CHAPTER 17

GUNS AND ROSES

❝ It is only in love and murder that we still remain sincere. ❞

Rose was a firm believer that after a bad night, a worse morning always follows, a theory that was confirmed when she opened the door to La Vie en Rose and bumped straight into Arwen. Their foreheads collided brusquely; Rose's ankle twisted while Arwen's cup of coffee crashed onto the ground. Naturally, they cursed at the same time.

"Fuck, Rose, sorry, I didn't see ya there!" Arwen said, scratching her head and looking over at her with glassy eyes. "You alright?"

"Yes." The sun was barely above the skyline and Rose was already lying; though after years of pretending, it didn't feel like a lie anymore. "You?"

"Just a bit hangover, but what else is new? By the way, how's Thomas? I heard he took quite the beating yesterday."

Rose's eyebrows came together over her nose. "How do you know that?"

"Oh, somebody mentioned it last night, I think. Kaya or Nicolas, I'm not sure, I was too drunk to remember it. Anyway, is he alright? Can't let anything happen to that pretty face of his, can we?"

"He's alright." Rose nodded, trying to see into the café behind Arwen. It was crammed with the usual matinal buzz, but not even the scent of salted croissants and sugared palmiers eased the sinking feeling that sat in her stomach. "Everything good in there?"

"Oh yeah. Apart from Raphael not being here and thus, me not getting any free meals. Where the hell is he anyway?"

"He's gone for some weeks, went on a trip with Andrea." It was a measure Rose had taken to get them away from the city. If the S Thomas had seen stood for Sauret, hell would rain upon London rather quickly.

"And didn't invite me? I'm offended." Arwen smiled, the faint freckles on her face reflecting the sun. But her next words were the clouds that formed the storm. "Oh, there are some new clients as well, and boy, are they handsome! Not as much as your Thomas, but..."

Her voice faded out behind Rose, who stepped between the cracked pieces of the cup and into the café. Several men gathered around the bar, loud voices and pints of beer in hand, but one stood out, like a gold penny among cents. His back was perfectly straight and enveloped in a costly, undeniably French suit; the back of a man who had never had to bow to anything or anyone.

Rose stopped. Most people had the past behind them, but she had hers right in front of her. Smiling to her friends as if to choose which one to slay first.

She hurried her step. Her heart pounded in her ears as she made her way through the crowd. Time seemed to move impossibly slow, to the point where it didn't seem to be moving at all. Alfie's words from the night before swirled inside her head, and she wished she could just take out her gun and fire.

But then the Kissers threw their heads back in laughter at something he said, and it felt like she was the one to take the bullet after all.

"Rose!" Evelyn said from behind the counter. She had one of those smiles that light up the eyes, the kind only the generation after the war still managed to have. If only she knew. If only she knew how close to the war she now was. "Have you met these gentlemen yet?"

Rose froze; the light in the café became darker, the walls narrower. When he turned around, she felt like someone had suddenly poured all of the Antarctic Ocean down on her. Their stares clashed, and the impact was more forceful than her clash with Arwen.

She had never seen this man in her life. And she would never again see the man that had once been her life.

Then he smiled and stretched out a hand for her to take.

"No, I don't believe we have." The face in her memories vanished against his unfamiliar voice; there wasn't a single trace of Scotland in it. His eyes shone abruptly, unapologetically, the kind of eyes that forced a person to look away. Nothing like the subtle, veiled eyes Rose had made a home in all those years ago. His skin was pale, brown hair wavy and kempt. Elegant, of course. Always the worst. "But it's a pleasure to finally do so, miss Salvage. Lovely place you've got here."

Rose took his hand in hers, stomach churning as if she had needles pricking her guts. Her fingers brushed against his rings, and the S engraved on one of them pierced a hole through her heart. It made everything more real. What once had been dreams would only ever return to her in nightmares.

This man could have the same dark hair and blue eyes, but he was nothing like the man who haunted her nights. Nothing. No one would ever be like him.

"Thank you," Rose said, her tone curt. She passed her eyes over his men; they all had their collars up, and the outline of a lion tattoo snuck out on the neck of one of them. "I'd like to keep it that way. I don't think red would match the décor, wouldn't you agree?"

By the counter, Kaya and Angeline narrowed their eyes. Evelyn and Élodie frowned in confusion. The man chuckled. He wasn't the tallest man in the room, but he still seemed above everyone else. Rose tried to see behind his eyes, but it was like trying to find the sun in the night sky.

"I don't know." He took a long sip of his drink before looking back at her. It was absinthe. Her absinthe. The label on the bottle was invented for the same reason he was there. "Sometimes change is needed. I heard things have been hard here, after the war."

"Unfortunately, the only thing that's not hard after the war is men's dicks," Evelyn said, causing a wave of laughter to ripple across almost everyone's mouth. But not hers, and not his. Their mouths kept firmly shut as the eyes did the talking.

He couldn't have looked at her more differently than the man on his ring had.

"That's because ye 'aven't seen ours, love." The man with the lion on his neck had a harder time tucking his accent way. He looked scruffy next to the polished man across Rose, light brown curls falling to his forehead as a five o'clock shadow masked a razor-sharp jawline. Then he pointed towards Rose, and the veil in his eyes fell. Rose saw them for what they were; uncontrollable and rabid. "Just ask yer friend thare, she would ken. Bet ye never find a dick as braw as his again, did ye?"

Rose almost took a step back. The elegant man in front of her fiddled with his shirt cuffs. His men shuffled from one foot to another, like dogs waiting for an order. Kaya set the glass down and moved to Rose's side, giving a comforting squeeze to her shoulder that anchored her back to life. But it was Angeline who spoke.

"I'm usually one for poison, you know?" She said, circling the rim of her glass slowly. "Poisonous words and snaky eyes. But I do not like it when it's directed to someone I love. So maybe you should grab your hard dicks and get the hell out of here. Or they won't stay hard for very long."

Kaya nodded in agreement. The color drained from Evelyn's cheeks as she realized the men in front of her were no gentlemen at all. Some of them laughed, dismissing the threat. But Rose's mind was miles away, trying to decipher who was the man in front of her, and what bridge connected him to her past. A bridge she needed to burn before he could cross it.

"Gentlemen, please, this a respectful place, let's keep it respectful. Alright?" Élodie jumped from her stool, looking at the bearded man with that same penchant for peace Rose used to have before the war. But her sense of diplomacy wouldn't work with a clan that only thrived in chaos. "Alright?"

The man with the tattoo flickered his eyes to her for just a second before directing them back to Angeline. Rose's mouth went dry. She could practically see her sister's name moving to the top of his hit list. The closest thing to a mad dog was a man with a bruised ego.

"Aye," he ended up saying, sipping the rest of his whiskey before cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Fierce sister ye got there," the leader said, voice stoic as he spun the ring with the S. Everyone stared at him, but he only stared at Rose. "I had a fierce brother as well. But then one day he met a lass and never came back." He leaned forward, just slightly, long, predatory smile hanging on his eyes. "Tell me. What colors are yer walls, now that ye don't have his red to paint them?"

The world fell at her feet. Someone gasped. She tried to speak over the lump in her throat, but it was like trying to find the light switch in the dark.

"Come on, lads." The man turned around, back still perfectly straight. "Let's find us a place with better women and better booze."

His men cheered. Kaya made a motion to go after him, but Rose clutched at her arm. Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"Oh, and Rose?" Her name on his tongue left thorns on hers. "I left you something in your car. Do tell me afterwards if you liked it."

He walked away and the clan followed, moving through the crowd like snakes amongst the grass, their king leading the way. Before stepping onto the street, the bearded man snatched a bottle and smashed it against a wall, startling the clients.

Angeline grabbed her sister's hand, something she didn't do since they were little. "Rose, are they...?"

"Call the gang." Rose cut. "All of them. We'll meet in the factory. Don't do anything else until then."

She took a step forward, not going very far with Kaya's steel grip on her arm.

"You're even crazier than I think if you think I will let you go out there alone."

"You have to," Rose said. "There's no one I trust more to have Angeline's back, now that she has a target on it."

Kaya's jaw stiffened, her shoulders squaring. When she spoke, she had the entirety of Birmingham in her voice. "I'm not one of your soldiers, Rose, you can't tell me what I fucking can or can't do."

Rose put her hand around Kaya's. "You're right, you're not a soldier. If I'm not back in an hour, you're the leader."

With her heart on her mouth, she freed herself from Kaya's grip and rushed to the door. Her car was parked nearby, and the only thing she could think of as she made her way to it was Thomas telling her how Finn almost died with a bomb that was meant for him. But there was no bomb in her car. Instead a burnt rose lay on the passenger's seat, the scorched petals scattered around a cinema ticket.

Her heart went from her mouth to the ground, shattering in a million pieces. Renée and Audrey had gone to the movies.

"Merde, merde, merde," Rose muttered, rolling the window down before snatching the ticket and running away. The cinema was only a short walk from the café, and she bumped into Londoners all the way there, receiving a shower of curses in return.

"The film started an hour ago," the employee said at the entrance, eyeing her suspiciously. Two men smoked by the theater's door, treading on the ashes with polished shoes.

"I only like to watch the endings."

"Hope it's a happy one," the man said before letting her in. The theater was dark except for the screen; it was a comedy, and Rose walked in right in a moment of laughter. In the back row, sitting between the leader and the mad dog, Audrey laughed the most.

Her youngest sister in the most dangerous place in the world. The film on the screen shifted from comedy to horror, and Rose dashed through the chairs, hitting some knees on the way. The leader raised his head first, sharp blue eyes blinding her. One corner of his lips curled up, and the gun weighted on her purse like an anvil.

She was about to grab it when the bearded man on the other side of Audrey discreetly lifted his pistol.

"Rose!" Audrey said. Her bright smile couldn't be further from the gun aimed at her. If violence had an opposite, it was her. "What are you doing here?"

"Where's Renée?" Rose asked. Audrey frowned upon the tension in her voice. She always lived in the clouds more than on Earth, and Rose hated always having to be the one to bring her back down.

"She left earlier, I think she might be sick. But what are you—"

"You need to leave as well."

"But—" Audrey looked between the men before glancing at Rose. Creases arose around the edges of her eyes, but she sighed and got up. "Alright. Are you coming?"

Rose's hand hurt from how tightly she was grasping her purse. She couldn't take her eyes from that finger, soaring just above the trigger.

"Not yet."

"Then I'm staying," Audrey replied. Behind her, the Scot tipped the gun sideways, like a piece of wood floating in the middle of a storm. A storm that had Audrey right in its eye.

"No, you're not." Rose gripped her arm; Audrey opened her mouth to protest, but the knife Rose slipped into her hand quieted her down. Their stares locked; finally, Audrey nodded and walked on, risking a peek at Rose before exiting the theater.

Rose only looked back at the men when her last curl of hair disappeared.

"Have a seat, Rose," the leader said. Rose gulped. She should turn around and run, but she doubted she would go very far before they shot her in the back. The Saurets tended to do that. So she snuck her hand inside the purse instead. "Drop that gun. Look around."

Rose did. Most people were asleep, oblivious to the Saurets scattered throughout the room, and the ones near the exits.

"The men outside are not just smoking, ye know. In fact they might be holding yer sister's pretty face at this very moment. So if I were you, I'd sit."

Her teeth clenched so hard they could have broken. With her heart screaming louder than the questions in her mind, she slumped onto the chair between them.

"What do you want?" She asked between gritted teeth. The man with the tattoo placed his elbow on the armchair, pressing the gun against her stomach. Her heartbeat was at the end of the barrel. Maybe this is where she would die. At a cinema theater with a comedy rolling down and the audience laughing at other people's miseries. It was too ironic, even for her.

"Chaos, love," the leader said. "And your heart on a silver platter."

"You're not the first one who's wanted that." Her fingers wrapped around the cold metal of the gun, and a small part of Rose felt at home.

"Looking for this?" He asked, palm opening to reveal a bunch of bullets. They were hers, and now they all had an S carved on them. "Ye should hide yer things better if ye don't want people to find them. I bet ye have a cyanide pill somewhere in yer mouth, aye?" He took his hand to her face, rings scraping her jaw so delicately Rose almost didn't feel it. "Should I kiss ye to see?"

"Why don't you try?" Rose spat. The Scot sniggered, hand closing around the bullets as he dropped them back to his pocket.

"Luckily for ye, I'd rather drink me own piss than kissing ye."

Rose clicked her tongue, gesturing around the room. "Your men too?"

"They're well warned. They know better than to kiss any woman 'ere. We all prefer Scottish birds anyway. Not all of us are as foolish as Steaphan."

Rose closed her eyes. It was like a plane had crashed onto her mind; there was no safe place to land amongst her thoughts. His name forged thunder in her veins. The color of his eyes was still printed behind her eyelids. There was a place in her heart that would only ever be his. Steaphan was her beginning and her end. And she didn't know how to live stuck in the middle.

She leaned back on the chair, trying to regain some sense of control. Her eyes moved to the exit, and Tavish's followed.

"Ah wouldn't try anything, if ah were ye. Callan there has a very light finger. That bartender in Small Heath? He dared to ask if we wanted Irish instead of Scotch. Believe me, if that was enough for his finger, any breath of yours is too."

"Tavish is right," Callan said from her other side. His voice crooned in her ear, the gun moving up her chest. "Ah've been itching to put a bullet between yer eyes for years now."

"So you're Saurets." Rose turned her head to Tavish. "He never mentioned a brother."

Callan snorted. Someone on the front row turned around to shush him, but the stare he gave them was enough to silence them for the rest of the movie.

"Did he mention a gang? Being the leader of it?"

"No. I found that out on my own, when he could no longer mention anything at all."

"But ye didn't find out about me, did ye?" Tavish asked, cynical smile twisting his handsome features. "I made sure ye wouldn't. Ye see, ah'd be surprised if Steaphan had given me any thought back then. We weren't in the best of terms at the time, given he came to London and I went to jayle. Some of us have dreams to follow. Others have nightmares to repent for."

"So that's why you only came now. After three years."

"Aye. Just got me first taste of freedom in years. So ye see, I had all this time to think and scheme. On how to avenge me brother. And take down his fucking murderer."

Rose felt as if her heart had come loose from her rib cage. Tavish was whispering, but every word sounded like a cannon ball to her ears. Sweat slid down the back of her neck, ran down her spine. She knew what she was, but it hurt a thousand times more when it came from someone else's lips and not from her own head.

"Do you know what Tavish means? Twin. A fitting name, as he was not just me brother, he was my twin. Fraternal, but still. We were in there at the same time." Tavish pulled his collar down; the S on his collarbone glowed like a treasure in a cave. "Tell me, what did he tell you the S meant?"

"He didn't. He told me he got it in the war."

"If that's what he wants to call home. Ye see, the S on the skins of me comrades, it simply means Steaphan, Sauret or Scotland. But for me it means Salvage too. And most of all, it means slaughter."

Callan kept tapping his foot on the floor. The gun against her chest was making it hard for her to breathe.

"Ye have to forgive Callan, Steaphan was his favorite cousin. And he was the leader of the gang. When he died, there was a vacuum of power that needed to be filled, so I stepped in, started managing the gang from within the prison walls. I've had all this time to plan my revenge against you, Rose. There isn't one thought of yours I haven't already thought of, one move I haven't already predicted, one secret I haven't already guessed."

His fingers returned to her chin, brushing against her cheeks.

"You're a rose, no? Well I'm the gardener. And I won't rest until all your petals are withering beneath my shoes."

Her hand tightened around the gun. Even useless it gave her the only sort of comfort she could get at that moment. "How did you find out it was me? I covered every single track."

"Maybe. But grieving brothers go where others don't. Do you know what it's like to hear that your twin killed himself with cyanide? Something in it didn't make fucking sense, so I started digging. That's when I heard about a gang who killed their victims through a kiss. Ye 'ave eyes everywhere, right? I 'ave eyes in the shadows. Had them for years now."

Rose felt it; the knife someone had stabbed on her back just so Tavish could wield it and twist it now.

"So ye see, I have an office at me house in Scotland just for you. Years and years of incriminating evidence that links you and your little French Kissers to dozens of murders, including cyanide poisonings that have been declared as accidents or suicides. As I'm sure you understand, I will release the evidence to the press and the Scotland Yard if ye make any move against me or me men. And before ye think I'm bluffing..."

He took a briefcase from under his seat and opened it on his lap. Her eyes widened. It was all there. Cyanide transactions, business deals, documents with the location of crime scenes, safe houses and vaults, maps with burial places signaled, even photographs. Rose recognized Nicolas and Christopher getting rid of bodies in several of them.

"Naturally, these are copies. And just a small sample of what I have back home."

Her quivering fingers let go of the gun. Her throat tightened in a knot she wouldn't be able to undo. Even her hands were sweaty now.

"No, this isn't..."

"But it is, sweetheart. You trust your family and gang so much. Are you sure you should have such a blind faith in them?"

Her head started to spin. It couldn't be. The Kissers was all she had. The few people awake in the theater kept laughing. She wanted to shoot through the fucking contrast.

"Why don't you just do it then? Kill me and end this once and for all? I know Steaphan wouldn't hesitate, if he had the chance."

"But I'm not Steaphan, love. I like to take things slow. To kill you I could put a bullet in your head, yes. But that wouldn't satisfy me. Because I want to do more than kill you, I want to crush your soul. And how does one crush Rose Salvage's soul?" He tapped on the armchair between them, eyes piercing through her, drilling a hole in her skull. "I don't put a bullet in your head. I put a bullet in the heads of all your loved ones and make you watch it. Starting with one of those bonnie lasses I'm sure my men will love to toy with. And ending with that Brummie lad you seem to have taken a liking to."

All the stars Rose was seeing vanished, her vision clear again.

"They have nothing to do with this. Nothing. They had no part in Steaphan's murder, none of them. Keep them out of this. I don't care how you kill me. They don't deserve to die because of my mistakes."

Tavish laughed. Right in her face. The smell of whiskey came to her like the breath of death in the war hospitals.

"Ye can't do a single fucking thing about it, darlin'. And I think we can both agree, you're better off without Thomas Shelby anyway."

"Wasn't it enough to kill his fucking bartender and almost beat him to death? What did he ever do to you?"

"He got himself involved with you, and that's enough. Anyone with a place in your heart has a place in my coffins. Besides, I find it insulting that you're trying to replace the void my brother left in you with someone as lowbred as a Shelby. He can live in a golden palace, that won't change the fact he was born in the fucking mud."

Her teeth gnashed. Her heart seemed about to jump out of her chest and explode. She wanted it to explode right in his face.

"He thinks he's untouchable, no? Let's see if he thinks the same once I put my hands on you. Men like him can only be touched when their hearts are too."

His hand grasped her neck abruptly; Rose gasped for air, and Callan's gun pressed harder against her.

"Do you think this is how my brother felt?" Tavish hissed, venom dripping down her ears, tears prickling her eyes. "When he choked at your hands with foam coming out of his mouth?"

Her hands went to his, desperately trying to shove them away, but his grip around her neck only tightened. Her vision flickered between too bright and too dark, dots coloring her sight. She was sliding into oblivion, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel for her. Not even Thomas.

Then his hands flew away from her neck and he leaned back, like nothing had happened. Her chest moved up and down frantically as she tried to inhale, each breath like a flame going down her throat.

"Ye know what I did in the war?" He didn't wait for an answer. "I built bombs, helped bombard numerous German cities. So if releasing the evidence is not enough to deter ye from trying to kill me, I know this will."

He turned his head to her, and in his eyes she saw her demise.

"I ordered me men to set up explosives in several points of London. Crowded spots, of course. If I don't report back to them in an hour, they will set off the detonators. If you kill me any other time, they have orders to do the same. And they'll make sure to link the explosions back to you, as terrorist attacks. From IRA or maybe a Scottish independence group. With the ties you have to me brother, that won't be a story difficult to sell. I know you care about people. It's you or them, Rose. You can't have both."

Callan moved the gun away from her, though he kept it pointed at her. Rose got up, knees wavering and legs about to falter. When she looked down, the floor seemed to be thousands of meters away. She moved past Tavish, who got ahold of her arm. His smile was everything she hated about the world.

"Oh and Rose? In the unlikely event that you do aim a gun at me, shoot for the head. Some of us don't have a heart."

***

Audrey was waiting for her at the cinema entrance, fortunately unscathed. The relief on her face when she saw Rose changed to concern when she noticed her state. Her eyes were red, the veins below them protuberant, face paler than a ghost. And her once confident strode was reduced to a feeble stumble.

"Rose, are you okay? What happened? Who were those men?"

"Let's go," she mumbled, eyeing the men near them. She pulled the collar of her coat up and crossed her arms over her chest. "Can you give me your scarf? It's fucking cold out here."

"Of course." Audrey took it out and handed it to her. Her sister's perfume graced her nostrils, but Rose didn't register it. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm far from okay," she said, voice scratchy and low. Every word felt like glass scratching the inside of her throat. "We're all fucking far from okay."

author's note.

So Tavish is played by James McAvoy... any guesses on who plays Callan based on his description?

Also I'm sorry if this chapter wasn't the most exciting, but I hope you liked it nonetheless! Feel free to let me know your thoughts :)