Page 6 of Rio (Redcars #3)

FOUR

Rio

“I’m trying Killian again,” Jamie said, already halfway to the door. “He was in court, but I’ll get him to head straight here.” He was on edge, his lighter in his hand, flicking it, and I thought about following him, but if Killian was on his way, he didn’t need me grounding him anymore.

Still, I hesitated. There was a strange sensation in my chest I didn’t know how to name. If I wasn’t useful to Jamie in this moment—if I wasn’t holding someone together or watching the door—then what the hell was I here for?

I shook it off. Intrusive, fucked-up thought. Not the time. Not the place.

Still, it lingered .

“Lyric?” Lyric glanced at Robbie. “Can I get you anything?”

Lyric’s eyes were glassy and red-rimmed. “I can’t…” His eyes flickered shut.

“No, open your eyes,” Robbie said. “Open them up. You need to take these.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out two small pills, then offered them with a cup of water.

I watched Lyric’s fingers shake as Robbie brought the pills to his lips, and when he tried to swallow, he winced.

He touched his throat, as if it burned. And fuck, it probably did—I’d had him up against the wall by his neck not that long ago, and then I’d had my hands on him again.

But fuck! Why wouldn’t he talk? If he was anything to do with Kessler, then he was bringing trouble to our doorstep.

A stranger getting that close to my family?

To Jamie. Robbie? Enzo? No. I’d do it again.

Guilt prickled low in my gut. Not much, but a flicker.

I hadn’t been wrong to do it, but that didn’t mean it felt good now, watching him struggle to swallow.

Didn’t mean I didn’t see the bruises forming under the stubble on his throat.

I stayed quiet, arms crossed, eyes never leaving him.

I was waiting. For a move. A lie. A tell. Something .

Robbie gave me a look—half warning, half worry— and left with Enzo.

The room felt smaller the second they’d gone.

Lyric blinked slowly, his eyelids growing heavier with every passing second.

The drugs were kicking in. His head dropped forward, then jerked back up.

He shifted, trying to get comfortable, but the angle was all wrong.

He slumped sideways, curled in on himself.

I should’ve left. Walked out and let him sleep alone. We didn’t know his story. For all we knew, we’d be digging a hole for him tomorrow.

But Jesus, he was uncomfortable. Bent wrong, shoulders tense even as he drifted off.

I stood there a second longer, fists clenching and unclenching.

Then, I grabbed a blanket from the back of the chair and dropped it over him without a word.

He twitched but didn’t wake. His wrist shifted against the cuff, a slow, repetitive movement as if he were testing the tension, working it, wearing out the restraint.

As if, even unconscious, he was trying to bleed himself free.

Fighter, not a victim. And I didn’t trust him for a second.

I should’ve left it at that.

Instead, I leaned over him, hesitated, then slipped an arm under his shoulders and helped him ease down onto the bed.

He was kind of small and lightweight—maybe a buck-fifty soaking wet.

Long, floppy hair, and those eyes—fuck, those eyes.

I don’t even know what color they were, not exactly, somewhere between green and grey, sharp and glassy.

He was nothing like Danny, apart from being small.

He’s not Danny.

He let out a small sound as I shifted him, and his fingers twitched against mine before going still again. I stood fast, brushing my hands on my jeans as if that would get the feel of him off me.

Didn’t mean anything. Just didn’t want him freezing to death before he could tell us what we wanted to know, and we figured out what the hell we were gonna do with him.

I was back in the garage the next morning, elbows-deep in the guts of a 1969 Mustang Fastback. Candy -apple red. Restored, but hadn’t seen the open road in years—just polished to hell and back, and rolled out for show.

I was aware, the whole time I worked, that it wasn’t my turn to sit with Lyric. We’d set up shifts. Keep eyes on him, see what he said when the drugs wore off, make sure he didn’t bolt or collapse.

But I hadn’t gone up yet. Not once .

It wasn’t only about not wanting to appear too eager—or even the guilt twisting in my gut.

It was the way I’d seen him move in his sleep, the way he tested the cuff, the fight still burning under the surface.

I didn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust someone who was that fragile but still searched for the cracks in the walls.

That kind of determination didn’t come from fear alone.

That kind of survivor? They were dangerous in a way most people never saw coming.

He could be a liar. He could be part of what had happened to Robbie. He could be a trafficker, a bad guy, a fucked-up asshole who needed to be taken out.

But…

I’d hurt him.

My hands were covered in grease, the good kind of mess that made sense.

Oil, steel, bolts that bit, and gears that didn’t lie.

There was silence in the work, focus, and there was nothing I enjoyed more than that quiet, when the only sound was the tick of a cooling engine or the low creak of a bolt giving way.

Nothing unpredictable. Nothing that talked back or broke trust. Just mechanics.

Clean, brutal honesty in a world that didn’t offer much of it otherwise.

I was replacing the carburetor gaskets and muttering to myself about the last guy who’d over-tightened the manifold—classic case of having more money than sense.

I felt the owner of the scarlet car join me.

We had a small seating area, but we preferred it if clients dropped in and didn’t stay.

However, for some reason, he was here, and kept coming over to check, touching my arm, hovering too close, stepping into my space as if I were some novelty act he’d paid extra to watch.

Every time I shifted, he shifted with me.

I hated it. I craved control and knowing where my space ended and someone else’s began, and Harlan Devlin was blurring that line with every brush of his hand.

“You sure it’s the gaskets?” came a voice behind me.

I grunted. “Positive. You’ve got air leaking in.”

Harlan Devlin—trust fund prick, always in a suit, never had grease under his nails—clasped my arm.

“Oh no,” he said and fluttered his eyelashes—too playful, too familiar, as if this was some goddamn flirtation.

I stiffened under his touch because I didn’t do well with people in my space, especially those who thought they could get in my space with a joke or a wink.

It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t funny. It was a challenge, and I didn’t have the patience for games.

I pulled my arm away, slow but deliberate. Not aggressive, not yet, more my kind of warning. “Don’t do that. ”

He blinked at me as if he didn’t understand, or as if he did and didn’t care. Either way, it made me want to crack my knuckles and find something to hit that wouldn’t land me back in jail.

Don’t hit the rich guy.

“I’ve seen you fighting,” he said in a low tone, as if it was some secret around here about what I did.

Yeah, I still fought. No hopes of the big time, more underground stuff, brutal and fast, the kind that never made it online unless someone wanted to prove they knew someone dangerous.

I’d been fighting since I was a kid, and then Danny died.

And fighting had stopped being salvation—it had become punishment.

I didn’t care if I got hit. Didn’t care if I went too far.

I was angry all the time, and violence filled the hole—thick and choking.

In prison, fighting kept me alive, made sure no one messed with me.

I climbed the ladder not because I wanted to, but because it was the only way to stay standing.

Now? It was the one thing that kept the edge off. A lifetime of barely contained fury wrapped tight in muscle and scars. I didn’t fight for survival anymore—I fought so I didn’t burn the world down.

Harlan touched me again. His hand brushed my arm, lingering as if he thought he had the right. “I’ve seen you leave with big guys,” he said, voice low, almost as if he was offering something sacred. “Seen you kissing them. Dragging them with you.”

I didn’t answer. Just looked at him. Let the silence stretch too long.

He looked hopeful, as if that meant something. As if, maybe, I was for sale, or he could buy his way into whatever fantasy he’d built around me.

“I got this fantasy,” he said, licking his lips as if the words turned him on. “You. Sweaty. Bleeding. Holding me down. Making me take it.”

I stared at him blankly.

He thought it was an invitation, not a warning. Almost as if he were waiting for the right price for me to snap, to be the monster he wanted. He didn’t understand that I fought to keep that part of me caged. That, if I ever gave in to what boiled in my chest, I wouldn’t stop.

That wasn’t sex. That was violence disguised as wet dreams and poor judgment.

“I’m hard,” he added when I didn’t react, and pressed a hand to his cock.

My lip curled. Fucking hell.

“What time do you get off?” he added, as if it were a done deal.

I glanced over my shoulder, deadpan. “I get off with my own hand, in silence, and definitely not with a client breathing down my neck.”

His mouth fell open, then he gestured vaguely toward my dick as if it had done something to offend him. “I meant finish work, not…”

I followed the motion, then met his gaze head-on, bored as fuck with his bullshit. “Yeah, well, this guy’s curled up like a dormouse in wood chips, and he sure as hell doesn’t perform for clients. So maybe keep your hand signals to yourself.”