Page 140 of Riot

Because if I stopped now?

Everything we built would fall.

And I’d be damned if I let that happen on my watch.

Chapter 48

ALLURE

I hadn’t slept.

I’d curled up on the edge of my aunt’s pullout couch, wrapped in a blanket that smelled like lavender and nostalgia, trying to quiet the war in my chest. But nothing dulled the ache.

Not the darkness.

Not the silence.

Not even the way my mother gently rubbed my back until I dozed off for maybe an hour, if that.

I was hollow. Not empty. Just cracked wide open in places I hadn’t known could split.

Riot killed my father.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t seen him in years. It didn’t matter that he had secrets and shadows and sins I hadn’t fully uncovered. He was still mine. My blood. My origin story. And Riot had put a bullet in his head like he was just another problem to solve.

The worst part?

It had happened before I ever met him. Before I ever looked into his eyes and saw something I thought was mine. Which meant everything we’d built—all the trust, the protection, the possessive way he claimed me—had been a house built on bones.

And I couldn’t stop loving him.

That was the sickness of it. The humiliation of it.

I hated what he did. But I couldn’t unfeel what I felt.

And now I was stuck between two men I didn’t fully know. One buried. One burning.

When the morning sun finally cut through the blinds and my mother called out, “Baby, coffee’s hot,” I peeled myself out of the blanket like a ghost learning how to move again.

The kitchen smelled like comfort. Pancakes, bacon, eggs cooked just right. My aunt always had a way of making food feel like medicine. I slid into the seat at the small round table, grateful for something solid beneath me.

“You look tired,” my aunt said, pouring syrup onto the pancakes.

I shrugged. “Didn’t sleep much.”

“You want to talk about it?” my mom asked.

“No.”

She nodded like she expected that.

We ate in silence for a bit. Them filling their plates, chatting softly about what was on television, and what new hairstyles they were thinking of getting next. I barely touched my food. The room felt too loud and too soft at the same time. Like a lullaby with teeth.

And then I saw it.

A thick leather-bound photo album sitting on the bookshelf near the window. It hadn’t been there the night before. Or maybe it had, and I just hadn’t noticed. But something about it called to me.

I stood, walked over slowly, and pulled it down.

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