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Looking around the shop, I breathe out a sigh.

This is really my life now and torturing myself over the past isn’t going to change it.

Ten transformed the life I could have had by giving me some stability and a livelihood, by allowing me to have more than just a need for revenge—have something to want to succeed at and not lose by being reckless and going after more of those fuckers straight after being released.

He gave me options, choices…a chance at something more than I’ve ever had.

I planned on setting a different course for myself after I made the rest of Haley’s attackers pay, if that didn’t land me straight back inside, but then I had this place to make home and I loved owning the bar and working in the shop.

I never really fit in to the gang way of life.

I was more of a lone wolf. I rarely formed bonds, and when I did, they became a part of me, like Haley, but I’d been born alone in the world and felt that emptiness my entire life.

I was hollow, lost to what it felt like not to be lonely, and I was okay with that.

Haley was the first person to penetrate the cold pit inside my chest. She was light and youthful, something I’d never really felt.

I’d grown up fast and learned hard lessons about the world and people in it.

When I was four, I had my first lesson on violence.

I’d been taken to a new foster home after the one I was at became crowded when the couple got pregnant again.

They weren’t bad people from what I can remember, but I didn’t really remember them as actual solid people.

They were more a faded memory of a movie I watched once.

Names and the faces of their kids evaded me now, but the house I was sent to after them will forever be etched into my mind. It shaped the man I became.

Mr. Peters was the man of the house, and he had these deep pits for eyes.

My young instincts knew he wasn’t the family doting kind of man.

The were no signs of children in his home despite the social worker telling me he had three other foster kids staying there.

I’d never questioned my life before him; I didn’t know any different.

Cuddles and affection were not part of my youth—this is just how life was.

I was given new rules at every house and I obeyed those rules because staying in one place for longer periods of time had always been appealing to me.

Having to pack my suitcase and start over with new adults and kids was a chore.

Mr. Peters didn’t give me time to settle in or learn his rules.

The first night there, I woke up in my twin bed with the urge to piss.

Not wanting to wake my sleeping roommate, a boy called Robbie, I slid out of bed and padded through the room quietly.

When I passed Mr. Peters’ room, the door was cracked and flashing from the TV highlighted his figure.

He was standing over the form of one of the other boys who lived there.

The boy was on all fours, a gag in his mouth and a collar around his neck.

My small mind couldn’t comprehend what was happening, but something inside me knew it wasn’t normal. It was all kinds of fucked up and the piss I needed to take leaked down my leg.

He caught the noise of my feet creaking on the hard floor outside his room when I tried to escape the puddle soaking my feet.

Running back to my room, I burrowed myself under the covers, but it didn’t protect me.

A hand clenched around my ankle before dragging me by my feet from my bed. My head compacted with the floor, sending stars dazzling in my eyes.

Next thing I knew, three little fists were pummelling into me while Mr. Peters told them to punish me.

Waking up the next morning, freezing and still on the floor where I passed out, was terrifying.

I crawled into the bed assigned to me and didn’t move until night fell once more and Mr. Peters sent for me.

He was resting in an armchair and told me to sit by his feet.

I did as I was told and he then instructed two of the boys to fight.

My body shook with fear as I watched kids not much older than myself hit and attack each other while he jeered them on.

It was like being thrown into a gladiator pit without weapons.

If Jonny hadn’t reached his limit of abuse, there was a chance I never would have made it out of that house, but as I sat at Mr. Peters’ feet, Jonny stumbled into the yard, collected the axe he had been using that day to cut wood per instructed, and from behind the chair housing Mr. Peters, he buried the axe into his skull.

The sound of metal connecting with flesh and bone is one I’m now accustomed to, but back then, it haunted my dreams.

Blood poured from him like an erupting volcano.

We were there three days with his body before someone discovered the scene.

From there, I’d have some nice homes and some not so nice homes—meet new friends and then be dragged away from them.

I learned to close myself off to attachments and it wasn’t until Haley that I realized how lonely I was.

She gave me hope I wouldn’t always have to be this way.

I make my way back up to the apartment above the bar to grab the watch I left in my hurry to escape the events from this morning.

The phone on the side table flashes with a missed call.

It must have been Haley trying the landline before my cell.

Thoughts of her despair when talking to me play on my mind.

Opening the bedside drawer, I grab the battered piece of paper Haley gave me when she was recovering in the hospital and my ass falls onto the bed.

Even though I can recite the letter from memory, I read it out loud to myself—the same thing I’ve done every day since she gave it to me—and make the silent promise.

Taylor,

Make them pay.

Make them all pay for what they did to me.

I want you to destroy them,

take them apart, and leave them broken,

bleeding, and dying.

I need them to pay.

I need you to make them suffer like I have.

“They will pay, in agony and blood. I promise you that.”

I hold the paper to my chest and let my mind take me back to the day I killed six of those cunts.

Sixteen years ago:

“Taylor, this is an attack on the entire crew, not just you.

They declared war by coming into our territory and attacking a member’s family,” Sticks demanded

. He came to the hospital when word got back about Haley.

He was my partner when it came to jobs given to me—mostly theft or roughing up shop owners who didn’t pay a fee for having our protection.

Truth was, just owning a store in our territory made you a target.

Cops were ineffective in our neighborhoods and anyone brave enough to try reporting us found their property turned to ash.

We were a small, close-knit crew compared to others, but we were ruthless and our numbers were expanding faster than the Crimson Vipers, who we often went to war with over territory.

The Crimson Vipers were nasty bastards into trafficking firearms and women. They were gaining a reputation for themselves and that made them brave when it came to wanting to expand. Jordon was a Viper and found himself in our territory one night when he was running from the law.

I’d just finished roughing up a crackhead selling on our turf when he came barreling down the alleyway and smacked straight into me, knocking him on his ass.

“Fuck me. Would have preferred to get caught by the cops,” he cursed, eyeing me, sizing up his odds.

I was well known by most people.

My size alone made me stand out, but my reputation for being tough and merciless was well documented with the scars decorating many of our enemies.

My own scars built my tolerance for pain—and I had a lot of them.

Blood was still wet on my knuckles from the junkie laying unconscious next to Jordon.

“You want to do this?” He chin-lifted as he got to his feet and squared his shoulders.

His fierce blue eyes lit up under the moonlight and penetrated mine, twisting up my thoughts and emotions.

He licked his plump lips and curled up one to look threatening, but it only made him more attractive.

Understanding what I was feeling didn’t come easy for me.

I was in a gang vocal about being homophobic, but it wasn’t something I ever gave much thought to.

Who people loved or fucked was none of my business and couldn’t be further from my give-a-shit list, but there was something about him that made me want to do new things—things I shouldn’t want to do and hadn’t wanted to do before him. Dangerous thoughts crippled my mind.

The sound of a siren blasting had us both taking off at a rapid pace.

Spending a night in the cells just so some beat cop could feel like he had a handle on the street crime was not part of my plans.

I jumped over some railings into a grass field and ducked as a torch shined overhead.

Rustling and heavy breathing alerted me to the fact that Jordon had followed me and we were both lying next to each other in a stupid bush.

“Not how I thought running into a King would turn out,” he mused, and it only pissed me off.

He was throwing off my equilibrium and if I were any other crewmember, he would have been wounded or dead by now.

Pulling my blade from my belt strap, I rolled on top of him and held it to his throat.

“I should cut your fucking neck and leave your rotten corpse here for the rats to eat.” He didn’t respond with words.

His chest heaved and his cock stiffened, pushing against my leg.

I was struck fucking mute and incapable of movement.

I wasn’t sure whether to kill him or kiss him and that terrified me.

“Nerves,” he said quickly, managing to shift from beneath me and get on his haunches.

Sneaking a look around, he smiled down on me.

“Thanks for not killing me. I won’t mention this encounter if you don’t.”

He winked—fucking winked at me—and took off.

A few nights later, I saw him at a drive-thru on the edge of town.

We stared at each other through our windshields for what felt like five minutes before he drove off.

After, I found myself driving home and fucking the life out of Haley to rid myself of indecent thoughts of him, but the next night, I found myself driving back there—and there he was.

That was what led me to this point in my life.

If I’d just stayed away from Jordan, squashed those feelings, my past would be written in a different color ink and Haley’s too.

She would still be here.

I drove into their territory and waited for one of the younger, weaker fuckers to come over to my car to find out what I was looking to buy.

“What you looking for?” he asked, lifting his shirt to show me he was carrying a gun, a silent warning not to do anything stupid.

It was shit like that that got fuckers killed.

You tended to die young when you were part of a gang—bullets fly around like fucking wasps.

Grabbing him by the collar, I pulled his head through the window, lifting his feet clear off the ground, and floored the car.

His screaming showed he wasn’t cut out for this life.

I slowed the car and threw him to the street before stepping out and stomping on the hand reaching for the gun in his waistband.

He squirmed underneath my boot like a worm.

“Do you know who I am? You’re fucking dead,” he whined, trying to sound tougher than he was.

Pulling my own gun from my other boot, I held it against his head.

“I need Hammer’s address.”

“Are you fucking crazy? He’ll kill me.”

“I’ll kill you.” I pushed the gun harder against his head to get my point across.

“He’s at his girl’s. She lives above the electronics store.”

Pulling back the hammer, I released a bullet into his skull and quickly jumped back into my car.

A couple of the fuckers were hanging in the back alley at the store, more than likely waiting on Hammer.

Letting night fall gave me a better chance of sneaking up on them.

Creeping up, I put a bullet straight through the eye of one who turned around upon my approach.

The other tried to take off running and I put two bullets in his leg.

He fell and tried to crawl away, but the concrete walls on either side of the alley imprisoned him, offering me privacy in my revenge—not that anyone who could see would do anything anyway.

That was the thing about areas like those.

People know when to mind their own business because gangs scared them into doing so. Karma.

I crushed his skull with a couple stomps.

Buzzing with energy, like I was a host and my body on autopilot, I yanked the door off its hinges to get in to the apartment.