Page 1 of Rio (Redcars #3)

ONE

Rio

The cage smelled of sweat, cheap beer, and old blood.

The makeshift arena was buried deep in an underground parking garage, hidden beneath a half-collapsed building in a forgotten part of Los Angeles, where even the police didn’t dare patrol.

Generators rattled in the corners, belching smoke as they struggled to keep the floodlights, bolted into cracked concrete beams, alive.

The lights flickered as if they might fail in any second, throwing long, jagged shadows over the cage.

The chain-link structure sagged in places, rusted and slick, with old blood baked into the canvas.

Everything here was temporary—easy to pack up and vanish by daylight, leaving only the stink behind .

The crowd pressed against the fence, faces illuminated with flashes of harsh light, wild and rabid. They shouted, cursed, waved fistfuls of cash, eyes gleaming. This wasn’t sport. This was desperation. A place to settle scores, collect debts, and break bones.

No one cared where I came from or why I was here. Even at eighteen, I was already raw muscle, knew how to throw a punch, and that was all people wanted.

I’d grown up in a shitty two-bed over a busted auto shop on the south side.

Oil, sweat, and gunfire were the sounds and smells of my life .

Mom bailed early. Dad taught me to fight before I could read.

Fighting kept me out of gangs, put food on the table, gave me something when I had nothing. Made him proud. Like that meant shit .

He got shot when I was sixteen. Two blocks from home. Stupid reasons—turf, money, who knows. Miguel Villareal—loud, mean, and mine—was gone.

Then came Vinnie. Said he’d promised my dad he’d watch out for me. Gave me a mattress and a way out of the system. Fights, cash, and easy promises.

I was desperate.

Scared enough to bite.

Easy to manipulate.

Vinnie had his hands on my shoulders. “Stay sharp, kid,” he ordered. His breath smelled of whiskey and cheap cigars. “Aim for the head and don’t lose focus.”

Aim for the head?

That was good boxing etiquette, right? Clean shots, controlled aggression.

I had dreams of going all the way. Real fights under bright lights.

Vegas. Championship belts. Money stacked higher than I ever thought possible when I was fighting in backstreet cages for rent money and promises.

Fighting was supposed to be my ticket out.

My way to make something of all the pain, all the fists, all the blood.

I nodded because I always nodded. Because back then, Vinnie’s word was gospel.

But the guy who stepped out under the lights wasn’t big, bulked-up Max who was my size and twice as ugly.

It was Danny Carbone.

Smaller than me, not my usual weight class, but I knew him—wiry, compact, quiet. We’d crossed paths on the rotating gym circuit. He had this softness to him, dark hair tied back, sharp jawline, too damn pretty for the world we lived in.

We’d sparred once. Nothing official. He’d helped me up when I slipped, his hand firm on my elbow, eyes steady and warm. It hit me then—something piercing, buried deep. Attraction I couldn’t afford. Not in this world. Not for someone small and sweet and male like him.

But it stuck. The way he stared at me like I was more than fists and bone. I buried it, but fuck, I wanted him. Not only to touch—something real. Mine.

Even now, just seeing him lit me up.

I shot Vinnie a glance, double-checking it was definitely Danny I was facing.

I could’ve sworn I’d seen Max listed on the board, the kid I’d prepped for—long reach, lazy defense, easy to work around.

But this wasn’t Max. It was Danny. Clear as day.

My stomach clenched. “I thought I was up against Max,” I muttered.

Vinnie shrugged, casual as fuck, as if it didn’t matter that he’d thrown me into the ring with someone I wasn’t ready to fight. His eyes were flat, unreadable, as though he didn’t even register the switch-up. Or maybe he did, and this had been part of the plan all along.

Danny’s walk was loose and relaxed, not edgy and hyped like mine, as if his body wasn’t engaged in the moment.

But it was his expression that stuck. Dead eyes.

Empty. As if all that softness I remembered had been scraped away.

As though he was already somewhere else before we even touched gloves.

I peered at him, but his pupils weren’t wide; he wasn’t high.

I frowned.

“Shit, are you sure you wanna do this?” I muttered, low enough that only he could hear. I’d taken out people double his size and had a foot on him and thirty pounds at least.

Danny’s mouth curled into a sneer. “Fuck you, Cabrón,” he snapped, his eyes flicking to the side—toward his handler/manager at the edge of the ring.

I don’t like this.

“Just another fight, kid.”

The bell rang.

Danny circled. Light on his feet. He wasn’t coming for me—he was staying away. Letting me chase, trying to get me frustrated.

I pushed forward. Jab. Feint. Circle. His coach yelled instructions, and adrenaline muted my hearing.

“Stick to the plan!” The plan? Oh yeah, three rounds minimum, more money. Got it.

The crowd screamed for blood. They always did.

Round one, I felt in control. He danced around me, but I kept pressing forward. My footwork was solid, my jabs accurate. I landed a few clean shots, nothing heavy, but enough to score. The crowd was loud, but it all blurred into background noise as I stayed focused on the rhythm of the fight.

Round two, he found a way in. Slipped under my guard and landed a hard shot to my ribs, knocking the wind out of me for a second.

Quick and sharp, as if he’d been waiting for that opening.

My breath hitched, and I felt my focus wobble.

He circled away before I could counter, keeping me chasing, keeping me angry.

That hit stayed with me, a dull throb under my ribs, reminding me he wasn’t some nobody.

“This round, finish it.” Vinnie shouted in my corner as he grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat from my face, rough and impatient.

Around us, the crowd buzzed, some chanting my name, others shouting for blood. The lights felt hotter now, the air heavier.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” I said for Vinnie’s ears only.

Vinnie leaned in closer, his breath thick with whiskey and desperation, his lips curling into a sneer, grabbing my face and spitting words at me. “He’s not even a man, queer as shit. You let that little faggot dance long enough. End it. This round. No more games. Make me proud.”

The slur hit me like a punch to the gut—hot and fast, shame and rage flaring up my spine. Not just because it was ugly, but because it cut too fucking close. I wasn’t soft. I wasn’t queer.

Vinnie wanted blood, wanted me to prove something. And fuck, I hated that I still wanted to prove it. But I’d been raised on this—violence as validation. Bile rose in my throat as I stalked back to the center of the ring, fury rolling under my skin.

The bell rang, and returns on bets were larger if we made it to round three.

I could already picture my cut—two hundred dollars.

Enough for a rebuilt carburetor for my beat-up ’84 Chevy Celebrity.

A rust-streaked heap that coughed smoke every time I turned the key but still got me where I needed to go.

Abruptly, Danny stopped fucking trying. He touched a tattoo on his neck—Isabel, maybe, some girl who’d meant something to him once—resigned, waiting, and then, he lowered his guard. Dropped his hands. Exposed himself, like a goddamn gift-wrapped target, and I lunged forward.

One punch. Fast, tight, and perfectly placed.

I felt the moment Danny’s jaw gave under my fist. Felt the bone flex, the crack echo up my arm. Heard the wet pop in his neck as his head snapped sideways.

Danny collapsed instantly. Dead weight. Not even a flinch. The tie in his hair came loose as he hit the canvas, and his dark hair spilled out in a tangled halo around his head.

The crowd roared—wild and deafening at first, as if they were celebrating a knockout they’d paid to see.

But as the seconds stretched and Danny still didn’t move, the cheers twisted.

Some turned to mutters, others to gasps.

A few in the back even laughed, loud and brittle, and money changed hands in the shadows, quick and quiet, bets settled as if Danny’s life meant nothing.

No one cared that he lay there, motionless. No one cared except me.

He wasn’t moving.

The ref dove in, waving his arms wildly. Medics scrambled through the gate. Someone yelled for oxygen. For CPR. For something. I stood there, fists clenched, heart hammering, waiting for someone to tell me I hadn’t just killed the kid.

But I already knew.

Vinnie won big that night. He’d bet heavy on the third-round knockout, fist-bumping others, making a killing while I stood over a body.

When the cops came later, asking questions, Vinnie had gone.

Vanished like smoke. Left me holding everything.

The fight had been rigged. Danny had been paid to lose in the third round—why didn’t anyone tell me?

Vinnie had known, and he hadn’t told me.

Instead, he’d set me up for nothing more than a couple of thousand dollars in a purse, and a cut so small I didn’t even care when he didn’t pay it.

Turned out, Danny was fighting for money for his pregnant sister, Isabel , and he’d made a deal to drop fists in three. No one had told me to hold back, no one had warned me.

I could have pulled the punch, knocked him out, but I didn’t expect him to lean into my fist.

The guilt. The blood.

My conviction for voluntary manslaughter meant eight years in High Desert—eight years to think about how I’d been used, how I’d been a pawn in a game I’d never agreed to play.

Eight years of cement walls, razor wire, and concrete yards under a brutal sun, where survival was measured in split-second decisions and alliances made.

Eight years of living with the fact that I wasn’t just some kid trying to fight his way out—I’d been the tool used to murder Danny. And I was the one who’d paid the price.

I grew stronger.

I was a monster, and I let my fellow convicts know that .

Not only physically. The weights, the yard workouts, the fights inside that didn’t come with a ref to stop them—they all built my body into something harder, tougher.

But prison did more than that. It sharpened my instincts.

Taught me how to read people, how to see threats coming before they could take shape.

Taught me how to keep my head down when I needed to, and how to make an example when I couldn’t.

Every scar I earned in that place came with a lesson, and each tattoo was a reminder of what I’d seen and done.

Each lesson carved a piece of the old me away, until all that was left was someone who wouldn’t be used again.

That was where it had started.

The temper, the anger, the frustration. The pain. The addiction to whatever I could get my hands on.

Fuck. That was where everything’d started.