An hour later, there was a knock at the door, and Tessa opened it to admit Tommy again. He took the cigarette out of his mouth to speak, standing in the hall halfway in the door like he was about to leave even though he had only just arrived.
"It's time," he said, pulling out his golden watch and checking the time, not meeting Tessa's eyes. She found herself nodding anyway, like she was a marionette on a string, her chin tugged up and down by some higher power.
"Can I please have some snow now?" She asked, a feeble attempt at a joke, but Tommy's eyes snapped up to hers, almost glowing cold blue, like looking at the sun shining through a glacier. He sucked in his cigarette, handed it to her.
"Have this instead. You'll be driving in your own car, pretend to go shopping by yourself. It'll be conspicuous, but hopefully the Germans will be too excited about the abduction opportunity to focus much on that," he reviewed. They had already established this plan, a hundred times over, and Tessa would have been mildly offended by his lack of trust in her r if she didn't know who she was talking to. Thomas Shelby trusted no one but himself. "The Lees will be on lookout, they'll send a signal once the Germans pick you up, which they will know to do because we have the man on the inside who'll tip 'em off. We'll follow you to wherever you're taken at a safe distance, then my boys will make something go bang, the Jews will swarm, and we'll come get you and your father out." He lit another cigarette. His hands were completely steady.
"A safe distance," Tessa muttered wryly, taking a deep pull of the smoke Tommy had passed her. To her surprise, he lifted a hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, an expression resembling gentleness softening his relentless lines.
"They won't get a chance to lay a hand on you. I'll make sure of it," he said, and he kissed her, and she held on to it like the moment would stretch on forever, like she could still live in it even if she ended up getting a bullet to the head. His lips were plush and his mouth was warm and she kissed him back, the cut of his jaw sharp under her palms when she lifted her hands to his face. When he pulled back, she found herself speaking before it had even registered that that was something she had intended to do.
"Tommy, if anything goes wrong today, I just-," she began. His eyes flashed sharply at her, a threat, a warning. The power he possessed to silence people with a glance. She supposed it was one part of the reason he had gotten to where he was from where he had started. He shook his head ever so slightly, reached into his pocket and pulled something out that flashed like his eyes just had.
"You can't carry a gun, because they'd find it and know something was off. But-," he presented the scalpel to her, the one he had had since the night at the hospital that had changed everything, "in case anything goes wrong."
Tessa didn't remember driving to the busy streets outside of the tailors shops and clothing stores. Suddenly she was just there, taking in the mundane scene, observing the minutiae of daily activity, steeling herself to leave the car. People milled about, carrying on with their lives and their errands, filtering in and out of the shops, chattering and clattering, alive with life and consumed completely by their petty concerns. She had been one of them, a few weeks ago. Closer to them, anyway. She closed her eyes and was struck by a vivid image of her brother's gap-toothed grin from when they were children, playing in the sand on a beach. Her mother, laughing as she held her morning coffee, always letting Tessa have a sip. Her grandfather reading her a bedtime story. Her father, walking a young Chase out of the stable, a red bow around his chestnut neck and a huge grin across her father's face. An empty box covered in a flag. A broken bottle of champagne on the floor. A face she had seen her entire life that no longer knew her. A desperate plea to a man with a face and heart and mind like a blade and eyes like gemstones. She opened her eyes, gripped the scalpel in the pocket of her dress, and opened the door of her gleaming car.
She walked as slowly as was casually passable, stopping to peer into the shop windows, pretending to observe the dresses on display but really not seeing any farther past her pale expression reflected in the glass. She watched her lashes as she blinked, the blush of her lips, the bright, gleaming waves of her hair. She couldn't hear the noise around her, everything was disjointed and far off, like the world was being drowned by the crashing waves of the ocean. And then a man appeared in the reflection behind her, and their eyes caught for a moment. His were a dark brown. She wondered if they would be the last she ever saw. His gun glimmered in the reflection, peeking out from its holster.
"Tessa Reilly. Why don't you come with me," he said, and it wasn't a question. He grasped her upper arm tightly, spun her around. She offered no resistance. She saw a small girl holding the hand of her mother pass by right in front of them, heard the briefest flash of their conversation, a car horn honk in the distance, saw a sparrow fly overhead. The day was grey and overcast, threatening rain. From around the corner of a shop, she thought she saw a long black barrel, behind the washed stone, and the maniacal grin of a man, but she blinked and he and his gun were gone. She didn't know if he was on her side. She didn't know what "her side" really was. She didn't know if she had even really seen him. The German man led her to the street, to a large car that was idling, it's motor thrumming even over the buzz of the city. He fastened ropes over her crossed wrists, and she stared resolutely ahead, past him, out across the street, like she wasn't there at all. All of those people around them, and not one gave a second glance. She tried to think of what Tommy would do, how he would act. Eyes flat, face closed. No fear, no emotion. The German opened the rear car door and revealed two more of his comrades, dressed in all black.
"After you," he said, and he shoved her in, climbing into the driver's seat and speeding away.