Page 22 of Rio (Redcars #3)

SIXTEEN

Rio

A pickup in the afternoon, Jamie on guard duty, and it meant I didn’t get to talk to Lyric anymore today—at least that was the excuse I gave myself, because sure as fuck I was avoiding him. A day, he said. He was going to give me a day and put me on my knees.

Jesus. His voice—his threat, his promise, whatever the fuck it was—chased me in my sleep as if it had teeth.

Not even ten minutes in the shower the morning after that declaration, one hand on the wall and the other between my legs, fingering myself, pushing hard, trying to chase the edge, got me there.

With scalding water pounding, I imagined someone pinning me down— him pinning me down—making me feel everything I swore I didn’t need.

Still wasn’t enough.

I was antsy, edgy, and spent all of Saturday dodging Lyric as if he were a live wire—which, to be fair, he was.

Easiest thing in the world with him and Jamie holed up doing whatever digital wizardry they were buried in.

I didn’t understand half the words they used, and I didn’t try to.

We all had our uses. Next time someone needed to swing a bat, or a crowbar, or walk into hell with fists up?

That’d be me. But tech? No thanks. My phone was about as much circuitry as I trusted myself with.

Well, that and the complicated wiring looms in nineties cars, I could handle some of that. The rest was on Jamie, and Robbie, our electrician-in-training.

Strangely, the fight with Bruno wasn’t dominating my thoughts.

Sure, the usual adrenaline was there—excitement tangled up with nerves that made my skin itch—but it didn’t feel as if it was the main event.

Not with everything else clawing through my head.

Still, when the clock hit five, I was damn glad.

Time to move. Time to fight. Time to shut my brain off and let instinct take over.

I headed out into the main garage where Enzo was hunched over the gutted front end of a boxy old Volvo, elbows deep and cursing under his breath.

“You doing overtime?” I asked, even though that wasn’t really a thing at Redcars. We got paid well and did what needed doing—clock-watching wasn’t part of the deal. Still, it was a way to open the door to some banter.

Enzo snorted. “If by overtime you mean babysitting a car with more rust than function, sure.”

“You love it,” I said, grinning.

He glanced over his shoulder. “I love when you fuck off and let me work in peace.”

I leaned against the bench, arms crossed. “You’re grumpier than usual.”

“That’s ’cause someone’s been stomping around itching to fight.”

I chuckled despite myself. “Can’t imagine who.”

Enzo grinned back. “You heading out to the Pit?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s it at?”

“You coming?”

“Not tonight,” he said it casually, but I couldn’t remember the last time Enzo had come to a fight—not since Robbie showed up, that much I knew.

I didn’t blame him. Why waste a night watching me beat the hell out of someone when he could be home with the man he loved, safe and warm and not bleeding?

“It’ll be quick,” I said, all bravado.

“Hit clean. Watch that rib.” He wiped his hands on a rag, still not looking at me. Then finally: “Fists up.”

“Always,” I said, grabbing my hoodie off the hook, and headed back to my apartment to get ready.

The Pit wasn’t one place. It moved—always on the edges of things, never fixed long enough to catch the eye of law or consequence.

A basement. An abandoned warehouse. Once, a burned-out church.

But wherever it showed up, one thing never changed: one cage, two fighters at a time, and fights started at ten.

Rules? Not really. No biting, no eye gouging—unspoken shit, mostly ignored when the adrenaline kicked in. Everything else was fair game. You brought what you had, and that was all you got. No backups, no second chances. What you carried into the cage was what you bled with.

Tonight’s venue was in an old meat-packing facility out past the tracks, and Lianne was waiting out front, leaning against a crumbling wall, lighting what was probably her fortieth cigarette of the day.

I was early—always was. No one else had arrived yet.

It was a ritual I lived by. Arrive first. Examine the cage.

Walk the perimeter. Make a note of all the escape options in case shit went down and we were discovered.

Get a feel for the space, the air, the angles.

This was survival, not sport. She grunted a hello, and we went in.

Half the ceiling had collapsed, and the walls still smelled faintly of bleach and rot.

Fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead, casting light across the cement like a spotlight on a crime scene.

The cage sat dead center, chain-link walls ringed in duct-taped padding and stained canvas.

I was antsy for the fight. It itched under my skin, buzzing louder with every breath. Beneath it, anger and fear tangled into a knot that wouldn’t loosen—anger at everything I couldn’t fix, fear I didn’t want to name. It made my stomach twist, my pulse spike.

I breathed through it. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Again. A rhythm I’d learned long ago to keep the rage from boiling over and the panic from showing. Even after all these years, it was the same hunger—tight in my chest, teeth clenched, hands twitching for the hit, the release.

People started to trickle in, the first murmurs of the crowd became louder. I let it wash over me, clung to the ritual of it. Let it shape the storm inside into a weapon .

I found a quiet corner, tucked behind a rusted-out locker and a busted fan unit, half in shadow.

I didn’t want to be seen yet, not until I had to be.

But I liked being here early as the atmosphere changed.

Chaos started slow and I fed off it. Let it coil through my gut, and sharpen the edges inside me.

It was an hour until the fight. I could wait. I’d done it before. Let the noise build. Let the nerves find rhythm. Let the cage call me in. Then he arrived. Bruno Cortez.

The crowd shifted as he walked in, parting as if they knew exactly what kind of weight followed him. Bruno didn’t fight often, but when he did, it was something people remembered. He wasn’t the biggest guy in the room—not taller than me, not broader—but he carried himself with utter confidence.

He had the kind of body built from doing damage: dense, coiled muscle, the type that didn’t bulk for show.

His face was all hard lines and broken history—crooked nose, scar slicing through one brow, jaw set as if he hadn’t smiled in years and tattoos that spilled out from beneath his sleeves and crawled up the side of his neck, black ink against warm brown skin.

His gaze swept the room as if he were cataloguing threats and weaknesses in the same breath. Cold. Clinical. He didn’t smile when someone called his name. Just nodded once and kept moving, calm as death walking.

I stayed where I was, watching. Measuring. He was brutal, and quiet. No bravado. No flexing. That was what made him dangerous. The guys who talked were easy to break. Bruno didn’t need to speak.

He needed the cage.

Same as me.

Time clicked down. Thirty minutes. Then twenty.

I peeled myself out of the shadows when the crowd thickened enough for me to stop caring who was where.

Stepped out of my corner and moved toward the prep area—a joke, really, no more than a stretch of wall where fighters leaned, cracked knuckles, or shook out their nerves.

I was wearing black fight shorts, scuffed and faded at the edges, and a pair of worn wrestling shoes duct-taped at the ankles.

My hoodie hung open, sleeves pushed up, and under it, my torso was bare—taped ribs, bruised flanks, and all.

No frills. No performance gear. I slipped off my hoodie and poked it into my private corner in the backpack I had there.

Then it was time.

I crossed the floor, stepping through the crowd like a ghost. No nods or smiles and I took a seat on the far side from Bruno, who was already there, calm as ever, staring straight at me.

I didn’t return the look. I wasn’t interested in the pre-fight bullshit—no posturing, no psyche games. That wasn’t my style. I didn’t care who he’d knocked out last month or how many bodies he’d left bloodied. I wasn’t here for the show.

I was here to fight. Not to play games or impress the crowd. Just to spill enough sweat and blood to quiet everything inside me.

And when it was done—when the final blow landed and the cage door swung open—I’d take whatever bruises I’d earned and drag my bloodied self home. I’d find someone who could pin me down and fuck me hard.

Someone I couldn’t hurt.

Inside the cage, I rolled my shoulders, swept the crowd once. Doc was here, tucked in among the bodies, but that didn’t surprise me. This was a heavy fight—two unbeaten fighters, one win up for grabs. One of us was going to get broken, and the purse already had his cut taken out of it.

Doc sat so fucking neat and tidy in the mess of humanity baying for blood.

Calm. Still. As if he didn’t belong, but somehow always did.

He stared at me with those dark eyes that didn’t blink often enough.

Maybe he was here to place a bet—he had the money, God knew that much.

Or maybe he enjoyed watching people unravel.

Bruno was across from me now. No expression. Waiting. No visible nerves. No bounce. He didn’t shift his weight or twitch his fists.

Fine by me.

The ref barked something unintelligible and yanked the cage door shut behind us.

It was just us now. Me, Bruno, and the fight.

The bell sounded with a clang that cut through the noise, and we circled.

Careful. Calculating. For the first few seconds, we were evenly matched—two predators testing each other’s weaknesses.

My heartbeat pounded in my ears, the rest of the world blurring to nothing but the man in front of me and the faint vibration of the crowd pressing in.