Page 42 of Fury
First one then the other
Mason
“I want you to bring her the fuck to me,” Mason roared into the phone, hand tightening down on the device as he swung to glare at the men in the room, all now frozen in fear of whatever he had heard over the phone that could bring him to this level of rage. “You bring her right the fuck to me.”
Disconnecting the call, he twisted and scanned until he saw the faces he wanted. “Slate, Deke, to me,” he clipped, stalking towards the secure room in this Ohio clubhouse where they conducted business and church. A thought hit him, and he paused, then pulled his phone out of his pocket where he had thrust it and dialed. They needed to make sure there weren’t any bugs in this clubhouse since it wasn’t one that he used frequently. “Myron, Ohio sweep. Who?”
There was a pause as his tech and money wizard caught up with his shorthand speech and then he heard, “Gunny.”
Disconnecting, he dialed another number, barking his question as soon as the call connected, “Where are you?”
Not cautious, because he never held back with Mason, not anymore, Gunny said, “Fucking my woman. My own bed.” He sucked in air audibly, then clipped, “Where you need me?”
Tipping his head to look at the floor, his tone more moderated this time, Mason said, “Sorry, brother. Need you in Ohio yesterday. Need you to bring cleaning supplies when you come.”
There was noise in the background, a soft feminine moan that made Mason wince, then a loud, fast, slapping sound of flesh against flesh. “Goddammit, Prez.” The moan came again, and Gunny hissed. “Fucking hell, babe, you comin’ again? My fucking pussy. Hell.” His breathing sounded hard and fast in Mason’s ear. “Fifteen minutes, in the wind,” Gunny grunted, and the call disconnected.
Mason reached out, deliberately locking and placing the phone face down on the table near him, seeing Deke do the same.
Altering his direction, he strode to the door, stiff-arming it open as he walked into and through the yard surrounding the farmhouse that was now a biker clubhouse. Surrounded by cornfields, the house looked like any other all along the blacktop country road, except for the chosen mode of transport for the occupants. For five minutes he walked out into the field, hearing the footfalls of his brothers behind him, listening to the sibilant sound of the corn shocks sliding across their leathers, slipping past the denim of their jeans. He came to an opening in the field and stood beside the wellhead sprouting from the ground like a mutant crop, and cocked one hip out, propping a foot on the metal pipe.
Looking at his two men, he knew they understood things had gone to shit, and saw their bone-deep belief that he would, that hecouldfix it. His mind whirled, stuck in what he had heard on the phone call earlier.
“Feds in our phones,” he said, and they nodded. Expected, when you were involved in a one-percent club, when you were national, when you were leadership. “Feds in our houses.” Picking up bugs when you did sweeps meant you were on someone’s radar, something he didn’t like but knew it also was expected. That invasion of their world, where they lived, existing alongside the citizen lives, but taking up a whole different kind of atmosphere, was anticipated.
“Feds in our ranks.” He said these words quietly and saw the shock on their faces.Fucking Bethany, he thought,only Bethy could fuck a Fed’s informant and not know it. In his head, he imagined he heard Bingo, not cutting him any slack, saying,Only an arrogant boy would patch a fed’s informant and not know it.
Deke’s voice was low, riding dangerously close to the edge of control when he asked, “Who?”
“Fury,” he said, his voice just as measured for the moment, but that control was slipping further out of reach with every breath. “Pike heard something, followed up on it, found a lead.”
“No fucking way.” Slate spoke immediately, shaking his head, rejecting the idea. “No fucking way, Prez. Pike’s always seeing conspiracies in his mind. You know that.”
“I do know that, but this has legs,” he gritted out. “You think I’d have this chat without at least following up on this shit?” Pike was the president of the St. Louis chapter, his hold on that charter tenuous at best, having been brought to the floor only two weeks ago. Recalled to Chicago, he hadn’t come willingly, and once there hadn’t played the conciliator; instead, he’d barked laughter and threats. Mason had already regretted giving the man the president nameplate, and now deeply regretted letting him roll off the parking lot that night still breathing.
Still, when he’d called claiming info, Mason had picked up the phone.
“No fucking way,” Slate repeated himself firmly, and Mason had a moment of uncertainty. Then Deke spoke, and that uncertainty fled like clouds before a storm.
“I can see it,” Deke said. “I don’t like it, but I can see it. Him coming up the way he did. How all-in he was with folding his boys into Rebels, more than pulling his weight on shit jobs for months and gaining trust, easing into the leadership on a fast track.” Deke took a breath, then cut his gaze to Mason and ventured, “Fuckin’ the national president’s sister.”
“She showed in the Fort. Tequila’s bringing her here.” Mason swung his gaze, looking at the corn moving and swaying in the breeze. Life all around them; dust in his heart. He had seen pictures of how she was with Fury, seen how the man was with her. Looked at her like she held his heart. Fury looked at Mason’s sister the way Mason knew he looked at Willa and that sucked. It sucked hard, mostly for his Bethy, because now he knew it didn’t mean anything. “Feds all up in our shit. Our boys’ll be bringing her in hot. Then she and I will have a fucking chat. Gunny’s comin’ to sweep the clubhouse, need that done before I talk to my sister about the fucking CI she was with.”
Slate shook his head again, still resistant to the idea of Fury being on the wrong side of the blue line. “Walk me through what Pike has, boss.”
“Pike has Memphis. We knew shit was bad there, knew it when we sent Hoss in. Knew it when he settled things out as best they could be, but we kept Memphis.” Memphis had been a mistake to charter from the get-go, that town drowning in corruption from so many directions there wasn’t enough territory to support shit. All of which meant any space they carved out, everyone else in town wanted.
The shit there had finally been cleared by Hoss, who went down for a day and stayed three weeks, leaving twenty-two bodies in his wake, spilling blood that ran deep. “Ling had papers on him.” Ling was a longtime dealer in that town, had fucked more people over than they had the population for, but he kept on. Until he wasn’t able to anymore, seeing as how he had a hole in his head that couldn’t be plugged. “Had papers on Fury from Lalo.”
“You see those papers, boss?” Slate asked the question casually, but they all knew it was important. Mason shook his head, waiting. “No papers, just Pike’s word? Really, Mason?”
“Could do without the shit from you today, Slate,” he gritted his teeth as he spoke, frowning when he saw Slate again shaking his head.
“Pike’s a fucking liar. We’ve caught him more than once. Shoulda cut him back when we found his charter fucking the laws, boss. You’ve seen him fuck brothers’ women, laughing as he handed them back, feeling he was above it all.” Slate leaned in, his face tightening as his voice came out tense and harsh. “Did you make a call based on Pike’s intel alone?”
“Fuck.” Mason’s hand reached for his phone and only then remembering he had left it inside, fearful of the ears he knew might be listening. Slate grinned and reached into both front pockets, pulling a phone from one and battery from the other. Grabbing them, Mason quickly assembled the phone, tapping in a memorized number. “Stand down,” he said into the phone, waiting for the shouted instructions on the other end to be passed along, glad the meaty smacks of fists against flesh stopped immediately. “Bring him to me.”
Mason looked down, then back up at his brothers. “He’s fucking my sister. I fucking hate his ass.”
