“I love you, too, Willow.”

“All right. Enough sentimental bullshit. Crank, take the kid down the hall. Tell the woman to get the fuck out of the building for the next few hours if she knows what’s good for her.”

Big Booted Man responded by snatching Willow up again and marching her to the door. As Willow gazed over her shoulder, Mean Man closed the gap between him and Mommy. Just as they started out of the apartment, Mean Man’s knife went to Mommy’s throat. Mommy looked straight at Willow. “I love—” Her words were cut off when the knife slid across her neck.

Willow’s mouth opened in a scream, but nothing came out. As hard as she tried closing her eyes against the sight of the red blood pouring from her mommy’s neck, she couldn’t. The last thing she saw as she was taken from the apartment was Mean Man turning back to her as he brought his fingers to his lips to remind her to keep quiet.

Willow knew that she would never tell. She never, ever wanted to see Mean Man again. No matter what was done to her, she would never tell.

Real men don’t cry. Yeah, that old adage sure as hell didn’t ring true in my line of work. Over the years, I’d come to see that even the biggest and baddest fuckers have their breaking point. It’s not just the physical torture that breaks them. Sometimes, just a threatening mind fuck involving their wives, girlfriends, or daughters cues the waterworks until they’re blubbering like absolute pussies. And at the end of the day, most would rather be beaten within an inch of their lives than give in to their emotions and show weakness. Men can handle physical pain, but it’s the emotional shit that truly fucks with us.

To prove my case, I give you Pussy #1: Frankie Delbraggio, or the dumb fuck sitting before me with a mixture of tears and blood streaming down his fat-ass cheeks. He was the current recipient of my wrath because he decided to pull an idiot move, thinking he could double-cross me by working with another club. He’d gotten greedy both for more money and more power in his territory. In the process, he’d become overstretched and let one of my club’s gun shipments run late.

Sure, at first glance he looked like your worst enemy—a really menacing bastard with tats and piercings who you sure as hell wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley. His skin was leathered from years of hard living, and his arms, which were currently bound behind him with cable ties, were pockmarked with track marks from the heroin addiction he just couldn’t beat.

As sergeant at arms in my club, the Hells Raiders, I had to be the strong arm—the main man who used physical and emotional torture to get shit done. If I let someone like Frankie get away with drag-assing his feet on shipment deliveries and wavering in his loyalty, the whole club suffered. I couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with that. The Raiders are my life. They’ve been what I lived and breathed for from the time I was a snot-nosed, thirteen-year-old punk plucked off the streets by my adoptive father, Preacher Man, or Preach, as he was affectionately known.

Standing behind Frankie to lend a hand if needed was my adoptive brother, Benjamin, or Bishop, as he was known. He chomped on a piece of gum while eyeballing Frankie contemptuously. He was probably less pissed about Frankie fucking us over and more pissed over the fact I’d torn him away from some heavy action with one of the sweet butts—aka the ladies who willingly spread their legs for club members. At twenty-three, Bishop, with his baby-blue eyes and wavy, dirty-blond hair, thought only with his dick most days. Even though he’d been patched in when he was just nineteen, he still had a lot to learn.

While I’d worked Frankie over with a few right hooks and sucker punches to the gut, I’d broken through to him only when I’d taken his wallet. Between the weed, condoms, and a few twenties was a picture. After I gazed at it for a moment, a smirk curved across my lips. Waving the picture in front of him, I said, “Mmm-mmm. Look at that pretty piece of ass.”

My words caused the shakes to run through Frankie’s body. His eyes, which had once held such defiance, glazed over. Bingo. This girl, most likely his daughter, was his Achilles’ heel. “How old is the sweet thing? Fourteen? Thirteen?”

When he didn’t respond, I slammed another right hook into his jaw. “When I ask a question, you fucking answer me. Got it?”

Frankie nodded weakly. In a hoarse voice, he replied, “Twelve.”

“Ah, just a baby. Man, I bet she has one tight pussy.” I cocked my brows at him. “Nothing like breaking in a fresh piece.”

As his broken jaw clenched, Frankie’s arms jerked against his binds. If he could have gotten loose at that moment, he would have tried his best to kill me. But even though he was playing right into my hands, I wasn’t done with him yet. No, I was about to go for his jugular. “Let me make one thing clear to you, Frankie. The next time you try to double-cross me and my boys, I’m going to find your pretty little daughter. Not only am I going to take your precious baby girl’s cherry, but I’m going to ass fuck her, too, while all my brothers watch. Then any one of my guys who wants a chance can have a go at her.”

As if I had taken a knife to him, my words seemed to tear through Frankie’s skin, nicking an emotional artery. Tears poured from his eyes as he began to imagine something so horrific done to his little girl. His massive body shook under the weight of his sobs.

I’d painted a pretty depraved and disgusting picture for him. But what Frankie didn’t know was it was all a fucking elaborate lie. I didn’t go for underage pussy, especially little girls. I knew my men didn’t, either. If I ever got wind of something so fucking sick, I wouldn’t have waited for a vote in church—our club meeting—about blowing their ass to the curb. No, I would single-handedly cut their balls off, take their patch, and send them packing. The Hells Raiders might have been a lot of things, but sick-fuck pedophiles weren’t one of them.

Once I had let Frankie stew in his torture long enough, I cleared my throat. “So are we good now, Frankie? No more playing us with the Iron Lords, right?”

“Y-yes,” he stuttered, as his teeth chattered from his full-body shakes.

I cocked my brows at him. “Yes, what?”

His eyes, which still shone with tears, widened. “Yes, sir, Deacon. You have my word. I won’t ever fuck you over again. I swear on my life.”

“And your daughter’s?”

He cringed at the mention of his daughter. “Yes, mine and hers. I swear to God!”