Rio (Redcars Book 3), page 9
He flinched, as if my touch had burned him. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” I said before I could stop myself.
“You said you were gonna kill me,” he shot back, voice thin but biting.
“Yeah, well, that was before.”
His eyes narrowed. “Before what?”
“Before you were the victim,” I growled.
Lyric bristled, fire lighting his expression. “I’m not a fucking victim,” he snapped, anger flashing between us like sparks off a live wire. He tried to move—too fast. A wince contorted his face, followed by a yelp of pain as if he’d forgotten his stitches, his ribs, and the knock to his skull all at once. I felt guilt, yeah -- he was hurt and weak -- but no, he wasn’t a victim. “A target, then,” I said, the words heavy between us. I backed away and brought over the plate of food, setting it on his lap. He stared down at it as if he couldn’t decide whether I was feeding him or poisoning him, probably wondering how any of it qualified as healthy eating for a convalescing target.
I took the plate and moved to the bed, crouching beside Lyric. He looked exhausted, and his hand trembled as he reached for the cheese cubes. I didn’t say anything, just took one and held it out to him. His pink lips closed around my finger, brushing the skin, and my pulse stuttered as if I’d been hit.
I froze.
His mouth was soft. Warm. For a second, it wasn’t about feeding him. It was about that. That slow drag of heat as his lips closed and his lashes fluttered as though it surprised him too.
I swallowed hard. Pulled my hand back as though it had been burned.
He watched me in silence, a tiny furrow between his brows, as though he’d caught the thought in my head.
“Cheese, yogurt, chocolate cookies,” he whispered, picking up a cube of cheddar between two fingers. “All the major food groups.”
I couldn’t stop the smile tugging at my mouth, unbidden.
“That’s what I told Jamie.”
Lyric’s expression grew serious. “I need to talk to Jamie. I need his help to—”
“Eat,” I cut him off, sliding the coffee within reach before slumping into the chair, arms folded tight across my chest, stubborn as fuck.
He stared at me, then at the plate.
“Eat,” I repeated, voice hard. “And then, you can talk to Jamie.”
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Lyric groaned, but he did what he’d been told.
He reached for the cookie, biting into it with a sigh that was way too close to pleasure. His eyelids fluttered, his tongue darting out to chase crumbs at the corner of his mouth, then he licked his finger slowly, as if he couldn’t waste a speck of sugar. It was food-fucking porn, and I sat there watching every second of it, heat coiling in my gut. I was hard, shifting in the chair, wriggling a little to hide it. He put what was left of the cookie to one side, then picked at the cheese, chewing with a kind of distracted stubbornness. When he struggled with the lid of the yogurt, he shot me a scowl to warn me off. I didn’t move to help. Eventually, he got it open, finished both the cheese and the yogurt, and then, circled back to finish the cookie. Watching him eat, I felt something settle in me, like I’d provided for him. It wasn’t much, but it was something—and he’d eaten.
I took the empty plate and handed him the coffee. “Now can I talk to Jamie?” he asked.
I nodded, but before I could get up, the door slammed open and both Jamie and Levi walked in. My chest tightened. Why was Levi here? He was part of Killian’s Cave, but he was also a cop, and that label alone made my hackles rise. Cops meant authority, meant the law breathing down our necks, meant trouble. He’d already proven he could play both sides—spending half his time with Killian’s team, half with whatever badge still hung over his head. I wasn’t entirely sure which part of him I hated more. Maybe both. And fuck, I didn’t like cops. Never had, never would.
Levi looked like shit—not polished and commanding in a suit, but dressed in a ragged shirt and old jeans. He looked rougher, worn out, as if he’d been running on fumes. The fuck? This wasn’t the slick operator from Cave briefings—it was a man worn down, stripped raw, and it made me wonder what he’d been through before walking into our space.
I stood immediately, a wall between Lyric and both Jamie and Levi. My shoulders squared, blocking their view of him. “What’s wrong?” I demanded.
Levi didn’t bother answering me—he pointed past me at Lyric. “Him.”
ELEVEN
Lyric
Levi—tall, blond, dark eyes, scowl carved into his face, unshaven and exhausted, but still a cop. I hadn’t had the best experiences with cops; more often than not, I’d been the one slipping past them, running, evading. And yet, this man looked more homeless than boy in blue, shirt frayed, jeans worn. I couldn’t run this time, so I had to trust—hope—that maybe he was one of the good ones. And since when had I started categorizing everyone in broad strokes of good and bad? Rio was a bad guy by definition, all muscle and threat, yet under all that was a heart that beat with compassion. I thought. Not the kind worn openly like Robbie, but still there, buried deep, waiting to be seen.
“Someone tried to kill Marcus Kessler last week,” Levi said. “He’s gone public with it.”
He dropped a stack of papers onto the bed in front of me. Photos, sketches, grainy surveillance clips—my face, frozen mid-stride, caught on half a dozen cameras.
“Sent out nationwide, circulated to every precinct, every cop, every patrol car. It’s big news,” he added.
I went cold. This was a new step—Kessler wanted me, or his system did, but he’d never blatantly involved the media or law enforcement before. Wanted posters, digital bulletins, my features broadcast across the country as if I were a monster crawling out of the shadows. I stared at the images, bile rising in my throat, and for a second, I couldn’t breathe.
I shoved the photos aside and scanned the document—and right there in capitals, an AI-generated photo but no name.
“And this,” Jamie said, placing a laptop on my knees and pressing play.
It was a breaking news bulletin – grainy CCTV stills of my face during an “attempt on billionaire philanthropist Marcus Kessler’s life” and rolling across under it a red BREAKING NEWS banner.
“We interrupt this program with developing news out of California. Police have released surveillance images connected to an attempted murder on noted philanthropist and technology entrepreneur Marcus Kessler.”
A still frame appeared—grainy, taken from a street camera. It was me. My hair pulled back, my expression caught mid-turn. Clear enough to recognize, and my gut twisted.
“Fuck,” Rio murmured next to me.
The anchor’s voice sharpened:
“The suspect’s name is unknown at this time, and authorities are warning that he should be considered armed and dangerous. If you encounter this individual, please do not approach them. Call 911 immediately.” The anchor’s tone shifted, brighter, more urgent. “And now, we cross to our correspondent live at the KessTech Tower, where reclusive billionaire Marcus Kessler has released this statement.”
I felt sick. This wasn’t like the contracts the AI had put on me before—this was mobilizing a fucking country to find me. My face on screens, my name in bold letters, every precinct, every cop primed to hunt me down. And none of them knew what Kessler was really like, what a monster he truly was behind the cameras and the polished words. It twisted my gut to know he’d turned the whole world into his weapon, and I was the target.
Then, there was Kessler. Sitting behind a desk, collar open, bandage visible at his temple. He leaned toward the camera with the practiced ease of a man who knew exactly how much fear to sell.
“I won’t be intimidated. Yes, there was an attempt on my life. Yes, this man, whoever he is, wants me silenced. But I will not stop my work with law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and legal authorities. I will not stop protecting America from the shadows that seek to undermine it.”
The screen split—my image blurred on one side, Kessler’s solemn face on the other. The message was clear: predator and prey.
The feed flicked back to the newsroom, the anchor reeling off supposed sightings in LA and announcing a reward of five hundred thousand dollars for anyone with information. My stomach dropped. I glanced up at the others—what would that kind of money mean to them? For a flicker of a second, the thought chilled me, but then, I remembered the bounty sitting on my head on the dark web, way higher than this, and they still hadn’t turned me over. That didn’t erase the fear twisting in my chest, though—the world was being mobilized to hunt me, and the price tag on my head only made it worse.
I flinched. “Fuck,” I whispered. “I need to leave.”
“And go where?” Jamie asked.
I stared at Jamie. “Anywhere that means I get to finish what I started, stop what Kessler is doing with LyricNight, and doesn’t put other people in harm’s way.”
“I’ll take him,” Rio said, his words slicing through the room like a blade. Conversation died instantly, the air going still as if the sound itself had stolen the oxygen. Every head turned his way, eyes narrowing, widening, searching. His jaw was set, his gaze unflinching, hard enough to challenge anyone who dared to argue.
“Somewhere else. Away from all of you.”
The words hung there, heavy and final. No one rushed to answer.
“No,” Jamie snapped after a pause. “Lyric stays here. Not a single one of us will turn him in—unless we need to.” He added that last part with a hint of menace that made my stomach knot.
“What about you?” I asked Levi, my voice sharp.
The cop shook his head, weary. “I’m with Killian and the Cave,” he said. “But I have to go. I’m compromising things just by being here.” He left then, the door closing behind him.
A cop on my side? The thought twisted through me, uncertain and fragile.
I pulled the footage back up and ran the press conference again, this time at a slower speed, scanning every corner of the frame. The desk, the flags, the background—it all looked too clean, too crisp. I zoomed in on the wall behind him, the edges of the seal blurring, the lighting inconsistent. Crowd shots repeated the same faces at different angles, like a shuffled deck of cards that appears random. It screamed manipulation—AI-enhanced, maybe even fully AI-created. None of it felt real, as if Kessler had conjured a press room out of code and smoke. If he could manufacture the truth this easily, then the lies he fed the world were limitless.
“This isn’t real,” I said, exhausted, and turned the laptop to face Jamie. “I’m not convinced that’s Kessler at all.”
Jamie frowned. “You’re sure?”
“It’s AI; I’d bet my life on it. LyricNight is using any tool it has to find me. It’ll accelerate. Every contract it pushes from now on will be about silencing me before anyone looks too close.”
“Is Kessler doing this?” Jamie asked.
“He could be. But why?” Lyric frowned. “He’s a salesman, good at playing the part of genius billionaire in front of the camera. No, that’s not him; I’d bet my life on it.
“If that’s not him giving that speech, then where is he?” Jamie flicked screens. “Three more contracts in the last two days on you, dead or alive. And there are media reports saying you’re involved with domestic terrorism or cyberterrorism, plus recent digital breaches within banks.”
“Anything to have me gone.”
“Which makes it volatile and more dangerous.”
“All I can hope is that it’s creating its own fear,” I began, and Rio frowned at me. “It’s paranoid,” I began in an easy way to explain what no one could truly understand—that AI could learn and rewrite itself and potentially break free of the constraints of human control. “LyricNight has accelerated its self-defense mode, pushing out more lethal contracts and harsher countermeasures to find me and kill me, and it risks exposing itself.”
“How can we fight something we can’t see?” Rio asked.
Fuck, I wish I had an answer.
Jamie closed the laptop. “More importantly, Lyric, why the fuck does this AI want you dead?”
TWELVE
Rio
“I don’t know where to start,” Lyric murmured. “But—”
“Wait! I’m looping in Caleb,” Jamie said, pulled out his phone, tapped the screen, and placed it on the table, angled toward Lyric. A second later, Caleb’s face filled the display. He was as serious as Jamie—eyes sharp, mouth set.
“This is Caleb,” Jamie said. “Works with Killian at the Cave, and with Levi.”
“What is the Cave?”
“Need to know basis,” Jamie deadpanned.
Lyric didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked to me instead, searching.
“You can trust him,” Jamie prompted, but Lyric was still watching me for my say-so. My chest tightened.
I gave a short nod. “He’s okay,” I said gruffly.
Only then did Lyric turn to the phone. “Lyric,” he introduced himself.
Jamie stepped to the foot of the bed where Caleb could see him as well. His voice was quiet, but there was a weight to it—a low, heavy warning cutting through the tension. His posture was still, but he tracked every flicker of Lyric’s expression, as if he was trying to read beneath the surface. No theatrics, no raised voice—just the kind of cold control that told everyone in the room that he was hanging on to his temper by a thread. The kind of quiet that meant he was past shock, past disbelief, and deep into the territory where damage control met fury.
“Nine times, Lyric. You’ve had a contract on you nine freaking times.”
Lyric blinked, his lips parting as if he wanted to argue, but nothing came out.
“All traced back to the LyricNight AI security system, which apparently wants to kill you,” Jamie continued.
They tossed words around—pings, nodes, sandboxes—and I tried to keep up, but it was just noise. All I really caught was that whatever they’d found had Lyric’s name written all over it, talking in a language I could never hope to follow. Instead, I stared at Lyric and was ready to move if Jamie lost his shit over anything.
“I know,” Lyric murmured.
“LyricNight isn’t just mirroring system activity—it’s logging behavioral telemetry, feeding it to a weighted AI decision engine, and using it to auto-generate bounties.”
“Yeah.” Lyric sounded beaten down.
“Kessler doesn’t have to lift a finger. The system self-updated, self-deployed, and flagged you as a high-value target nine freaking times. How did you find a way in to trigger this response?”
Lyric exhaled, a slow, tired breath, his voice flat and distant as he spoke. “Fuck, Jamie. It’s my code.”
“The fuck?” Jamie snapped.
“When I worked with Kessler…”
I felt the words crack through the room. Rage surged up so fast it made me dizzy. He’d worked with Kessler?
I clenched my fists, jaw tight, muscles tensing as if I was ready to throw someone through a wall. I thought Jamie was cool with Lyric—that he wasn’t one of the bad guys—but if he was working with Kessler, then had Lyric manipulated us? It made my skin crawl, and Lyric was staring down at the half cookie in his lap. Maybe he felt it—the heat of my fury blistering the air between us?
He glanced at me. “Let me explain. We were partnered on this project, and I thought it was just a matter of sharing theory and conducting a peer review, but he was stealing my work, albeit not initially. I didn’t know until the code started appearing outside of our test sandbox—until things I hadn’t published started turning up in his software builds. When I realized, when I logged it as an issue, hell, that was the first time someone tried to kill me. And maybe I should’ve seen it coming.”
“Kessler stole your code?” Jamie pushed.
Relief pricked me—he hadn’t been working with Kessler? And Jamie seemed calm and wasn’t accusing Lyric of anything. Which made Lyric what? A victim?
“He’d built in backdoors, so subtle that even my sandbox environments didn’t flag them. The program was sold to support investment and law enforcement, with its hooks in bounty hunting, location checks, influencing the outcomes of jury cases, exonerating the guilty, and supporting dark web movements. Shit, I had to try and stop it, because he was getting richer and more powerful, removing opponents to legislation, tampering with juries without being noticed, murder by contracts, and it was my code that was the foundation for it all.”
“Shit,” Caleb muttered.
Jamie didn’t take his eyes off Lyric. He just gestured silently for him to go on.
Lyric stared at Caleb, then back at Jamie, jaw clenched before he continued, quieter. “Every system-level event. Every script revision. Each time I tried to hack in and modify the prediction engine or optimize the neural net feedback loop, I tracked how the software was evolving, and—fuck—it was evolving. Reinforcement layers in the model were beginning to rewrite themselves.”
I didn’t understand any of this, but Jamie looked murderous. Was that at Lyric? Or the system. Or Kessler?
Lyric swallowed hard and dropped his gaze for a beat before he talked in a flat tone as if it hurt to remember. “When Kessler dropped out of MIT to start KessTech, I used my own backdoors into the criminal justice side of the software he created. Started spotting payout patterns. Anonymous transactions. Contracts showing up on dark web forums—carefully phrased, encrypted hits, running off my code in his platform. They were random at first, as if Kessler was stress-testing the system…”
