Daddy's Firm Hands, page 1
DADDY’S FIRM HANDS
SADDLE UP SHARED WORLD
MAE MALONE
Copyright 2025 Mae Malone (M. Bonnet)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locations is coincidental. All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks or registered trademarks. The author is not associated with any products in this book.
This work is intended for audiences 18 years of age or older.
All rights reserved. No part of Daddy’s Firm Hands may be reproduced, distributed, or circulated in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic means, without prior permission of the author, Mae Malone/M. Bonnet, except in the case of brief quotations in book reviews, not limited to and including AI training and any and all ‘archiving’ sites.
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CONTENTS
Foreword
Content Notes
Blurb
1. Milo
2. Milo
3. Stone
4. Milo
5. Stone
6. Milo
7. Stone
8. Milo
9. Stone
10. Milo
11. Stone
12. Lucky
13. Milo
14. Stone
15. Epilogue: Milo
About the Author
FOREWORD
ASIN: B0FFCNP2T7
Digital and paperback formatting by Mae Malone/M. Bonnet.
Cover by Joe Satoria
Edited by Geissa Cecilia
This one goes out to all the cowboy daddies and the people who want to read about one being an absolute stud in bed.
CONTENT NOTES
Hello reader. Thanks for picking up Daddy’s Firm Hands, a novella in the Saddle Up (MM cowboy romance) shared world. My content notes include themes, tropes, and other pertinent information about the book. If any of the below could be harmful to you, please do not read this book.
This book is a semi-dark MM cowboy/mafia romance. Milo is a character from my Men Of Malice Mafia series. You don’t have to read the first book in that series (The Taker by Mae Malone), but I linked it just in case you do. Daddy’s Firm Hands ends on an HEA for the couple and can be read as a standalone, but it will be part of a shared world centering around a rodeo called Saddle Up.
When the shared world run is over, I’m turning this into a series. Stay tuned.
Here are the relevant notes:
Dark MM cowboy/mafia romance
Instalove
Daddy kink
Power play dynamic
Boss/employee dynamic
Light dom/sub dynamic
Stalking
Spanking
Rope play
Hurt/Comfort
“Who hurt you”
Found family
Dirty talk
Cuss words
Verbally abusive family (Flashback and insults)
Death of a parent (Off page)
Death of a spouse (Off page)
Secrets
Organized Crime
Violence
Mental health representation
Unhinged, obsessed, and possessive MMC
Praise
Pleasure and Pain kinks
BLURB
Milo
I’ve always been a fuckup, but this time I’ve done something unforgivable. I flee the most ruthless mafia on the east coast, driving west until my car breaks down in the middle of nowhere.
A silver fox cowboy picks me up, offering me a job on his ranch in Montana. I thought it would be the perfect place to hide…
The problem is, I can’t hide my secrets from Stone. He sees the deepest, darkest parts of myself I can’t face alone.
His firm hands are the only remedy that can heal me. He makes me want to be a better, braver man. But I can only outrun my past for so long…It’s only a matter of time before the mafia finds me, and I fuck this up too.
Stone
Maybe Milo reminds me too much of my younger self, or I’m a sucker for a handsome face. From the minute I meet him, I’m obsessed with peeling back his tough guy exterior layer by layer until only the rawest secrets remain.
I know I shouldn’t indulge—I’m too old for him, and I have my own secrets I’ll take with me to the grave. But he’s hurting. He needs a firm hand to help him become the man he’s meant to be.
Will our secrets lasso us before we can even start?
1
MILO
Abullet whistles toward me, lodging itself into the car door my brother and I use as cover.
This was supposed to be an easy gig. Inspect the drugs, pack them into the truck, pay the supplier, and head to the docks to drop them off. No double crossing, no shoot out. No hearing the cries of men I grew up with as they slowly bleed out.
This is a fucking nightmare.
I knew something was off as soon as the new supplier was late. My stomach felt like a lead sub weighed it down and a nagging feeling kept clawing at the back of my mind, screaming at me that we were in danger. When they passed fifteen minutes, I told my brother, Piero, how off it felt, but he didn’t listen.
“Just shut the fuck up and do what you’re told. If you mess this up, I’m not cleaning your mess again. I’ll hand you over to Mr. Vettore myself. He hasn’t forgotten your last fuck up,” he said.
Of course he brought up what happened with Mr. Vettore’s fiance, Leo, a few months ago. Members of a rival gang somehow got past the apartment building’s security and almost killed him and his baby sister. By the time they were on our floor, one of them knocked the wind out of me and got inside the apartment. Leo and I fought them off until the boss got there. No one died, but he was pissed off. I was heading Leo’s security detail that night, so it was my fault.
Being a member of the Nueva Notte, the largest faction of the Italian mafia on the east coast, means we’re beyond ruthless. My brothers and I are part of the Le Mannaie del Vettore—The Vettore’s Cleavers. We’re basically Mr. Vettore’s personal torture crew. We don’t make stupid fucking mistakes. If we do, there’s hell to pay.
The deep cut Mr. Vettore sliced into the palm of my hand is only a taste of what will happen if I fuck up again. The scar is a physical reminder of my fuckup and matches one of the cuts Leo got from defending himself. It’s a mark of my shame that everyone in our crew can see.
“Next time, Milo, I’ll slice your throat open.”
I open and close my hand as Mr. Vettore’s deep, angry voice echoes in my mind, wincing at how noticeable the pink, raised scar is. It runs from in between my thumb and finger all the way to the right side of my wrist, and bled like a motherfucker. The only reason he didn’t outright kill me is because my dad was loyal to the mafia until the day he retired. Now he lets the Don, Mr. Vettore’s uncle, launder money through his butcher shop and use the freezers for storage. Yes, that type of storage. I know I’m lucky to have made it out of that fiasco with just a cut, but I don’t feel that way. I feel like a fuck up—always have and probably always will.
Another bullet slams itself into the car, centimeters away from my ear.
“For fuck sakes, Milo, pay attention,” Piero snarls at me. “I’m not dying today because you can’t shoot straight!”
The reality of my situation sets in. There are only two of us and at least six of them. They’re hidden in the abandoned building across the street and other cars parked nearby. They have automatic rifles, and we have regular handguns. The car we’re hiding behind is riddled with so many bullets, it resembles Swiss cheese. It’s too dark out to see anything, because this piece of shit neighborhood doesn’t even have decent streetlights. No matter how much NYC taxes its residents, the city never fixes anything.
We fell so easily into their trap, like pathetic, greedy little rats who wanted cheese too badly to heed the warning signs. Piero told me we’d wait until they ran out of ammo to escape, but I refuse to die over cocaine and designer pills. Not today.
I’m a crack shot, and I’m not sitting behind this car like a sitting duck. I’m taking as many of these assholes out as possible before I run for it.
“When I leave, cover me. We’re getting out of here,” I say, my voice low.
Piero is shouting at me, but I block him from my mind. I take a deep breath to center myself, pushing my fear down deep because it’s only going to get me killed. I pop out from behind the car and pick off one of the men in the abandoned building. Then I aim for one sheltering behind the car directly across the street.
“Get down!” Piero orders me.
“No,” I snap. “Why don’t you shut the fuck up and do what you’re told. None of this would have ever happened if you listened to me. I’m not going to sit behind this piece of shit sedan and hope they run out of ammo before they kill us. I’m fighting my way out. Come with me or don’t.”
Piero’s face turns red. He’s about to chew my ass out, but I don’t care. He’s treated me like shit since we were kids, and I’m sick and tired of it. He opens his mouth, but I raise my gun, shooting the man who creeped to the side of our car between the eyes. I rise to a crouch, readyi
“Leaving is too dangerous. We’re staying here,” he hisses.
The fuck we are, big bro.
I’m calling the shots now. I run across the street, blocking out the gunshots and shouting. They’re not speaking English, but I have no clue what language it is. Piero isn’t behind me, and I curse to myself. Why does he have to be so stubborn?
A few blocks up, a couple stands near an SUV. The man is tall and lanky, with a pair of gaming headphones on. He pulls the woman close, weaving his hand through her hair. When he leans down to kiss her, I come up behind him and press my gun to the back of his head.
“Give me your keys, lady, or your boyfriend gets it,” I growl.
The man pushes her away before running back into his building.
Fuck, what a loser. This chick isn’t ugly, she can probably do better than this smacked-ass gamer douchebag.
She falls on her ass, then starts crying. Her high pitched sniffles feel like nails on a chalkboard. I hate it when women cry–it’s annoying as fuck. Especially when they cry like she does, with the snot and the hiccups. Seriously, the snot running down her nose is gross.
I bend down, snatching her keys out of her hand and throwing one of Rocco’s business cards at her. “Call this number, and the Vettore family will replace your car with something newer. And make sure your next boyfriend isn’t a cowardly piece of shit. You’re gorgeous and can do better.”
I throw myself into her beat-up SUV and peel away, straight to the middle of the shootout I just left. As much as I hate Piero sometimes, I can’t leave him there to die. Rocco will slit my throat if he finds out I abandoned him.
My brother is in the same spot, except he’s holding his bicep with a bloody scrap of t-shirt. Of course he’d get shot while I was gone. I roll the window down and shout, “Get in asshole!”
He grimaces as he makes his way into the car. I don’t wait for him to shut the door before weaving through the streets toward the I-278 entrance. We stop at a red light, and I take stock of the situation. No one followed us. The dark streets are almost empty, except for a few other cars and some pedestrians. Piero is tying the fabric under his bullet wound. It seems like it’s lodged pretty deep in there.
“Are you okay?” I ask, staring at the red light ahead.
“Does it look like I’m okay, you fucking idiot? I have a bullet wound in my arm!” he explodes. “I told you to stay put, but you didn’t listen. You never fucking listen.”
“Are you kidding me? The only reason we got out of there alive is because I risked my life to leave. If I knew you were going to be such a dick about it, I would have left you there,” I roar.
How dare he blame me! We’re in the mafia. Getting shot is a hazard of the damn job!
“I gave you an order and you disobeyed me. I told you to stay, so neither of us risked getting hurt. So yeah, this bullet wound is your fault. You just became an enforcer, and you have no clue what you’re doing!”
“You hotheaded, ungrateful fuckface. I saved you. Why don’t you accept that you don’t know everything an–” I start to shout, until an unmarked, black SUV plows through the passenger door, flipping our car onto its side. My head hits something hard, and my surroundings go out of focus.
Everything happens so fast. I hear something rip apart, then big, strong arms pull me out of the car. I’m thrown onto the street, and someone kicks and punches me until I feel like I’m going to vomit. What I can see is spinning, turning all sorts of ways. The feeling of cold metal against my forehead is like a bolt of lightning striking me.
It’s a gun.
And the man holding it is wearing a half mask that covers the lower part of his face. So are the three other men with him. Two of them are holding my brother, and the third holds a gun right up to his temple, execution style. His face is pale, and the bloodstain on his shirt is twice the size it was when I picked him up.
“Where are the drugs?” he asks me.
“Don’t say anything,” my brother rasps. One of the men holding him punches him in the face, knocking him out. His limp body falls to the asphalt, his head bouncing against it. We’re going to fucking die here unless I act fast.
The masked man is talking, but I’m not listening. There’s gotta be a way out of this. I swipe my leg out, bringing him to the floor. He’s surprised enough that I can get on top of him, but he pistol whips me in the face. Everything is spinning, and I take my knife from my thigh holster and attack before he can shoot.
I slice right through his throat. Warm blood sprays my face, coating my lips and neck. I take his gun and shoot two of his three cronies point blank in the forehead—in the same spot they aimed at my brother seconds before. The third runs away, but I don’t give a fuck. Piero needs to get to a hospital. Now.
His body is dead weight, and I can barely drag it. He’s not the biggest of my siblings. Elio has at least forty pounds and four inches on him. But I am the smallest—and apparently the weakest.
Sirens wail in the distance, and I panic. I can’t drive the car I stole that’s flipped over. I search the dead men’s pockets for car keys, but find nothing.
Everything is fucked up, and it’s my fault. We wouldn’t be in this mess if I had just listened to him. Now he’s going to bleed out, unconscious in the fucking street.
“Piero, now would be a great time to wake the fuck up! The cops are coming.”
I smack his face, shake him. He doesn’t wake up. He’s too still…
I bend down and take his pulse at his neck. There isn’t one. Nothing.
Fuck! He’s dead…
Shock roots me to the spot. Piero is dead…
Four cop cars barrel down the street, their sirens splitting my eardrums. My body acts for me off pure adrenaline. I run as far and fast as I can until I see a subway entrance. Flying down the steps, I throw myself onto it right before the doors close.
My whole body goes numb as Piero’s voice rages in my head.
“I gave you an order and you disobeyed me…you have no clue what you’re doing!”
My brother is dead, and it’s my fault. Another member of my family is dead…because of me.
Minutes or hours pass by, I’m not sure. My brain is so fucking jumbled up, I can’t think of anything or hear sounds. Somehow I ended up in front of the house I share with my brothers. I let myself in, thanking the universe that Elio isn’t sitting in the living room to greet us like he usually is. My phone rings, and Rocco’s ID flashes across the screen. I have tons of missed calls and texts.
We were supposed to be at the dock an hour ago with the product.
Where are you two? You’re over thirty minutes late.
What the fuck is taking you so long?
If you’re not here within the next ten minutes with my product I swear to God I am going to slit your throat. You’re not getting another chance.
If he’d kill me over drugs, he’d definitely kill me for murdering another member of Nueva Notte–my own fucking brother.
My whole outfit is covered in blood, but I don’t want to waste time showering. I get a damp washcloth and wipe up as much of the blood off my skin as I can before throwing on a fresh pair of blue jeans, a ball cap, a white tee, a jacket, and sneakers. Rocco doesn’t fuck around. He’ll send men here to break the fucking door down to find me. I grab a duffel bag from my closet, cramming some clothes, weapons, cash, and a fake ID in it. I grab one of the burners from the drawer, purposely leaving my primary phone behind so they can’t track my movements. Nueva Notte has an ace hacker, Mr. Vettore’s cousin Maximo, who’d fucking salivate for the chance to find me thorugh some geolocation hacking bullshit.
I’m not even sure where I’ll go, but I can’t stay here.
