He let his family walk all over him. He had his heart ripped out when the one bright element in his life was taken from him. He was the weak bastard that cowered in the dark when he should have fought. If I’d have been the man I am today back then, on the night Laura was kidnapped, I might have reacted more quickly. I might have found her. I might have saved her. I might have saved me.

But I didn’t. So now I’m the guy who steals and breaks shit, and I’m the guy who enjoys it as I’m doing it.

“Put him on his ass, Carnie,” I say, snapping open my Zippo. Carnie, our one and only Widow Makers prospect, does as I tell him. He shoves the man he’s holding at gunpoint down onto the ground. Meet Mr. Peter Hartley, forty-three, severe gambling problem, and a penchant for beating small, defenseless Asian women.

Do I care that he gambles too much? Not particularly. I care an appropriate amount, since Mr. Hartley is really fucking bad at gambling, and it’s my money he’s been losing.

But, do I care that Mr. Peter Hartley likes laying his fists into the bodies of small Asian women? That would be a resounding hell yes. I probably would have let poor, blubbering, snot-nosed Mr. Peter Hartley off with a couple of black eyes and a week’s extension on his loan repayment, had I not seen the black eyes on the girls who run his massage parlor. A real man does not hit a woman. A real man does not hurt a woman. Fuck, even sorry-ass, pathetic attempts at men do not raise their hands against women while I’m around. Not unless they want to lose their balls in the most painful manner possible.

“Pl—please, Rebel. Please! I swear, I’ll have the money to you by the end of tomorrow. I can sell—I can sell—”

Mr. Hartley has nothing left to sell. He knows it, and so do I. “I don’t care about tomorrow. I care about the phone call I just received. I care about my boy here having to bring me down to this shithole to see what you’ve done, Peter.”

A look of confusion transforms the guy’s face. “What—what do you mean?”

I grab hold of his arm, lifting it up so I can take a look at his hand. His right hand. The one that carries the full force of his blows when he swings. His knuckles are red raw and covered in half-healed scabs. “You’re a fucking mess, Pete. What on earth have you been up to?”

He lifts his shoulders slowly, an uncertain shrug. “Oh, y’know. I like to box.”

“Who you been boxing with, Pete?”

“Just—just the guys, y’know.”

“No, I don’t know. Which guys?” If there’s one thing I hate on the face of this planet more than weak men, it’s weak men who are also liars.

“Just some guys, some friends of mine. I train down at O’Rourke’s every Thursday. What have my knuckles gotta do with the five grand I owe you, man?”

I glance up at Carnie, who is still thrusting the muzzle of his gun into the back of Peter’s neck. “He train at O’Rourke’s?” I ask. Carnie gives me a nod. A lot of my guys train at the permanently sweat-soaked fighting gym down on Fourth, though personally I choose to do my workouts in private. I let go of Peter’s hand, shaking my head. “So you know how to punch, then, Pete, huh?”

He looks up at me as though this is a trick question. “Yeah? I guess I do.”

“See, now that’s bad. Very bad. That means when you hit those girls downstairs, you’re not just some asshole loser who takes his insecurities out on women. You’re an asshole loser who takes his insecurities out on women, and who knows how to make it hurt while doing it.”

His eyes go wide—it’s like a light bulb’s just gone on somewhere inside that thick skull of his. “What? No, man, I don’t hit my girls. I would never do—”

I smash my fist into the bastard’s face. Peter isn’t the only one who knows how to hit, after all. I pull back my right arm again, considerably more powerful that Peter’s, and I power my fist straight into his jaw a second time, this time knocking him over. A welt of blood sprays from his mouth, raining down on the threadbare carpet of his tiny office. It smelled of stale sweat and Cheetos in here, but now it mostly smells of blood—that metallic tang never fails to set my heart racing in my chest.

“What the fuck, man? I said I never hit them!” Peter spits on the ground, ejecting a small, white pearl of a tooth from his mouth. “Fuck, man, you knocked out one of my—”

I hit him again. And again. And again. I hit him until I break out into a sweat. The motherfucker is out cold and lying in a pool of his own blood, and I can barely raise my arm by the time I’ve decided he’s had enough. Carnie laughs under his breath; he’s lowered the gun and is leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest with an amused look on his face. Makes his slightly crooked, many-times-broken nose appear even more off center.

“Well. Saved me a job there, boss. You know he’s gonna be out of commission for weeks now, though, right? You aren’t gonna see that money the end of the month at least.”

I heave in a deep breath, wiping the back of my hand across my forehead. “If that motherfucker’s even walking before the end of the month, you come back here and go round two on his ass, you hear me?”

Carnie gives me a mock salute. “Loud and clear.”

I’d stick around and wait for Mr. Peter Hartley to wake up, just so he knows the deal here, but Carnie and I are suddenly accosted by four small, defenseless Asian women. Turns out they’re not so defenseless. None of them are over five foot five, but that doesn’t stop them from charging into Peter’s office, screaming at the top of their lungs in Chinese. They split up, two of them hammering their fists into Carnie’s back, the other two heading straight for me.