Fury

“What’d he have to say there before we left?” Mason’s question didn’t surprise Fury; he’d been expecting it.

“Reason he’s been rolling south for these many years.” Fury motioned towards the driver, keeping his hands low, out of sight of the rearview mirror. “I’ll tell you when we get to the Otey compound.”

Mason nodded and turned, staring out the side window. Fury did the same on his side of the van. Silence filled the rest of their drive.

“We’re here now. Tell me what Spider said.” Mason’s voice was gruff and quiet. His tone said he felt he had waited patiently.

Fury turned to watch as the van drove up the long driveway, a plume of dust rising in an arc along its wake. “Spider said he had every reason to believe Tucker and Diamond both had a hand in his old lady’s wreck. Said he’d had questions about Diamond for a while, but first Watcher, and then Opie, had put his concerns down to being his grief talking. His old lady had no reason to be in Mexico that night, none at all. No reason to be on that bridge. Diamond’s girlfriend was watching their kids, and Spider said that was not a normal occurrence. We know Spider went to Florida to bring Diamond’s bike back. We assumed that meant some kind of partnership agreement between the two men. According to Spider, that is not the case.”

Mason swept the area with his gaze, then turned back and faced Fury. “So, you’re sayin’ everybody had it wrong? Every one of us had it wrong? Do you put yourself in that group?”

“Fuck, yeah. I was definitely on the wrong side of the fence where Spider’s concerned. But you cannot tell me that you looked at that old man lying in that bed, broke up, beaten and burned near to death so he could bring an enemy of the club back to us, and you didn’t waver in your previous doubts. You cannot tell me you looked at him and didn’t believe.” He stared at Mason.

Mason scoffed, gaze angled down. He stood like that for a moment, and Fury wondered what was going through his head. “Spider only gave you part of the truth. I guarantee. If Juanita would’ve let me dope him up a little, we might have gotten a straight story out of him. But she didn’t, which leaves us with only one other person to talk to.” Mason lifted his chin and stared Fury in the face. “Are you letting Spider be the shot caller on this play? That, my brother—” Mason shook his head. “—is not his role.”

“Mason, you have no idea what you’re doing.” He was staggered when hot anger flared in Mason’s eyes at his words and angled backwards until his shoulders hit the wall. He squared up and persisted. “This is not me passing on responsibility. This is me trying to do what you told me you needed.” He took a deep breath. “If you go back there like this, you’ll end him before we get what we need. We’re in agreement, we can’t get it from Spider, which means we got just one source to plumb. Take a breath, brother. Take a deep fucking breath.”

Mason shook his head, silently rejecting the idea. “I know exactly what I’m doing. I know exactly how I’m doing it. I know exactly what he don’t want me to know.” Taking an aggressive step forward, Mason’s hands balled into fists at his sides. “Tucker has eluded me for far too long, Fury.” He lifted one fist and flipped the long finger out, pointing out the window to Watcher’s house. “Me finding out he had anything to do with that man’s death? Signed his own warrant.”

Fury stayed still and silent. He waited. Waited until it was clear Mason was finished talking. And then, he waited some more. Finally, Mason rocked back on his heels, and fingers unclenching, he shoved his hands in his back pockets. “You have no idea. None. You’re a man who’s lived his life, exactly how he wanted to. No regrets. Nothing wrong in your rearview. You got no idea what it’s like to live in my head, knowing that I let Tucker walk away not once but twice. If it comes out he worked with Diamond on this…? He won’t walk away a third time.”

Mason couldn’t be more wrong. He don’t know me at all. Fury’s regrets were many, so fucking many it seemed he could drown under the weight of them sometimes. Your sister my greatest regret of all. “I would expect nothing less, brother.” Mason would do whatever was needed, and so would Fury. He looked towards the back of the barn, where the small circle of men stood, waiting for this conversation to be over. “We doing this right now, Mason?”

“Yeah, let’s get it over with.” Mason turned on his heel and walked towards the group. His stride was easy and long, unburdened by the emotion that had gripped him a moment ago. Fury lengthened his steps and caught up with Mason. As they had at the church, they walked in sync, two men—one purpose.

***

Fury winced and shook his hand, droplets of blood flinging to the shifting sands beneath his boots. He let go of Tucker’s neck and allowed the man to fall to the floor, sprawled on his back. Glancing up and around the room, instead of censure, all he saw were expressions of sympathy and support. He didn’t know if this was a true turning of tides for the attitudes he’d been dealing with, or if it was due to Mason standing directly behind him. Whatever it was, he would take it all day long. Looking down, he jabbed the toe of one boot roughly into Tucker’s ribs, growling when he received no response.

Mason rested a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back two paces, his mutter quiet, but Fury knew every man in the barn heard him say, “Let him come back to himself. Don’t waste your efforts when there’s nothing to be gained. Give him a few minutes, and he’ll be with us.”

Fury nodded, accepted a bottle of water from Opie, and wiped the sweat from his forehead as he lifted and drank. He was exhausted. They had been working on Tucker for more than six hours. The sun had finally set, and the brutal heat of the New Mexico summer was beginning to bleed off as the barn cooled. The man had slipped away from them for the third time in as many hours, and Fury took this chance to steady his breath. He finished the water, handing the empty back to Opie. The three of them were standing in a rough circle, towering over Tucker’s body. Fury checked and saw the man’s chest rising and falling shallowly. Still breathing.

“We gettin’ anything we can use, Mason? Fury’s doin’ his job, but I’m less convinced that this guy can be broken. I mean—” Opie gestured towards the prone figure on the floor. “—look at ‘em. We know what it took for Slate to get what he needed, and that was years ago. He’s a hard motherfucker.”

Spreading the fingers on his right hand, Fury clenched them into a fist again, feeling the ache settling in. He studied Tucker for a moment, surveying the damage wrought by his blows. Face nearly untouched, because they needed him able to talk, and needed to be able to understand any words spoken, Fury had been working his body hard. Kidneys were an obvious target, as were fingers, elbows, knees, and ankles. Nothing damaged in a lasting way, not yet, because a man without hope wouldn’t have a reason to talk.

Mason’s phone rang and he stepped back, pulling it from his pocket. He squinted at the device, then swiped across it, lifting it to his ear. “Yeah?” Whatever was said on the other end had an immediate effect and Fury watched as Mason stilled, freezing in place. “You’re sure? You talked to him?” A pause and Fury became aware all conversations had halted. When he glanced around, every eye was on Mason. “Be certain, brother.” That made sense, because whoever it was had to be inner circle—Mason wouldn’t have taken the call otherwise. “Copy. Thanks, man. Tell him we owe him.” Mason’s mouth twitched to the side. “Yeah, Myron. I know exactly what those words mean. Tell Sparks we owe him.”

Mason was staring down at Tucker as he slipped the phone back into his pocket, expression contemplative. “We don’t need you anymore, Tucker.” Movement from the floor drew Fury’s attention, and he saw Tucker was wide awake, staring up at Mason. “Got what I needed from your ex-crew in Florida. Them boys don’t care much for you. All the bullshit you pulled there, drawing down Fed attention to the club, man…that did not make you any friends.”

“Sparks reached out?” Fury wanted to ask what Myron had told Mason, but knew Mason would share it or not, on his terms. Always.

“Yeah. Myron sent him a pic of Tucker here, spit back that he knew him as Scorch, then Brands. We’ve heard of Brands, man. He’s the one who took out one of Retro’s guys last year. Dragged him to death at an event in Ocala. No reason other than a spilled beer. Man left behind three kids. Retro’s been callin’ in all kinds of markers, tryin’ to find this piece of shit.” Reaching to the back waistband of his jeans, Mason pulled out his gun and leveled it, aiming down. “I’ll let Retro know he don’t need to waste no more markers.”

***

Juanita

Movement in her peripheral vision made Juanita look up from her book. She froze for a moment at the hulking shape in the doorway, then relaxed as she picked out the shape of a black leather vest against the darkness of the hallway. “Hello,” she called, marking her place with a finger tucked between the pages. Glancing at Spider, she saw he was sleeping quietly. Thank goodness, she thought. He’d had a rough couple of days, and if he was resting, it would at least give his body the energy and healing it needed to live to fight another day. She wasn’t fooling herself into thinking his condition had improved enough to mean he was out of the woods. Not yet. There was so much damage to his body, it meant he would likely have several more crises before he could be proclaimed healed.

The man in the doorway hadn’t moved, and she looked back up at him, reaching out to turn up the light on the bedside table. It was an older man, grizzled and unkempt as so many of them were. Those long in the tooth, or “OGs” as Watcher had always termed them, cared little for what the world thought of them. “Are you here to see Spider?”

She was preparing to stand when he spoke, and froze in place for a moment as he ordered, “Shut the fuck up, bitch.” More cautious now, because while unfriendly didn’t necessarily mean not friends of the club, she finished pushing to her feet, turning to lay the book in her chair.

Spider stirred and Juanita had just glanced down at him when his eyes opened. He focused on her with as much of a smile as he could muster, then his eyes cut towards the door and the expression on his face changed in a way that let her know in this case, unfriendly definitely meant not friends. “Fuckin’ asshat,” he gritted out. “You hurt her, I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”

Juanita jerked her head up at his implication, staring at the man in the doorway. The gun held in his hand was larger than her pistol. Aimed her way, it looked much larger, darker, and scarier. The speaker bolted to the wall behind her crackled, and she heard, “Yes, senor Spider?”

The hole in the end of the barrel looked huge, big enough to swallow her whole. A trickle of smoke curled up out of it, dissipating nearly immediately. So wispy it looked more like the tendrils of fog that would roll off a chunk of dry ice, one of Watcher’s favorite tricks for the girls.

“Call Mason, honey.” Spider’s voice sounded funny, so far away he might have been in Kentucky for all she knew. “Tell him Pike’s here.”

Darkness was creeping in at the edges of her vision and Juanita stumbled, sitting down hard, the edges of the book biting into the backs of her thighs.

“Tell him…”