Page 26 of Riot’s Revenge

The long-suffering frustration in his voice made me laugh.

“Of course, he does.”

Riot sighed. “He thinks because he’s feeling better, he’s healed.”

I groaned. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

“He’ll try lifting something heavy, tear something, make the injury worse, and then spend the next week pretending he’s fine.” Riot sounded less like somebody making an observation and more like somebody who’d spent the last few days keeping a close eye on Reaper.

“You’ve thought about this a lot.”

Riot snorted. “I’m not thinking about it. I’ve just spent the last three days listening to him complain.”

“While apparently monitoring his medication schedule.”

“I’m checking in on him.”

I laughed. “There it is.”

His eyes narrowed. “There what?”

“The thing where you pretend concern and irritation are the same emotion.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “They usually are.”

The answer made me smile, but it also left an unexpected warmth in my chest because, despite all his efforts to hide it, Riot cared deeply about the people around him.

Not in the loud, obvious way some people did. He wasn’t the type to sit around discussing his feelings. In fact, I was fairly certain he’d rather throw himself off a building than willingly participate in an emotional conversation. Everything about Riot suggested he was a man who expressed himself through actions rather than words.

The more time I spent around him, the more I realized that was simply who he was. He showed up, paid attention, and remembered things other people forgot. Whether it was checking on Reaper while pretending he was merely annoyed or making sure I ate after long shifts, Riot had a habit of taking care of others without drawing attention to it. He never asked for recognition and seemed genuinely uncomfortable whenever anyone pointed it out, but that didn’t make it any less obvious. For a man who looked intimidating enough to send most people running in the opposite direction, he spent an awful lot of time looking after everyone around him.

“Kid’s been ignoring my advice since he was a pup.”

I smiled. “You’ve been dealing with him for that long?”

Riot snorted. “Longer.” He leaned back slightly and looked out toward the road, his attention following a car as it pulled out of the diner parking lot and disappeared into the evening traffic.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before. “His mother was one of the club girls.”

The answer caught me off guard, but I stayed silent, sensing there was more to the story.

“She liked the lifestyle,” Riot continued after a moment. “The parties. The attention. Having fun without worrying about tomorrow. A kid didn’t really fit into any of that.”

“What happened?”

Riot looked down at the wrapper in his hands before answering. “She left. A few months after he was born, she packed her stuff and disappeared. Never came back.”

I stared at him. “Just like that?”

He nodded. “Just like that.” There was no anger in his voice, which somehow made the story sadder.

“That’s awful.”

Riot shrugged. “Shadow stepped up.”

The answer was simple, but I could already tell the reality had been far more complicated.

“The rest of us helped where we could.”