Page 63

RIOT

I never liked this house. Not when I was a kid, and not now.

It was too big, too cold, too damn dark.

In this house I learned to suppress my pain while my anger took over.

Silas picked it out after some big deal went through, snatched it up like a trophy he could stuff us all inside of.

Marble floors. Gated drive. Imported chandeliers that made the light look expensive.

But it never felt like home. It felt like a stage.

Now it was a tomb.

We were clearing it out; me, Creed, Allure, Sloane, and Abra. Packing up the last remnants of Tessa King’s life. Box by box. Memory by memory. Each room smelled like old wood and lemon oil, like the past refusing to go without a fight.

I found a box of my mom’s scarves in the sunroom and had to walk out. Didn’t expect the scent of her perfume to knock the wind outta me. That was the thing about grief, it snuck up quiet. Slipped in between your ribs when you thought you’d already cried it all out.

Allure was in the kitchen with Jasir, wiping down counters like she could scrub away everything that ever hurt. She caught my eye and gave me a soft smile. That woman grounded me without even trying.

“She would’ve hated this,” Creed muttered beside me, arms crossed as he looked around the living room.

“She would’ve hated all of us in her shit,” I said.

We all laughed because we knew it was true. My mother was protective about her stuff.

“You ever wonder how Havoc pulled it off?” I asked. “The poisoning. The slow decline. You’d think we would’ve seen something.”

Creed nodded toward the den. “The security footage is still saved. Tessa never deleted anything. She liked having eyes on the house.”

My brother and I headed for the media room, flipping through months of footage. Family dinners, meetings, birthday gatherings, normal shit. Havoc barely showed up, and when he did, he was always with someone. Never alone. Never long enough to do real damage.

“You seeing what I’m seeing?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Creed said, frowning. “It ain’t Havoc.”

We scrubbed back a few clips. Watched again.

Then we saw it.

Abra.

Pouring something from a small brown bottle into Tessa’s tea.

Another clip she was scraping powder into the collagen shakes Tessa drank every morning.

Another she was pressing pills into her vitamin case while pretending to clean.

I stood up so fast the chair scraped back across the floor like a gunshot.

“She fucking did it.”

Creed’s jaw was tight. “She poisoned her.”

We stormed into the living room. Abra looked up, all grace and fake innocence.

“You got something to tell us?” I asked, voice low but deadly.

“What are you talking about?”

“The footage,” Creed snapped. “We saw you. In the kitchen. In her bedroom. Dosing her food. Her tea. What the hell were you doing, Abra?”

She froze. A beat too long.

Then her shoulders sank.

“I’ve given my all to this company and you all just use me over and over. I wanted a board seat. I wanted money. I deserve it!”

“So you poisoned her?” I growled.

“It wasn’t supposed to kill her,” she cried. “Just… weaken her. Enough to make her step down. I didn’t know it would get that bad. I didn’t know?—”

“Bullshit,” I snapped. “You dosed her often. You knew exactly what you were doing. She fuckin’ suffered! That shit gave her cancer.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I just wanted her seat. Her power. I wanted a legacy that was mine.”

“You’ll get it,” Creed said flatly. “In the damn obituary section.”

I turned to Allure, who’d stepped in silently. Jasir on her hip, eyes wide, but calm.

“Take him outside,” I said softly.

Allure disappeared down the hall with Jasir in her arms, her movements fluid and silent like she’d been bracing for this moment. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t ask questions.

I turned back to Abra.

She was still sobbing. Still trying to salvage whatever image she thought she had left. But the mask had slipped. And all I saw was betrayal.

“We watched her deteriorate all this time and you didn’t say shit. We would’ve taken care of you. Given you whatever. I just told you I was about to hire you. I was gonna get you on the board.”

“I was desperate,” she whispered.

I raised the gun before she could say anything else. Her mouth opened in protest, but no sound came.

Creed didn’t stop me.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t beg for logic or mercy. He just gave a slight nod. One of those brother-to-brother things. Like do what you gotta do.

So I did.

The gunshot cracked through the house like a whip. Abra dropped to the floor, her scream cut off before it could finish forming.

Blood pooled beneath her head like spilled wine.

I stood there, breathing heavy. Hand still on the trigger. My ears ringing with the sound of it.

Creed stepped beside me, looking down at her body. Then he looked at me.

“No one else could’ve done it,” he said quietly.

“I don’t know who to trust anymore,” I admitted, my voice hoarse. “Everyone’s got an angle. A mask. Even the people closest.”

Creed turned to me. “You can trust me .”

He paused, then added, “And Allure. She’s real. She’s ride or die. She’s already proved that.”

I closed my eyes for a second, letting the weight of his words settle. The truth of them.

“Yeah,” I said finally. “I know.”

Hopefully Abra was the final nail in the coffin. I was still fucked up that she was the one that poisoned our mother. I didn’t even consider looking for someone else but Havoc. He was telling the truth about that one.