The next time the man spoke his voice was so cold the little girl almost peed again. “You got ten seconds to come up with something that I can take to Sonny right now.”

Cara whimpered, her eyes scanning the room crazily, skimming over the bodies of Ree and the naked man before coming to rest on her seven-year-old child.

“Ten, nine, eight…”

Cara looked down at her daughter with a inconsolable expression on her face.

“… seven, six, five…”

Cara’s whole body shook as she glanced at the blood seeping all over her bed.

“… four, three…”

Cara’s fear smothered her. She reached out and snatched her daughter from the tangle of sheets and thrust her toward the gunman. “Here!” She stared into the man’s eyes and made one last attempt to save her own life. “Please…” she whispered. “Take Juicy.”

The gun belched, and Cara flew backward, landing atop the dead man, her arm circling his neck. The strange man stared down at the little girl, then muttered something under his breath and stroked the side of her face with the hot muzzle of the gun. “You look just like that ho-bitch,” he said thickly as he circled her jaw with the barrel and began unbuttoning his pants. The child held still as he ran his rough hand over her plump arms and already shapely legs before pulling the crotch of her wet panties aside.

He pressed his fingers to his nose and laughed. “You smell like that ho-bitch, too.” He pushed her back on the bed and put the tip of the gun to her mouth. The child closed her eyes as he yanked off her panties and straddled her small body. The gun was pressed against her lips as he fumbled with his penis, and suddenly that dreadful noise rang out again as the boom of a pistol exploded in the air.

The breath was knocked from her lungs as the man fell upon her, his forehead bursting apart like a Chinese apple. She sputtered through the spray of blood that covered her face and slid into her mouth, and then wriggling from beneath the dead weight and gasping for air, Juicy looked toward the door and into the eyes of her savior.