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" Fragrance, Teeth and Names "

          BETWEEN TWO HILLS, the market which had entered Jackie's attention by a means she wished not disclose with Thomas, hid itself from the eye of casual travellers on the country roads. Experience told him that the merchants with stands in this improvised market were all running from lawful means of selling and if a cop was to stumble upon this place, none of them would have even a fake document to attest their right to be there, selling what they were selling. And their selling range was quite impressive, albeit restricted to arguably small trinkets per usual; color was surrounding them on a gentle walk through the stands.

Nevertheless, this illegally run market had clients of all sorts, not floking the lines between the stands, but neither leaving the place to a concerning desolation. A little further up the hill to the market's end, a single cabin — nothing but a little shed — attested that there had been chicken on sell too, at some point.

While Tommy's attention was drawn to staring into the distance, Jackie found it particularly easy to slip her arm from holding onto his. Before he could even protest the separation, a loud act of care that she doubted he would have ever allowed to pass even his most reasonable stoicism, she was well off at the stand to the right, trying on a hat from the many on sale. She looked at herself through the small round mirror the stand installed and only once she caught sight of Tommy's tie, a sign that he decided to follow her to her puzzling interest, she turned around.

"It looks exactly like yours," Jackie exaggerated her praise of the hat she was wearing, now eyeing the one on top of Tommy's head. Her joyous method of showing off the way that hat looked on her was a downright adorable pampering of her hands upon the dark auburn curls of hair tamed by a rigid comb into an illusion of much shorter hair. "Don't you agree?"

Spellbound between figuring out what Jackie's plan was when choosing to bring him along and trying to form a worthy answer that will not jeopardise a frankly good state for their business relationship for the sake of a twist in his heart to her casual beauty, Tommy failed to reply with more than just an indistinguishable hum. To his surprise however, Jackie only shrugged, putting the hat back on the merchant's stand and promptly moving on to the next one, across the path and a little further down.

She found herself rather busy smelling the fragrances of the perfumes sold there, applying a little of their oily consistency on different parts of wrist and hand — she had unbuttoned her left sleeve and pulled her up above her elbow for the sake of inspecting the perfumes. But even drowning herself in dreams of scent enjoyed only with her eyes closed, she felt when Thomas approached behind her and met him with the offer of holding out her wrist for him.

"Do you like this one?" She had to employ every strand of self control within herself not to look away from the colorful bottles on the stand beneath her eyes just to feed her desire of watching Thomas Shelby draw himself nearer to such a sensitive patch of her skin. Much to her despair, though he did not touch her in any way whatsoever, feeling his breath on her wrist faltered her heart in ways she did not expect to be possible.

Inhaling generously from the fragrance, he was welcomed by a sweet and delicate scent, reassembling a spring bouquet, like those young lads stole from the richest porches. "It's alright," Tommy approved. "Do you want it?"

Jackie concealed the sudden dryness of her lips behind a cordial smile she backed up with lowering her hand and turning towards the merchant. "How much for this perfume bottle, good sir?"

"Two pounds, m'lady."

Whilst opening her own purse, Jackie noticed, from the corner of her eyes, Thomas pocketing himself as well. She hurried as discreetly as possible, without losing neither her mind, nor her act's composure, to give the merchant a single paper bill.

"M'lady," the merchant squinted alarmed at the bill he was given while Jackie calmly retrieved her acquired perfume bottle from the bunch on the table. "This ain't a real bill."

"You're holding ten American dollars in your hand, good sir," Jackie declared. "That is in fact far more than your little perfume bottle is worth, but for your own peace of mind, why don't you go confirm it with the supervisor of this market? Ask him whether or not those are real American dollars. I'll be walking around some more with my fine companion and should that price not be sufficient, you can come find us. Run along now."

"I know what you're doing," Tommy leant over to whisper to Jackie once the merchant followed her directions. "I know what this is," he shook his head. Though in disapproval of the reasoning he thought he discovered for that day to even exist, he did not fall behind when Jackie resumed their slow and casual walk through the improvised market. "A good old fashion power display."

"You're wrong," Jackie shrugged, caring too little now that her plan was on the right track whether or not Tommy knew about it too. "I wasn't exactly planning on expanding my business to England at the beginning of the month started, you see. It wasn't in prospect, but rather a more spontaneous choice's consequence. I heard word that a man who owed me a great lot of money sought refuge from his debts here, so I adjusted my business dealings accordingly such that the trip is not entirely an honorable vendetta expanse, but a profitable journey too." She confided in him quietly, walking side by side. "The owner of this market, if he really is the man I am after, is a German beast twice my size. Guenther Ehmann."

After stealing a glance to the cold profile of Mr. Shelby, Jackie sighed, "You must think of me as truly wretched for accepting German buyers, but their country is in decline, economically speaking. Your average German is desperate in times like this for anything and everything. It's dreadful business walking on their land, yes, but every single product triples its value the second I bring it over there."

"I'm not judging you for good business decisions, Miss Alloways."

"Just call me Jackie," she gestured dismissively with her free hand. "It's getting tiresome to keep up the expectations of high class while I am actively disclosing so much to you. Per se, my brother is indeed busy today, if you still believe this to be a farce at the end of which I teach you a lesson on why not to cross me. I do not work like that, nor do I consider you in need of any manner lessons when it comes to professionalism, maybe only some regarding swooning women. I digress," she hurried to close the subject she grazed before hearing Thomas have any comment on it too, "you are here because there is simply no one else in Birmingham who I knew personally to have a protective aura to themselves. Between going alone in enemy territory and going accompanied by a former brave soldiers, I will always choose the latter. Though rest assured, I do not expect you to defend me in any way."

"It is my moral obligation that I do so anyhow," Thomas paused, thinking his position over, then finally sighing out her name, "Jacqueline." Had it been anyone else coercing him into a conflict that was not his own as a 'guard dog' of all roles, his fury would have been undeniable and swift, but his lack of agitation gave Tommy more of a reason to believe his physical desires ran deeper than the surface when it came to her.

"Just Jackie, please," she giggled. "You make me sound far more important than I actually am."

"Scheisse!" A thick german accent from ahead made the hair on the back of Tommy's neck stand upright. His whole body tensed and the gloves covering his hands creaked their lether as bare palms morphed into the fists of a man whose breath rarified and eyes focused like the sight of a predator. Something animalistic in him quietly growled at sight of the man who was so obviously the German "beast" Jackie told him about. Her description had in fact not done justice to the massive stature of man; Tommy, with far less class than Jackie on this matter, would describe him as reassembling a wild boar.

"Mr. Ehmann?" Jackie played the fool with her exclamation, stepping ahead uncertain, even tilting her head to sell the point that she hadn't planned this meeting. "My God, it is you Mr. Ehmann!" She laughed. "How very small this world truly is, ain't that right? You do remember me, don't you?"

"Yes, correct," Guenther gulped, removing his hat and hugging it to his chest. "I mean, I do. I do remember you."

"I take you are the owner of this market," Jackie noted the merchant of the perfume stand besides Guenther. "Is my bill alright?"

"What bill, Miss Alloways?"

His puzzlement was her relief.

"It's Mrs. Shelby now," Thomas cut in coldly, walking confidently those few couple of steps Jackie took alone with uncertainty. There was no need to even look at her for the game tactic to be understood — he offered her a credible excuse to be in England without alarming her enemy that she's seeking revenge. Jackie took Tommy's arm and hugged closer to his side.

"Shelby...," Guenther repeated almost breathlessly, his face paling. "Apologies then."

"It was about time I stopped living with my brothers," Jackie joked, making usage of a laughter Thomas was relieved to identify as clearly false — it meant any chuckle and joy he's had the pleasure of hearing from her since the races was real. Or as real as anything could get for a woman whose wants and goals he hadn't yet the assurance he puzzled well enough.

"How are they these days?" Guenther asked, a notch too obvious in his hurry towards reassuring himself that they ain't nowhere in sight. "Actually... would you care for some tea?"

"We would love to," Jackie agreed instantly, only to sweeten her voice as it trailed off to the man by her side. "Right...," she hesitated, catching Tommy's line of sight intersect with her own as he looked down, expectedly. "... husband?"

"Right," Tommy replied with a guttural sound, the best he could while reaping the knee-weakening benefits of what he sow by his own free will, albeit influenced by an equally troubling desire to be of service to Jackie — to have something she needs had took a dangerous turn towards remaining needed. He calmed himself by a fugitive trail of though: any man would be lucky to have her and there was nothing out of the ordinary with this attraction. The pipeline of that thought sent him plummeting to just how many men must see her in the same light — Kimber, even his own brother Arthur couldn't deny after meeting Jackie for the first time that she was a 'fine woman', albeit quick and witty, too much so for his own long-term taste. But Arthur was one man and Tommy could put his hand through the fire that there were plenty others to look at Jackie, to hear her speak, and feel the appeal of so much more than a single night.

Jackie filled Guenther's head with all sorts of lies that lured him to lower his guard more and more, such that, by the time they were seated in his little caravan home, on a small couch that left no room for pretenses of personal space between them, he was foolishly inclined to believe fully that Jackie found love in England and abandoned both her brothers and their business. Her suave demeanour convinced the the German beast of a man of the impossible to the point that he felt entirely safe being in that small home alone with them both, turning his back on them and preparing tea.

"I do love what you have done with all you haven't paid for," Jackie serenly stated, breaking the façade of peace with a smile on her face. "Don't," she sighed, seeing the man freeze. "Don't think about grabbing anything from the kitchen there. I have a pistol pointed at your back and my hands don't shake." After Guenther turned around, pushing on the boundaries of her patience with his slowness, Jackie continued, "I only want to talk. Sit."

Her nod led Guenther to walk towards the frail chair in front of the couch. Catching him glance towards the door as he passed it, Jackie chuckled, "If you scream, no one will come. I made sure of it."

The ten dollar bill, Tommy's mind sparked the thought and he had to fight the urge to smile.

"Miss... Mrs...," Guenther stumbled over his words.

"Genuinely, I don't care what buyers come and go, which cowards pull out of deals before they are shipped and which goods don't get sold," Jackie said. "But you see, your good were delivered. Your payment never came through. Have you ever had to beg a filthy Russian for forgiveness, Mr. Ehmann?"

"Miss Alloways—"

"You haven't," she accentuated over his pitiful attempt to form words. "Those bastards wanted to do awful things to me for losing their goods and paying them not nearly as much as I had made them hope I will. I paid them back their goods' worth from my own money, and your little trick set me back an entire month."

"Whatever you need!" Guenther suddenly exclaimed.

"Excuse me?"

"Whatever you need, Miss Alloways," he pointed to the side erratically, gesture that made Tommy flinch his trigger finger on the pistol he had pulled out of his coat at the same time with Jackie, while the German had his back turned at them. "It's yours."

"Your trinkets out there?" Jackie tried not to laugh.

"I ran from Germany, Miss," Guenther's tone begged. "Made myself a life here. An honest..."

Jackie stood up, a shout on her parted lips, "Do not lie to my face!" Her pistol remained steady pointed at Guenther even as she leant forward and even after she adjusted her posture again while remaining standing. "You're a thief," Jackie calmed her voice back down to a professional tone. "That's what you are Mr. Ehmann. A thief. You stole from me, left the country you stole from, and now you're here to steal from all these homes and make a market with all that you have stolen to suck on the wealth of others. It ain't a honest life you live. It never was and it never will be."

She let the silence carry her sigh and lowered her pistol to the side, to redirect his attention to his market outside, "Everything you sell in this market right now would cover only a quarter of your debt to me." After allowing that information to sink in for a moment, pale Guenther's face as he locked eyes with Tommy and his pistol, Jackie continued, "But I'm feeling charitable today, so I'll take it. Along with your tooth."

"My...," Guenther blinker stunned up at the woman.

"Don't worry, I was a nurse before all this," Jackie offered him a smile filled with poison. "Just open your mouth and keep still, Mr. Ehmann. Once I have your tooth and the life you've made here through the lies, we'll be even."

Though with great fearful hesitation, Mr. Ehmann slowly opened his mouth. It was then, ready to carve out Guenther's front gold tooth, that Jackie addressed Tommy, "This won't be pleasant."

"I've seen worse," Tommy reassured her. He was hardly the squeamish type. Too many horrors had been glanced upon by his eyes for him to consider something as small as this appaling. If anything, watching Jackie Alloways become an attribute of power right before his eyes, was what he imagined was a religious revelation enough to drive wars into being and send men into a life of dedication.

Jackie might have grown tired of blood and screeching wails of pain, but routine has only numbed her further. Guenther's screams did not phase her. The blood on her hands was customary.

She couldn't look Tommy in the eyes even if she wanted once she was done, but wordlessly, without that crucial glance impossible to spare while her attention was glued to wrapping the gold tooth in a napkin and dropping it in an envelope, Jackie knew she had to leave Tommy alone with that German man for a moment. She walked out without a heavy heart, but in fact unburdening herself of a worry through a sigh.

Outside, the marketplace was ablaze and before the little wheeled home of Guenther, the perfume merchant waited for her with a box of matches. Jackie glanced down, though sight wasn't needed to know the place had been drenched in gasoline by the merchant. She dropped the envelope in her purse and took the money she promised him in the message she left him written on the ten dollars bill. Along with the money, she gave him his parfume bottle back.

"For your wife," she instructed, taking the box of matches from him.

A gunshot beamed from the wheeled home she left behind. The merchant flinched away but Jackie barely held back her smile, to bluntly send the man off.

That smile wasn't for a commoner like him. It was meant for someone else, whose steps she heard behind herself, approaching. She turned around and only then, seeing some emotions flash across Tommy's features did she allow herself a true smile. "Alright," she murmured, "maybe there was a bit of a power demonstration here today too."

She lit the match once he was next to her and tossed it on the gasoline surrounding the home of a dead, toothless Guenther Ehmann left behind.

"Did you wish to impress me or scare me with it?" He inquired. Surrounded by flames, they stood.

"A bit of both," Jackie admitted. "Though I had no real hopes for the latter, Mr. Shelby."

"Call me Tommy, like you did in front of my family," he hurried a demand, looking away from her and towards the auburn chaos surrounding them. "I liked how you said it," he justified his ask.

"I wanted to be more than a name for you, Tommy. Hence, showing you who I really am," Jackie sighed. "But I did mean what I said before. I needed you here." After a short pause, she added softly, "Thank you."

The heavens above answered with a loud thunder drowning sound away just as Thomas readied himself to say something too. And after the sky above — far darker since they entered their meeting with Ehmann and plunged into an utter menace now twirling threats — cracked, rain poured, drowning the curse from Jackie's lips parted as she yelped in fright and annoyance.

AUTHOR'S NOTE —    First chapter that happened to be a little longer than usual 😅 oopsie