Page 178 of Fury

My heart twisted, my head swam. “What do you want from me?”

“You.”

One word, and the house held its breath, the world stood still.

He said, “I want to be with you, Serena.”

Serena.

My insides tumbled all over the dark wood floor. The first time he’d used my real name was in a gloomy, shadowy basement dungeon a million years ago. Hearing it then had touched me with a prick of sweetness, an unexpected rush of yearning for more, an inexplicable ache. It touched me now, but deep and thick and rough. He’d come back for me once, twice, and he’d come for me today. The only one who ever had. No slinking away, no concealing. Finger kept his promises. His word was a vow.

My unrelenting steadfast soldier.

But Finger wasn’t made of tin, like the fairy tale. He was made of volatile fire and fierce fury. That insistence of his, brewed on vengeance and laced with hope, had destroyed the iron chains that once held us bound and forged the gleaming metal of his hard faith that had set us free.

My heart beat wildly under his glare. “It’s been years. We barely know each other anymore,” I said.

A thick, dark eyebrow lifted. “Does that really matter?”

The room shifted around me.

“Do you think I’m just going to hop on the back of your bike, and we’re going to ride off into the Nebraska sunset?” I raised my voice. “There’s no point now. You’ve got your life, I’ve got mine—”

“No point? No point? Timing fucked us, but fuck time! From the first moment we met, we didn’t have separate lives.”

His raw urgency jolted through me, detonating everything in its path.

“What is it?” His scars tightened, his stern jaw jutted out. “You all up in this Jack?”

I smoothed my hands over the polished wood surface of my kitchen table. “This is about me. I finally have my life the way I want it. I’m financially independent, living off my own work, part of a good community, good friends, good people I trust. My son is grown up and following his own path. And all the ugly shit is over and in the deep past and it needs to stay that way.”

“Seeing me brings the deep ugly all back, huh?” His eyes narrowed, his lips smashing together.

I touched his arm. “Seeing you makes me realize how far we’ve both come, and I’m glad. Glad you’re doing well. Glad we can sit here and have a cup of coffee.”

He threw his head back and laughed.

My scalp prickled.

“You think I came here for a cup of coffee with you?” he said, his eyes gleaming dark metal.

“Did you kill Med?”

“Turo took care of him. He did it for you. He told me himself.”

Nausea swirled in my gut. “How do—”

“After he gave me your new name, I let him live, and that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” He chuckled.

He was quoting Casablanca now?

“We ended up helping each other out,” he continued. “For years now.”

I choked back a slew of slimy images of Finger and Turo scheming together, killing together, consuming women together.

“To be clear, the Jacks are my friends. Are they your enemies now after all this crap with Catch?”

“No.”

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