Page 100 of Riot

“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend over there?”

She turns to me, clearly upset, then turns back to him. “Riot?”

“Oh, is that his name?” He cackles. “Figures. I got mugged this morning…”

“And straight away you think it was him?”

“I saw the way he looked at me,” Ian snarls. “And when I get the evidence I need, I’ll put him away like the piece of shi–”

“Careful,” I warn. “Don’t wanna go mixin’ our metaphors now, do we? Looks like you have a pretty bad broken arm there, bud, probably don’t wanna go puttin’ any weight on it for a while.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know anything about this,” he hisses.

I shrug. “I don’t. Pity about the nose. Think it’ll mend back to the way it was?”

“Fuck you!”

He limps across the lot and I can’t help but laugh.

As we climb in the car, Halo turns to look at me. “Did you do it?”

I choose my next words very carefully. “Halo. When another man puts his hands on you and it’s wanted, that’s one thing, but when a man puts his hands on you and you don’t want it, that’s completely another. He’s lucky I left him breathin’.”

“You beat him up?”

I shrug. “I told him I’d be seein’ him later.”

“When did you?—”

“This mornin’, when I got back from Tag’s.”

She takes a long intake of breath. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes. I did. He knows now, and if he thinks he can mess with me or the NOLA Rebels MC, then he’s got another thing comin’. Sometimes,Kitten,it’s the only language these assholes understand.”

She looks down at her hands. “That’s really violent, Riot.”

Panic hits me in the chest.

Monster.

She’ll see you as a monster.

“I… in truth I didn’t think we’d see him again,” I say.

“So I’d never know?”

“I’m pretty sure he would’ve told your parents.”

Like clockwork, her phone rings and she checks the screen. “I don’t believe it.”

“Your parents?”

“Yes.”

“So answer it.”

“Later.” She clicks the phone off.

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