The silent sound of a pen tracing smoothly on paper was music to his ears on a perfect afternoon of business to plan.
The movement and the strokes left behind in black ink figures and signatures of embargoes, transfers, and businesses that would never see the light of day. It was a sensation that truly gladdened his heart, the satisfaction of the control and power that these closed-door businesses gave to someone of his stature.
Alexander Corinth, at 43 years old, contemplated the work of a lifetime from behind a fortress of mahogany that some called a desk. His office, at the top of a London building, was a sanctuary of silence and power, where the smoke from his cigar was the only haze that blurred the cold perfection of the place.
He was concentrated on his papers when the door opened almost without a sound. It was Loren, his partner, his right hand for the last decade. In his eyes, Alexander thought he saw a glimmer of the same fatigue mixed with joy that he felt in his bones.
"The merger papers are ready, Alex," announced Loren, placing a thick folder on the desk.
"The Irish yielded. In the end, reason belongs to the one with the most capital," he explained in a somewhat excited tone.
As soon as Alexander heard this, he nodded and a hint of a smile appeared on his lips.
"Reason is a flexible concept, Loren. The scale always tips to where the most weight is, and we put a lot of iron in our pockets," he commented like a master teaching a new lesson to his disciple.
Alexander rose from his comfortable swivel chair, approached the window contemplating the artificial horizon formed by the buildings. For a moment, the reflection in the glass showed not the businessman, but the young lieutenant who had served in the SAS, someone who believed in simpler codes back then.
"Sometimes I miss the clarity of the desert," he said almost to himself.
"There the enemy was always in front of you," he concluded, lost in memories.
Alexander had lived through more than fifty large-scale shootouts and small wars in remote places, a very distinguished soldier, but with ambitions too big to be satisfied with simply leading a special forces squad.
Perhaps that was why he had left that life… no, it was obvious that was why he had left that life. For him, the machinations, the rewards, and the adrenaline were always greater in the dark games of the city than on the battlefield.
He was determined to reach the top of the world, even if it meant staining his hands, and he had achieved it, at least in part. But it seemed that life always had other plans for dreamers with corrupt hearts.
"I agree, Alexander, here the enemies are more… complicated. But at least there's the satisfaction that you really won something important and not just false honor," responded Loren's voice, now curiously flat and devoid of emotion.
Alexander felt a prick in his spine like a sixth sense. He turned sideways towards Loren upon hearing his so different tone. The light from the reflector lamps caught the metallic glint of the tool in Loren's hand; it wasn't a pen, without a doubt. It was a pistol with a silencer, an object grotesquely out of place in that temple of peace that was his office, and especially in the hands of his right-hand man.
He was aware from the moment he saw the weapon that he couldn't play games. His brain worked at full speed to find a solution without stopping to be too astonished by the betrayal. Security, he first thought… but there was no time to take any possible measures. Only time for the cold recognition of a final truth: death.
Loren's eyes, which had so often shown loyalty and a gleam of admiration despite the darkness in their hearts, were now a terrifying, indifferent void.
"That's the same expression I have when I've won, but it still hurts, doesn't it?" he asked in a murmur that needed no answer.
"The weight on the scale has changed, Alex," Loren stated. His voice sounded as if he were reading a financial statement and, without hesitation, he pulled the trigger once.
The bullet was faster than he ever thought possible. It tore through his flesh and blood gushed from his heart like a disgusting red spring.
The shot was a dry whisper, a cold kiss from death.
The pain was an explosion of white fire in his chest, followed by a coldness that spread faster than the blood soaking his Egyptian cotton shirt.
Alexander's body fell to its knees, his gaze fixed on the impassive face of his executioner.
'The most unexpected betrayal,' he thought with a heartbreaking lucidity despite his situation.
'Not from an enemy, but from the very hand you helped raise. How stupid, Alex, your fondness for the boy blinded your eyes to the reality of his intentions.' The truth was he reproached himself for not having seen it; that was the game in this world.
Alexander began to feel… or rather, he gradually stopped feeling. The darkness was not immediate and crushing; it was a rapid fading, a journey through a tunnel of memories and echoes.
The roar of jeep engines in the desert, the smell of burnt leather and blood from his first mission, the laughter of a woman whose face he could no longer remember, and then, then nothing: the purest and most welcoming darkness he had ever witnessed in his life.
The end of a life, the end of a myth in the making.
---
The cold wind caressed his skin. Strangely, the sensation returned to his body after having fallen asleep; it was as if he were waking from a long nap, one of those where you don't dream anything.
That was the first feeling. A damp, penetrating cold that bit his skin. But then came the smell: it was of coal, stale beer, sweat, and horse manure. A mixture of primitive, aggressive smells, but they awakened the senses like a punch to the face.
Alexander also slowly regained his vision after a couple of slow blinks; mobility also returned to his limbs.
Alex was no longer on the floor of his office; he realized it at a glance. It wasn't a hospital either. He was in a hard bed, under a rough blanket. The ceiling was stained with damp; the walls, bare and cracked.
He was bewildered, but just before he could even think about it, he was invaded by a pounding headache, different from the impact of a bullet in the chest, but just as painful. Feeling like his temples were being drilled was not pleasant.
"Hung," he couldn't stop a groan of pain from escaping.
Alexander suffered for a few more seconds until, finally, the sensation passed. He sat up slowly in the bed, and the world spun.
He felt his body was light, agile, as if he were young again. It was filled with a youthful energy he had forgotten. He looked at his hands. They were the hands of a laborer, a fighter: calloused and strong, with scars he didn't recognize, but which his mind, alarmingly, began to catalog. Blades, barbed wire, shrapnel, gunshots, horses, family. Many keywords to hold onto.
Alex got to his feet and shuffled over to a water jug on a dresser. He emptied it into a basin and submerged his face. The water was cold, but it didn't clear the confusion. Lifting his head, he met the reflection in the dirty glass of an old mirror.
A young face, pale and half freckled, with dark hair and blue eyes that looked at him with an intensity that was both alien and familiar at the same time.
"Thomas Shelby," he said automatically, looking at himself in the mirror.
The name surfaced from nowhere in his thoughts, and with it, an avalanche of images he had already received but hadn't yet assimilated. Images of muddy trenches, the roar of artillery, the face of a close man dying in his arms… laughter in a humble kitchen, the firm voice of a woman called Polly, the marked smiles of his brothers, the weight of a flat cap and the edge of a hidden razor…
"My God…" he gasped, leaning against the wall.
Alex knew immediately it wasn't a dream. They were memories. Memories of two lives, two consciousnesses, two souls colliding and merging in the crucible of this miserable room.
Alexander Corinth, the businessman and soldier, the man from a future world, was trapped in the body of Thomas Shelby, strategist and criminal, the gangster of Birmingham.
Alex closed his eyes, fighting to breathe and stabilize both consciousnesses.
In the acquired memories, he reviewed Tommy's moments. It was 1919, new year, new opportunity, just a few months before… before the plot of his own life began, his spiral of successes and decadent moments.
"Hum," a bitter laugh escaped him. He had been reincarnated on the eve of the storm, but what a blessed storm it was.
Alexander—or now Tommy—forced himself to calm down. The training from his SAS days took control. Assess. Adapt. Execute. Survive.
'Not in my wildest dreams did I expect this, it's truly absolute madness.' While lost in his thoughts, he examined himself carefully in the mirror.
'That is…' His eyes fixed on a tattoo just above his navel, in the middle of his defined abs.
It was a straight razor, but on the upper blade it said "WINTER" and on the lower one "RESURRECTION". Quite a coincidence, truly.
'Are you telling me this tattoo from my youth is what marked my destiny in death?' He felt like complaining a bit to whoever decided this, but he quickly shook off his doubts.
It was just a stupid thought. A coincidence. Something as big as reincarnation couldn't be so simple for his mortal brain to comprehend.
"Anyway… What am I supposed to do now?" he murmured to himself.
Tommy's young and resilient body. His position as leader of the Peaky Blinders. His intimate knowledge of the streets. And, most importantly, the mind of Alexander Corinth. He knew history, business, modern military strategies, the psychology of power. And he knew the "script" up to a certain point; he knew what was going to happen almost exactly.
Alexander was debating what to do, how to proceed, thinking about some indicator that would point him to a trap behind all this mystical circus… Then, he felt something else.
It was a strange tingling in his mind, like a muscle he didn't know he had. As he reviewed Tommy's memories of a recent altercation, an intrusive image slipped into his thoughts: not the confusing street fight, but a clear, almost technical sequence of a body-to-body disarmament. Something he had seen in an advanced combat manual from his time.
Was it just a memory of his? Or… was it something more? Alex/Tommy rubbed his temples at these doubts.
In a few seconds as his eyes wandered around the room, he focused his attention on the sole lamp. A seemingly new idea, a design for a floor lamp he had seen in a mid-20th century design magazine, crossed his mind.
He imagined transmitting that image, that "concept," outward, into nothingness. A pang of pain, sharp and brief, shot through his brain. It was real: this transmission of concepts… was real. Limited, undoubtedly. Exhausting, but it was a tool, a weapon that could be the key to an empire.
"I suppose this is my reincarnation gift or something like that," he murmured while his mind was already analyzing the possible uses of this strange ability.
Alex walked slowly from one side to the other like a caged but patient animal while he thought. Fortunately, the sun's rays began to enter through the windows and, like gypsy magic, his conflicting feelings calmed a little.
"There's still a lot to analyze…"
"This is what I am now… not that I'm complaining, but I still need a little more time to think…"
Thomas advised and calmed himself; after all, he was his own best friend.
Looking at the sun rays beginning to appear, he finally made a decision.
"Let's get dressed first, Tommy. Fate will come on its own until I start building it myself."
Tommy looked at his face in the mirror once more before starting to get ready.
---
Dawn in Birmingham was a long, slow exhalation of smoke and gloom; the place was nothing but streets of stone and mud, mist and the ringing of hammers in iron forges.
Tommy stood before the window of his room like a ghost with his feet anchored to the plank floor. In his narrow field of vision from a second-floor window, his city stretched out before him: a gray, monotonous canvas, and he, with the color palette of an old reincarnated master, felt the colors of his ambition stirring deep within his being.
In his mind—which was now an archive of two lives—rested not only the memories of the trenches and the streets, but the echoes of illuminated boardrooms and the stylized shadows of fictional worlds.
The truth is that Alexander had been, in his other existence, a great consumer of stories about mafias, crime, and chaos, perhaps because of his two life professions. Works like The Godfather, John Wick, and even Peaky Blinders itself.
These films, series, and even video games that, unconsciously or not, entertained but also dissected power, innovated in its forms, and, in order to maintain an original script, often created techniques and new ways of committing crimes that not even the real criminals in real life were aware of.
Alexander, now as Thomas Shelby in the world of the *Peaky Blinders* series, not only had the knowledge of future events and his innate abilities from his past life and his current life combined, but now he had a gallery of knowledge from over a century of fictional works and even real-life situations and strategies stored in his head.
'Thomas Shelby's damn brain is truly something masterful, I must admit it's even above me, at least in the planning and strategy part.' In his thoughts, Tommy unconsciously praised himself; he was Thomas Shelby now, after all.
'It's a bit sad that I'm the muscle in this strange soul fusion.' Although Tommy had also been in the war, Alexander's training and field experience were far superior.
'At least with this integrated library I can stand out more than Tommy, after all, wasting time glued to the screen was good for something.' He was willing to assume the identity, but it was still a bit strange; he didn't even fully understand why his consciousness was the one that remained in control of the body.
Tommy/Alexander didn't complain about being the one who persisted as the main consciousness, he was just a bit disoriented by these superior, almost divine things that he couldn't fully comprehend. Thomas Shelby or not, he was still a mortal man in the end.
He also couldn't deny to himself that he was delighted with the current situation. Without a doubt, what excited Tommy the most was that in this gray world that was only in 1919, being given a body and mind like Thomas Shelby's linked to his own consciousness, addicted to the cutting-edge businesses of the future, was the best thing that could have happened to him. After being betrayed and murdered, he thought he was going to die and suffer in the deepest hell, but it seems that those upstairs made a mistake and sent him to the paradise for dark-hearted men like him.
'This is the most favorable miscalculation I have ever witnessed.' Despite his indifferent face, he felt immense joy in his heart.
Tommy, determined to put his doubts aside once and for all, accepted everything he had been trying to contain. It was then that his mind relaxed along with his body and a new story began.
There were no more doubts: Thomas Shelby was who he was meant to be. The name Alexander would be buried forever by his own decision.
Feeling the best he had since waking up, he let out a brief sigh. His attention returned to the streets of Birmingham, this time with an intense gleam in his blue eyes.
"Let's start living then," he murmured to himself as he found calm, the calm of knowing he had the advantage even if the future turned sour.
Tommy watched from the window as the workers paraded through the streets, rushing to get to the factory and earn money for their families and also for their vices. In contrast, there were a couple of suited men whose economic position was more favorable, but who undoubtedly had worse vices than the factory workers.
In the streets, there were also women out shopping and a couple of children playing tag, but for now, they held no value for his plans, beyond being sources of gossip controlled to his advantage.
'These men would clutch at a burning nail to escape misery,' he thought while his fingers, from muscle memory, finished adjusting his shirt collar.
He would not offer them a nail. He would offer them an empire to belong to, and they in return would give him their loyalty. Of course, not everyone… he would never say he was a saint who wanted to lift the world out of poverty. Tommy considered himself a realist; from his point of view, just as a kingdom has a king and generals, it must also have peasants and beggars. Unless, of course, your power and influence were so great that even the beggars…
'Beggars… now that I think about it… yes, I think it would be a good idea.'
An idea quickly appeared in his mind, one he couldn't implement in its entirety, but at least in part.
In the John Wick movie, the clan of beggars under the High Table had great power in the underworld: assassins and informants in every damn corner of the country.
'I think it wouldn't be so far-fetched to try, at least. There's poverty, and with the current power of the Peaky Blinders, it can only be done on a small scale, but it can be done.'
'Even if it's a network of informants more than assassins… you have to start somewhere.' As he thought, automatically, he also took a cigarette from his silver case and lit it.
Exhaling a large puff of smoke, Tommy looked at his reflection in the glass.
'That's a good start before the plot officially begins… there's still some order to be put in the family, but that will be a slower process.'
"Much slower, actually," he finished murmuring as he put the cigarette back between his lips.
In just two seconds, he remembered so many things about the future of each family member that the headache was immediate.
"Calm, Thomas… one step at a time. I will never allow my family to be destroyed in that way." Calming himself, he continued smoking, this time with quicker, more frequent drags.
In a calm movement, Tommy turned around, intent on leaving the room. He stopped for a second. He remembered he hadn't taken his weapon yet. Next to the bed, he pulled the revolver from the drawer and stared at it fixedly for several seconds.
'Weapons… Yes, that can work too…'
Tommy shook his head, emerging from his thoughts, and quickly stowed the revolver in his holster under his suit jacket.
"Let's hope the moment comes, let's get something to eat and we'll see after," he said to himself once more.
Tommy turned and left the room without looking back.
.........
Hello. This is basically a summary to make everything easier to understand.
- The protagonist (Alexander Corinth) is a mobster, businessman, and ex-British SAS soldier who dies and is reincarnated in the Peaky Blinders series as Thomas "Tommy" Shelby. Easy, right?
- The protagonist has a reincarnation ability (you know). It consists of being able to "give ideas" or "transmit ideas" to other people, even slightly influence their thoughts.
The ability is used through touch and is painful to a certain degree; this is to keep it from being too exaggerated (although if you don't mind, say so and let's make a Fanfiction of pure "controlled OP chaos").
- The protagonist (Tommy Shelby) was a follower of crime-related works (games, movies, series). Logically, he has knowledge of both the future and the fictional worlds from the series and movies, information he can use to his advantage.
- Also, to expand the world a little, there will be small details from other worlds. I'm not saying it's a full-fledged world fusion, but... you know... A few things here and there. Mainly the protagonist's ideas based on the worlds from the movies to increase his power and businesses. (Get it? Doesn't matter, you'll soon realize what I'm referring to).
- Important, remember this is Peaky Blinders, mafia and blood. Don't expect great morality in the actions or for the protagonist to pursue world peace or anything like that. He will be bad. EVIL.
Note: Since we are "good" in real life, we have to let out our demons in Fanfiction writing. I write to get excited, to enjoy, and to see how everything "almost always" goes well. I have enough in my life already to write something super dramatic and suffer more.
- And lastly, are you Team Grace or Team May? Saying it now, or be silent forever when I make my decision.
Note: Obviously, the protagonist will have other women in his life. By this, I mean the wife.
........
I'm writing this because I like it and because I go crazy with the idea bouncing around in my head.
Comment and all that, but know that this is for the love of the art (love for OP fanfiction); I don't have Patreon or any of those things.
Give me your opinions and ideas; I might change something if I like your suggestions.
Without anything else to say for now. Enjoy the reading.
....
Yes. This was in Chapter 1 / Auxiliary Chapter. Some people don't read one or the other, so I'm putting it in both. This is an apology in case you read both thinking there was something new.