Page 10 of Riot

I guide her to the bathroom. She moves like a doll with too many broken joints, walking only because she’s been trained to. I draw her a bath — warm, laced with rose oil, Boaz’s favorite.

I bathe her gently, touching her only where necessary. She doesn't flinch. She doesn't cry. She doesn't even shiver. She has transcended pain. Or maybe she has fallen so deep into it, she can no longer find her way back.

When she’s clean, I dry her with the softest towel money can buy, then massage rose oil into her skin, careful, mechanical, distant. I wrap her in a silk robe that costs more than the life she had before this place swallowed her.

She doesn’t resist.

She doesn’t live.

She exists.

That's all we’re allowed to do here.

We walk back upstairs together, our steps silent and synchronized like two ghosts. As we pass the pool area, something catches my eye—a scuff mark on the marble, a crack in the perfection Boaz worships so obsessively.

I know what caused it.

Him.

Earlier tonight, I'd hidden behind one of the ornate pillars and watched it unfold.

Boaz had left Riot alone at the pool, trusting his guards to keep things in order.

Avi, Boaz’s spoiled son, had slithered over—arrogant, drunk on power he hadn’t earned.

I saw Avi lean too close. Heard his laugh, oily and fake, slithering across the patio like a snake in dry grass.

And then Riot smiled—slow and dangerous—the way a wolf smiles right before it sinks its teeth into your throat.

He mouthed the bait, and Avi—stupid, greedy Avi—took it.

“Nig—”

Riot’s fist moved faster than my eyes could follow. One moment, Avi was standing. The next, he was on the marble, gasping like a landed fish, clutching at his throat.

Guns were drawn in an instant, tension thick enough to choke on. The guards barked orders. Red laser dots painted Riot’s chest.

And still—he didn’t flinch.

He just stood there.

Calm.

Untouchable.

Daring the world to try him.

And me?

I had to bite the inside of my cheek so hard it bled just to stop from laughing at Avi and gasping for Riot.

For the first time since I’d been trapped here—since Boaz stole my life and renamed me—I saw it.

That one of the Haim’s could bleed.

They could be humiliated. Challenged. Knocked to their knees by someone who didn’t worship him. Someone who looked at his empire and laughed.

Hope flickered in my chest. Tiny. Traitorous.

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