Page 55 of Riot’s Thorn (Sons of Erebus: Reno, NV #4)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

RIOT

I pull up to the security gate at Bart’s mansion, Rigger, Mustang, Dutch, Satyr, and Lucky behind me. A guard wearing a black suit steps out of the booth. He tucks his hands in his pockets, a move meant to show me he’s strapped. Like I give a fuck.

“Sorry, guys. Mr. Banks isn’t home this evening. I suggest coming back?—”

He doesn’t get to finish because I pull my Glock from behind me and put a bullet right between his eyes. He falls to the ground with a satisfying thud .

“Goddamn it, Riot.” Rigger pulls out his cell, making a call. “This pool party is getting wild. At least one in the water so far, but Riot has on his bathing suit, so there will probably be more. We’re gonna need some towels.” Pause. “Yeah, thanks.”

I throw down my kickstand, enter the booth, and push random buttons until the gate opens. Jumping back on my bike, I don’t wait for Rigger to scold me again. My girl is gone, and I need answers.

After spending hours sifting through security feed, we found the singular minute it took someone to scream shooter and fire off a blank.

Within seconds, they had Parker, dragging her out the back door only the DJ of the night uses.

No one heard her cries or paid attention to her struggling; they were too concerned about getting out.

We never saw the face of the person, but we got the license plate on the van he put a limp Parker in—whatever drug he used was working by then. Initially, the license plate was a dead end because it was stolen. Then, we looked into who reported it stolen—one of Bart’s employees.

That was all I needed to know, and an hour later, we were on our way here.

I haven’t even thrown my kickstand down again when a guard is rushing from the house, talking into a black box on his shoulder. His words are cut off when my bullet goes through his open mouth and out the back of his head.

“For fuck’s sake, Riot,” Mustang says. “Can you leave at least one person alive to question?”

“Dude, that’s just wrong.” Lucky shivers dramatically. “Look at the way his jaw is hanging. That’s gonna give me nightmares.”

“Her.” I point to a woman standing in the open door. Her hand is covering her mouth, and her eyes are comically wide as she looks down at the man on the stairs. “I’ll leave her alive for a while.”

Guards come running from all directions, and bullets start flying. My brothers take cover in the bushes, drawing attention away from their bikes. If their babies take heat, I’ll be joining the long line of body bags coming out of here.

Covering the woman’s mouth, I push her inside and shut the door. “How many people are inside?”

“Please don’t do this. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“What I want is to know how many people are in here. Don’t make me ask you again.” I keep hold of her as I walk through the entrance, clearing rooms as I go.

“Just my housekeeper, but she’s on the third floor and won’t be down for hours.”

“You better not be lying.”

“I’m not. I swear.” No sooner have the words left her lips than a woman comes from around the corner and startles.

“I fucking hate liars.” Aiming, I fire into the woman’s thigh.

She’s wearing a uniform, so clearly, she’s not involved.

It was a through and through. Rigger can’t get pissed; she’ll be fine.

Both women scream bloody murder. “Might want to take off your belt and wrap it above the wound to slow bleeding.”

“That’s my chef. I forgot she was here preparing meals.”

“I suggest not forgetting about anyone else because the next person won’t be so lucky.”

“You’re a monster.”

“It’s good you recognize that about me. It’ll make this easier.

” I shove her past the bleeding woman, who’s still howling in pain but doing as I suggested and removing her belt.

Once I’ve cleared the rest of the ground floor, I shove the woman down into a chair and point my gun at her head. “Where’s Parker?”

She holds her hands up, looking terrified. Dressed in cream slacks and a baby blue silk blouse with her hair styled in perfect curls, she doesn’t strike me as someone who knows what her husband does and allows it, but I learned long ago to not judge on appearances.

“I don’t?—”

I lower the barrel of the gun and shoot her in the foot. “What did I say about liars?”

She crumples to the floor, removing her high heel with shaky hands. “You shot me.”

“I’m aware,” I say, unsure why she thinks I wouldn’t know that. “I was the one who pulled the trigger. Remember?”

“Obviously, you moron.”

Suddenly, a vision of Mom sobbing on the ground, much like this bitch right now, flashes through my head.

I was ten and in my “bug phase” at the time.

When I liked something, I tended to hyper-focus, so I read every book the library had on bugs and collected as many different species as I could find.

Dad had come home a week prior after being dumped by a woman who got tired of paying for him to sit at home, drink beer, and watch TV all day.

Mom took him back like she always did. I couldn’t understand why, but when he was around, her sadness went away.

She went to work and doted on him like he was a king.

Being ten years old, I wanted nothing more than to share my new interest with him, and each time I learned a new fact, I’d run and tell him.

I didn’t realize all I was doing was annoying him.

One day, I hounded him to come see my bug collection until he finally caved.

I was so proud of it; I had at least thirty different species of beetles, spiders, ants, and more.

I loved bugs; they were my friends, so I kept them in a box on my bed.

I left the lid off while I went to get Dad, and all the bugs had gotten free and were crawling all over my bed.

Dad freaked out, even though I told him it was okay and that I’d find them all.

He didn’t believe me, and that night, he went to the bar, where he found a woman without kids to move in with.

“Your dad left because he doesn’t want a moron for a kid. Why couldn’t you just be normal for once?”

“I hate you! I wish I aborted you like your dad wanted.”

“You don’t have friends because you’re weird and no one likes the weird kid.”

Her verbal lashings lasted for days until she kicked me out of the house. That time, I spent two days with my rats before she allowed me back in. It was so confusing because the second I came back home, she acted like it was my fault I left.

“Why don’t you love me? What kind of kid doesn’t love their momma?”

“I’m so alone! What’s so wrong with me that even my own boy doesn’t want me?”

“You’re just like him, aren’t you? Leaving me when I need you the most!”

She refused to listen when I told her I did love her and I didn’t want to leave her.

It was as if the only words she could hear were the ones in her head.

I didn’t understand, but I set aside the anger I felt and moved on.

This happened so many times, the anger I pushed away grew and grew until there was nowhere for it to go.

“Fuck you!” I shout.

Even though I’m standing above the woman with a gun in my hand, she speaks to me as if I’m the scum on the bottom of her shoe. “I don’t know where Parker is. I dressed her up and sent her away with Bart. He doesn’t tell me where he goes, and I don’t ask.”

I hear the words, but in my head, she’s Mom, making me feel worthless. “You didn’t think I’d amount to anything, but look at me now. I have my own place and a family who loves me. And a girl. She’s beautiful and smart.”

“What?” Mom’s eyes narrow on me, and her lip curls.

“You heard me. You thought the best I’d ever do is the cement factory, but being part of the club means people respect me. They even fear me.”

“You’re even more fucked up than I thought.” Mom slows her words. “Snap out of it, you freak. I’m not who you think I am.”

“What’d you find out?” Rigger asks, stepping up to my side. Seeing him pulls me from my memories and reminds me where I am.

“She doesn’t know where Parker is. She said she dressed her up, and she thinks she left with Bart,” I say.

“Dressed her up?” he asks the woman. “How?”

“My husband likes little girls, so he had me put her in clothes that would make him think he was fucking someone younger than her actual age,” she yells, as if she’s been bottling up the emotion for a long time.

“That’s fucking sick,” Lucky says.

I put a bullet in the center of her forehead, making all the guys yell out in surprise.

“Stop fucking doing that!” Rigger bites out.

“No. Now, let’s get this place cleaned up. Bart will have to come home sometime, and we’ll be waiting.”

“Damn it. I hate cleaning up blood, especially on marble. Do you have any idea how much the grout just sucks that shit up?” Mustang whines.

“You don’t want to clean up?” Rigger’s brow lifts.

“No.”

“Okay. Then you can load the bodies up and take them out to Levi.”

“Wait. What? No.” He shakes his head. “Not doing it. That guy creeps me out. Last time I took him a body, he told me he likes the slope of my nose.”

Lucky, Dutch, and Satyr cackle while Rigger just grins. “From what Jenson told Navy, it’s not just your nose that leans a little to the left.”

“Shut the fuck up. Get one of the prospects to do it. They’re already loading the bodies anyway.”

“Levi isn’t creepy,” I say. “He just loves the human form. He paints in his free time and is actually pretty good. He even gets gallery showings sometimes.”

“Really?” Mustang asks.

“Did you ever ask him why he likes the slope of your nose?”

“Fuck no.”

“That’s your problem. You don’t take time to understand people who might not be as outwardly open about who they are.

” I don’t know where the words come from.

I didn’t even know I could articulate the way I feel when they speak badly of someone different.

Levi is a lot like me and has very specific interests, but also, like me, he’s learned to not talk about them because people pin us as being odd.