Page 36 of Fury

Then, I point to my ribs because those hurt so bad it’s mind numbing.

Reaching down, Fury unbuttons my blouse, and I don’t care at all that there are two men in the room right now. I just want him to take the pain away. As he pushes it off my shoulders, his eyes fall to my ribs. “Fuck.”

“Is it bad?” I croak, scared to look down.

“They’re in a bad way. Could have broken some. You might need a hospital.”

“No,” I say, so quickly it has his head jerking up. “No please. If you take me to the hospital, they will call him. If I refuse, they will wonder why, and they’ll call the police, and if the police are called ...”

“What?”

Fury’s gaze locks on mine so intensely I can’t look away.

“I’ll go to prison,” I whisper.

His eyes flash, then he looks over his shoulder at Colt. “Get me a first-aid kit, bandages, anything you can find. Good painkillers, too.”

Colt nods and leaves the room.

Fury looks back to me. “Start talkin’.”

I know I no longer have a choice. If I want a world free of Ethan, then I need to tell Fury the truth. I trust him, and if anyone in this world can help me, it’s him. So, I start talking.

“Do you remember a few years back a girl was said to have jumped off the rocks at the local lookout?”

Fury, who is now using a damp washcloth Colt brought in to wipe the blood from my face, pauses. “Yeah.”

“She was my best friend. Her name was Ella. That day, she called Ethan and I up there, we went there a lot. There was this little rock you could climb down to that was perfectly flat. We would go down and drink wine there sometimes or have a picnic. That day, we went down there. I thought nothing of it but ...”

Fury nods, encouraging me to go on.

I take a deep, shaking breath, and it hurts so fucking bad I have to pause as the wave of pain washes over before subsiding a little.

“They took me up there to tell me they were having an affair. I didn’t see it coming; I was completely blindsided. We got into an argument, and I took a step toward her. Ethan reached out to stop me, and I swung around, trying to jerk my arm from his grip, and somehow, my body slammed into hers. Before I knew what was happening ... she fell over the side.”

A sob rises up in my throat, and I clench my eyes shut to try and stop the memory from repeating over and over in my mind.

“I didn’t mean for her to fall,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Take a breath,” Fury orders, his voice scarily calm.

I don’t know how he can be calm; I feel like the entire world is closing in around me.

“I was frantic, staring over the side, mumbling that I didn’t mean it over and over ... Ethan kept saying strange things, asking why I would do that, and how horrified he was, it made no sense ... he knew I didn’t push her. When I turned around, he was filming.”

Fury snarls, a low growl escaping his lips. “That shady, filthy motherfucker. I’ll kill him.”

“He has proof, enough that the police would believe I pushed her. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t. It’s his word against mine, and he has the video. Sure, he might get into a little bit of trouble for not saying anything, but he will talk his way out of it. Me, I’ll go to prison for the rest of my life.”

Fury exhales, closing his eyes for a moment, his hand curled into a fist on his lap where he sits on a chair in front of me, fighting for calm.

I wait, terrified that he is going to tell me there is nothing he can do.

Eventually, he opens his eyes. “How smart is this fucker? Would he have the video on his phone still?”

I shake my head. “Maybe, but would have also sent it somewhere or saved it on a drive and hidden it. He’s not stupid.”

“I figured,” Fury mutters. “A man that comes up with a plan that fuckin’ vile in a matter of minutes is the evilest of them all.”

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