Page 32 of His Fury

I fought the urge to pace. Pacing wouldn’t help. I was barely keeping my temper contained as it was. What I wanted to do was break his nose, maybe a rib or two, and then ask him how that felt with interest.

Instead, I breathed through it. Controlled it. Because my rage wouldn’t clean up this mess, my control would.

“And who else have you borrowed from?”

“I paid him already.”

I waited, and I saw him hesitate. “Julian.”

“Some guy I met at the club. He has a name from Shakespeare, but I can’t remember it. But I paid him.”

This laugh was genuine. “Well, you threw your money away on that one,” I told him, pouring myself a coffee. “Mercutio is dead.”

Julian looked at me like I’d dropped a fucking bomb. He looked frozen.

And guilty.

Very fucking guilty.

“Tell me,” I said with a sigh. When had he become such a fucking liability?

“He worked for someone,” Julian told me, not making eye contact. “I dealt with him, but I think the money came from…somewhere else.”

The slippery bastard.

I took a drink of hot coffee, enjoying the burn, much like the whiskey but with a different burn. Hotter. Scalding.

“Well, that will be a big fucking problem,” I told Julian. “Because he worked for a mafia boss. A very fucking big one.” I finished my coffee. “Tell me you never took money from the mob, Julian.”

Because if he did, the goalposts would move, and this would become a different game. Aldo Bianchi didn’t care about money—he hadn’t for a long time because he had a lot of it. What he cared about was pressure. Control. About finding something or someone to lean on until they broke and bled out secrets.

And he’d found the perfect crack in Julian Turner.

“You went to Bianchi?” I asked, my voice barely containing my fury. “Out of everyone you could’ve begged from?”

“I didn’t know Mercutio was mafia,” he told me, desperate now. “I didn’t want to come to you. I didn’t want you involved?—”

“Well, I’m involved now,” I snapped at him. “Isla’sinvolved. My club is under the microscope because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut.”

Julian winced. “I didn’t tell them anything about you?—”

“Of course you fucking did!” I took a breath. My head dropped while I fought to keep my fury from exploding. “You would never have got invited to any oftheirgames without dropping my name. You used your connection to me to get a seat at the fucking table.” I looked up at him, seeing his pale face. “Didn’t you?”

A long silence stretched out, and he finally gave a small nod. I turned my back to him, needing distance before I did something I’d regret. Well, I wouldn’t, but Isla would be upset when I put her best friend in the hospital.

Controlling my need to lash out, I asked the only question that mattered. “What do they know about Isla?” Julian didn’t answer immediately. I turned, eyes cold. “Julian.”

He exhaled like the weight was finally too much. “Everything.”

I stared at him. And for the first time, I saw the man I’d known for years not as a brother, not as a friend, but as aburden.

And burdens? I got rid of them.

I looked him over, sharp and final. “How much do you still have to pay?”

“Seven hundred and fifty.”

“That’s all of it?” I asked, my tone cool, businesslike.

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