Page 90 of Riot

Creed leaned back in his seat, suddenly all casual, tapping the side of his glass like he was lost in thought. Riot reached for his phone and started scrolling, eyes not really reading anything, just going through the motions.

I knew fake when I saw it. I grew up on fake smiles and backhanded trust. I knew what it meant when people stopped talking the minute you entered the room. It wasn’t silence, it was exclusion. Intentional.

I walked in slow, deliberate, and took the empty chair across from them. My jaw locked as I studied both their faces. They were stone cold. I could play it cool too. I'd been doing that shit my whole life.

They’d never say it out loud, but I knew what was going on. I wasn’t in their little circle. Never had been. Even when I spilled blood for this family, bled for the same name, carried the same weight, they still treated me like I was a stray dog they let inside out of pity.

I wasn’t one of them. And it was clear by the way that man treated me. Silas did shit to me he would never do to them. If he had, I would’ve heard it by now. I got the short end of the stick, always.

“So… what’s up?” I asked.

“Check in with Abra,” Riot finally said, not bothering to look up. “She’s finalizing security for the open house. Make sure she runs everything through you.”

Translation: go do the busy work.

Keep yourself occupied while the grown men handle shit.

I nodded once, sharp and tight. “Bet.”

Didn’t ask questions. Didn’t show a flicker of what I was feeling. That’s what they expected, me falling in line, doing the grunt work while they built kingdoms on the backs of people like me.

But that clock was ticking. Every second they kept underestimating me, every meeting they had behind my back, every decision made without me in the room, it brought me closer to the moment I’d flip the entire board.

Soon, I wouldn’t be the one getting orders.

I’d be the one giving them.

And when that time came?

They wouldn’t even see it coming.

After yet another day of being their lackey I headed straight to East Flatbush. The sky had that late-afternoon haze, making everything feel slower, grittier. I pulled up outside a low-slung corner bar with blacked-out windows and peeling paint, Dre’s was painted in faded script on a wooden plank above the door.No neon lights. No bouncers. Just a single man outside, smoking a blunt with a Glock in his waistband.

He clocked me the second I stepped out of the car. The nigga didn’t say a word, just held the door open and nodded for me to come in.

Inside was dim and quiet. Two old heads drank beer near the jukebox, and a bartender wiped down the same patch of counter like he had nowhere else to be. A thick dude with a scar slicing through his eyebrow stepped into my path before I could go any farther.

“You Havoc?” he asked, already patting me down.

“Who else would it be?”

“Don’t get smart nigga,” he said. “You lucky Melo even agreed to meet.”

He patted me down before I could meet with Carmelo. His hands were rough but efficient. Gun, knife, burner phone—he found all of it, took it, and waved me through with a grunt. I kept my face blank as I walked to the back booth where Carmelo sat, nursing a glass of Hennessy. He had the air of a boss but that’s all it was. Air.

That nigga had ran his father’s business into the ground since his pops died. Not that his pops was ever any good at what he did. That nigga stayed coming for Silas and always lost. He was an enemy of Silas and Riot did the right thing of killing him.

I wouldn’t let Carmelo know that. I wasn’t afraid of him. He needed me just as much as I needed him. If he could take out the man that killed his father, and it be a King, then his team would respect him more. Other players would stop giving him a hard time in the game. And he had more soldiers than I had. I needed his men to shoot up King’s Vine.

When I approached him, he looked me up and down like he was waiting for me to lie.

“You a brave motherfucka ,” he said. “Walkin’ in here withthatname.”

“Not brave,” I said, sliding into the booth across from him. “Just tired of playing the background.”

He leaned back, swirling his glass. “You’re a King. We’ve had beef with your people for years.”

“They’re notmypeople.”

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