Chapter 10
The city wasn't just holding its breath anymore.
It was suffocating.
After Kimber's bloody death, Small Heath had buckled under the weight of fear — but Birmingham itself had drawn a new kind of attention.
The kind that wore a uniform.
The kind that didn't fear gangsters, or kings, or wolves.
The kind sent by London.
The first hint came in the form of sirens.
Three black police wagons rolled down Watery Lane one grim, misty morning, iron-banded wheels clattering over the cobblestones.
James spotted them from the second-floor window of the Garrison.
He said nothing.
Just watched as they pulled up in front of the betting shop next door — where Arthur and some of their boys were counting the last haul from the Digbeth tracks.
It happened fast.
Six men in grey uniforms kicked down the door, barking orders in clipped Belfast accents.
Arthur's voice bellowed once — furious, wild.
Then came the crack of rifle butts against flesh.
The sharp, wet sounds of fists.
The clink of handcuffs.
The wagons drove off minutes later, Arthur inside, bleeding from a split lip and a deep cut across his temple.
No warning.
No explanation.
Only violence.
James turned from the window without a word.
And went to find Tommy.
In the backroom of the Garrison, Tommy was already waiting.
Polly was pacing, cigarette dangling from her lips, her boots clicking sharp against the floor.
John sat stiff in the corner, one hand tapping a rhythm against his knee.
Lizzie stood by the door, pale and wide-eyed.
They all turned as James entered.
Tommy didn't ask what happened.
He already knew.
"Arthur's gone," James said.
Tommy just nodded grimly.
Polly cursed under her breath, stabbing her cigarette into the ashtray.
"Who's behind it?" John asked, voice tight.
Before anyone could answer, the door creaked open.
A stranger stepped in — tall, lean, his face like weathered leather stretched over sharp bone.
He wore a police uniform.
But his eyes were colder than any copper James had ever seen.
Campbell.
Chief Inspector Chester Campbell.
Sent from Belfast.
Sent by Winston Churchill himself.
Tommy rose slowly, smoothing his coat.
"Inspector," he said with polite venom.
Campbell tipped his hat, all false civility.
"Mr. Shelby."
His gaze flicked across the room — landing briefly on James, lingering for a fraction longer than necessary.
"A pleasure to meet... all of you," Campbell said.
A lie, thick as tar.
He folded his hands behind his back and began to pace slowly, like a man inspecting livestock.
"Let's be frank," Campbell said.
"Birmingham is on fire. And you lot are holding the matches."
James smiled thinly but said nothing.
Campbell continued.
"You've made quite a mess. Bodies stacking like kindling. Italians sniffing around. And now—" he paused, savoring the moment, "—now we find one of you stealing property that belongs to His Majesty's government."
The room stiffened.
Even Tommy blinked once.
Campbell's smile widened.
"Did you think no one would notice a shipment of stolen Lewis machine guns?"
He let the words hang in the air like a noose.
Arthur Shelby was not an easy man to break.
He had survived trenches, shrapnel, bayonet charges.
He had buried friends in mud and filth without blinking.
But the cells of Steelhouse Lane station weren't trenches.
There were no brothers watching his back here.
Only Campbell's men —
Hard-faced, brutal bastards brought over from Belfast.
Hand-picked for their cruelty.
The first punch split Arthur's lip.
The second broke his nose.
They didn't ask questions —
Not yet.
They just hurt him.
Boots in the ribs.
Fists across the jaw.
Clubs against the knees.
Arthur spat blood and laughed through broken teeth.
It only made them hit harder.
---
After what felt like hours, Campbell stepped into the cell.
He wore no uniform now.
Just a black coat and gloves.
He crouched in front of Arthur, close enough to smell the blood and sweat and whiskey on his breath.
"You're not the brains," Campbell said, voice soft.
He reached out and gripped Arthur's swollen face with one gloved hand.
"You're not the heart."
He leaned closer.
"You're just the hammer."
He squeezed Arthur's jaw until the bones creaked.
"And hammers," Campbell whispered, "break easiest."
Then he nodded to his men.
And the real work began.
---
Meanwhile, back at the Garrison, the family erupted.
"You fookin' did what?!" John shouted, slamming his hands on the table.
Tommy stood at the head, arms folded, unflinching.
Polly's face was pale with rage.
"You stole a government shipment?" she hissed.
"Have you lost your fookin' mind?"
James stayed silent, standing in the corner, arms crossed.
Watching.
Calculating.
Tommy's voice was calm.
Measured.
"We needed leverage."
"Leverage?" Polly snapped. "We need air to breathe, Tom! Not a rope around our necks!"
Tommy lit a cigarette with steady hands.
"The guns buy us breathing room," he said. "The government wants them back. We control when and how they get them."
James narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Unless they decide they don't need to negotiate."
Everyone turned to look at him.
James straightened from the wall, stepping closer to the table.
"You think men like Campbell play fair?" he asked quietly.
"You think he came here to talk?"
He pointed to the door.
"Arthur's in a cell right now getting the fook beat out of him because of this."
Tommy's jaw tightened.
"I know."
John threw up his hands.
"And what? We just sit here with our thumbs up our arses while Arthur gets carved up?"
Tommy's gaze shifted — not to John, but to James.
"We'll get him out," he said.
"But we have to move smart."
James stared back at him.
Cold.
Unblinking.
"Smart would've been not putting him there in the first place."
---
Tension crackled in the room like a live wire.
The family was fracturing.
Pressure building behind every glance, every word left unsaid.
Campbell hadn't just attacked them physically.
He had planted the first seeds of real distrust.
And James knew better than anyone—
Once trust was broken among wolves, the pack didn't survive long.
The storm outside thickened into a freezing mist that clung to the city like a wet shroud.
Inside the Garrison's back room, plans were being drawn in blood.
Tommy leaned over the map, cigarette smoldering between his fingers.
James stood opposite him, arms folded, sharp-eyed.
John paced the room, cursing under his breath.
Polly sat rigid in her chair, arms crossed tight, jaw locked.
---
Tommy spoke low, fast.
"Campbell's men are still setting up. They don't know the streets like we do."
He pointed at the police station on the map.
"Steelhouse Lane's old, cracks in the walls. Small service entrance in the back. Only two men posted."
John stopped pacing.
"You want to bust Arthur out?"
Tommy nodded.
"Quiet. No explosions. No dead coppers if we can help it."
He glanced at James.
"If it comes to blood, it's quick and silent."
James didn't respond immediately.
He studied the map for a long moment.
Then he spoke.
"You'll need a distraction."
Tommy raised an eyebrow.
James leaned forward, tapping the side alley near the service entrance.
"Set a fire at the warehouses. Not too big. Enough smoke to pull half their force off station."
Tommy smiled thinly.
"You volunteering?"
James smirked.
"I'll light the fookin' match myself."
---
Polly cut in, voice sharp.
"And if it goes wrong?"
James straightened.
"It won't."
There was no bravado in his tone.
Only certainty.
Polly stared at him for a long moment —
Measuring.
Weighing.
Finally, she looked away and lit another cigarette.
"Fine," she muttered. "But if you get caught, you're on your own."
James gave her a mock salute.
"Wouldn't expect anything less."
Later that night, as John gathered supplies and Polly stitched together alibis for anyone who needed them, James moved separately.
Silently.
He slipped through the misty streets of Small Heath, cap pulled low, hands deep in his coat pockets.
He wasn't just preparing the distraction.
He was preparing a message.
Campbell thought he could beat the Shelbys into submission.
He thought he could break Arthur.
Crush Tommy.
Fracture the family.
He was wrong.
James would show him —
You don't leash wolves.
You drown in their teeth.
---
By midnight, James had gathered what he needed.
A few loyal men — ones that feared him more than they loved gold.
A cache of old grenades from hidden war stockpiles.
A short list of Campbell's "imported" Belfast sergeants.
Not all wars were fought face-to-face.
Some were fought in the dark, with whispers and sudden deaths.
And James Shelby —
James was building a war.
The plan moved like clockwork.
At precisely 1:00 a.m., smoke began to curl upward from the warehouses near Digbeth.
Old packing crates, soaked in kerosene, caught fast.
Flames licked up into the misty night, orange against the grey.
Sirens wailed almost immediately.
The police scrambled — panicking, disorganized — pulling men from every post to battle the spreading fire.
Steelhouse Lane thinned like a bleeding artery.
Exactly as James intended.
---
Tommy, John, and three of their best boys moved fast.
The service entrance at the back of the station was old — rusted hinges, crumbling brick.
John jammed a crowbar into the crack and heaved.
The door groaned but didn't break.
One of their men — Danny Whizz-Bang, half-mad and grinning — planted a boot against it and kicked.
The door burst inward with a crack like a gunshot.
They poured inside, guns drawn, razors ready.
Two constables barely had time to blink before they were dropped —
One pistol-whipped into unconsciousness,
The other's head slammed into the wall with a sickening thud.
Silence reclaimed the hall.
Tommy led the way down the corridor.
He didn't run.
He moved like a man who had already seen the end of this night and decided it was his.
---
They found Arthur slumped in a cell — shirt torn, blood matting his hair, one eye swollen shut.
He stirred when the lock clattered.
Squinted through the blood.
"'Bout fookin' time," he muttered.
Tommy grinned.
"Come on, brother."
They hauled him up — half-carrying, half-dragging.
Arthur could still move.
Barely.
But his fists clenched when John handed him a pistol.
And his smile, when it came, was all teeth.
---
The escape was clean.
Smoke from the fires drifted thick into the station as they slipped back through the service door.
Steelhouse Lane was chaos — engines roaring, men shouting, firemen running with buckets and hoses.
In the confusion, no one noticed a battered black truck pulling away into the mist.
Inside:
Arthur, bleeding but grinning.
John, checking the rear window like a hawk.
Tommy, calm and cold.
James — driving, eyes fixed ahead, jaw set.
The first strike had been made.
The Shelbys had drawn blood.
Now they would drown Birmingham in it if they had to.
The same morning, while Birmingham lay heavy under a blanket of fog and fear,
James Shelby moved alone.
No backup.
No lookout.
No witnesses.
Only a coat heavy with hidden steel and a mind sharpened to a single point.
---
He knew where the Belfast sergeants stayed.
Campbell's men — hard bastards from the old wars, smuggled in like snakes — thought themselves untouchable.
They slept in cramped boarding houses near Digbeth and Bordesley, close enough to move fast but far enough to think they were invisible.
They were wrong.
---
James hit the first house just before dawn.
No noise.
No warning.
He picked the lock with a twist of steel wire, slipped inside, and moved like a shadow across rotting floorboards.
The first target barely had time to lift his head from the pillow before James was on him —
A hand clamped over his mouth,
A knife sliding clean and deep between the ribs,
Right into the heart.
The body shuddered once and went still.
No struggle.
No noise.
Perfect.
---
The second target was downstairs, nursing a whiskey by a sputtering fireplace.
James came up behind him as he poured another drink.
The man noticed too late.
James smashed his head into the stone hearth — once, twice — until the skull gave way with a wet crack.
Blood pooled across the floor, soaking into the old wood.
James stepped over it without a glance.
---
The third was the hardest.
A wiry bastard who had enough instinct to hear something was wrong and bolted.
James chased him through the alleys, boots splashing in the cold mud.
The man tried to pull a pistol.
James was faster.
A blade caught him behind the knee, dropping him screaming into the muck.
James didn't hesitate.
He drove the knife under the collarbone, twisting until the man's eyes went wide and vacant.
He wiped the blade clean on the corpse's coat.
---
When he was finished, James tied a strip of red cloth around each dead man's right wrist.
The old Shelby mark.
A message.
Clear.
Final.
Unmistakable.
> "You brought war to wolves.
We'll show you how wolves fight."