"The Widow" Bertha

Why would Ned Morrison be a gang accountant?

He was not born in a slum. He was the son of a goldsmith employee. His father worked as a clerk in the gold shop for 20 years. Finally, because he was involved in a theft case, the goldsmith fired his father.

Ned was fifteen at the time, and an apprentice in the same gold shop as his father.

What happened afterwards was so natural—his father became an alcoholic, his mother was forced to "commit suicide", and he bears the name of "son of a thief". Except for street gangs, no decent factories or shops will accept him.

During that time, Germany often wondered, did my father really steal something?

But he didn't think about it for long.

As he started laundering money, doing black accounts, and lending money with old Jesse, it didn't matter whether his father was innocent or not.

He became the only accountant of Jesse's gang by relying on the skills he learned from the gold shop.

He claims to be different from the poor boys in the slums, always wearing a clean three-piece suit and the most suitable glasses, although other gangsters always say contemptuously behind his back that he is "no matter how clean the clothes are, the son of a thief" Heart and hands are always dirty," but Ned didn't care.

Because he manages accounts and money, no one dares to offend him face to face.

Until overnight, Jesse Byrne was replaced by Mrs Thames.

At first Ned thought he was doomed.

Because Mrs. Thames is also not from the slums, she can't find a suitable accountant like old Jessie.So when Mrs. Thames decided to temporarily move the core members of the gang, Ned tried his best to prove that he had functions that ordinary accountants could not replace—at least he knew better than ordinary accountants what a "gang accountant" should do .

But Mrs Thames doesn't seem to like it.

She would always taunt, but she was slow to kick Ned out of the gang, and Ned Morrison soon understood.

What Madam wants is not a gang accountant, but a real accountant.

So he had to let go of his ability to launder money and make black accounts, recalculate the accounts, sort out the assets, and gradually returned to what he used to do as an apprentice one by one.

Then Ned Morrison suddenly remembered that his childhood dream was actually like this: to wear clean clothes, and the accounts in his hands were as clean as new clothes.

Unexpectedly, after going around and going around, he actually achieved his childhood dream.

Of course, it is not so easy to re-adjust to the identity of a "legal" accountant, and Ned will still be taught by his wife because of his ideas, but this taste is not bad.

I don't know since when, no one said that his heart was dirty.

In the first year, she was always punished, but in the second year the situation was much better. In the third and fourth years, Mrs. Thames’ assets had already expanded beyond the Whitechapel district, occupying most of London, and even many dignitaries had to give When she is a bit thin.Even the owner of the gold shop in the past couldn't say "son of a thief" when he met Ned Morrison's face that was exactly like his father.

—Is the father a thief?

That really, really doesn't matter anymore.

Now Ned is not only the object of many people vying to please, but he also manages three accountants.

The gang kids changed their names when talking about him behind their backs.

Now they say Thomas Thames is the heart of Thames & Ned Morrison the spine.

In such a huge firm, he has the second-highest authority in matters dealing with money, except for the wife herself.

This gave Ned Morrison a lot of unexpected troubles, but compared to the plight of being unable to sleep at night because of black accounts, such troubles are not bad.

Except for one—

"Morrison, stop!"

Loud female voices passed through the lobby of the brand new office - the office has long since moved out of the Whitechapel area and settled on a more respectable street in London.

This silenced the busy crowd in the office, and countless eyes fell on Ned Morrison who was about to turn around and run away.

Ned let out a long sigh of exhaustion, he helped the frame of the mirror, and turned around helplessly.

A slender young girl walked towards him with big strides, holding her skirt.

If anyone had seen Lyanna Bourne four years ago, she would never have imagined that that skinny and small child would turn out to be so charming.Four years later, Lyanna is tall, with a beautiful face, wearing a bright yellow dress with only a red silk scarf as an embellishment, coupled with those bright eyes, it is almost like a girl in the sky. The stars fell on the earth.

Unfortunately, this is a star that is not easy to mess with.

Lyanna walked up to Ned, her tone full of questioning: "What are you doing hiding from me?"

"What can you do?" Ned frowned slightly. "Miss Bourne?"

"Madam has something to do with you."

She raised her head slightly, with a proud look: "At two o'clock this afternoon, she will be waiting for you in the office."

Ned nodded coldly: "I see."

—that was not the case with him and Lyanna Bourne four years ago.

Mrs. Thames' boys took over the territory of the Bourne family, and the wife asked him to find a "suitable girl" as the heir of the Bourne family.

Ned was not stupid, how could he not understand what the lady meant?

Finding a girl to marry is nothing more than to better control the Bourne family.So the "right girl" has to be smart, current, and presentable.

After searching for a long time, Ned chose Lyanna Byrne.

He picked her up himself.

Ned Morrison, in a clean three-piece suit and shiny shoes.When he stepped into the board room like a pigsty, he pursed the corners of his thin lips in dissatisfaction, then passed the middle-aged couple who wanted to please him, and walked towards the dirty and dirty man who was roughly stuffed into the closet. Xi's little girl.

As neat as his clothes are, that little girl is as dirty, but the eyes in the thin face are so bright.

"Lyanna Byrne?" Ned said.

The little girl nodded.

Ned turned his head sideways: "Follow me."

The girl in the closet widened her eyes: "Where are you going?"

Ned: "Go somewhere where you won't keep being so dirty."

He paid for her to be washed and fitted with suitable clothes before taking her to the Thames Bar at 22 South Bank Street.

Ned Morrison boasted that he had done a good job of finding a marriage partner for Thomas Thames. This Lyanna Byrne was very suitable, but a little younger.But 14 years old is not suitable for marriage, 15 years old is almost the same.

But when she appeared in the bar, Madam rolled her eyes several times and knocked Ned on the head angrily.

To this day, Ned Morrison doesn't know what he did wrong, but in the end...it seems to be the same as before, except for being scolded, there are no consequences.

Lyanna Bourne stayed, not as the fiancée of the gang's second-in-command, but as a hostage of the Bourne family.

She ate and lived with several young Thames, and also attended classes and studies together, and her treatment was very different from that of her uncle and aunt's house.Ned made the right choice. She reciprocated her kindness and soon regarded the Thames as her home.

14-year-old Lyanna Byrne is also good to Ned. She is grateful that he rescued herself. She often chats around Ned, and sometimes Ned will give her math problems.

But soon she stopped doing so.

Fifteen-year-old Lyanna Byrne changed her attitude towards Ned almost overnight.She looks more and more beautiful, and imitating Mrs. Thames's appearance, she is more alert and sharp.She began to keep her distance from Ned, talking distantly and politely, as if she understood the distance between the Bourne heir and an accountant.

When Lyanna Bourne was 16 years old, Lambert Bourne secretly contacted other unwilling members of the Bourne family and started a "rebellion" that threatened enough but would not shake the foundation.

The 16-year-old girl personally came forward to settle the troubles caused by her family.

From then on, Madame intentionally started exposing her to gang affairs.So Lyanna Byrne's attitude towards Ned Morrison is even worse——

It's all right, Ned knows: in the big gang, Thomas Thames and his wife are siblings, and no one can shake their relationship.But I am different. The heir of the Bourne family naturally regards another member of a different surname as a thorn in his side.The higher Ned was in the gang, the less she got.

So she aimed at herself everywhere, it can be said that fire and water are incompatible. The 17-year-old Lyanna Bourne, like a little beast that has just grown up, eagerly wants to carve out her own territory and show her abilities and upper limit to the real power holders.

This isn't the first time she's gotten into trouble.

Therefore, Ned didn't take the so-called "Madame is looking for you at two o'clock in the afternoon" to heart, it was nothing more than Lyanna Byrne looking for trouble again.

He dealt with the matter at hand in an orderly manner, took a break after lunch, and knocked on the door of his wife's office when it was almost two o'clock.

Sure enough, Lyanna Byrne was there too.

Mrs. Thames didn't like to sit behind the desk, she leaned on the sofa, still looking lazy and careless.Meeting Ned's gaze, he simply nodded.

"Okay," Madam said in a hoarse voice, "Lyanna, have you made up your mind?"

"Yeah." Lyanna replied.

Ned sighed inwardly.

With a sullen face, he said unhappy, "What's the matter, ma'am?"

In contrast to Ned, Mrs Thames smiled brightly.

Four years later, the nearly thirty-year-old wife has not changed at all, perhaps because she is of Latin American descent, her honey-colored skin and gorgeous face are the same as before.Seeing Ned's vigilant expression, she smiled and said, "It's nothing, even Lyanna has grown up. You picked her up back then, so it's understandable."

Ned: "..."

Wait a minute, this is not what he expected.

Before entering the office, Ned Morrison had already quickly searched the events that happened during this period of time in his mind, and roughly delineated the direction where Lyanna Byrne would find fault, but Madam suddenly played the emotional card - what is this? mean?

"lady?"

Ned asked cautiously: "What do you mean by extenuating circumstances?"

Lady Thames turned to Lyanna Byrne.

"You've got to think about it, Lyanna," she said, "you've always had ideas, so it's okay to be young. But this is your life."

Ned: "..."

Lifetime event?What life event? ?

Lyanna Bourne still looked proud, but her hands subconsciously clenched the hem of the skirt revealing her inner emotions.

"I won't regret it," Lyanna replied. "I made my decision four years ago."

"Well."

Mrs. Thames nodded, and then her eyes fell back on Ned.

"Lianna has no father or mother, so I have no choice but to come here and beg me," the lady said with a smile on her face, but her tone was extremely solemn, "Ned, as Lyanna's elder, I will mention this marriage to your father. how do you feel?"

Ned: "………"

How did this get involved in the marriage?

Has he spent these four years in vain?Doesn't this girl really hate herself, why did she make a decision four years ago?Ned was so shocked that he could no longer describe his feelings in words. There were clearly three people present in this spacious office, but it seemed like the other two had already made a decision except himself!

Maybe it's the obvious blankness on Ned Morrison's face that really pissed off Lyanna Byrne.

Leanna, who has been a small firefighter since she was a child, has not changed since she grew up. She said bluntly: "What? Back then, you chose me for the purpose of marriage?!"

"I'm looking for a marriage for Thomas Thames!" he argued.

"Now Thomas and Katie are going to have kids!"

Leanna said angrily: "Madam said, there are so many boys in the office, as long as I like it, I can marry anyone I want!"

Ned: "You—"

In the end, he didn't say the words after "you".

In an instant, Ned Morrison finally understood that Lyanna Byrne's attitude towards herself had changed in the past four years.Not out of distaste, not out of interest, not out of calculation and greed, but the exact opposite of all this, all this stuff that Ned Morrison deals with all the time and knows by heart. emotions—

Mrs. Thames looked at the two who fell into a strange silence with interest, and then laughed out loud.

"I can be the matchmaker," she said with a smile, "but you can't buy and sell by force, can you? You two go back and discuss it yourself. When you have negotiated and reached an agreement, you won't come to me again. Late."