her like she was fragile, she would shatter.

Clara was drawn to the mirror over the dresser when she stumbled back into their room, her finger going around her neck, feeling the damaged flesh, and then she saw the marks on her wrist reflected in the mirror.

The memory came unbidden, and with such force, it left her dizzy. Her mother's wrists ripped open and bright red as she lay on the bathroom floor. Her mother's face, pale and still.

Clara stared hard at her reflection.

She never admitted all the parts of her that were her mother, because she refused to accept there was enough of her mother in her to determine her fate. It was a Pandora's box whose lid she resisted opening.

Normally, she maintained control over the forbidden areas of her mind. But not now, when every thought and feeling was a jumble that moved like a fast-flowing stream, circumventing all her means of control.

Her eyes, they were from her father. Her coloring, Grandmother Eleanor. But the rest...

Clara, for a very long time, refused to see it. Not in the way her ears were shaped. Not in the way her mouth thinned out towards the corners. Not in the curve of her cheek. Not in the way her eyebrows knitted together when she worried. Not in the way her hand twisted her skirt when she was nervous. Not in the way she smoothed Tommy's hair back from his forehead.

Richard's movements were reflected in the mirror and caught her gaze. Who knew, she considered, that she was capable of loving someone so much? The people she loved she loved as best she could, but she knew her love was never quite enough. Uncle Eli's disappointment that affection for her cousins didn't flow naturally. Her father's annoyance that she couldn't just accept Margaret and her children as family.

She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't believed that her mother would stop being sad if Clara just loved her enough.

Your grandfather, he didn't want your mother to marry your father, Eli had told her the night of the ball.

Of course, she had known that she had some of her mother's personality, her intellect, her interests. But Clara had always thought that it was she, that it was all her doomed siblings who never quite grasped onto life, had destroyed her mother's spirit. All that grief for the lost ones. All the not-enoughness of Clara. That's what had doomed her mother. That's what the rhythm to which her mind had beat since she was eight years old.

But once, this woman whose mouth smiled in the same way hers did, was as determined as Clara. Because once, her mother had loved her father fiercely. So fiercely she battled with Grandpa Jeffries over him. Clara had loved her grandfather, but that didn't mean that even as a child she hadn't sensed that he was not a man to cross.

A wave of grief cascaded over her for her mother. Different from all the grieving, both experienced fully and buried deeply, Clara had done over the last fifteen years. It wasn't even the lonely longing she'd experienced so often.

It was a fully formed adult grief, singed with anger both for her mother's abandonment and what led up to it as memories from throughout Clara's life ricocheted off this new emotional reckoning in no particular order, but leaving the feeling that Clara wasn't quite seeing something right in front of her.

The familiar sound of tin against wood followed by the lighter sound of the metal of the dog tags being placed on the side table knocked her from her reverie. Clara shivered at the sound and turned to stare.

He felt the weight of her stare and automatically turned to check on her. Her look of barely suppressed horror made him instinctively reach for the mask. She was scared and medicated, he reasoned, his face was more than she could deal with now.

Clara saw his hand reach for the mask. "No, please don't. It's...my father. He had your dog tags, when he…" she swallowed around the words she couldn't bring herself to say. "And I didn't believe him, not exactly, but I couldn't keep my mind from picturing what he was saying. That you were in a ditch."

Slowly he moved his hand away from the mask, torn between wanting to hide behind it and wanting to be with her in their usual way. Clara's fingers were twisting into the damp strands of her hair as she stared blankly at him, knitting them into knots. Her skin was still bright with red splotches from the hot water of the shower, but still she shivered in the warm room.

Not even in the moments after the d'Alessio attack, not in the worst of her grief over Angela, not when she thought he had known about the attempt on her father's life, had he seen her look like this.

Like she was absolutely coming undone from the inside. He knew he needed to fix her, but he didn't know how to take that look from her eyes. If Nucky Thompson had appeared in front of him at that moment he could have ripped the man limb from limb.

The idea of twisting her hair bothered her so much it kept her from bobbing her hair for ages. He picked up the scarf she wore to bed and carefully tied it so that her hair was back from her face, and her hand fell to her side.

It was the least he could do since he had failed her.

He looked down at her shoulder. "I didn't. Know where you were. Mmm. I thought. The Butcher had. You. I didn't know what he would. Do."

"I'm fine," she whispered.

"It's my job. To protect you."

Clara lifted her head, for the first time considering what her disappearance had inflicted on him. There was nothing about this that didn't hurt, but the look on Richard's face inflicted new agony. His eye was unnaturally bright. His mouth usually relaxed when he took off the mask, but the right side still quivered and curled like it did when he was upset. Her father hurt Richard, Clara realized. Beyond whatever horrid plan her father had attempted, just the taking of her was enough to hurt Richard.

Her fingertip traced the side of his mouth. So familiar, she thought, that exact blend of skin and mustache and stubble, like her fingers had brushed against his face for years. Blindfolded, in a life filled with countless others, she thought she could find him by the sound of his breathing, the echo of his footsteps, the weight of his touch on her arm, or the smell of his skin. It's why she hadn't believed her father. If he wasn't here on Earth with her, there's no way she wouldn't feel his absence. Clara smiled at this but of ridiculous romanticism, but then decided they'd been married less than a month. She was supposed to indulge in romanticism. Like the idea he was a part of her she had known and lost and never expected to find again, the smell and sense of him so familiar even though he was a stranger, like in Chicago when he felt so comfortable from the beginning.

She forced herself back into the present.

"You do. You will. But you can't protect me from the things that made up my life before I ever met you."

"You know. That I want. You," he said against her hair so he didn't have to meet her gaze. "It why. I stopped you."

Ah, Clara realized, then help me chase this pain away. She turned to press her mouth against the healthy side of his. As they fell on the bed she did her best to push every thought from her mind and focus only on the sensations. On her need to have and be had, and reassure herself on her most primal level that they were alive and together.

She lost herself in the familiar push and pull of taking each other to the edge and backing off again. When he pulled away from her she whimpered from confusion until she saw him reach for the drawer of his bedside table.

Oh god, she hadn't thought to put in her Dutch cap. "Thank you for remembering," she whispered as he ripped open the french letter.

And then he was on top of her again, and she fell away from Atlantic City back into her jumbled memories. For one panicked moment, it felt like she couldn't open her eyes. She could feel the bandages Rose applied in a desperate attempt to save her eyesight wrapped around her head.

She needed this, she needed this man, and through the adrenaline and fear coursing through her she didn't doubt her choice, even if she never thought her first time would be under a table in a war zone with someone incapable of kissing her because of his bandages. Even if she never expected her first time to take place in the shadow of her probable death.

A familiar hand brushed across her face, pushing the errant scarf off her face and back into her hair. Clara gasped. Just a memory just a memory just a memory she told herself. That was then, and now it was Memorial Day and she'd missed him and thought something was wrong. Then they fought, and something still bothered her because he had promised and that last kiss before she left had been wrong but then he wanted her and she wanted him and...no, she thought, no. That was earlier, but what had been wrong, what had she forgotten?

Her sudden lack of response made him lift his head from her neck. The scarf had come loose and was over her eyes and he brushed it back without thinking, but it was the bruises around her wrists that made him stop.

Of course, he thought, she'd been tied down. Being pressed into the bed by the weight of his body was restraining her, he was making it worse.

Clara wasn't certain why Richard suddenly flipped them so he was sitting up in bed and she was in his lap, but it pulled her back into the moment.

Oh, she thought as she realized how different it felt like this, oh.

And then she stopped thinking.

Afterward, she drifted back and forth between deeply asleep and semi-consciousness but was mostly suspended in drugged half-consciousness as the medicine kept working through her system. Sometimes she thought she was awake, but then realized she was falling into another pocket of half-recalled memory or into a nightmare fueled by her deepest fears. Sometimes they blended so that her mother's body on the bathroom floor turned to Richard's or when she saw her brother's hand it wasn't the small hand of an infant but instead was Jimmy's familiar hand turned to bleached bone.

She finally stirred awake. For a moment she feared the feeling of his skin pressed against hers was just an illusion, that she was really still in that place. But no, she decided. She was laying in an odd position because she'd simply pitched forward and fallen asleep when they had finished. Even though it was vaguely uncomfortable for her and she feared miserable for him, she didn't want to move. Thirst finally drove her to seek the carafe on the bedside table. She couldn't remember how many days ago they'd filled it.

His hand reached for her hip as she leaned away.

"I'm so sorry, that couldn't have been comfortable for you," Clara said as they lay back down after finishing the water.

He pulled her closer. "Mmm. I've slept for. Ten minutes at a time. In a tree. Anywhere with you. Is better." They were silent, the only sound that of their breathing and the wind coming off the ocean.

"I don't think. We can stay. In Atlantic City," he said, running his fingers along her back. "I don't think. Jimmy can stay. Either."

No, Clara thought, we can not. Everyone has to decide for themselves how much sin they can live with. That's what her father always said. But suddenly Clara grasped how it was possible to think the line was one place, only to realize you'd long since crossed it. She had done things that the girl she was just a few years ago would never even conceive of. It could eat away at you, Clara thought, until nothing remained and she unconsciously tightened her grip on her husband.

"It's time for a new life. We all need to leave. I don't care if we end up in a boarding house, anything is better than staying here, staying in this life."

It was easy for her to say that, Richard thought. Clara had never worried where her next dollar was coming from. He didn't want to reduce her circumstances beyond what she found bearable. He wanted her happy and safe.

But there are things I have to do first, Clara realized, trying to focus on making some sort of plan to leave Atlantic City behind them. She had to know, and there was only one person to ask.

She raised her head up off his chest. "I need a favor. You aren't going to like it."


Clara checked her wristwatch as the automobile slowed. It was only seven, but the sky was already darkening. Maybe, she thought, it would rain and break this awful heat. Even before, before she went away, the days had stretched on hot and oppressive.

"I don't. See. Mmm. Why you need," Richard began.

Clara squeezed his hand. "I know. But I…" she closed her eyes. "I keep my thoughts very orderly. On purpose. Sometimes, something happens, like you and they go in ways I never meant but still...I keep them orderly. I keep them orderly on purpose. But the medicine, and being in that place, my thoughts and memories are all jumbled. The jumble is making me look at things in a new way, making me reconsider what I think I know about everything. It's the difference between standing on the Boardwalk and looking down at the Boardwalk from the top of the Ferris Wheel. Standing on the Boardwalk, you see things in linear order. The Chop Suey restaurant has nothing to do with Formica Brothers. But from Ferris Wheel, you realize there's a back alley that connects them."

Richard nodded, thinking of the difference between standing on a grassy field with a rifle looking for the enemy and then the view from the tree.

A fat raindrop hit the windshield.

"And she's the only person I can ask about some of it," Clara said before leaning over the kiss his cheek and open the car door.

He watched his wife climb the marble stairs and knock on the door of the deceased Commodore's mansion.


The sound of the knocker echoed through the marble foyer of the mansion. Gillian roused herself from the divan, where she lay reading The Good Bad Girl. Being alone was not Gillian's preferred state of being. The excitement of the men coming over to confer with Jimmy, spending time with Jimmy, playing with Tommy, feeling Charlie Luciano's eyes on her whenever he entered the house... that's what Gillian preferred.

Last night she'd felt like the loneliest person in the whole world. Jimmy hadn't been by in days, so she'd gone down to the Blenheim. The young man in the lobby reminded her of Jimmy, of course, but also of Charlie. He looked so much like Jimmy with his floppy blond hair and soft pouty lips, but the power and ambition that hummed through his young, hard body was all Charlie Touching him was like putting a damp finger over a live socket.

Perhaps the person at the door was that delightful boy, Mr. Bud Matheson, coming to pay a proper call.

Gillian smoothed her hair as she glided towards the door.

"Clara," Gillian said, hardly believing who stood on her portico.

Gillian stepped aside, silently assessing her as she walked in. A white and blue pinafore dress clearly meant to be worn at home and certainly not when out in the evening. The bob, which Gillian had to admit suited her, looked like Clara hadn't bothered to brush it. The engagement ring on her left hand was pretty enough, Gillian supposed, but certainly not as impressive as the one Clara wore when she was intended for Darcy Blaine.

"Well, my dear, I can tell two things just by looking at you. That odd husband of yours must be talented in areas I never expected because you look well-bedded. It's often the quiet ones, isn't it? " Gillian stepped closer, her head tilting as she regarded the bruises on Clara's beck, wrists, and ankles. "However, I certainly wouldn't have expected him to tie you down and choke you quite yet."

"My father had me kidnapped off Jimmy's porch and tossed into an insane asylum," Clara said, struggling to keep her voice level.

"Why did no one bring me Tommy?" Gillian cried.

"A friend of mine watched him, Jimmy thought he'd be safer out of Atlantic City." Clara studied Gillian, and saw the barely repressed rage. "Gillian, I know you are angry at me."

"Whatever gave you that impression? When you set it up so that Leander thought I killed the dear Commodore? When you took Tommy from his grandmother's care and manipulated Jimmy into thinking I'm not fit to be around my grandson?"

She was there to ask Gillian to tell her the truth, and that meant she could not force Gillian to look at the truth of why Clara refused to allow her near Tommy. But she had to make Gillian see.

"Listen to me, Gillian. My father had me committed. He got me out of the way. And then he came to a room where I had been tortured, where I was tied down to a bed, and told me Richard and Jimmy were dead. No one knew where I was. It was happenstance that they figured out where I was, that Leander was able to free me. But that doesn't mean my father won't attempt the rest of his plan. You must understand this-Father is planning on killing Jimmy and Richard."

Gillian gasped and turned away. "Clara, you are hysterical. Nucky would never. He loves Jimmy like a son, he's always viewed him as..."

"You convinced Jimmy to order a hit on my father. That rather changed the father/son dynamic. This wasn't a game. There are consequences."

Tommy could be hers, Gillian thought. Clara would have no claim. Bud Matheson would make a good father, they could raise the boy the way she wanted to...

But Jimmy...how could she live in a world without her sweet James?

Clara watched Gillian's face closely. "Also understand this. No matter what happens, I will never let Tommy fall back into your clutches. Tommy's childhood will be different than Jimmy's."

Gillian looked at her with real hatred, but her voice was still bright and polite. "Since you have all the answers, Clara, why are you here?"

"I don't have many tools available to me to stop my Father. And it's made worse by the fact I don't really know everything, do I?"

"Has James not taken you into his confidence?" Gillian breathed out, happy to think Jimmy hadn't turned over all his secrets to Clara.

"Gillian, I know Jimmy's perspective. I know my own. But this whole catastrophe didn't start when we came home from the war, or at the start of Prohibition, or even the day I watched my mother bleed out on the bathroom floor, did it? And you are the only one who I can ask..." she swallowed hard. "About my mother. About what happened back in 1897."

Gillian's smile was cold. "You fool everyone, don't you Clara? That sweet little rich girl routine. But you are just like your father. You decide what is best for everyone and we are all expected to bend to your will."

Clara nodded. "You might very well be correct. But maybe I'm also someone tired of all of the lies. Gillian, I had no idea what my father did to you. I knew the Commodore was too old to have fathered a child on you. I knew you were too young to be Jimmy's mother. But I didn't know my father's part in it, I didn't. And since I found out, that's how I've thought about it. My father's part in the abhorrent thing these men did to you."

She smiled up at Gillian. "But now I'm married. And there are nights when Richard comes home from, from working with Jimmy and I know. I just know. It's in the set of his shoulders, it's in the way he lays next to me. And with us..." Clara's voice broke, unwilling to expose that part of their lives to Gillian.

"So I thought you could tell me what my mother thought the first time my father climbed into bed next to her after he sold you to the Commodore."


No one had thought to dispose of the lunch Clara was making when she was taken. The smell and the flies attracted by the rotten food were equally abhorrent. Richard resolutely started clearing the rotten food so he could put the kitchen back to rights, so he could make something for them both to eat. He couldn't remember when he last ate and doubted Clara could either.

He turned the idea of Clara needing to speak to Gillian over and over in his head. Clara's relationship with Gillian was inexplicable to him. And then Clara had setup Gillian to take the blame for the Commodore's death to protect Jimmy, and did it like it was just another errand she needed to contend with. She'd taken Tommy and refused to even consider letting Gillian near the boy.

Why. Clara loved Tommy. He'd seen that the first time he met Tommy. It was when he was guarding Clara and as they walked down the Boardwalk a small shape in cap came running out of a store and barreled straight into Clara and she'd laughed as she picked the boy up. It had even been in her voice when she talked about him that day in Chicago.

But by her own words, she loved spoiling Tommy and passing him back to Angela when he became difficult. And although he knew she was doing her best, although he tried to help as much as he could, he also knew she struggled with suddenly becoming the person tasked with caring for Tommy. Clara had told him several times she wanted children-their children-but not yet. She didn't want to have children in this life, she wanted to have adventures, she wanted time with them alone together, she wanted to have time to write.

A small part of him was ashamed of how much he enjoyed caring for Tommy. Coming home to find Tommy sideways on the bed with Clara and carrying him back to his own room. Doing the voices of the Martian when Clara read Tommy a space story.

Somehow from the ruins of Angela and Jimmy's lives, he had gained everything he had ever wanted. Although he knew it wouldn't last. Jimmy would reign himself in soon and take responsibility for Tommy. Jimmy was a good man, a good father. He was certainly a good friend. Every good thing in his life Richard had because Jimmy had been kind enough to answer him when he spoke in that hospital hallway back in Chicago. It was his duty to make sure Jimmy survived this and to watch over Tommy until Jimmy recovered from...Well.

Richard heard Jimmy's car pull up over the sound of the wind and the rain, which now howled outside, and walked into the living room to greet them. A few minutes later Tommy burst through the door ahead of his father, shaking water from his cap as he raced into the house.

"Richard, I stayed with an old lady and we ate fish eggs!"

The sound of Tommy's feet and voice felt like a warm wave of normalcy washing over her as she swam back up from the depths of another unplanned nap. Clara sat up on the sofa, adjusting the scarf holding her hair back, her annoyance at falling asleep swept away by relief in the confirmation that Tommy was fine, and finally letting going of the terror she'd first felt when...for a moment she was back in the kitchen and was happy to see the man on the porch but her mind wouldn't let her form a picture of who stood there, a danger to both she and Tommy.

"Tommy, I'm so glad…" Clara began as she joined them in the entryway.

"You left me," Tommy said, stepping away from Clara, his little face twisted in anger. "You yelled game and never came back."

"Tommy," Richard began. "Clara…"

"No, it's okay," Clara cut in. "Tommy, I'm so, so sorry you were scared."

Tommy moved behind Richard's legs and refused to come out.

"Tommy, it's not Clara's fault," Jimmy said but stopped speaking when it looked like Tommy was about to start crying.

"I'm hungry, Richard," Tommy declared.

Richard looked up at Clara, who looked like she'd just been slapped. Jimmy nodded towards Clara, and Tommy was pulling at Richard's hand, so he shepherded the boy into the kitchen.

Clara silently moved back to the sofa. Fuck Father, she thought furiously, and fuck whoever snatched her and terrorized that poor little boy who already been through so much.

Jimmy watched Tommy climb into a chair. Jesus, Richard was patient. Cooking was bad enough, letting Tommy help was practically torture. Silently he went to sit next to Clara, his eyes taking in her injuries. Those bruises. Jesus. Fucking Nucky.

He lit a cigarette and handed it to her, sitting silently for a moment. When Rose told him to leave Clara alone with Richard, it felt wrong. Clara was family, and so was Richard. They were his. The idea that they could fix each other, but only if he let them alone felt wrong.

"We thought the Butcher had you. We went after him," Jimmy finally said, not looking directly at her. He needed her to know what they had done, what they had been willing to do, to get her back.

Clara nodded, remembering Richard's words that he had feared the Butcher had taken her.

"Did you get him?" she asked, not looking over at him, but willing to ask Jimmy to tell her things she couldn't bring herself to ask her husband.

"Yes," Jimmy answered, staring at the cigarette as Clara passed it back to him.

Clara cleared her throat. "You, or Richard?"

Jimmy looked up at her, surprised. "Both. We found him while we looked for you."

"No, I mean...trench knife or a Colt 1903?"

"Trench knife."

A start, Clara thought, but still not what she wanted to know. "Did he pay for Angela?"

Jimmy took a long drag and looked at her out of the corner of his eye, realizing what Clara was actually asking. "He screamed, Clara."

Clara clasped his free hand. For a man like the Butcher to scream? Jimmy was more skilled with that damn knife than she had presumed. "Good," she said softly.

There was so much packed into that one word that Jimmy flinched at the implication. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, he thought. How the fuck had they gotten so off course? And there were still more people who needed to pay.

"Do you remember who took you?" Jimmy asked.

Clara shook her head. "No, the whole morning is a blur."

A knock sounded at the door, startling them both. Jimmy silently left the couch, pulling the Glock from his waistband as he moved as stealthily as possible-his bum leg always acted up in the rain-so he could see the driveway and porch.

A stocky man sat behind the wheel of a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, just like Torrio's. But it wasn't Al behind the wheel, and it wasn't anyone from Chicago standing on his porch. The threesome on the porch was easily identifiable. The little man built like an ox holding an umbrella over a slightly taller and much better-dressed man whose face, even in shadow, was carefully composed into blank pleasantness. And standing over them was a taller man with his head slightly bent and a hand brushing near his waistband.

Richard came out from the kitchen, his hand on Tommy's shoulder, and Jimmy nodded at him to look out the window.

"Tommy. Go to Clara," Richard instructed when he saw who was outside.

"I…"

"Mmm. Now." Richard instructed and Tommy finally went without arguing as Jimmy opened the door.

"Gentlemen," Rothstein said and swept into the house without having exactly being asked when Jimmy opened the door.

"Harrow," Luciano said with a nod before he walked, Richard noted, straight over to Clara. Tommy backed up to stand against Clara as Charlie approached them.

"At some point," Lansky said to Richard with a half-smirk when he saw that the man was watching Charlie and Clara, "we will have to let them know they are actually friends."

"Congratulations, both on your marriage and on recovering your wife," Rothstein said with a smile Richard thought was probably supposed to be ingratiating. "I trust you've made plans to get her away from Atlantic City, away from Thompson?"

Richard swallowed.

"Ah, well. Marrying a woman like Clara Thompson, it's a complicated endeavor. A delight, to be sure, but it is hard to imagine her in a cold-water tenement or some remote farm. She's used to a certain standard of living. And of course, you want her to be happy, and safe. Keeping Nucky Thompson's daughter safe is a daunting proposition. Not only do you have to worry about Thompson's enemies-and it does appear to be his special talent to make new enemies the way other men make friends-but now you know Thompson is a danger to Clara. And how can you keep her safe from her own father? Especially here, in the town Thompson considers his private fiefdom?"

Rothstein watched Richard closely as he spoke. Evaluating men's reactions to his words, his promises, his offers was one of Rothstein's strengths but he did have to admit it was a little more difficult with Harrow. The man was practically inscrutable. Rothstein liked that about him. But those hands, those fingers rubbing together, those were his tell. Rothstein also liked knowing that.

"I admire your loyalty to Darmody. And of course, Thompson is an even great danger to him than he is to Clara. That's why I propose this. Come to New York. Peter is my main bodyguard, of course, but I need someone like you. Meyer tells me you have quite the head for logistics, for organizing groups of men, for making things work. And there are your other very useful skills. I'll pay you $500 a week, plus more for certain jobs, and provide a three-bedroom apartment in my building at 144 West 57th Street. It's a beautiful apartment. Clara will like it. And it comes with doormen and elevator men who will fall under your purview."

Sometimes the trick was to know when to stop talking. He followed Harrow's eye. The Darmody boy clung to Clara while Charlie had moved to talk to Darmody. Charlie's report was correct. Darmody's son had somehow become Harrow and Clara's responsibility. What a deliciously complicated arrangement these young people had constructed.

"You'll never again have to worry that harm will come to them while you are working. They'll be safe under the watch of men of your choosing. If you ever feel the need to have them protected outside of the home that of course can be arranged.

"Clara will love being a young wife of means in the city. Being around other writers, her friends from school and college...she's meant for better things than Atlantic City. She can entertain in your apartment. And you can be the one who gives her that. Meanwhile, Darmody can work for Meyer and Charlie. They have their...fingers in all sorts of pies."

Clara would love living in New York, Richard knew. She spoke fondly of her time there with Angela, she'd been happy on their trip. And it would allow him to work, to support her without worrying that marrying him was causing her to go without. It would let him get Jimmy and Clara out of Atlantic City, to keep Tommy with them while Jimmy found his way, to repay the enormous debt of gratitude he felt for Jimmy.

And if Rothstein looked at him exactly the way his cousin Harold used to look at butterflies he planned on pinning to a board? So be it. Everything in life carried a price.

Another knock sounded at the door. Charlie and Jimmy stopped their conversation. Richard watched Clara smooth Tommy's hair back from his forehead as she drew the boy closer to her. She caught his eye and tried to smile.

Rothstein stepped into the shadows, while Meyer and Richard wordlessly coordinated covering the door.

Nucky and Eli Thompson stood on the porch.

"We come with a peace offering," Nucky said with practiced ease as Richard opened the door. Ever since goddamn Leader Whitlock had interfered and got Clara out of the sanitarium where she might not have been comfortable but where he at least knew she was safe. Owen Sleater had failed to find the Butcher. No one was living up to their obligations, and Nucky did not appreciate having to come up with a new plan on the fly. Especially when it meant depending on Eli for security and support for this, the most important part of his plan to reclaim his city and his daughter.

"Arnold?" he then said, after spotting Rothstein and Lansky standing with Harrow, and Luciano in the living room with James, Clara, and the boy. The New York contingent in James's living room was not a happy surprise.

"Paying a social call," Rothstein said smoothly.

"Come on in, Nuck. No need to haunt the doorway," Jimmy instructed from the living room, his eyes glinty and hard.

Nucky nodded and stepped forward, the water collected on the brim of his hat cascading to the floor unnoticed when he removed his hat.

Eli stood silently but took in the scene in front of him. Clara looked like Mabel, sitting there with the Darmody brat in her lap. Jesus, Eli thought when she turned to smile hesitantly at him and he saw the bruises on Clara's neck. What did they do to her in that place?

"Owen has captured Manny Horwitz, I knew that Jimmy would want to know," Nucky continued.

Richard looked at Jimmy upon hearing this but was surprised to see Clara also shoot Jimmy a glance.

Luciano every so slightly nodded his head at Lansky.

Nucky was so focused on spinning his tale and achieving his objective of getting Richard and Jimmy to go with them to the Soldier's Memorial that he missed the quiet reaction to his words. Eli fell back into his role as Nucky's silent support easily, surprised at the comfortable feeling of being in his brother's shadow once more.

No one was looking at Tommy, who had climbed down from Clara's lap.

"Oww! God damn it kid, why did you do that?" Eli cried out suddenly, causing everyone to look at him. And to Tommy, who was kicking Eli with all his four-year-old might.

Clara stood and moved to grab the boy.

"You are the bad man!" Tommy yelled, kicking Eli once more in the shin.

"Uncle Eli," Clara breathed out, refusing to believe it even as the missing pieces began to fall into place.

Clara was a child of the Boardwalk, and Nucky had not been unaware of the importance of having his little daughter pictured in the papers enjoying new Boardwalk attractions the day they opened. Sheriff's daughter had morphed into Treasurer's daughter and still she had dipped and spun on every new ride, thrown endless balls to win endless games, admired countless new sideshow exhibits. She liked most of them, but she hated the Whirligig. The feeling of spinning while the world dropped out from underneath her was not a sensation she enjoyed.

Standing in the beach house living room she felt that sensation again. Making ham sandwiches. Hearing the knock at the door. Smiling when she saw his face. She was spinning through her memories and dropped harshly into the reality of who betrayed her, of who took her from her life and threw her into hell.

"Dollface," Eli said pleadingly.

The spinning feeling dissipated, and Clara crossed the space between them so quickly that neither Jimmy who was standing behind her nor Richard who stood behind Eli had any chance of getting to her. Her body twisted as she moved, and she put her entire weight into her arm. Eli saw it coming he didn't try to avoid it.

The sound of her palm striking his face echoed through the house, even as the wind and rain of the summer storm howled through the windows.

"They shoved a needle in me and someone tied my arms and you just stood there. Patted my knee ineffectively, like you trying were to comfort me as you were delivering me to that place!"

Jimmy stepped up behind Clara, so Richard grabbed Tommy and moved him to the hallway. "Go upstairs. To your room."

Tommy looked terrified as he stepped onto the staircase. "I don't want to play the game."

"No. Not the game. Just upstairs."

"Because Clara is going hit that bad man again?"

"You know, my father deciding to torture me because I dared disobey him...well, I can...it makes sense," Clara sputtered. "But you! You stood next to me back in January and told me you knew how awful this year was going to be, but that if I loved Richard I should do something about it. You made sure I knew that Richard wasn't involved in Jimmy's stupid fucking assassination attempt."

"I didn't have a choice..."

How fucking dare she, Nucky thought, show this kind of disrespect in front of his business associates. "Clara, that will be enough! We will not air our family's dirty laundry in front of Mr. Rothstein and his associates. I just came to collect Jimmy and Harrow because there's business..."

Clara turned, and the dazed expression was gone, replaced by white-hot fury. "Ah, yes! You have Manny Horwitz. Tell me, Father, how did you manage such a miracle?"

Luciano let his hand drop down to his waist, near his gun. All these Atlantic City fuckers made Benny look like a damn paragon of sanity. What a stupid fucking plan Thompson concocted, thinking he could tempt Darmody and Harrow by saying he had the Butcher?

"You need to control yourself!"

"Or what? You'll have me committed? Again?"

Although it was delightful to watch this game spin into new and unexpected vistas, Rothstein knew the secret to winning was to control the game. And right now, the game had too many variables. Time to apply his rulebook. "Nucky, it's good that you are here. Mr. Harrow and I have reached an understanding, and I believe Charlie and Mr. Darmody have done the same?"

Clara turned to look at Richard and couldn't stop herself from gasping out loud. She wanted them to be free, for their lives not to be directed by the damn Volstead Act. Rothstein, Charlie, Meyer-that was going further in. Much, much further in. Rothstein was quicksand.

"No!" she cried out, feeling that somehow a battle in a war she didn't know was underway happened while she looked the other way.

"Clara..." he began, and she saw from the way his mouth twitched he didn't see another way.

She dipped and dropped and spun again and had to put her fist over her mouth to push back the wave of nausea.

"There will be no understanding, Arnold. They are not going to New York. There are things to be settled here."

"What needs to be settled that allowing them to remove themselves to New York would accomplish? They'll be under my umbrella. They understand that in New York protocols must be followed. We've secured employment terms for Mr. Darmody and Mr. Harrow, and of course, there is much for Mrs. Harrow to do as well."

Richard's head jerked up. "Clara is. Not a part. Of our arrangement."

"Oh, Mr. Harrow, don't you realize what an asset you've married? You've done what none of the rest of us have managed and married a proper society girl. Carolyn is a darling, but she's never been a bridesmaid at the wedding of the season the way your bride was last May. Mrs. Harrow's social credentials and access are a unique benefit. I'm sure when your marriage announcement runs in The Times her friends will flock to your new apartment."

"No. Clara doesn't need..."

"Unfortunately, our deal doesn't hold unless Mrs. Harrow is willing to take part in a few social engagements," Rothstein said with one eyebrow raised. "Neither does Mr. Darmody's arrangement with Charlie."

Clara made her way to to her husband and squeezed his hand. Her father was out for blood. Every part of her wanted to scream, wanted to run but she could see that Rothstein was offering them safety from her father's vengeance, even if she knew what it was going to cost them. Even as she silently told Richard it was okay, she felt the teeth of the trap ensnare them both.

"Yeah, Nuck, you don't want us here, so why are you opposed to New York?" Jimmy asked, his voice quiet and steady.

"Is it because you need their help with Horwitz?" Clara asked, her voice bright, like she was asking him what refreshments he'd like for a party as Richard's hand tightened around hers.

Nucky looked back and forth between them. Somehow, he wasn't sure how, they had outflanked him. They knew he didn't have Horwitz. Damn it, this is why he'd needed Doyle, who usually popped up like a damn jack in the box whenever he wasn't needed but today was in the god damn wind.

Rothstein stared at him with that cold, amused expression. Nucky's mind spun. He'd wanted to punish Jimmy, dispose of Harrow, and save Clara from her own poor fucking decisions. Now somehow that was all slipping through his fingers. Eli was going to prison. Everyone had to pay. Even these two spoiled fucking golden children and their deformed henchman.

"What's in it for me?" Nucky asked.

Clara laughed out loud. "I must give you this-you don't really hide exactly how craven you are, do you? How about this, Father? My trust fund that you helped yourself to? Consider it ransom to free Richard, Jimmy, and me from your clutches. It's payment for our freedom, for any misdeeds you judge us guilty of committing. I just want one thing in return."

"What an intriguing offer, Nucky." Rothstein offered, amused at the audacity of this little bit of skirt with her pretty manners and cultivated speaking voice offering to ransom her men from her own father.

Nucky gritted his teeth. "What do you want, Clara?"

She lifted her chin and looked her father straight in the eye. "Tell me what whore the money from my grandfather's house went to support."

Rothstein watched the interplay with amusement and satisfaction. Thompson was indeed a bigger fool than even he had first guessed. No matter his anger, one thing was clear. Thompson loved his daughter, and he loved James Darmody. And in his anger, which would fade away, he was about to let them fall straight into Arnold's waiting grasp.

And then the people Nucky loved best would be solidly in Arnold Rothstein's control.

Her father glared at her without answering her question. "None of you can ever return. You are permanently banished from Atlantic City. Beginning tonight."

"This house, my father's estate..." Jimmy began.

"Leander Whitlock falls all over himself helping you two. I'm sure he's more than capable of disposing of this house and seeing to the Commodore's estate."

"I'm sure everyone can agree to that provision, yes?" Rothstein asked. "Wonderful, Meyer, if you will accompany me back to New York, Charlie can stay and assist James and the Harrows prepare for their journey north."

Charlie followed Rothstein and Meyer to the door and then returned to the edge of the living room.

"Shouldn't you all be packing?" Nucky said.

Clara smoothed her skirt and allowed herself to really look at her father. Ever the wealthy benevolent monarch of his seaside kingdom, she thought, but still. A little older, a little greyer. He had everything he'd ever wanted and it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Her mother could have filled every room with baby Thompsons, she and Jimmy could have stayed home from the war...it didn't matter. Whatever was broken in her father predated all of them, even her mother.

It was just that he kept picking up the jagged pieces and using them to inflict pain on anyone in his life who tried to love him.

"Charlie," Clara said with an attempt at a smile. "Would you do me a favor?"

Charlie absolutely smirked at her, causing her to bite back a laugh and shake her head no. "Would you go check on Tommy?"

"You want me to go check on the kid?" Jesus fuck these people annoyed the hell out of him. He'd already spent the day watching Mickey goddamned Doyle, whom he'd finally left hogtied on the floor of his own warehouse. Someone would find the man tomorrow. Or not. Charlie climbed the stairs with all the energy of a condemned man. Watch a fucking kid. What the hell, the kid had to be better than Doyle.

Jimmy and Richard both stared at her, and she half-shrugged as she turned back to her father. "I owe you my thanks," she said in a level voice. "For the asylum. Because it made me understand things I would have never realized. otherwise."

"My whole life I thought it was my fault. That if I'd been a boy, or if I had been different, then I would have been enough. That it was because of my shortcomings that Mother kept trying for more, that she couldn't be satisfied, that it was lost baby after lost baby until she..."

"Clara, there is no need to dredge up the past..."

"THERE IS EVERY NEED! Because as I lay there shackled to that bed with your words in my ear that my husband was in a ditch with Jimmy beside him, my mind started to drift into all the forbidden areas. First, of course, let's start with Gillian. Because in the end, it all goes back to that decision, doesn't it, Father? When I heard Jimmy accuse you of handing over a twelve-year-old girl to that horrid old man I can't even describe how sickening I found that. I try to not be a hypocrite. I've known since I was seven years old and Jenny O'Roarke told me that you were the reason she couldn't have a nice winter coat like mine, because you made her parents pay so much 'business tax' it left them with no money for anything else that my pretty life was built on the misery of others."

Nucky's lower lip curled over his teeth at Clara's betrayal of everything he'd fought to give her. "It's so easy to have such high morals when your whole life people were there to hand you anything you wanted, anything you needed..."

"You absolutely correct. I never went without one material need or want. Neither did Mother. You were such a good provider, weren't you, Father? That's why although you were both still young she thought you two were more than capable of adopting Gillian the summer of 1897. She loved Gillian, right from the start, didn't she?"

"I refuse-"

"Do you think it was because she saw this poor kid who none of the advantages she'd been handed, but that was smart as a whip and charming? Do you think that's why she thought you'd be a good father to Gillian, even if you were only twelve years older than Gillian?"

Nucky started towards Clara, just wanting her to stop talking, but James and Harrow standing behind her changed his mind. "None of this has anything to do with you!"

"It has everything to do with me. What is it you say-everyone must decide for themselves how much sin they can live with? Unfortunately, you forgot to take Mother into your calculus. When you brought Gillian back, because the Commodore threw her out because a pregnant, vomiting twelve-year-old isn't very much fun and because you had nowhere else to put her, what did she think? When you climbed in bed next to her, did you wonder about how she felt about the sin that you brought with you? How she could reconcile the man she'd loved since she was just a girl with the person who whored out the child she planned on raising?"

The only sound in the room was the lash of rain beating against the house.

"See, I thought it was me. I thought it was all those poor doomed babies. But-"

"Clara, your brother..."

"You want to talk about that? Let's. Here's another thing I didn't quite grasp as a child. You already knew Mother was unstable. That baby was so, so, so small. And you just...left us. As she rocked a decaying corpse she thought was her baby and I lived off bread, how many hours did you spend at home? Watching Angela with Tommy those first days I understood for the first time how fragile women are right after childbirth. And my mother was more fragile than most. It was her first baby that, that..." Clara's voice broke and for one horrible moment she thought she was going to burst into tears.

"Was born alive since me," she managed to continue. "And still, you left us. What sort of man doesn't hold his baby for a week? Pays so little attention to his wife that he doesn't realize she's caring for a corpse! Even after, when you managed to bury that poor baby what was your response?"

"I hired a housekeeper!"

"Ah, you threw some money at it. What a solution. Tell me-was it a relief? No longer needing to worry about Mother, her moods, no more worrying she'd embarrass you?"

"How dare you, Clara?"

Jimmy silently watched Clara take on Nucky. She deserved it. But Nuck was going to have him killed, and he was tired of apologizing for what happened in June.

"It's true, though, ain't it Nuck? You love a fresh start. Eli's going to the slammer, you've sent Clara and I away. You got a pretty new wife, adorable little kids, nice new house. The Irishman to replace Eli and me, and you pay him so you don't have to worry about his feelings. It's a whole new Nucky Thompson. Like Mabel, and Clara, and me? Like we never happened. Except those little tykes of Mrs. Schroeder's are gonna grow up one day and wonder about their father. Someone will offer Irish more money. What will you do then?"

"Another new bodyguard, new associates, new wife, new family," Clara replied bitterly. Jimmy turned and nodded at her.

"Anyway, you don't need us. You don't need Eli. You're Nucky Thompson. All you gotta worry about is when you run out of money and you run out of booze and you run out of company and the only person left to judge you is you."

"I don't have to take this."

"No, god forbid someone else set the terms of engagement," Clara snapped.

"Doll-," Eli began as he walked out behind Nucky. Clara's face made him reconsider. "Clara, I had to. He was going to do it regardless, I thought I was a better-"

"What did he offer you?" Clara asked, not wanting to hear her uncle's justifications.

"To take care of June and the kids while I'm...gone."

Clara nodded, understanding but unable to forgive. I begged them all to stop well before we got here, she thought, and to a man they all ignored me.

"Wait," Jimmy said suddenly. "I hired Kaity. She needs to come tonight."

"Who?" Nucky asked.

"Father's maid?" Clara questioned at the same time, equally puzzled.

"That all right? She said you got along well," Jimmy said to Clara.

Clara was still entirely perplexed but nodded. "I quite like Kaity." Something was going on, Clara realized, and it was for Kaity's benefit they got her away from Father's house as quickly as possible. "If you want us out of Atlantic City tonight, I'm going to need assistance. I certainly can't be expected to do all this without a maid," Clara said in her most princessy voice to Nucky.

"I'll send her. You leave tonight." Whatever domestic disturbance it caused Margaret was more than worth it to bring this debacle to an end.

A smart person would say nothing, Clara thought and resolved to let her father leave. Her resolve faltered."Enjoy your victory, pyrrhic though it may be."

"I'm glad the money I spent on your education wasn't entirely wasted," Nucky said and for a moment wanted to say more. To ask them how. Why. To pull the snub-nosed revolver hidden behind his back out and put a bullet straight through Jimmy's and Harrow's faces. To tell them not to go, that they could work things out between them.

Instead, he put his hat on and motioned for Eli to follow him.

Clara swallowed back a sob and fought back the urge to run after her father, to rage at him more, to turn and throw herself into her husband's arms. Turning, she saw the same look on Jimmy's face and reached over to squeeze his arm.

They were all changed into traveling clothes and packed with remarkable speed. By the time Owen pulled up in the Buick with a silent Kaity they were mostly ready to go, Clara coming down the stairs to speak to Kaity as she saw Richard carefully loading what was left of Angela's paintings, wrapped in blankets to protect them from the rain, into the back of his car.

"I fear I'm not sure what transpired while I was...away," Clara told Kaity, "but I think I must owe you a debt of gratitude. And I'm thrilled that you want to work for us, but it won't be in Atlantic City."

"I've always wanted to go to New York," Kaity answered.

"And Owen?" Clara asked softly so the men couldn't hear.

Kaity shook her head, and for one moment Clara thought Kaity was going to cry. She patted Kaity's arm.

"We need you to stay behind and finish packing the house," Jimmy said, pulling some cash from a roll in his pocket. "We'll be in touch in a couple of days about getting the boxes and you on a train to Penn Station."

And then there was nothing left to do but leave. Richard was carrying a pajama-clad Tommy down the stairs and Clara looked hard at Jimmy. It felt like Christmas had just happened, when Gillian left and Jimmy said he and Angela had a surprise and they'd driven down to the beach house. She'd been jealous, Clara remembered, feeling bereft of Richard's company once he was no longer guarding her and feeling uncertain of how to move forward. Jealous of a real home. Angela had been so excited about the windows and the light, and all the art she'd make in the sunroom.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Tommy rides with you and Richard, okay?" Jimmy said instead of answering.

"We all meet up tomorrow at four at AR's," Charlie cut in, more than ready to get the hell out of Atlantic City. "I'll ride with Darmody here."

They put a pillow and blanket in the backseat for the sleeping Tommy and sat in the car for a minute, watching the rain beat against the beach house.

Entangling Clara with Arnold Rothstein was not how he planned on leaving Atlantic City with her. With a start he realized that this meant Charlie Luciano would be around them more often and he just managed to bite back a groan. "I know. This isn't..."

Clara turned to look at her husband and shook her head. "I told you I wanted an adventure, and New York will certainly be that. A year ago I was trying to figure out what I felt about you while I felt doomed to marry Darcy, to have a life I didn't want. Starting a life with you in Manhattan, it's so much better than the life I thought I'd have. I just worry..."

He slipped his hand into her hair and turned her face towards him. "This is all. More than I ever thought I'd get. And I always liked. Adventure stories."

She leaned her face against his, careful not to dislodge the mask. We are breathing the same air, she thought, and that's victory enough.

If there was one thing their courtship had taught them it was how to kiss in the front seat of a Model-T and they put their shared knowledge back into use.

"Jesus Christ they are out here fogging up the windows with your kid in the fucking back!" Charlie said from outside their car.

They pulled apart and smiled at each other. As he put the car into gear Clara curled up against his side and refused to look back as they left her father's seaside kingdom behind them.

Notes: From the very bottom of my heart, I can't tell you how much I've appreciated every reader, every kudos, every comment. Clara, Richard, and the rest of the T3 crew kept me sane during 2020, and this is the very first "book" (that sounds incredibly pretentious) I've ever finished. And all the encouragement I received helped me finished my story. Book Two is already underway, and the first chapter will go up in the next couple of weeks. If you are subscribed to T3 please subscribe to me, or follow me on Tumblr, to be notified when the first chapter of Hand in Hand to Hell is published. Some notes: Bud Matheson has a connection to the BWE Canon post/641851994995294208/who-the-hell-is-bud-matheson Clara's dress: www. /fashion/clothing/day-dresses/1920s-blue-white-lined-pinafore-dress/id-v_3251413/ Rothstein really did own 144 West 57th Street, and more importantly, he really did collect the children of his enemies and friends in real life by giving them jobs and apartments. Rothstein's collection plays a major part in the next book. As do Charlie and Meyer. With Richard, Clara, Jimmy, and Tommy in New York the focus of the story shifts, although Nucky/Gillian/Eli/Margaret and the rest still have a significant impact on the story. I want to hear any (or every thought) you've ever had about the story. And again, thank you so much for reading!