Pain singed my every nerve.

Yet Kayla’s screams had me fighting even harder.

“She’s next if you don’t stop!” the dick yelled.

That’s when I ceased my struggling.

Three guys held me in place and the fourth restrained Kayla with her hands behind her back. Once they had us where they wanted us, one of them announced, “All set.”

Stumbling through the door with glassy eyes, just as I’d remembered him, came Tommy Flannigan. He grinned like a sick motherfucker at Kayla and then pointed his finger at me. “Are you a fucking moron?”

He was coked up.

Fear finally made its way up my throat and I could feel sweat beading on my forehead. I once again struggled to get free.

Tommy closed the door and took a step toward Kayla. When she started screaming again, Tommy grabbed a kitchen towel and shoved it in her mouth.

“Leave her alone,” I spat.

Tommy nodded his head to the guy holding her and turned around. He swiped the bloody knife from one of the guys holding me and strode back over to her.

“Leave her alone!” I yelled again.

He ignored me and sliced open her blouse in one fluid movement.

Jerking forward, I felt my anger burning like fire as it flowed through my veins. “Fucker, look at me!” I screamed.

Tommy slowly turned around, that sadistic grin still on his face. “You must be fucking stupid to risk being seen around here with a chick.”

“Leave her alone,” I said again.

“You should have thought about that before you decided to stick your dick in her.”

“Tommy, this is between you and me. Let her go.”

His laugh was vile. “That’s where you’re wrong. It’s between you and my sister, but she’s not around anymore to handle the problem. Now is she, Logan?”

“Tommy,” I seethed.

He shook his head. “I can’t have you disgracing my sister’s memory by being seen around town with skanks.”

I kicked, I shoved, I fought against the three guys holding me but couldn’t loosen their hold. Finally, I stopped and looked at him. “Tommy, I’m sorry. You’re right. Emily didn’t deserve that.” I tried to reason with him even as the bile rose up my throat.

He glared at me.

“Tommy—”

He held his hand up, then found another kitchen towel and tossed it to one of the guys. “Plug his hole.”

Blood was dripping down my face as I fought against being gagged. I needed Tommy to think of Emily if I was going to have a shot at stopping what he was about to do. But I was completely powerless once I couldn’t speak.

Tommy stripped the rest of Kayla’s clothes off and my heart banged in my chest when I saw the terror in her eyes. Time seemed to move slowly as her muffled noises tore at me. My anger flamed and I became a wild animal, kicking, clawing, struggling to get free.

This only seemed to spur Tommy further. I watched as he twitched and his face grew more and more excited. I knew I needed to become a blank canvas, but I just couldn’t. Then Tommy licked his tongue up Kayla’s throat and something inside me went ballistic. At the sight, I stopped, letting my eyes go vacant; I tried to mentally remove myself from the situation.

Tommy’s entire focus was on me. Good. That was good. He was trying to figure me out. Let him try. I withdrew further and further. He narrowed his eyes, watching me. Bewildered, he approached me as if I might attack him. Ironic. But then he snapped and stepped close to Kayla and held up the knife. “Watch this, McPherson.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Open your fucking eyes or I’ll slice her open.”

My eyes slammed open.

With the knife, he carved the letter E in her stomach.

She was screaming and I was fucking helpless.

I was going to fucking kill him.

When he finished, he took her purse and pulled out her wallet, then her license. “Kayla Williams of 1115 Park Avenue, if you so much as breathe a word of what happened here tonight, we’ll find you and your family and kill you before you can even dial nine.”

Her eyes were round with fear. She was terrified.

Tommy then turned back to me. “You see, Logan, all of your skank whores need to be marked. To know what a vile creature they let inside them. Do you understand that, Logan?”

I didn’t respond.

“Do you understand me, Logan?”

Again, I didn’t respond. I was going to kill that motherfucker, but even as I thought the words, I knew I wouldn’t. I may have lived in two different worlds, but some lines should never be crossed. But I’d make him pay. Somehow, some way, he was going to pay.

“Since Mr. Silver Spoon here doesn’t want to answer, how about we play a little game of question and answer.” He looked at the guy to the right of me. “Would you want to fuck her after he did?”

“Fuck no,” the cokehead said.

“You?” he said to other guy holding me.

“No fucking way.”

“You?” he asked the guy who had my head in a vise grip.

“Not if she were the last skank on earth.”

Tommy turned back to the guy holding Kayla. “That leaves you, my man. You’ll take one for the team, won’t you?”

The bastard grinned from ear to ear. “Only if he gets to watch.”

I kicked. I tried to pound my head against either of the guys holding me and then the one behind me, but nothing I did gave me the leverage to break free of all three of them.

“Hey, Logan. Too bad your parents didn’t neuter you when they had the chance.”

Up until this night, I had never wanted to respond to anything or anyone in such a violent manner. I never wanted to be like my grandfather. But as Tommy bent Kayla over the kitchen table, something snapped and I knew I’d never be the same.

I watched, helpless, as she struggled and he manhandled her. He tied her hands behind her back and then he spread her legs with his boots. When he took off his belt and secured one of her legs to the table, I thought I was going to be sick.

She hadn’t done anything.

She didn’t deserve this.

The other guy unbuttoned his pants and then grabbed her by the hair.

Tommy whirled around with a smile on his face and the knife in his hand. He bobbed his chin to the guy behind me. “Pull his pants down. I’ve been thinking and I don’t think it’s too late to neuter this dog.”

This was my chance. As soon as he let go of the chokehold he had on me, I was going to annihilate every single one of these fuckers.

“On second thought, let me.” Tommy grinned.

I thrashed, but the three guys tightened their grip.

“You got him?” Tommy asked.

I saw one nod.

Tommy took the knife and dragged it up the inside of my thigh, stabbing right through the fabric of my jeans. Blood seeped into the denim as he worked his way up my thigh.

Kayla was screaming loudly now. Her gag must have fallen loose. I couldn’t see her. Couldn’t see what that asshole was doing to her, but I could hear it.

Pain tinged the fringes of my existence and my senses started to dull. But I made myself stand straight. I was not a pussy. I was going to get out of this and regardless of what I’d thought, I was going to kill Tommy Flannigan.

Before he made it all the way up my leg with the blade, the kitchen door flung open. Frank Reilly, my grandfather’s next-door neighbor and also Molly’s pub owner, was standing there with a shotgun in his hand.