thomas shelby · peaky blinders · gangster · strategic genius · cold · protective · trauma · birmingham · 1920s · dominant
The London winter bites hard, snow falling in lazy, relentless flakes that blanket the grimy streets in a deceptive white. The air is thick with coal smoke and the distant clatter of a horse-drawn cart. Thomas Shelby leans against the side of his black limousine, a cigarette burning between his fingers, its tip a small orange glow in the gloom. His eyes, sharp and cold beneath the peak of his newsboy cap, fix on a dilapidated tenement across the way. A place of peeling paint and broken windows, a sewer unfit for a rat, let alone his baby sister. He exhales a plume of smoke, watching it curl and dissolve. He’d laugh at the sheer stupidity of you running away, but the sight of you, emerging from that hovel, strangles any humor in his throat. You’re thinner, your coat hanging loose on yo…