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🌹 Chapter 1: The Arrival
The first thing she noticed about Birmingham was the smell.
Smoke, iron, sweat, coal dust — a city built on industry and war scars. It clung to the streets like fog, heavy enough that Charlotte could taste it on her tongue. The horizon was a jagged crown of chimneys belching black clouds, and underfoot the cobbles were slick with rain that seemed never to stop falling.
It was nothing like the world she'd left behind. And yet, somehow, it felt inevitable — like she had always been walking toward this place.
Her boots clicked softly as she moved through Small Heath, her coat pulled tight against the drizzle. She didn't rush. Her stride was measured, deliberate, every movement designed to draw eyes without effort. And they looked — oh, how they looked.
Men paused mid-conversation. Women glanced twice, whispering behind hands. Even the children stared as if she were something not meant for their streets.
Pure white hair spilled like silk down her back, catching what little light the lamps gave. Eyes the color of fresh blood cut through shadows, sharp and impossible. Her figure was wrapped in a coat tailored close enough that even the smoke-dimmed air couldn't hide the curves beneath. In one hand she carried a heavy Desert Eagle, black metal polished to a gleam. In the other, a slim silver vape.
She drew in a long pull, exhaled, and let the smoke curl upward in lazy spirals sweeter than any cigarette Birmingham could offer.
She belonged here. Not because the city welcomed her — it didn't — but because she had decided it would.
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The Knowledge
Charlotte knew this world.
That was the strangest part, the detail that made the corners of her mouth twitch in a private smile. She had watched it unfold from afar, years ago — the rise of the Shelbys, the carving of an empire out of soot and blood, the betrayals and victories that left Birmingham trembling.
Peaky Blinders.
She knew the players. The moves. The endings.
And unlike them, she wasn't stumbling through history blind. She had the advantage of foresight, and she had something else: power.
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The Hidden Army
On the edge of Garrison Lane, a warehouse stood in ruin. Windows broken, doors rusted, walls stained with years of weather and neglect. To the casual eye, it was another dead husk, like so many after the war.
But inside — inside, the heartbeat of something new thrummed.
Charlotte pushed open the heavy door, her boots echoing on the stone floor. Instantly, the stillness broke into motion.
Two hundred Elites turned toward her, faces set, sharp suits pressed, caps tilted just so. Each carried a Thompson submachine gun slung across their shoulders, pistols at their hips. They stood not as ruffians, but as soldiers — disciplined, silent, waiting.
Two hundred Informants scattered among the city's veins — pub hands, market women, urchins with sharp ears, and coppers with crooked loyalties. Tonight they would return with whispers, and tomorrow with more.
Two hundred Assassins crouched in rafters and corners, shadows within shadows. Their knives caught the faint light only for an instant before disappearing again. They never cheered, never spoke unless spoken to. They simply waited.
Her trainers drilled new recruits, barking orders that echoed off stone. Her accountants scribbled figures in ledgers, lips moving in silent arithmetic.
And at the far wall, five replicators hummed, machines that had no right to exist here. They glowed faintly, birthing impossibilities: whiskey barrels stamped with foreign brands, fine dresses folded neatly into crates, gleaming pistols stacked in rows. Even the Cadillac, polished to a mirror shine, looked as if it had been pulled whole from another century.
Charlotte stood at the center of it all, her army, her empire before the empire. They didn't need her words. They needed only her presence.
She exhaled vapor slowly, surveying the warehouse, and thought: The Shelbys are only beginning. But I am already here.
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The Garrison
It was at the Garrison pub where she decided to make herself seen. Not fully. Not yet. Just enough to leave a mark.
The pub was thick with cigarette smoke and raucous laughter when she entered. Cards slapped against tables, glasses clinked, a piano played off-key in the corner. The smell of beer and sweat mixed until the air itself seemed drunk.
And then she walked in.
The sound dipped. Heads turned. The piano faltered.
Charlotte didn't acknowledge them. She moved through the haze with her vape releasing trails of sweet smoke, claiming space with nothing more than her presence. She slid onto a barstool as if she owned it.
And then she felt his eyes.
At the far end of the bar, half-hidden in the shadow of his cap, a man sat smoking. His suit was black, pressed. His features sharp, carved from stone. A cigarette burned low between his fingers, its smoke curling upward in lazy defiance.
Blue eyes met red.
Thomas Shelby.
He didn't look away. Neither did she.
The silence stretched until Polly Gray's voice rang sharp from the back, calling his name. Arthur laughed too loudly in the corner. John muttered a low curse under his breath.
But Thomas remained still, measuring her like he measured everyone — for weakness, for use, for danger.
Charlotte took a long pull from her vape, exhaled, and let the smoke drift toward him like an invitation. Then she smiled — the faintest curve of her lips — before turning back to her drink.
He didn't speak. Neither did she. But both understood something had shifted.
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First Moves
That night, back in the warehouse, her informants spilled their secrets.
Kimber's men were loud at the racetrack, threatening to crush the Shelbys' growing grip. A bookmaker whispered of betraying Thomas for a better deal. Police spoke of raiding betting shops.
Charlotte listened without expression, her red eyes sharp in the dim light. Then she lifted a hand, and her assassins vanished into the dark.
By morning, the bookmaker was gone — his body cooling in an alley. The police were distracted by false tips, raiding the wrong places. Kimber's boys woke to fewer friends than they had the night before.
The city shifted. The scales tipped.
And Thomas Shelby, lighting a cigarette outside his betting shop, frowned faintly at the unexpected turns. Not luck. Not coincidence. Something else.
When Charlotte passed him later that day, her smile was sharper, her gaze steady.
He tipped his cigarette in silent greeting. His expression unreadable. But his eyes lingered longer than they should have.
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Rain
The second time they met alone, the rain had turned the cobbles slick black, the lamplight fractured into shards.
Thomas leaned against the doorway of his betting shop, smoke curling from his lips, coat dark with water. He didn't move when she stopped close enough for the air between them to tighten.
"Evening," he said, voice low, gravel-worn.
Charlotte pulled her vape to her lips, exhaled sweet smoke into the rain. "Evening," she echoed.
His eyes searched her face — not with hunger, but calculation, like a man studying a map he couldn't yet read.
"You're new to Birmingham," he said.
"And you're not," she replied.
For the first time, the corner of his mouth twitched. The faintest ghost of a smile.
Polly's voice cut from inside, sharp. He didn't move right away. His gaze lingered, blue locked with red, until he flicked his cigarette aside and stepped back inside.
Charlotte stayed in the rain, smiling to herself.
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The Game Begins
Later, in the stillness of her warehouse, Charlotte stood above her army, smoke curling from her lips.
The Shelbys would rise — she knew this. But this time, they wouldn't rise alone.
This time, she was here.
And Birmingham was already hers.
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✨ End of Chapter 1: The Arrival (~1,326words).
Next up:
Chapter 2: First Moves — Charlotte starts weaving into the race track business, her assassins cross paths with Shelby men, and Thomas begins to test her presence directly with words instead of silence.