Page 31 of Rio (Redcars #3)

TWENTY-ONE

Lyric

Nearly a week had passed since that moment on the sofa—a week where the heat between us never cooled, even if everything else around us stayed frozen.

We were no closer to cracking the LyricNight system, no nearer to breaking open any of Kessler’s files without lighting up some alarm that would bring him down on us.

Days blurred together—long hours in the same room with Jamie, our screens glowing, fingers flying, brains fried. I’d gotten used to it. Used to the low hum of tension in the back of my skull, used to only heading downstairs for lunch breaks, used to not setting foot outside Redcars.

Nights were… different .

Nights were Rio.

He’d put himself on more or less permanent guard duty—which really just meant we fucked as often as we could get away with. Sometimes hard, sometimes slow, sometimes as if we were trying to erase the world. Every time felt like a line drawn in blood and sweat: You’re still here. I’m still yours.

And I needed that. Needed him . Even if I didn’t know what the hell we were building between us, for however long it lasted, before they killed Kessler, or a contract on me succeeded, I felt real.

“And then you just put the dough balls in the sugar and cinnamon and roll them around.” Robbie’s voice was all bright energy and kitchen logic. He demonstrated with confidence, tossing a perfectly round blob of dough through a shallow dish of sugar and spice.

I tried to copy him, but I flattened mine.

He winced. “Okay, well, not like you’re squashing a bug.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, trying again with a little more finesse.

“No, no, it’s good,” he said, reaching over to adjust the next one. “You’ll get it. It’s just muscle memory. You’ve got the muscle part, anyway. ”

That got a huff of amusement from me.

Redcars was closed, Jamie was at the Cave, Rio was out on a late evening pickup, and Enzo was in the office, which left me and Robbie at loose ends.

Hence, the kitchen smelled sweet and buttery, with cinnamon thick in the air.

I didn’t know what had possessed Robbie to drag me into cookie-making, but he’d walked into the upstairs room earlier with an apron and a mission, and somehow I hadn’t said no.

“You ever made cookies before?” he asked.

“Not really.” I paused. “Rainbow and Cedar Moonbeam weren’t the cookie-making type,” I added with a shrug. “I don’t think they ever quite got over creating a son who was more into building firewalls than building protest signs. Saving the planet one march at a time didn’t click for me.”

Robbie chuckled. “You don’t call them Mom and Dad?”

I shook my head. “They said it put a label on the relationship that implied ownership. Wanted me to have agency and self-direction or some shit. We didn’t do boundaries or rules. Just… vibes.”

He gave me a look I couldn’t quite read, and I laughed. “Don’t give me that pitying face. I had a good life. Weird, yeah, but good.”

“Not pity,” Robbie said. “Envy. I never knew what it was like to have parents at all.” Something shifted in the air between us, quieter, weightier. I felt as if I should apologize or something . But Robbie forged ahead with more questions. “That’s where Lyric comes from?”

“Nah,” I said, rolling another dough ball between my palms. “I chose Lyric. The name they gave me was—get this—Sunshine Nova Starseed. No joke.”

Robbie blinked. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” I said, laughing. “I think Rainbow was tripping on something when they filled out the birth certificate. I changed it as soon as I could access the systems I needed to hack, a practice run for all the other tasks I completed around the time I was talking to Jamie online.”

“And you chose Lyric yourself.”

“Yeah, I wanted to honor the vibe but make it less likely I’d get my ass kicked when I went to college.”

Robbie grinned. “Honestly? It suits you.”

“Thank you.”

“Where are your parents now?” Robbie asked.

I hesitated. “Gone. Cedar passed when I was fourteen—pancreatic cancer. Rainbow hung around a few years longer, but she died in a biking accident on a commune in Oregon the winter before I started college. No drama. Just… gone .

Robbie didn’t say he was sorry. Didn’t offer any hollow condolences. He just bumped my elbow with his, then went right back to rolling dough as if he hadn’t missed a beat.

Then—noise.

A door slammed somewhere below us. The mechanical thunk of shutters crashing over the windows made the air thicken in an instant.

I’d never seen Robbie move so fast.

“Move,” Enzo shouted, and Robbie was already shoving me ahead of him toward the hallway.

“What the?—?”

“Now.”

He pushed me into his and Enzo’s side room, which I’d never stepped inside, and slammed the door behind us. A mechanical bolt shot across with a metallic clack under a box with a code entry.

“Intruder alarm,” he snapped. “We’ve drilled this. We lock down.”

“What the fuck, Robbie?” I pulled my knife out and flicked it open. “Let me out.”

He blocked the door with one arm, steady and firm, eyes never leaving mine. “Not yet.”

Then he reached above the desk, flipped a panel I hadn’t noticed, and revealed a screen embedded behind a pinboard. A live feed flickered into view— the same surveillance setup I’d seen Jamie and me running on my laptop.

Yard camera. North wall.

A subtle movement, almost nothing—just a shift in shadow, a ripple of motion where there shouldn’t be any.

“There,” Robbie murmured, pointing. “Top left corner. Someone’s here.”

I tensed, hand tightening around the knife. “Let me out. I can take whoever it is.”

Robbie shook his head and stepped between me and the door. “We’re safe in here. That’s the whole point.”

Safe.

I didn’t want to be safe . I didn’t want to hide behind locked doors and security feeds. I wanted to do something. To fight. To move. To matter.

“I don’t want to be locked up as if I’m a fragile piece of glass,” I yelled into his face, chest heaving. “I’m not helpless.”

“You’re not,” Robbie said quietly. “But this is how we do this. And you’re not alone.”

That made it worse somehow. I hated how much sense it made. I turned away from the monitor, heart hammering, trying to breathe through fury and fear and something close to shame. “I keep myself alive. ”

Robbie gripped my arm. “They’re here,” he said, and gestured to the screen. I saw Enzo. I saw Rio. One man from inside, the other circling the back. Our intruder was trapped between them.

A flurry of motion burst across the grainy screen—blurry, chaotic.

I could just make out Enzo lunging, grabbing hold.

Rio swung, a brutal punch landing square.

The attacker staggered, then fought back, arms jerking, struggling for something—something in his waistband, maybe a weapon.

It was too fast, too muddled to make out.

“No,” I breathed, fingers white-knuckled around the knife. Fuck! Rio! “I need to help him.”

Robbie turned to block me again. “You’ll get in the way.”

“Give me the fucking code to the lock.”

“No.”

I raised the knife—not to threaten, not really—but Robbie still flinched. I saw it in his eyes, that flicker of fear, and guilt twisted sharp in my gut.

“Fuck, I won’t… Shit, Robbie… I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said roughly, and instead of pushing past him, I turned to the door and stood there, every muscle coiled.

“I know.”

The lock disengaged with a solid thunk , and I yanked the door open hard enough to slam it into the wall.

I bolted out into the garage—every door locked, every window covered with thick steel shutters.

I knew the system, I knew what it could do, but to see it in action was something I couldn’t get my head around when in the middle of the engine bay, Rio had a man on his knees, one arm twisted behind his back.

The guy was bloodied, panting, face turned toward the floor.

Enzo stood to the side, a gun raised, steady, aimed at the man’s head.

“Jesus,” I breathed, slowing a little as I approached. My heart thudded as if it was trying to punch through my ribs. Rio glanced up for the briefest second, his eyes wild and dark and locked on me. Then back to the intruder.

“Stay back,” Enzo ordered, not even glancing at me.

I didn’t listen. I moved in closer, close enough to see the trembling in the guy’s shoulders, the broken skin across Rio’s knuckles, the pressure in every tense line of his body.

“What the fuck!”

The man lifted his face, blood smeared across his mouth, one eye already swelling.

He stared straight at me and pointed. “Him! They want him! Millions! I’ll split it with you.

” Enzo crouched slowly, his gun never wavering.

“I’ll split the money, man,” the guy stammered.

“Fuck, I don’t want trouble. I was just?—”

“How did you find us?” Rio growled.

“We tracked him.” The intruder jerked his chin toward me.

“‘We’?”

“Just me now.”

“How did you track him?”

The man sneered. “He’s not all that. I’ve been following his patterns for a week.”

Rio kicked him—hard, brutal. The man folded with a grunt.

Something shifted in Enzo. I saw the edge in him—the fear masked behind calm, the calculation happening in real time.

He turned to me suddenly, gripped my arm, and raised an eyebrow—just the tiniest flick, but I caught it. Then he shoved me hard, forcing me down to my knees beside the guy, his hand twisted in my hair, baring my throat. I struggled, but Enzo held me tight.

Rio startled. “Enzo, what the fuck?”

“You want this man?” Enzo asked the intruder, knife pressed to my temple. “You said millions, right?”

“Yes! Yes!” the guy gasped. “We’ll split it, just let me go, man! ”

Enzo’s voice went ice-cold, and he gestured at Rio and Robbie. “Four ways, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll make a deal.”

“Who else are we splitting the money with?”

“No one,” he panted. “I’m not sharing with anyone else.”

“Bullshit,” Enzo snarled. “You said ‘we’, so you sure as hell didn’t find him alone.”

“I followed the leads! Been tracking him for weeks! My partner—he died in a crash this asshole escaped from—he?—”

“No one else?” Enzo pressed.

“No, I swear—no one else knows I found him—just us four, man, just us?—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Enzo snapped, and then—his eyes never leaving the guy—he nodded at Rio.

Everything in me stilled.

Enzo moved first, yanking Robbie back into his side, shielding him with one arm. The second his hand tightened on Robbie’s shoulder, Rio shifted.

No hesitation.

He placed both hands around the stranger’s neck—callused, brutal, sure—and squeezed. The body bucked, legs kicking wild and uncoordinated as Rio’s grip locked hard. He thrashed, gasping, eyes bulging with panic and disbelief.

Rio’s jaw was clenched, his face a mask of fury and purpose. He didn’t speak. He didn’t shout. He just held on, fingers digging deep, until sounds went from choking to wet gurgles.

A sharp crack echoed in the silence as Rio shoved the dead guy to the floor, following through with a final jerk that cracked his neck.

The body crumpled.

Still. Empty.

No one said a word. Not right away. The only sound was the rush of blood in my ears and the ragged breathing of the men still standing.

At last, Rio looked at me.

And I had no idea what he saw on my face.

Enzo stepped forward, his expression hard but focused. “We need to strip the body, bag it, and wipe the cameras that picked this up. Robbie, lockdown override, clear this zone only.”

Robbie pulled out his phone and tapping in the command, his hands shaking.

Enzo turned to Rio. “You okay?”

Rio pushed to his feet. “Yeah.”

Enzo glanced at me. “You?”

I swallowed. My throat burned.

Enzo’s gaze flicked to the body, and I blinked in shock, and then Enzo called my name, bringing me back .

“Lyric? What now?”

I thought on my feet. “No calls. No chatter. We burn this guy and every digital footprint he left behind. Tonight.” I paused, my chest tight, focusing on Rio’s set expression. “And then we get the fuck out of Dodge.”