Page 22 of Fury
Anywhere but here
Fury had left town the day after the funeral. Rolling downstate, he’d been nursing a headache alongside a gutful of anger.
He’d headed to Kentucky to settle an old score. At some point that night, he’d decided it was past time to clear the debt with Dion. Wanted to give himself something tangible he could take hands to and deal with, rubbing out the problem. A problem that dragged its roots back through the years to where it sprouted from the first club takeover he had orchestrated.
Fury walked into the meet with a dozen of his most trusted brothers at his back, already knowing things were about to go bad for him despite Dion’s promises. The North Carolina club he had been riding with didn’t have the discipline to deal with threats like this one, and in the broad grins on the men facing them, he could see their expectations for the end results of the next hour. Dion wasn’t here, oh hell no. Any chance of pain or consequences, and that man was ass in the wind. Didn’t matter the cause. A straight-up fight like this promised to be, or doing a nickle in the pen because the money guy fucked up on the routing of a check. Dion would be vapor until things settled out.
Mentally evaluating the odds facing him, Fury rolled his shoulders, accepting that it appeared to be highly unlikely he would be walking out the door behind him at the end of this meet. Such an unlikely outcome, he decided to just go ahead and make the move they would all be making in about two minutes. As the canons of Sun Tzu taught, victorious warriors win first, and then go to war.
First, we cut off the head, he thought, lifting his arm with fist upraised, the signal bringing his group to a silent, shuffling halt. “Who speaks for Red Scorpions?” He asked the question casually, but the insult was out there because he implied it wasn’t even worth his time to read patches, forcing the other club to identify their ranking officer in the room. Several men turned to look at a small man in the back of the group and Fury sighed, and then laughed aloud when a different man spoke.
“I do.” The tone was arrogant, and he watched as the lips of several men twitched in response. This was a wanna-be officer, he decided, so he ignored him, turning instead to the first man who had looked around the room, the least member of the club he was about to go to war with. Fury aimed his words at that man, keeping his tone serious.
“You the president of the Reds?” Staring intently at the man, he still caught the movement of the small man out of the corner of his eye. Even as the low-ranking member shook his head, he heard the scuffing of boot soles moving his way. Allowing the man to get close enough without reacting was hard, but he schooled himself to stillness, pretending ignorance of the approach until the man was within reach.
In a single movement, he pulled his hunting knife from the sheath strapped to his leg, his thumb rolling the lock strap out of the way with a practiced twitch, bringing the blade out of the leather and into the air near his shoulder in a firm, underhand grip. Lashing out powerfully, with a short, sharp swing, he struck and then stepped to the side and out of the way as blood fountained from the man’s neck. Reaching up with his other hand, he turned the man to face the Reds, coating them with their own president’s blood. Within moments, the man had slumped to the floor, and Fury stood over the collapsed body, staring now at the only man who had spoken. With a nod, he indicated the now-pale wannabe, “Guess you do after all, huh?”
His words seemed to break the spell of shock, and both groups of men scrambled for weapons, surging forward to fill the gap that had previously separated them. Hearing the meaty thuds and pained grunts of hand-to-hand fighting, Fury allowed his men to flow around him, standing firm, watching as men slipped and cursed the blood that slickened the floor underneath their feet. When the first shot rang out, he nodded, reaching under his arm to tug his gun free of the holster holding it there. “Ain’t no onesies, twosies here,” he muttered, lining up a shot that took three members down.
At the end of the confrontation, there were four Reds standing and ten of his club. His gaze swept the group of men, those at his back and the few standing in front of him. “Whoever ain’t with me, y’all want to walk away, drop your fucking centers right now.” Calling for their patches would separate the real from lies fast, he knew and was ready when none of his men moved. Turning to the remaining Reds, he said, “If you ain’t walking away, what the fuck you think you’re going to do?”
“Join the Time of War,” one of them said, naming Fury’s current club. Fury watched as the man shrugged and shifted his feet to move away from the growing puddle of blood seeping across the floor.
“What the fuck for?” Fury asked, cocking his head to one side quizzically. “Dying club, why would you want to patch in here? And what makes you think I’d take a pussy who’s so quick to drop his center?”
Looking confused, the man glanced side to side at the men to his left and right, then over Fury’s shoulder to the men standing at his back. “If you didn’t want us to patch in, why didn’t you kill us?”
“Diamante,” he said and heard the surprise of sucked air behind him. Not even his brothers knew what he had planned. Diamante was a growing club, spreading their influence across the central and southern states. Strong enough to hold all claimed territory, they were serious one-percenters, breathing and dying by the bikers’ creed to live free.
From that time to now, nearly a year after he folded in his Diamante chapter into the Fort Wayne chapter of the Rebels, he continued to evaluate every decision he made against that cost. No regrets for North Carolina, and absolutely no regrets for stripping the Diamante colors off his back.Needful, he thought, using one of Mason’s favorite words.
Two of the men who had stuck with him were now planted, because they threatened his new family. Diamante members who didn’t see the necessity of dropping their cuts, wanted to feed info back to the old club. An old club filled with old men who had betrayal down to a science. Vendettas against so many, they couldn’t keep a fucking thing straight in their own heads. The past, for Fury. And those two members? In the past now, too. He’d dealt with their shit. Ancient roots brutally lopped off before they could grow and become a problem. Given a chance, he would do the same again. No remorse. No guilt. The only emotion was relief that he’d finally dealt with Dion.
“Told you we wouldn’t ever be done.” Dion leaned a skinny hip against the truck tailgate, staring out over the river. They’d met at the dam, in the parking lot near the spillway. A location Dion favored, because it meant he could give the necessary rundown for a con, send his minions off to do his bidding, and then get in some fishing. In the time Fury had known the man he had never, not once, done his own dirty work. No, what he did was find leverage with people he found valuable, and then worked them until they broke.
I’ll try one last time, Fury thought. He leaned against the fender of the truck, elbows propped on the top edge, steepled fingers in front of his pursed lips. Finally, all the words sorted in his head, he lobbed them at Dion, hoping to hit the mark with one of them at least. “I did time for you. Covered for you in a way that cost me a piece of my life.” Dion shrugged, shifting to a more comfortable position, staring at Fury with an expression of boredom. “I have run no fewer than ten successful cons for you. Made you more than a million dollars. For a while, I did everything you asked.”
“And I know where every one of those bodies are buried.” Dion paused and grinned, hisremainingteeth yellow and uneven. “So to speak.”
Undeterred, Fury continued. “You cost me the single most important relationship I’ll ever have.”
“Better off without the bitch. She’d’ve saddled you with that boy, otherwise.”
Immediately alert, Fury barked the question, “What boy?”
Dion rolled his eyes. “Ain’t your boychild. But if you’d hooked up with her, she’d have taken him back, that’s for sure.”
“She’s got a son?” He’d seen no signs of a child in the days he’d known her, been in her life. None of his digging had surfaced any hint of a child. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Shit, you think I’m stupid and can’t manage intel? Never did blame you for fucking the bitch. She was a hot piece. Maybe I should make a trip to Nashville myself, see if she’s as good as your actions claimed. Mmhmm. Maybe I should.” Not realizing he’d ensured his own death with those words, Dion turned to the truck bed and pulled his tackle box close. “Now, boy, if that’s all you got to say, can we cut this short? I got your number. I’ll be in touch when I need you next.”
“There is no next time.” He’d have to digest the info about Bethany later. Now it was time to deal with Dion, one final interaction. “We’re done. I’m not your boy to come runnin’ when you call.”
Dion turned, pole in hand, playing the line out a few inches before reeling it back in. He took a step away from the truck and did a practice cast, backwards and forwards, flipping the weighted line in front of him. Reeling it all the way back onto the spinner, he shook his head. “Yeah you fuckin’ will. That’s the deal. I call—” He flipped the weighted line out again, tugging when it became tangled in a set of bushes near the drop-off by the spillway. “Shit.” He took another step, yanked the line without success as his feet moved again and Fury knew he’d never have as good a chance as this one.
With a final glance around to ensure they were alone, Fury grabbed a ball peen hammer from the bed of the truck, gripped the handle with a sweaty palm as he rounded the tailgate, and took three steps towards Dion before bringing it down with force. The first blow took the man’s knees out from under him, and Dion toppled forwards, hands up to break his fall, pole dropping to the ground. The second blow exposed bone-white skull, and he convulsed for a moment, legs quivering as his brain short-circuited. Not one to take chances, Fury lifted and let his arm fall again, then wiped the hammer on the man’s shirt. “We are so done.” Lying on the lip of the slope, one hard push with his foot and the body slid, then tumbled, free-falling the last thirty feet to the roiling water at the bottom of the spillway. Dion’s foot had snagged on the fishing pole, dragging it along for the ride. “So done.”
He hated having to be around Hoss. Hurt like fuck. Watching him with that perfect family he was making with his old lady, seeing him bonded firm and tight with her boy, that shit tore something loose inside Fury every time he witnessed it. And now, knowing Bethy had a child? It meant he mourned that loss of the possible even more than anything else. Loss of a dream.
