Page 113 of Fury

He passed the pipe to me, and I took a hit.

“You game for something crazy?” I asked.

“Fuck yeah. It’s what I breathe for.”

During his third tour of duty, Rhys had been discharged after going overboard on a mission where he’d ended up slaughtering a family of women and children in Iraq. Enthusiastic. Focused. Unpredictable.

“I need to talk to DeMarco.”

He stared at me, his head slanting as if he were listening to the undercurrent beneath my words. He never asked me why. Ever.

Maybe Turo had figured out who Serena was. Maybe he’d twisted her arm to get information from her, and she’d complied and took off. I was glad that Med was getting his ass kicked, but what would stop Turo from going after other clubs, manipulating any club in Med’s orbit?

Did Turo know where she was? I needed to know and then stop anyone else from finding out. I needed to stamp out any connection there was between them. If I had suspected, maybe a Smoking Gun would too?

I sat up, putting the bottle down. “Do it.”

He only nodded, taking another drag on his pipe, his head lifting as he savored the weed.

“After, you can do whatever you want with him.”

Rhys’s full red eyes met mine.

“You do this for me, man, and you won’t be just my go-to guy no more,” I said. “I’ll share your talents. Set you loose officially with the Flames.”

He exhaled a plume of smoke, his head shaking. “I don’t think I can do the group bro thing. I’m just not—”

“I know, I know. We’ll figure it out.” I slid my arm over his shoulders. “A nomad, yeah? It’s all good.”

“Nomad, huh? Long term benefits included? Health, disability, retirement fund?”

We both laughed.

His eyes remained grim, hanging on mine through the haze of smoke. “I’m with you, brother. You know that. To the end, wherever this takes me.”

I let out a heavy breath.

I wasn’t sure what I’d find out about Serena—why she’d taken off, cut herself off, any connection she had with Turo—but I had to cover all the possible angles until I got to the end, as Rhys said.

I lifted the bourbon bottle in the air. “To the end.”

No matter how bitter.

32

Rhys studied Turo DeMarco andnabbed him on the tenth day. He had his chest and legs wrapped in plastic to a chair on the roof of a building in Serena’s old neighborhood. Turo finally came to from the drugs Rhys had shot him up with earlier in a coat check room at a restaurant.

I stood over him. His hair was mussed, his pretty face unbruised.

So far.

DeMarco blinked, his head straining. “What the fuck is this, and who the hell are you?”

Rhys faded into the darkness. I had the floor.

“Ashley,” I said.

His cold light-colored eyes betrayed nothing.

---