Page 152 of Fury

“And don’t you forget it.”

He held my gaze. “I won’t. As soon as I secure Creeper, and get back to Ohio and finalize a few details with Reich, I should have something for you. I’ll be in touch. After that, I plan on heading back to Meager, to the Jacks.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Yeah, I’m working on it.”

“You waiting on Jump to roll out the red carpet for you?”

“Well, some kind of carpet, yeah.”

Butler was clever, a sneaky fuck in the past. Just cause he was sober now, could I be sure that he wouldn’t stab me in the back with Reich somehow?

I stretched out my legs, crossing my arms. “You know, before the white man got to this area, the Native Americans used to burn large sections of land to divert the deer, elk, and the buffalo for easier hunting, driving the animals where they wanted them. A selective use of fire. Fire as destroyer, but fire as creator. Purposeful. That way they got rid of the brush and the tall trees, creating the wide stretches of prairie we got today.”

“Huh. Didn’t know. I like that,” Butler said, packing his cigarettes and lighter back in his pocket.

“That’s what I’m looking to accomplish here, Butler. That’s my ultimate endgame. A stretch of prairie, animals who heed. Nobody’s immune to flames. You get too close, you get burned.”

Butler stilled, his jaw tightened. “I want the best for my club, Finger. I’m killing myself out there to make sure that happens, and you know it. I’m not interested in double crossing you in any way. This—what we have here, you and me—” he tapped two fingers on my desk. “—I’m respecting it, and it stays between us. Too much is at stake.”

I picked up my Digi-Flex once more. “A hell of a lot is at stake. And you can either be a part of that purposeful fire or get destroyed by it yourself.”

43

Loud voices andrushing footstepsechoed in the main room just beyond my office.

Slade leaned his head in, rapping his knuckles on my office door. “Prez, two women just showed up with Catch’s kid.”

I turned and scanned the security monitors at my side, Butler behind me.

“What the hell?” Butler muttered.

My pulse picked up. Tania stood in the center of the main room. She was with another woman in a baseball cap pulled down low, who held Catch’s daughter. Jill flew over and took Becca from the woman’s arms. Tania spoke with her brother as the main room filled up with Flames and their women relieved to see Becca safe.

Tania was here at my compound and under emergency circumstances. I hadn’t seen her in over ten years or spoken to her since I’d called her about her brother prospecting. I’d checked in on her once, twice, and found out she’d gotten married and then left Chicago for Racine, Wisconsin.

She was older now, yet even more attractive than before. There was a sharp confidence in the way she held herself, but she seemed tired and strung out; she was coming down from an experience. Stern-faced, telling her little brother what for, pulling no punches. The two of them had been estranged for years from what little Catch had told me. I’d never let on I knew his sister.

That was over now.

I listened to their conversation. Tania and her friend had happened to cross paths with Creeper at some junkyard not too far from here. He’d held them hostage, but the women had managed to knock him out. My muscles tightened at her description of Creeper assaulting her and threatening them and little Becca.

Tania at the mercy of that fuck. All this time of keeping her on the sidelines, and now, years later, she got touched by Flames business.

Her friend was keeping quiet, body language pulled together. It was perfectly natural for a civilian woman to be anxious at our clubhouse. She and Tania shared a quick, knowing look. There was something familiar about her face.

She was no civilian.

It was Grace, Dig’s widow. Catch knew her too from his childhood, but I was sure he hadn’t seen her in years, and he was too emotional now with Becca safe to notice much else.

“Did you call the cops?” asked Catch, his eyes on Jill, who kissed and held their daughter, tears running down her face as she murmured to the baby.

“No,” replied Tania. “We asked Creeper why he’d taken the baby, and your name came up. I would’ve called you, but my battery died, and I don’t know your number by heart.”

“Appreciate it, Tan,” he said.

Tania intervening once again, getting the job done. She followed her instincts and reached out. That was a fucking gift.

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