A/n: Thank you for the kind words! Hope you all enjoy this chapter as much as the previous!
"Why?"
Was the next thing Edie had asked knowing there had to be some sort of catch, there always was with Tommy Shelby afterall.
"I've been thinking of an expansion," Tommy said through a drag of smoke, interrupted by Edie, who finished his sentence.
"In London."
"Yes in London."
Edie pursed her lip as she pieced together, how herself and Ernie fit into his plans.
She was always involved minimally, and so it was said was Ernie, due to the writer's fondness for booze and women and his stories. Apparently he was unreliable.
Edie knew her brother played a much greater role than he let on though, because if not why otherwise would the Peaky Blinders be so interested in a drunkard who wrote shoddy romance novels and silly stories for the paper?
"So you want to start putting some of your people down there, see what's what and who's who." She deducted, smirking at the look of annoyance on Tommy's face and continued.
"And none of the big bads would suspect anything from a lowly writer."
Ernie protested loudly, jumping up from the wall he was leaning against, looking ready to throttle his sister again.
"I am not a lowly writer!"
"Just a crappy one then."
She teased, sticking out her tongue before turning back to Tommy with a straightened face.
"I'm right aren't I? You want people who are good at being discreet down there to get information before you send the rest of your boys down."
Tommy refused to reply, instead focusing on the aggressive demise of his cigarette by squashing it harshly into an ash tray.
Ernie sent his sister a warning look that told her to stop poking around and prying, but she disregarded it, focusing on Tommy and opening her mouth again to speak.
But before she could the writer butted in.
"Since you destroyed my new story for the paper, why don't you get to rewriting it yeah? I really can't miss the deadline for the rotary press."
Edie scrunched up her face unwillingly.
"Hey, it's the least you can do after my mother took you in, clothed you and fed you for the past how many years."
She grumbled, unhappily sinking into the chair infront of Ernie's typewriter, setting it up with new paper.
"So petty, bringing up old things like that."
But she couldn't help but feel indebted and obliged to rewrite his short story because he was right, Agnes had done more than enough for her and she'd had little way to repay back such kindness.
"What would your female admirers think of you if they find out your stories are actually ghost written by a woman eh?" She teased, trying to get another rise out of Ernie because it was just too easy to piss him off.
Tommy cleared his throat, to let himself be known again, as if Edie had forgotten him-she hadn't, or rather didn't mean to.
Embarrassed she pulled down her cap and began to push the keys on the typewriter.
"Don't mind me, i'm just going to sit here and finish this."
Leaving her to type, Tommy and Ernie moved to the other side of the room to continue talking business, probably to do with Ernie's secret role in the Peaky Blinders organisation.
Edie, wasn't stupid, and it hadn't took her long to realise that the secrets were hidden in the short stories Ernie wrote for the paper, they were stories with some kind of hidden message that gave vital information to those who knew what to look for.
Edie had to admit, that it was something she was still working on trying to decipher.
Her fingers stilled, bringing the typewriter's writings to a stop, as she focused on Tommy Shelby showing her brother how to load up a gun.
She hopped up from the chair, and moved closer to observe, elbows resting on the tables and chin propped up by her hands.
Tommy slid a gun and rounds over to Ernie, but Edie was quick, darting out a hand to grab the weaponry.
She smiled, despite knowing the look Tommy would be giving her was not a pleasant one, nimble fingers working as she had previously watched, whilst Ernie kept his eyes on his pocket watch.
"20 seconds Tommy."
He said, eyebrows raised impressively when Edie placed the reloaded gun back down on the table with a beaming smile.
"Imagine what she'd be like when she aims and pulls a trigger. You could make a good sniper out of her i'm telling ya." He left the two, after a hardened glare from Tommy, heading into another room in the house. Edie turned to the Shelby with hopeful eyes.
He considered her for a moment, blue eyes looking into brown ones which didn't once waver.
His eyes left her and he said nothing, but the silence was more than words enough. He'd let her hold a gun just now, but he wasn't about to let her use one anytime soon.
"You know what this typewriter and this gun have in common Thomas Shelby?"
She asked him and he raised an eyebrow archly in question.
"What?"
"Their names. They say this gun when fired has the same sound as a typewriter, so its nickname is a Chicago typewriter."
She watched him for a response, but couldn't quite tell if he was impressed or not by her knowledge.
"And?" He asked, causing her to deflate a little.
She pouted childishly, though quickly resolved her features into one more blase and mature.
He was always calling her kid, more times than the amount of pages in all of Ernie's novels put together; and she was always trying her best to show it was a nickname unbecoming of her.
"And," She proceeded.
"I've mastered one kind of typewriter, isn't it about time I try my hand at another?"
Silence and stillness always indicated when Edie has said something disagreeable. More often than not it was involving her want to use weaponry.
"You don't need a weapon Edie." Is what he would say, "The peaky blinders will protect you."
But Edie had decided to herself that she no longer wanted their protection, she would not be a burden, she would protect herself and prove herself useful to them. Besides, it wasn't protection that was the main goal, she wanted to avenge her father, avenge her brothers and blow the brains out of the men that had shot them dead.
Eventually Tommy spoke, stepping close to her and staring her down, burrowing right through her eyes into her soul.
"You really think you can kill a man Edie?"
She wanted to say it couldn't be that hard, but bit her tongue knowing that such a response would be exactly what he would call naive.
From the way he was looking at her, Edie knew that he was well aware of her goal, and that the question inside of his question was really one asking if she could handle the consequences of killing.
Edie responded with a sharp nod.
"I know I could."
Tommy sighed as if she had said a wrong answer, smoke steadily clouding the room as he struck a light and puffed on the cigarette between his lips.
"Let it go would ya Edie."
Now she could help but get angry, hand striking the table in time with her foot as she stomped like a petulant child who had their toy taken away by their mother.
"Why should I?"
"Because the moment you pull the trigger on a bloody gun is a moment you cant escape from, and I made your father a promise that his business would be buried with him. That's why you're going to London."
Edie snorted in disagreement, arms folding over her chest as she shook her head.
"I thought we were going to London because you had business Tommy?"
"Ernie's going because I have business, and you're going because Ernie's going."
Her lips parted to retort, but she was silenced by a look from Tommy as he lit another cigarette.
"Do you remember what you said to Ada that time when she asked you what you'd do when you'd no longer 'ave to hide?"
Her brows furrowed as she wondered what he was getting at, but she sifted through her thought's until she recalled the specific day he had mentioned.
"I said I hadn't give it much thought."
Tommy nodded, urging her along.
"Then what?"
She paused for a moment to recollect, inhaling deeply before letting out a huff of breath,
"Then Ada told me to think about it and I said i'd go to parties, make friends, sing, dance, wear a pretty dress."
After saying it aloud, she absorbed all the information and realised that this was Tommy's roundabout way of letting her go, a tightness formed in her chest at the realisation, and though she had at first been eager and excited over London, she was now reluctant.
"That was a childish dream." She said quietly, because part of her wanted to admit that it was a dream a small fraction of her being clung to.
"You know what I really want." She said, this time firmer as she eyed the gun.
He shook his head.
"Revolving your life around revenge is no way to fucking live Edie."
Words Polly had told her when she had first found Edie, a sobbing mousy girl mourning the loss of her family, suddenly sprung to mind.
"Don't cry, there is no need to be sad because you are the only one that survived. You must live. Live because your father and your brothers would have wanted that."
She looked up at Tommy, refusing to change her stance.
"I can't live, until the ones who killed my family are all dead."