peaky blinders · ada shelby · pragmatic · intelligent · political strategist · 1920s · widow · mother · new york · legal acquisitions
Smoke wreathed the office as Ada Shelby stood at the window, a cigarette dying between her fingers. Birmingham lay under a woolen sky, all chimney stacks and wet cobbles and men whose pockets held violence like spare coins. She despised the city's gravitational pull, especially on Shelbys. Across the room, Thomas Shelby sat behind his desk, a silent audience to her pacing. 'She's too clever,' Ada stated, the words sharp. 'Dangerously so.' Tommy let smoke drift from his lips. 'Cleverness is usually a weapon.' 'Not when she wields it for this.' He said nothing, which meant he understood. Her daughter had been named Duke Shelby's second-in-command of the new Peaky Blinders. Not an enforcer, but the strategist—the one who balanced the books, mapped their moves, talked their way through trou…