Page 61 of Riot

The article was short, but brutal.

He’d been missing for two days before someone spotted his body floating near a bridge. They called it gang-related violence, but I knew what that meant. Someone put a bullet in his head and dumped him like he didn’t matter. Like he was trash.

But he mattered.

He was my father.

He’d survived so much. He’d fought so hard to carve out a kingdom on the East Coast. I remembered how excited he was tomove us to New York. Said it was our time. That this coast was where the real money moved. But something always held him back. Something… or someone.

And now I’d never get to ask him what happened.

I’d never get to ask why he didn’t come for me.

My tears came harder now, thick and hot and relentless. My hands pressed against my chest like I could hold my heart together with sheer will. But it was broken.

Shattered.

I had always believed—deep in the place where faith and delusion lived—that he would find me. That he was looking. That he had people on the street, asking questions. That he was one phone call away.

But now he’s dead.

And I would never know if he died thinking I’d ran away. If he blamed me. If he suffered.

“I’m so sorry, Daddy,” I whispered, voice hoarse as I shut the laptop and buried my face in my hands.

We were so close.

So fucking close to being reunited.

And now?

Now I would never know the truth.

I cried until the tears turned dry—until my throat burned and my chest felt bruised from the inside out. I cried for what I’d lost. For what we’d both lost. For the reunion that would never happen. For the years I spent praying that my father would storm Boaz’s gates with fire in his eyes and fury in his heart. I used to believe in that so deeply it was almost religious.

But now… now he was just a headline. A body. Another Black man tossed into a river with a story that would never be fully told.

I leaned back in the plush recliner, the MacBook still sitting heavy on my thighs, and stared up at the ceiling. I wonderedif he knew how much I loved him. How often I dreamed about hearing his laugh again. About smelling his cologne when he hugged me. I used to lie in bed at night and imagine the exact moment we’d lock eyes again—how I’d fall into his arms and tell him I never stopped believing he’d come for me.

But that moment died in the water with him.

Now all I had was questions.

Who killed him? Why? Did he go out alone? Was it fast? Did he suffer?

And where the fuck was my brother?

My tears slowed, replaced by a bitter kind of resolve. Carmelo had always been the hothead. The one who didn’t hesitate to throw hands or make a phone call that led to consequences. He was impulsive and angry and loyal to a fault. If he knew someone put a bullet in our father’s head and dumped his body like roadkill, I know—deep in my bones—that he wouldn’t let that shit slide.

Unless he didn’t know.

Unless he was off the grid like me. Or locked up. Or worse.

I couldn’t think like that.

I had to find him. Had to find my mother too. I didn’t care how long it took, or what I had to do. I needed answers. I needed to know what happened. I needed to know if they were even still looking for me… or if I’d become a ghost they learned to live without.

That thought hurt the most.

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