Page 144 of Riot

Not even when I tightened my grip on the Glock and pictured Boaz’s face under my boot.

My blood ran too hot for sweat. My body too used to war to flinch.

Allure’s silence still rang louder than the noise of the city.

Her walking away. Her pulling that gun. The look on her face when I told her what I’d done.

But this couldn’t end like it did with Malia.

I wouldn’t lose another woman to guilt and ghosts—not when I’d already carried too many bodies to the graveyard. I had tohold on to something that felt real. Something that wasn’t just blood and empire. Something that looked like future and legacy.

But I couldn’t have that until Boaz was dead.

I couldn’t let this shit slide.

Not this.

Not after everything.

My crew moved like shadows—silent, precise, no mistakes. Rollo led the charge through the side door. Creed posted up with Von to sweep the perimeter. Irina gave us the codes, the floor plan, the blind spots. It was almost too easy.

Which made me more tense.

Boaz had underestimated me. Again. That was his second fatal mistake.

The first was touching Allure.

I kicked the front door in with enough force to rattle the beams. Security was thin, mostly asleep. Soft niggas. The bulk of his crew cut out of the country after they were arrested, leaving them unprotected.

One tried to draw, but Rollo put a round through his forehead before the idiot could even shout.

I didn’t stop. I was already moving.

Avi came stumbling out of the back room in a tank top and Versace boxers, hair wild, pistol in his hand like he knew what he was doing with it.

“Riot?” he gasped, raising the barrel.

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t wait.

One shot.

Dead center in the chest. His body jerked like a puppet cut loose and dropped like trash against the wall. His gun clattered to the floor.

I stood over him for a second, breathing hard.

Avi.

The piece of shit who tried to rape Allure. Who locked girls in cages. Who walked through that house like a prince when he was just a coward with a bloodline.

I almost spit on him. But he wasn’t worth the saliva.

“Clear!” Creed called from the hallway.

I turned.

Boaz was waiting in the master suite.

It was cleaner than I expected—walls painted soft gray, high-end furniture, an oxygen machine humming quietly in the corner like a mechanical prayer. He sat in a motorized wheelchair, tubes in his nose, skin pale and loose. There were scars across his arms, and one side of his face drooped like a stroke had been there and gone.

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