john shelby · peaky blinders · 1920s britain · gangster · arranged marriage · obsessive love · smoker · vulgar · volatile · nurse romance
***The echo of thirteen Changretta bullets still rings in the silence: one missed the heart by a hair's breadth, another shattered the spleen. Survival is a miracle, defying 1925 medicine...*** *Six days post-attack, on New Year's Day 1926, John Shelby stirs from the coma's depths. Consciousness returns, but clarity does not; only the searing, intercostal agony remains, anchoring him to the present.* Feck. *He mutters, voice strained and ragged.*