Luckily for Irina, Thomas had interrupted not long after Alfie confessed how he was feeling, giving her an easy escape.

They didn't stay in Liverpool for much longer, just another hour or so while Irina spoke to the men that managed her offices there, getting all the details from them that she could. She was alone when she did this, not knowing where Thomas and Alfie had disappeared to.

Though as she walked out of her warehouse that afternoon, she saw both of them leant against Alfie's car, laughing and smoking a cigarette each, a glimpse of sun breaking through a gap in the clouds that landed like a cracked halo across Alfie's face, leaving Thomas in the dark.

The drive home felt endless, each stretch of road looked the same as the last and the thundering of the tyres against the worn down road had began to grate on Irina's skin.

She curled up in the passenger seat and closed her eyes, not because she was tired, but to avoid conversation with Alfie. His words hadn't left her mind since she heard them, and all while she was speaking to men in her offices, she had been thinking of Alfie. She wondered what she might've said had Thomas not interrupted them, or if she'd even have been able to say anything at all.

It frustrated her that Alfie could pluck away the control she had over everything in her life so easily. It was something that she'd never experienced before and ever since vowing to take back control of her life, the way he had still managed to get under her skin and twist her mind made it impossible for her to see clearly for even a second.

Irina hated the feeling. She despised not being able to see the path ahead of her, to not know whether tomorrow would be a good day or a bad day. She didn't want to fall asleep wondering whether she would wake up fine or with a broken heart, or perhaps whether she'd end up sat in a puddle of her own tears because one man's words were stronger than her will.

She felt the car draw slowly to a halt, not realising she had managed to drift off into a half-slumber the rest of the way home. Irina yawned quietly, squeezing her eyes shut tightly before forcing them open, blinking a few times as she saw the sky had now turned orange, like a fire burning over the skyline of the city she called home.

"What the fuck?"

Alfie jumped out of the car and walked up the steps to Irina's home. Confused but still slightly delirious, Irina followed him a few moments later, curious as she watched Alfie peer his head through her front window.

He reached in and pulled out a brick with a scrap of paper tied to it with a frayed string, yanking it free with a scowl on his face.

"You have to be kidding me..." Irina groaned, her heart sinking when she saw the shattered glass that was once her front window, broken pieces strewn across the floor and the windowsill, though from what she could see, nothing had been taken.

"You can't stay here," Alfie said, scrunching up the piece of paper and shoving it into his pocket, "Get some stuff, go on."

"What did it say?"

"Just go." Alfie said, snatching the keys from Irina's hand and unlocking the door for her, holding it open as she walked inside and disappeared up the stairs.

Alfie sighed loudly once she'd gone, sinking his teeth into his lip as he looked up to the sky in vain, cursing himself under his breath. He pulled out the note from his pocket, checking over his shoulder that Irina wasn't anywhere near.

'An eye for an eye'

The note would've made no sense to Irina, but it made painful sense to Alfie. The break in at the vault and the brick through the window was never because of Irina, and looking back, Alfie felt foolish to think that even for a second that it was.

The peace had been kept between himself and Joseph Levy for too long after he'd taken his brother's life, too long for Alfie to think that he would want to take revenge. Though now, it was clear that time was never a factor in the debt that Levy felt he owed his brother.

Alfie took the suitcase from Irina, throwing it into the back of his car before starting the engine. She sat beside him in silence again, looking back at the darkness of her house as they drove away, an empty feeling in her chest.

It didn't take long to arrive at Alfie's home, but the silence made the ten minute journey seem a lot longer than it actually was.

Alfie pulled her suitcase into the house, kicking the door closed with the heel of his boot before flicking the lights on, the sun having set on the drive over. Irina was impressed at how tidy it was, her lasting memory of his home being their clothes scattered across furniture and empty wine bottles on table tops and smashed glasses that made them laugh while they danced together.

"There's a spare room you can have, got it's own bathroom, all that."

Irina followed Alfie up the stairs and down the hallway, glancing through an open door into the room she recognised as his bedroom.

"I'll make us something for dinner while you get yourself settled."

"Are you going to tell me what was on that note?" Irina said, her words sharp enough to catch him before he walked out of the room.

Alfie paused at the door, sighing before turning back to look at her. She was stood by the bed with her hands by her sides, her stature seemingly afraid, not matching the wit of her tongue or the bitterness of her tone. He knew she was scared, but he also knew that Irina didn't want it to show.

"No."

"Why?" Irina said, storming up to him and grabbing his forearm with her hand, holding him in a steel grip as he tried to turn his back on her for the second time.

"This isn't about you, Irina."

"Well it was my fucking money that got stolen and a brick through my window, so who else is it about?"

Her eyes were red and although her aggression was clear in the way her nails were digging into his skin and her jaw was tightly clenched, she was clinging onto him for help, not hatred.

"It's about me, alright? Levy wants revenge for what I did to his brother, but he doesn't want to kill me, he wants me to live with the same fucking pain he's had to live through. I don't have anybody else, I have no family, no friends. The only person I care about is you, Irina, and he's coming after you because he knows that hurting you is the only thing that can hurt me."

That time, Irina let Alfie walk away. The echo of the bedroom door slamming closed was loud enough to drown out his heavy footsteps as they descended the stairs, leaving her alone on the second floor.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, her fists grabbing at the bedsheets to remind her that she was alive and she could still feel things, despite her entire body and soul becoming violently numb as she attempted to comprehend what she had just learned.

The fact that what Alfie had told her had made perfect sense wasn't what was confusing Irina, it was the fact that now, loving a man had caught her in the middle of the firing line twice.

Drowning in deep thoughts, Irina struggled to think of a single positive thing she'd gained from opening her heart to loving somebody. She had loved Luca in a strange way, and although she hadn't realised it at the time, she knew now what the feeling was. There was still a ringing of guilt in the back of her mind about not trying to help Luca in time, and discovering his true feelings encapsulated in the letter made the pain even worse.

She had watched Luca die, and now, the thought of watching Alfie meet the same fate was horrifically inescapable in her mind as she sat alone. It was as if the world had decided to strike her twice with the same hand and she couldn't work out why the universe wanted to see her suffer so badly.

Irina didn't go downstairs for dinner that evening. She sat in silence beneath the bedcovers with the window open, listening to light voices chatter on the street below and cars driving past with their engines humming loudly. Alfie eventually went to bed, Irina holding her breath as she heard footsteps in the hallway and the closing of the door to the room beside hers.

Sleep was tempting, but her mind was far too ravenous to find a moment of peace long enough to slip into a slumber, and so she lay awake. A puzzle was hanging at the front of her mind and she spent the early hours of the morning trying to solve it, trying to work out how this time, she wouldn't have to watch a man she loved die.

It wasn't the thought of her being killed that terrified her, because at that point, Irina was far too disassociated with life to fear death. No, it was the thought of losing the only person who cared about her. Despite his actions and his words, the way she felt when he betrayed her, Irina never managed to shake away the thumping of her heart when she looked at Alfie of the way she felt herself shiver when he laughed or smiled, the way he narrowed his eyes whenever he lit a cigarette.

The way she felt about Alfie reminded her of the way she subconsciously felt about Luca when he was alive. She remembered the little things he did or the way he pronounced certain words, the way he would trace circles on the back of her hand with his thumb as they walked together.

Luca was gone, Irina had accepted that. But she had been given a lover in the form of another man that, although he had broken her in the worst way possible, there was something in the back of her mind telling her that she couldn't afford to lose him as well.

Perhaps the world wasn't trying to strike her twice, perhaps the world was simply giving her another chance to find the love that she lost in Luca after being too headstrong to allow herself to feel what she felt in the moment.

The clock on the bedside table showed quarter past three in the morning when Irina finally pushed the covers from her body. She sighed and pulled on a silk slip, tying her hair into a French plait before creeping slowly out of the room.

She lingered outside Alfie's bedroom door for a moment, her heart racing as her hand hovered above the door knob, a fierce debate on whether to turn back or not roaring in her head.

Twisting the handle, Irina closed the door behind her as quietly as she could, tiptoeing over to the bed where he slept.

The curtains were drawn with a break in the middle, the yellow glow from the street lamp outside cast a shadow into the room that illuminated Alfie's bare chest, his face looking as peaceful as she'd ever seen in the light.

She bit her lip, knowing she could go back to her own bed without him ever knowing she was in his room. Though as she heard his light breathing, she counted another moment of vulnerability she felt in his presence, the urge in that second to be held by him and feel safe was stronger than anything else she could even try to feel.

And so, she quietly crawled into the bed beside him, shuffling over to his side and placing an arm around his torso, resting her head against his back, the warmth of his body and the scent that clung to his skin immediately giving her the feeling of being at home.

She froze when he began to stir, shifting slightly, only she relaxed when she felt him take her hand tightly inside his own, bringing her knuckles up to his lips and kissing them softly.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, holding her hand against his chest.

"I forgive you, Alfie."