Page 104 of Fury

If Grace could do it, Grace the widow, Grace the childless mother with the torn body and ripped soul, why couldn’t I?

There would be no better solutions, no other choices. I had gotten myself into an impossible situation once again, but this time I had to get myself out. Finger had given me the gift of freedom. He’d made me a promise that he’d come back for me, and he had. Tania had put herself on the line to help us, and she did. I was free to live in that sunshine they both had showed me. I was free to love him and be loved in return.

I just couldn’t be with him.

What had Boner said?“She’s in the pit now. I know what that’s like, and I gotta pull her out.”I’d been in several pits already, and right now there was no one who could pull me out—no Grandma, not Tania, not Finger. Hell knew where he’d end up to do his time and for how long, and there could be no contact. And Tania needed to stay clean and clear of it all.

This time, I couldn’t cling to hopes, waiting for an optimal opportunity. I had to protect our baby which was growing inside me every day, and do it now. I had to protect my man. Being together could get us all killed or worse.

I saw the choice I had to make as clear as a toll booth up ahead on the highway. Payment had to be made in order to pass, and there wasn’t much time to scrounge the coins together.

I have to keep my family safe.

That drumbeat of war boomed in my head. Unmistakeable, steady, loud.

I’d gotten comfortable and that had been a mistake. I knew better, but I’d been enjoying myself. I’d enjoyed believing.

I’d had a brush with Scrib. Motormouth had found me. Somewhere down the line, some other Gun would find me, take me back, and I’d be punished in some horrible way for the glory of their honor, their pride, or just for the hell of it.

I had started clinging to hopes this past year, nurturing them, but there could be no more of that. Hopes were like wisps of glittery diaphanous fabric—dreamy, fanciful. Impractical. Nothing good ever lasted for me, that had been proven true over and over.

I had to make a move.

“Tea and Oreos, breakfast of champions.” Tania set a tray of steaming mugs and cookies on napkins in front of me on the coffee table.

I would stay away from Tania to keep her safe. I had to. She deserved only the best. I had to leave Chicago, and leave no clues behind.

I would perfect that principle this time. That was now my truth, my religion, my creed.

Steam rose from the surface of the tea, and my mother’s words came back to me:“Some of us have to live in the real world.”

Oh, I did live in the real world. I knew that for me to grab at any happiness, there would always be something to hide, someone to kill, someone to pay off, someone to owe.

And now, I had something precious they could take from me and destroy, but I wouldn’t let them.

I would take it away myself first.

28

“Out in four if youbehave,” the club lawyer said. “Maybe even three, but I can’t promise anything.”

My chained hands curled into tight fists on the table.

I’d gotten caught on my way to Chicago. This job in Springfield, Illinois had come in at the last minute from National. I got it done, and the next day I headed to Chicago. In a little over twenty minutes I would’ve been in the city limits, and in my woman’s arms.

Instead I’d landed in a jail cell.

He leaned in closer to me, his fingers pressing down over his navy blue tie. “Your club needs you in jail. You’re agreeing to a deal, and they’re going to send you to the state pen. Usually this sort of thing gets tagged for the Feds and they swoop in and send you boys to some facility way across the country just for the hell of it. That won’t happen here. So you do your time, and you’ll be out in a few years.”

“What’s the hook?”

Across the table, he passed me two black and white photos of two different men.

“Last year, the President and Vice President of the Silver Crows were incarcerated in northern Illinois...”

The rest was a fucking laundry list of what I needed to do for the greatness of the Flames.

“Who? Tell me who.”

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