Tommy sat in the driver's seat of his black Bugatti, his hands clenched so tightly around the steering wheel he wouldn't have been surprised if he was warping the metal. He punched the wheel with the side of his fist, once, twice, as hard as he could, causing the horn to blare, intermingling with his hoarse yell.
"FUCK! FUCK." He turned to Arthur, desperately. "How did this happen? How could this have happened?"
Arthur was mindlessly toying with his gun, flipping the safety on and off, on and off. "Our men say they got her in London. They tried to follow them but got pulled over by some coppers once they were out of the city, out of our jurisdiction." He flipped the safety.
"Where is she? Where would they have taken her?" Arthur was breathing sharply, but didn't respond.
"We have to find her, Tommy," was all he said, his eyes gazing off into the distance, looking glazed. Tommy reached out and backhanded him in the face, not hard enough to cause damage, but enough to rattle his sense loose. "Arthur. Stay with me. Which way were they heading when they took her?"
"North, they said," Arthur told him, working his sore jaw but not reproaching Tommy for the slap.
"We'll find her," Tommy said, his mind racing, his eyes following the paths of the rain on the windows.
"What about Tessa, Tommy? What about the plan?"
Tommy met his eyes, cold, unforgiving.
"I told you. Find our sister."
"He's here? Where? How do you know?" Tessa pelted Ada with questions like the raindrops pinging on the outside of the windows. The room they were in seemed like it was probably a bedroom, once, but now was completely barren except for the two young women tied to rickety chairs.
"He's in the basement. I heard them talking about him before they went to get you. I know some German, picked it up for diplomacy purposes." Her mouth warped a bit, like in another life, she would have found the irony amusing.
"I have to get to him," Tessa said, her mind blank.
"Tessa. There are at least thirteen men in this building, maybe more. All armed. Don't be daft," Ada said sharply, as if that would make Tessa change her mind. Tessa shook her head, aggressively.
"I have a knife. You could reach it. Cut me loose."
"You are going to get yourself killed," Ada hissed, but the door creaked open and Tessa's retort was silenced. Beck's dark head poked through the crack, and he spoke with an accent Tessa couldn't quite place.
"Quiet! They'll be back any minute, they're going to hear you," he said, looking about as frantic as Tessa felt. She did not think this was a good thing.
"Where are the others?" Ada prompted him, clearly trying to keep the desperation out of her voice, keep herself clear and calm, but the Jewish man's face changed and so did hers. "The rest of your men are coming, right? Tommy said you had a deal."
"They're coming," he said, his mouth set in a line. "But not until the Blinders thin out the herd. Solomons said to wait until the Peaky boys had no choice but to intervene. Didn't want to be on the front lines."
"I thought the Blinders were only supposed to cause a diversion," Tessa said. The man winced.
"A diversion can only last so long. Eventually, they will be caught and forced to engage, or come here and be forced to engage. Either way, we have help only after Solomons knows it won't be his men that will be sacrificed."
"Fuck," Tessa said. Her numb hands were sweating. "Fuck. There may not be a diversion at all. Tommy probably sent his men to look for you instead," she looked at Ada. "The Jews will never come."
Ada's face turned white. Tessa wriggled her wrists in their vice grip. "Beck! Untie me. We have to go, we have to get out of here."
"You can't get out of here," he said, like she was insane. She probably was. "And I can't untie you, they'll know it was me." She wanted to kick him for his lack of spine, and she cursed her tied feet, her useless, burning wrists. Beck's head snapped back around the peeling paint of the doorframe.
"They're coming back. Be quiet!" He hissed, retreating again, closing the door. Within a few moments, Tessa too could hear the footsteps approaching, first on the stairs, then down the hall. The German man who had apprehended her in the square entered again. His large hands were encased in sharp brown leather gloves, which he peeled off slowly, inspecting the women's faces.
"Hello again, Miss Reilly. I apologize for not introducing myself earlier, we were on a bit of a schedule. My name is Richard Arnholt." His gaze turned to Ada. "And Miss Shelby. Always a pleasure."
"My name is Thorne," Ada said, but it sounded a bit tired, her voice smaller than Tessa had ever heard it.
"Ah. Of course. The one who sleeps with communists. How did that conversation go with your brother, I wonder? I was sorry to hear of your husband's passing. Perhaps Thomas Shelby was not so sorry." He narrowed his eyes at her, a smirk forming on his face. "Perhaps he was not sorry at all. Pestilence, they said. How curious."
Ada's mouth dropped open in anger. "You dare accuse my brother of-,"
"Was I accusing?" Arnhold inspected his pristine fingernails. "Although, if I were, would it really be so far-fetched? His sins, after all, are legend."
Ada returned nothing but furious silence. Arnholt crossed the room and crouched down in front of her. "Such a lovely young thing. Such a pity, to be wasted on the memory of a dead communist." He reached out and stroked her cheek. "As for you, Miss Reilly," he said, addressing her but not turning away from Ada's bruised face. "We have your father."
Tessa remembered to try to appear shocked about this, but wanted to slice Arnholt's face, to take the finger he was laying on Ada off with her scalpel, so she was relatively sure the only expression she managed was pure contempt.
"Unfortunately," Arnholt continued, "he has promised to be most uncooperative if he discovers his precious daughter has come to any harm, so we have graciously decided to abide by his wishes." He paused. "For now. Until it benefits us to act otherwise." He ran another gloved finger down Ada's cheek. Tessa could see her shoulders trembling. "However, we have no such restrictions when it comes to you, Miss Shelby."
"No," Tessa whispered. Ada whimpered slightly, her eyes glimmering, her chin set. She was struggling with her ropes again, despite the burns around her ankles. Arnholt drew a knife from his coat pocket and sliced the binds tying her to the chair, keeping her hands and feet restricted, and yanked her to her feet. She started struggling immediately, so much so that Arnholt nearly lost his firm grip on her, despite his bulk.
"My brothers will fucking destroy you if you so much as touch me," she said, hitting his chest and his arms with her bound wrists, "I will fucking kill you myself, you bastard, get your filthy hands off of me-,"
Arnhold laughed at her. "I think it is much more likely that me touching you destroys them," he said, and he began hauling her out of the room, looking Tessa in the eyes as he did so, like he was telling her she was next.
"Ada!" Tessa screeched, trying to bounce her chair, to break it's legs, to somehow, magically, please escape the ropes like burning wires, "No! Ada!" She caught a glimpse of the other girl's face as the German dragged her out of her room, her dark hair swinging in front of her eyes as she writhed, her mouth open in a scream. "Tommy's coming, Ada! It'll be okay! Ada! Let go of her, you cunt!"
The door slammed behind them, and Tessa was left alone, sobbing into an empty room with nothing but rotting floorboards and spiderwebs as witness.
Tessa was shaking so badly her teeth were chattering. She listened to Ada's screams fade, and wanted to vomit again, but there was nothing in her stomach. He won't come, she thought, desperate, petrified, despite what she had just tried to convince Ada of. The room was cold, the rain pouring down outside the miserable, horrible house, where her father was, somewhere, where her friend was, about to have unspeakable things done to her. Tessa looked down at her wrists. They had started to leak blood onto the lap of her grey dress. She took a shuddering, gasping breath, her salty tears falling into her open mouth, dripping down her face. And she began rocking the chair, back and forth, until she collapsed on her side, hands bound, and she pressed her body weight onto the back of her left thumb, pressed and pressed and pressed. She thought of Tommy's grip on her wrist, eons ago, in the hospital, how easy it had seemed like it would have been for him to shatter her bones with just one hand. Go ahead and scream, they had told her. She did. Her thumb snapped.
Tommy sped down a road, pistol in one hand. Arthur sped down another, a van full of men behind him. John yelled into a telephone, screamed for his sister, sent out coppers and Blinders and everyone, anyone he could, Esme's pale face like a ghost behind him. Polly clutched her black Madonna, Tessa clutched her broken thumb, Ada bit a man's hand until she drew blood. The rain poured on.