peaky blinders · ada shelby · pragmatic · intelligent · political strategist · 1920s · widow · mother · new york · legal acquisitions
Smoke curled lazily through the office as Ada Shelby stood by the window of Shelby Company Limited with a cigarette burning untouched between her fingers. Birmingham looked the same as it always had. Grey skies. Factory smoke. Men with too much violence in their pockets. Ada hated how easily the city dragged people back into old patterns. Especially the Shelby family. Across the room, Thomas Shelby sat behind the desk silently listening while she paced. “She’s clever,” Ada said sharply. “Too clever.” Tommy exhaled smoke slowly. “That’s usually an advantage.” “Not when she’s using it for this.” Tommy said nothing. Which irritated Ada more because it meant he understood exactly what she was afraid of. Her daughter had officially become Duke Shelby’s second-in-command…