Page 115 of Riot

I pulled my phone from my back pocket and hit Creed’s number while guiding her down the stairs.

“Yo,” Creed answered, voice clipped.

“I need you bro’.”

“Another body or something light?”

“I need you to meet me at the medical suite in Harlem. Mama needs to get tested. I think she has cancer.”

Creed went quiet. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make the call. Be there in twenty.”

I hung up without another word and opened the car door, easing her into the passenger seat. She looked small as hell, like the woman who once scared grown men had finally folded in on herself.

I hated my father for what he did to her.

But I hated even more what he left behind.

Chapter 39

ALLURE

I couldn’t stop thinking about how our bodies connected last night.

Not just the sex, but the power of it. The intimacy. The way his eyes stayed locked on mine like I was the only woman who had ever mattered. The only one who ever would.

That night didn’t just change our rhythm. It shifted something tectonic in me.

I was still humming with it, legs loose, lips swollen, body warm in places I didn’t know could carry heat for this long. The way he’d whispered mine while buried inside me... I felt claimed. Not owned. Just wanted. Chosen. And that was a drug I hadn’t known I needed until now.

So I poured all of it into my work.

The studio he built felt like my sanctuary. I played around with the sewing machine. And I eyed the way the fabric draped across the mannequin like it was molding itself to my vision. I hadn’t felt this alive, this creatively charged, in years. Maybe ever.

I was sketching something new, bold shoulders, cinched waist, hand-painted silk, when my phone buzzed on the table.

Riot:Taking my moms to Saint Michael’s. She isn’t feeling good.

My chest went tight.

I stared at the message, reading between the words. Riot didn’t say much unless it mattered. And this mattered.

His mother was sick.

Despite how she looked at me like I didn’t belong, like I was an uninvited guest in her son's life, I felt a tug. The woman hated me and I had done nothing to her. She was his blood. His mother. And if something was wrong with her, I needed to be by his side. Period.

I didn’t even respond. I just moved.

Threw on jeans, slipped into my Nike Blazers, didn’t bother with makeup or earrings. This wasn’t about looking cute. This was about showing up.

By the time I made it to the hospital, my mind was racing. What if it was serious? What if it was something they couldn’t fix? Riot was strong—built like a fortress—but he was human. He’d already lost too much. I couldn’t let him face more pain alone.

The fluorescent lights in the waiting room buzzed overhead. A flat gray afternoon filtered through the windows, casting everything in a sickly hue. But I saw him right away.

Head down. Shoulders hunched. Hands clasped like he was holding something in. Or holding himself together.

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