“Why don’t you step out here and have a little chat with us?”
“What’s this about?” he asks.
Pacino growls. “It wasn’t a request. Either you come out here, or we go inside. Your choice.”
Troy steps outside, and I see it. Smell it. Love it. Fear. He reeks of it.
“What’s going on?”
I just smile at him. “You’re Sierra’s father, right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what this is about. Your daughter’s a fucking brat.”
“Excuse me?”
Cracking my neck, I glare at him and use my two-inch height advantage to look down on him. “Your daughter thinks it’s fun to bully a little girl at school just because she’s different—”
“That has nothing—”
“I wasn’t done talking, Troy. You should really learn to read the fucking room,” I growl. “Now, as I was saying, Sierra thinks it’s okay to bully a girl at school simply because she’s different. Played an elaborate joke on her, and I’m not okay with it.”
“What kind of joke?”
Considering this motherfucker is house poor, I doubt he knows his wife paid for his daughter and her friends to get their hair done at the salon. And I suspect she’ll get an earful when he goes inside.
I tell him what Sierra did to Bernie, and my guys crack their knuckles. They take any pain inflicted on children seriously, even if it’s by another child.
“Oh, is Bernie the re—”
“I’d be real fucking careful with the word you choose next,” Capone says and cracks his neck, mirroring me. “You never know which one of us you’ll offend.”
“Fun fact,” Rooster adds. “All of us. You’ll fucking offend all of us.”
Troy holds his hands up. “Look, I’m not going to tell my daughter who she has to be friends with.”
“Oh, I don’t want Sierra to be Bernie’s friend. In fact, I think she should stay as fucking far away as possible from Bernie. For both of your sakes,” I say with a sinister smile.
“What does that mean?”
I clap a hand on his shoulder and squeeze just hard enough to make his knees buckle a bit. “I can’t hit your daughter. Iwon’thit your daughter. But I can’t say the same for kids related to the club. If your daughter continues to bully Bernie, she’ll find that not everyone finds it funny.”
His eyes widen. “That’s—”
“And because I can’t and won’t touch your daughter, I’ll hurt you. Every time I hear about Sierra doing anything to Bernie, like throwing her cookie on the floor of the cafeteria, I’m going to take it out on you.”
“Is that right?”
“It’s more than right. It’ll be my fucking pleasure. And considering how much trouble you’re having financially, I don’t think you can afford the medical bills.”
“You’d break my bones because my daughter is bullying a brat at school?”
My elbow connects with his jaw, and he falls to the ground. “You don’t think I’m serious? I know what to break to cause the most pain with the least risk of death. That shit can get real fucking expensive.”
“I’ll sue you.”
“Good luck. You don’t have money to pay for a fucking gardener. I doubt you’ll have the money to retain a lawyer willing to come after me.”
