Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Sienna
G.O.M.D - J.Cole
You’d think after getting wrecked in a strip club I’d be tapped out. Emotionally. Physically. Sexually. But Riot Carter doesn’t do “enough.” He finishes what he starts, then finds new ways to start it again.
Now we’re cutting through The Verge on his bike, wind slashing my cheeks, the city glowing like it’s drunk on its own pulse—neon graffiti bleeding across crumbling walls, alleys that smell like secrets and rot. It’s beautiful in that haunted, toxic kind of way. Like everything’s decaying in rhythm.
I’m clinging to him, thighs sore, pulse slower than it should be. My lips are swollen, my neck’s marked up like a crime scene, and the way he touched me back there still echoes in my spine.
Then we slow.
Riot pulls off the main road into a narrow backstreet lit only by the sick buzz of dying signage.
A rusted-out truck is half-swallowed by weeds, and there’s a busted tattoo shop tucked in like it doesn’t want to be seen.
Neon letters flicker overhead, spelling out NO REGRETS INK, one bulb away from total darkness.
He kills the engine, and we both take our helmets off. He lights up a cigarette, the cherry flare illuminating the sharp edge of his jaw. I lean in, pluck the cigarette from his lips, take a drag like I own the air, then pass it back to him with a grin.
I slide off the bike and arch a brow, hands on my hips. “So, what is this place?”
“Used to be a tattoo shop,” he says. “Belonged to a girl named Sammy. Ran it with her boyfriend.”
I cock a brow. “What happened to ‘em?”
“Boyfriend got killed when the world started going to shit. Syndicate hit, wrong place, wrong time—whatever excuse they gave. Sammy vanished not long after. No one’s seen her since.”
He takes a drag, exhaling slowly, eyes fixed on the building like it’s a memory bleeding through the walls.
“I used to come here,” he adds. “Before everything. Before The Gauntlet. Before I had blood on my knuckles and ghosts in my bed.”
I nod once, letting that settle. I don’t press. Not my style and even if it was, Riot Carter isn’t the type to care. He’s the type that holds shit in, until he feels like it needs to be discussed, or until he wants to share it. .
He glances at me through the smoke, then says, “She was the only one I ever trusted to put a needle in my skin.” There’s a pause. A heavy one. Then he looks me dead in the eye. “Until you.”
That knocks the smart-ass right out of me.
My mouth opens but nothing comes out.
He smirks, like he knew that’d hit. Tosses the cigarette, crushes it under his boot, and heads toward the door of the old tattoo shop.
“Let’s go, Little Stray,” he calls over his shoulder. “I don’t got all night. And I’ve been itching for some new ink.”
I blink once, twice then grin, sharp and slow.
“Try not to cry when I stab you with the needle, lover boy.”
The lock clicks open under his code. The door creaks like it hasn’t been opened in years.
Inside, the shop smells like old ink and ghosts.
Faint antiseptic clings to the air, barely masking rust and mildew.
The lighting flickers overhead—half-dead fluorescents and a dusty neon sign in the back that hums OPEN like it’s lying.
Torn pages of flash art litter the counters. A glass case still holds old gauges, rings, and a few faded sketchbooks. Most of the gear is covered in plastic sheeting that crackles under our boots.
Riot moves like he belongs here, like this chaos is just another language he speaks fluently. He kicks a stool into place, digs through a drawer, and pulls out a battered tattoo gun. A few ink bottles clatter beside it. He tests the weight of the machine in his hand, then holds it out to me.
I arch a brow. “You’re serious?”
He nods his head and drops into the chair. “Never been more serious in my life,”
My brain stutters. “I have no idea how to work one of these. You do know that, right?”
He peels off his shirt, the motion easy, practiced. He’s all lean muscle and violence—scars, bruises, the still-healing stitch I gave him across his ribs. “You’ll be fine. I want your name,” he says. “Right here.” He taps just above his heart, skin unmarked. Waiting.
I blink. “My name? That’s… permanent.”
His voice drops, low and dark. “Exactly.”
The silence after that says more than either of us can. My chest squeezes. He’s not doing this for show. He’s giving me the one part of him still untouched. Inviting me to mark him with something no one can take, and hell, that’s heavier than anything we’ve said.
I pull up another stool and tug on some gloves before grabbing a half-sanitized tray and wiping it down as best I can. It’s not exactly regulation. The bottle’s half-used, the needles old but clean.
Behind me, Riot climbs onto the table without a word, stretching out like he’s done this a hundred times—arms folded behind his head, eyes on the ceiling like he’s already bored.
Cocky. Relaxed. Completely unbothered.
Typical.
“This place is a health code violation waiting to happen,” I mutter.
Riot smirks, kicking back lazily. “If the shit I’ve survived so far hasn’t killed me, this won’t either.”
I grin because fuck, he’s probably right.
Still, my hands shake as I load the needle and dip it in the ink. I check the grip, and freehand a quick stencil on tracing paper. Just my name. It’s crooked, and a little messy, but it’s mine.
I line it up in the small blank space over his heart, pressing the paper into his skin and peeling it back to leave the guide then I hover, gun buzzing in my grip.
“You nervous?” he asks, tucking my hair behind my ear.
I swallow. “Yeah. A little.”
“Don’t be. It’s mine now either way, just like you are,”
The first puncture is slow, careful. He doesn’t flinch. Just watches me, those eyes burning through every layer I thought I had left.
Ink seeps under his skin. Blood wells up, then beads away. My hand steadies after a few lines. His skin is warm, alive, every beat of his heart thudding under the needle like it’s agreeing with every mark I leave behind.
By the time I finish, sweat’s slicked down my back. I sit back, flexing my fingers.
“It’s fucking ugly,” I say laying the gun down on the tray.
Riot sits up, grabs my wrist and pulls me in close. “It’s perfect.”
He kisses me then—slow, filthy, claiming.
His hands drag into my hips like he’s terrified I’ll slip through his fingers, like he needs me welded to him.
It’s not a kiss for fun. It’s a brand. His lips taste like smoke, sweat, and mine.
And when he finally pulls away, everything feels quieter.
More certain. Like we’ve crossed some invisible threshold and there’s no turning back now.
I press my forehead to his for a second. My breathing’s unsteady. Shit, everything is. But for once, I’m not scared. Not of this.
I reach down, grab the tattoo gun, and push it into his palm.
“My turn.”
He stills, brows lifting just slightly, and I see that flicker of something in his eyes—surprise, maybe. Respect. Maybe both. “You sure?”
I nod without hesitation. There’s no joke in my voice now, no sass on my tongue, just a strange kind of certainty settling in my chest like ash after a fire. I don’t need to talk myself into this. Because this is more than ink. This is trust. Mine, in him.
I trust him enough to scar me.
He doesn’t say anything else just gives a short nod, like he understands exactly what it means.
He strips off his gloves, replaces them with a fresh pair, then grabs a clean rag and antiseptic.
His hands are steady. He’s so calm, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw flexes as he works. He knows what this means too.
I push down the waistband of my sweats, just enough to bare the sharp curve of my left hip bone.
The spot he always grabs when he yanks me close.
It feels right, branding myself where his hands always go.
I sit back on the bench, lean into the cool leather, and stare up at the ceiling as the needle buzzes to life.
The pain hits fast. Sharp. Burning.
I grit my teeth, but I don’t flinch. I welcome it, let it crawl beneath my skin and twist through my nerves.
It feels like something being burned out of me, something else being carved in its place.
My thoughts drift—through the ache, through the buzz of the needle and the metallic tang of blood in the air.
I try to imagine this shop as it used to be.
Full of music and laughter and people who weren’t waiting to die every time they left a room.
Sammy, her boyfriend, a life that vanished when the Verge went dark.
Riot sitting in this same chair when he was younger, getting his first ink while everything was still almost normal.
I wonder what he was like back then. Not softer, no.
He’s not built for soft. But maybe there was a version of him that smiled easier.
Who didn’t wake up with blood on his knuckles and guilt stitched into his ribs.
I wonder what it would’ve been like, had I met that version of him. Or what version of myself I would have been had Riot Carter been in my life before the world as we knew it ended.
I almost wish I’d seen them. Us.
The buzzing stops.
I blink, still a little dazed, as he wipes the fresh tattoo clean. His brows are furrowed with focus, lips set in a hard line, but there’s something else there too, something flickering behind his expression like a flame trying to decide whether to consume or protect.
“What’s it say?” I ask, still catching my breath, still bleeding a little.
He doesn’t answer.
So I sit up, look down and freeze.
I sit up, muscles tight, breath catching from the sting still crawling across my skin. He wipes the fresh ink clean, and I glance down, expecting to see something cocky. Something like RIOT carved in his usual chaotic scrawl—loud, possessive, and impossible to ignore.
But what I see makes me blink.
CARTER.