Page 192 of Fury

Yeah, fuck it all.

Icalled Catch, and he arrivedat the One-Eyed Jacks in under two hours, and was brought to the room where Tania was resting.

“You told me a while back that you’re in love with Nina,” she said to her brother.

“Yeah.”

“Still feel that way? Still want to be with her?”

He shifted his weight, his gaze darting at me then back to his sister. “Tania, what the hell?”

“I need to know,” she said. “Because I’m going to go talk to her today at the hospital. And I want to be sure of what you’re feeling.”

“What I’m feeling?”

“Do you love her?” Tania raised her voice. “Do you want her for your old lady?”

“Hell yes.”

“Good.”

“You gonna to set us up?”

Tania’s eyes met mine. Butler had told her that Nina’s baby wasn’t his, it was Catch’s. Just as I thought, Tania was derailing the circus train and resetting it on the correct track.

“If you want to be together, you should be,” said Tania. “Butler cuts her loose, you two get it together and show Reich and the world that you are the real deal, not fuck ups. She’ll be under your protection and Finger’s. Reich hates Butler, but you, you’re a Flame, that changes his psycho game plan somewhat.”

“You make it sound so easy, but it—”

“It is easy. You want something bad enough—” Her gaze shot to me. “—you make it happen.”

I had lived my life by that principle. But I’d let Serena slip through my fingers, like a tiny pebble or a sleek ribbon that I couldn’t quite grip in my maimed hands.

Make it happen.

Tania and Butler had something going on between them, but Tania was not about tossing the puzzle pieces in the air and seeing where they landed. No, she was making it happen by putting the puzzle pieces in their right place under a bright light.

Ten minutes later, a smile on her face, Tania got on the back of her brother’s bike and with me alongside, we rode out off the Jack’s property and headed to the hospital in Rapid. Tania went in to talk to Nina alone, while Catch hung with me in the hallway. He was jumpy, chewing on his lips. He was about to get what he wanted.

I planted a hand on his shoulder. “You ready for this?” In a few minutes Nina would tell him he was going to be a daddy again. His whole life was going to change.

He took in a breath. “The fuck of it is, I am.”

Tania opened the door to Nina’s room, beaming a smile at her brother. “Get in here.”

He gave me a last look, a glimmer in his coffee-colored eyes, and he pushed Nina’s door open wide.

54

“Why are you here?”

Lenore stood stock still in the center of her lingerie boutique as I entered the small, colorfully decorated shop. An exotic harem, a seductive woman’s lair in a once upon a time cowboy and gold rush town.

I knew her question, in that deep, firm voice, so in control, wasn’t meant to insult. She knew something was up.

“There’s something you need to know, and I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“What happened?” she asked.

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