Page 116 of Fury

“He has no style.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “No, he doesn’t.”

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, goes the old saying.

I slit the plastic and cut the ties on his wrists. “I’m grateful that you helped Rena. She trusted you, and you delivered.”

He rubbed his left wrist, his right, his eyes on mine. He was waiting for more. I’d give it. It was worth it.

I slid my knife back in my leathers. “I may have been…zealous in my approach this evening.”

He arched an eyebrow, a stiff smile etching his lips. “She’s worth it. Now you have something to lose, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer. Whatever happened between them, whatever they’d shared, I knew that when I found her, once we stood before each other, our eyes locked, the unmistakable, undeniable, unforgettable would boil between us as it always had. Everything that had come before would be rendered unimportant and obliterated.

“I won’t lose her,” I replied.

Turo rose to his feet, smoothing down his suit jacket. “Don’t ever fucking touch me again,” he said on a malicious hiss. A reptilian threat.

“I won’t,” I said. “You ever need anything under your radar, I can be of help.”

The muscle along his jaw clenched and unclenched as he adjusted the cuffs of his shirt. “I have a special delivery coming from New Mexico next week. A new shipper an associate brought in is suddenly playing hard ball, and it’s pissing my boss off. In fact, that’s what tonight’s meeting is about. I was asked to get involved to resolve the problem.”

I had no doubt he would.

I checked my watch. Eleven o’clock on the dot. “You’ve got plenty of time, but you’d prefer to walk in there with your own solution, wouldn’t you?”

His lips tipped up into an odd crooked grin. I’d figured him out, and he liked it. “Always optimum,” he replied.

“I’ve got my own system from California through Utah. You arrange for pickup in Nebraska, I’ll have it ready.”

“Your own system?”

“Carefully calibrated. I may have been in jail all this time, but I kept my shit up and running. Improved on it.”

“How can I be sure this isn’t you being pompous?”

“I gave you your life back just now, didn’t I? How many people take the great Turo DeMarco for a little rooftop Q & A? My friend here—” I gestured toward where Rhys stood still in the dark shadows. “—is an independent contractor and local. He can be your go-to man for the operation. Any operation, in fact. No one knows he exists. He’s a specialist. Has talents you’d appreciate.”

“You got a cigarette?” Turo asked. “I quit last week.”

I handed him my pack and lighter. He lit up and took in a deep drag. “It’s Reich.”

“Reich?”

He handed me back the lighter and my cigarettes. “Tonight. My problematic shipper.”

Yes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

“Give me the details and I’ll have a plan in place within thirty minutes,” I said.

He expelled a long stream of smoke, his eyes lighting up. “Impress me.” He gave me that crooked grin once more.

In that grin, my father’s words washed over me.“You got to consider the timing, the spectacle, and the afterwards…Know your opponent, be conscious of the blow back, where the particles will fall.”

I grinned back at Turo and flicked my lighter on. Off. On.

Yeah. Couldn’t wait to see those flaming particles fall.

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