Page 96 of Fury

He flipped them over in his palm and tucked them in his jacket pocket. “I’ll call you when it’s done. You stay here. Have dinner. Dessert. This might take a while.”

“Isn’t Ciara meeting you here?” I asked.

“I’m going to call her now to cancel.”

“I ruined your evening. I’m sorry—”

“Oh, no,” he said. “You just made it infinitely more interesting.”

He turned and gestured at the bartender, a very handsome model-type dressed in a tight black T-shirt outlining his perfect body. He was almost too pretty. “Aaron, my friend is staying for dinner. Whatever she wants—the works—on my tab.”

“Absolutely, Mr. DeMarco.” Aaron nodded at Turo and placed a long card of a menu on the bar top in front of me.

I glanced down at the beautifully designed menu edged in bronze trim, but it might as well have been written in Chinese.

“I don’t think I can eat,” I said.

“When was the last time you did?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Aaron, get the lady the arugula and mesclun salad with feta and the steak frites. Medium rare. And whatever else she’d like.”

“Coming right up.” Aaron vanished, taking the menu with him.

“Turo—”

“You like the wine? It’s a very fine Cabernet from Argentina.” His voice was relaxed. Just another night out with a woman. I tensed, expecting his hands to settle on a shoulder, my back, my arm. Thankfully, the touch never came; the weight of his gaze was heavy enough.

I said what I knew he wanted to hear, “The wine is very nice.” I wouldn’t be drinking anymore though.

“Stay here, eat, and relax.” He leaned in even closer. “I’ll call you, let you know when you can come home,” he whispered in my ear, that icy shiver racing over the back of my neck once more.

“You have my number?” I asked.

He slid on a dark overcoat. “Oh, I’ve had it from the beginning, Ash.”

Sweeping past me, Turo was gone.

25

Two o’clock in the morning.A bleach-y, chemical odor stung my nostrils.

“All done,” came Turo’s voice behind me as I entered my apartment.

“All done,” I murmured.

The apartment was immaculate, undefiled. All signs of death and destruction were now absent. But no fairy godmother had swooped in and performed this magical cleanup.

The door clicked shut behind me, and I flinched despite the weariness from the food, the hour, the adrenaline. Turo studied my reaction, but I kept it in check. He was always trying to read me. It was subtle but unsettling.

“You didn’t have to wait for me downstairs,” I said.

“Of course I did. You had a dead body in your apartment. You think I’m not going to make sure you’re okay when you get yourself back in here? What kind of man do you think I am?”

“I don’t think about you, Turo.” I threw my handbag on the chair by the door. I swallowed down the tension that crept up my legs, my middle, my throat.

“You thought about me for this, though, didn’t you?”

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