Page 58 of Riot’s Revenge

I thought about how I would’ve felt if I’d walked in on someone with her and didn’t like the rage that tore through me.

Shadow watched my face carefully, then sighed. “Boy,” he said, “you got attached.”

I stared out at the rain-soaked parking lot while the word sat there between us.

Attached.

An ugly realization bubbled up that the apartment didn’t feel right without her in it. That nobody else sounded right in my kitchen. That Maria leaving for Seattle bothered me far more than it should’ve.

I flicked ash onto the wet pavement. “I thought we were still casual.”

Shadow looked at me with open disbelief. “Son, casual usually ends before the girl starts keeping shampoo at your place.”

24

MARIA

The spare room in Jenna’s apartment barely fit a single bed and a chest of drawers, but after the first week, I’d stopped noticing how cramped it felt. What I did notice was everything that was missing. There were no heavy boots left beside the front door, no deep voice rumbling through another room while the television played too loud, no lingering smell of leather, smoke, and Riot’s soap clinging to the sheets when I woke up.

The silence felt strange in a way I still hadn’t adjusted to, and I hated that more than the anger or humiliation because it meant some part of me still missed him anyway.

I rolled onto my side and stared at the dim red numbers glowing on the alarm clock beside the bed.

4:37 a.m.

Sleep had become almost impossible since leaving Riot’s apartment. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Brandi in his lap, Riot’s hands on another woman’s body while he looked at her with the same heavy-lidded expression he used during sex with me. Every memory hurt just as much as the last.

My phone buzzed against the mattress beside me. I didn’t need to look to know it was Riot.

He’d called seventeen times in the last two days and texted even more, messages swinging wildly between frustrated, confused, and strangely desperate in ways I didn’t know how to deal with yet.

Riot: Where are you?

Riot: Please answer me.

Riot: You eaten?

Riot: Maria.

Riot: Just talk to me.

I stared at the glowing screen until it finally went dark again before dropping my head back against the pillow.

The worst part was that he kept showing up at the clinic too.

Yesterday one of the older nurses had cornered me near the supply closet with a sympathetic look on her face. “That biker of yours is outside again.”

“He’s not mine.”

“He asked why you’d been looking at hospitals in Seattle.”

My heart stuttered. The brochure, I’d forgotten I’d left it folded beside the nurses’ station after grabbing lunch after everything imploded.

“How would he know?” I asked, more to myself than her.

“I accidently said it was yours,” she’d continued gently. “He looked upset.”

Upset felt like the understatement of the century. Because I could picture exactly how Riot would’ve looked hearing that information—still and quiet in the way he only became when he was trying very hard not to lose his temper.