Page 28 of Rio (Redcars #3)

Robbie wriggled and pushed himself back on the sofa, pulling up his legs and wrapping his hands around them. His skin was ashen, lips bloodless, and there was a fine tremble in his fingers that made my gut twist. He looked as if he might pass out.

“And how much do you know about us and Lassiter?”

“‘Us’?”

“Killian, the Cave, Redcars… me.”

The last part, me , was said so quietly, and it dripped with pain.

What was I missing? I leaned back in the chair, eyes narrowing.

“I know all the names I’d linked to my tracking of Kessler started dropping like flies, including Lassiter.

Some arrested. A few… took the suicide way out.

Lassiter was killed. Uh… I stopped looking when he died, and my focus was on getting Kessler and his AI separated and for Kessler to end up in jail. ”

Robbie nodded, listening intently, his eyes flicking up to meet mine.

“He won’t end up in prison,” Robbie said, and there was no trace of regret in his voice this time. Instead, a cold steel had taken its place.

“I’ll make sure he does—I’ll give evidence, testify, whatever it takes to make sure Kessler’s exposed for every monstrous thing he’s done with that fucking system he stole and bastardized.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Robbie said with careful wording. “He needs to die.” He tilted his chin, stubborn as hell. “He will die .”

Was he asking me to kill Kessler? There was fire in Robbie’s eyes—not just anger, but something old and scorched and feral. It made my skin prickle.

“I’m not killing him, I want the AI gone, and I want him to pay for what he did but, I’m not a killer?—”

“You don’t need to be. They’ll do it for me.”

“I don’t understand.” My view on Kessler was that justice would be served, that all the things he’d been behind would be exposed.

Robbie’s gaze dropped, and he folded inward a little, arms tightening around his knees. “Did Kessler ever hurt you?” he asked, so quietly I almost missed it.

I blinked at the change in subject, still stuck on the killing part.

“Hurt me? He tried. Got all dommy on me, but in a freaky-ass way. But he wasn’t much bigger than me—and fuck if I was going to let him.

” I snorted. “He was the type to push things too far, though. Insanely obsessive. A voyeur. You wouldn’t believe some of the shit I found on his computers when I deep-dived—ugh. ”

Robbie winced.

“So, you dated him?” Robbie changed the subject, and I was getting so damn confused—his questions, the emotion behind them, the way he kept veering away when I thought we were getting somewhere, was weird as fuck.

“Dated? Not really. I mean, I was this computer nerd, and he was already the slick salesman he is today. He bedazzled me for what… maybe three dates, before I punched him in the face. After that, he backed off, and it was mostly code, not fucking.”

I chuckled, but when I glanced back at Robbie, his smile was gone. He was pale, eyes wide and glossy. One tear slipped down his cheek, and it cut the laugh off in my throat.

I panicked.

“Shit. I’ll get Enzo.” I was already half-rising, heart jackhammering. He looked so fragile—his eyes too bright, his hands trembling where he swiped at the tear as if it offended him, and he leaned up to grip my hand.

“No,” he whispered, “I’m okay. I have to do this. You have to know.”

I didn’t believe him, not for a second. But I didn’t call him out either. Instead, I moved from the chair and eased beside him on the sofa, careful not to touch unless he asked for it. I angled myself toward him, folded one leg up to match his posture, and softened my voice.

“Robbie?”

He kept his eyes locked on the floor for a beat, then met my gaze. His expression was open in a way that made my throat constrict—a flash of something raw and broken and trying to keep it all together.

“You want to tell me what just happened?” I asked carefully, even though everything inside me felt as if it was coiled ready to snap at hearing the answer.

His bottom lip quivered, and he bit it. I stayed quiet. Waited. Let him decide.

After a long moment, he said, “You punched him.”

“Yeah,” I said slowly, not sure where this was going. “I mean, I should’ve done it harder.”

He gave a wet laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “I didn’t.”

Ah. Fuck.

I exhaled through my nose and shifted, resting my elbows on my knees, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. “Robbie… you don’t have to?—”

“I know,” he cut in, voice thin. “But I need to.”

I nodded once and kept quiet. I liked Robbie; he was kind and caring, and he held his own with the big men of Redcars.

He stared ahead at nothing, voice flat now. “There was a man… John Mitchell, lower down the pole than Lassiter and Kessler.”

“Uhm… finance guy, right? He was on my watch list.”

Robbie nodded sharply. “He took me when I was still a child, locked me away and kept me because I could remember everything—every name, every deal, every location. I was his ledger because I never forgot a thing.” He tapped his temple.

“Eidetic memory. I was his living, breathing record of every crime he committed with others. And to keep the men he answered to sweet, he gave me to evil men, as if I were nothing. Just handed me over, and hurt me when I stopped helping him, when I refused to remember.”

His hand went to his throat, fingers brushing over scars there, and even though I’d noticed them before, I’d never asked. I wish I had.

“They kept me chained up.” He swallowed hard, blinking rapidly. “And Kessler. He was happy to join in, but he enjoyed filming. Always watching and sometimes he used a blade, and he cut me, clinically, as if he wanted to know what was under my skin…”

Robbie shifted beside me, then with shaking fingers, lifted his shirt.

I sucked in a breath. Scars. So many of them.

Random slashes, puckered welts, and places where skin had healed in jagged, angry lines.

But then he traced one of them with his fingertip, slow and deliberate, outlining a shape.

It took me a second, but I saw it. A K .

Burned or carved—I didn’t know—but it was there, stark against his pale skin.

“Kessler did that?” I whispered.

Robbie nodded and pointed at other marks, his hand trembling.

“All of them,” he said, voice hollow. “Each one from someone who thought I was theirs to hurt. But that one?” His finger returned to the K .

“He marked me like property, and he laughed while he did, then he got off on it and…” He stopped talking, his eyes closed.

My stomach churned. My fists clenched with nowhere to land, no outlet for the fury. How had Robbie survived this?

Robbie kept going, voice still distant, as though he were narrating a nightmare he hadn’t quite woken from. “He was the one who used to wear so much cologne. Even now, if I smell something similar, I freeze. I can’t… I just can’t.” He blinked, and another tear slid down his cheek.

“It’s okay,” I said, but the words felt thin because it was far from okay .

“I didn’t fight back because I didn’t have a choice.”

I couldn’t speak. My breath caught, rage and sorrow and helplessness all snarled together in my throat.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” I said. It sounded hollow, but it was the truth. “You didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that.”

“Mitchell is dead, Lassiter is dead…” He broke off, swallowing.

“I know.”

“They’re gone because Redcars made it happen.” He stared at me then. “Enzo, Jamie, Rio… they didn’t wait for justice. They were the justice, and there’s just one person left who hurt me, and I’m telling you that Enzo won’t stop until he’s taken Kessler off the board.”

The weight of what Robbie had confessed—because that was what it was, a confession—sat between us. He hadn’t flinched from it and hadn’t justified or excused it. Just laid it out there. The three men here at Redcars had killed for what had happened, and would kill again.

I understood why.

I’d gotten used to Robbie’s soft voice, his kindness, his loyalty to the people who kept him safe. But now I saw the bones beneath that calm—saw what had been done to him. And suddenly, the idea of Enzo snapping someone’s neck for hurting him didn’t feel monstrous. It felt necessary.

Rage twisted in my chest, white-hot and acidic.

Someone had chained Robbie. Hurt him. Used him.

And the people who’d done that didn’t deserve trials or due process.

Not when someone like Kessler—with his money, friends in high places, and an uncanny ability to twist the system—could walk free.

He’d done unspeakable things, and there was every chance he’d keep doing them, shielded by power, protected by privilege.

Justice wasn’t built to reach people as rich as him.

But Redcars? They could. They deserved whatever Redcars gave them.

I wasn’t shocked. I wasn’t scared.

I was with them.

He finally looked at me. Really looked. “You didn’t judge me.”

“What?”

“When I said that… that I didn’t fight back. You didn’t say I should have.”

The way my stomach twisted. “Jesus. Why would I ever say that?”

He wrapped his arms tighter and swallowed. “You were so proud that you’d hit him, and I thought you’d think… I don’t know. I just…”

“I don’t think anything. I swear to God.” I leaned in, softening my voice.

“There’s a reason I’m telling you,” he added.

“Okay?”

He stared right at me then. “They want Kessler dead, so whatever you’re planning on doing with him, or this AI, if you want it back to get the money, if you want to replace Kessler at KessTech, if you’re hoping to cut a deal with him, you need to know Enzo wants him dead.”

“I don’t want money, I don’t give a shit about Kessler or KessTech, I want the code gone, I want that AI gone, I want people to stop having contracts put on them, for it to blackmail and support criminals.

That’s all.” I held out a hand, hovering over his knee, and he grasped it. “I’m so fucking sorry, Robbie.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “They’re making it better. Enzo makes it better. He’s my forever.

I didn’t speak. Couldn’t, really. All I could do was hold onto that tiny thread between us—his hand in mine, his words puzzle pieces fitting into the terrible picture he’d drawn.

He wasn’t just the sweet man who brought me cookies.

He was a survivor, and the people who loved him had done what they had to do to make sure he’d never be hurt again.

And honestly? If someone ever laid a hand on me, I didn’t know what I’d be capable of. But I understood now. This wasn’t only about me taking Kessler down, exposing him, or my revenge. Robbie needed justice in its rawest, most desperate form.

I didn’t say any of that out loud, but I squeezed his hand and stayed with him.

He was safe. I was on his side. And whatever came next—I vowed to be part of it.