I was a monster, and I let my fellow convicts know that.
Not only physically. The weights, the yard workouts, the fights inside that didn’t come with a ref to stop them—they all built my body into something harder, tougher. But prison did more than that. It sharpened my instincts. Taught me how to read people, how to see threats coming before they could take shape. Taught me how to keep my head down when I needed to, and how to make an example when I couldn’t. Every scar I earned in that place came with a lesson, and each tattoo was a reminder of what I’d seen and done. Each lesson carved a piece of the old me away, until all that was left was someone who wouldn’t be used again.
That was where it had started.
The temper, the anger, the frustration. The pain. The addiction to whatever I could get my hands on.
Fuck. That was whereeverything’dstarted.
TWO
Rio
PRESENT DAY
I heard a voice—movementin the shadows—and the red mist dropped fast.
Everything else vanished.
No thoughts, no questions, only instinct and rage. My family was nearby. That was all I needed. Nobody got close. Not to them. Not unless I let them.
My pulse slammed into high gear, muscles tight as I launched forward. The world shrank to threat and reaction, the same way it always had when survival meant striking first.
I was halfway across the alley before I even saw him—short, wiry, leather jacket beaten to hell, jeans clinging to a frame too thin to be a real threat. Long dark hair messy around his face, eyes sunk deep with exhaustion and something worse. Haunted.
No weapon. No aggression. But that didn’t matter to the part of me that protected mine. That part didn’t see the details. It saw proximity. And proximity meant danger. It meant blood.
And I’d spill it gladly before I let anyone touch my family.
One second, the man was saying something; the next, his back hit the alley wall with a sickening crack, his breath exploding from his lungs in a strangled gasp. I had him pinned, one arm across his chest, the other fist twisted in the collar of his jacket, lifting him clear off the ground. His feet kicked uselessly in the air, scraping for leverage on the brickwork as he wheezed, ribs compressed under the force.
“What the fuck—Rio!” Jamie snapped, pushing in, but I didn’t budge. My jaw locked as instinct surged, my free hand checking him for weapons, adrenaline flooding every muscle while the danger reflex owned me.
“Who the fuck are you?” I snarled at the stranger.
The man clawed at my arm, choking on nothing, fighting me for every breath. His eyes burned with raw determination, a stubborn fire that refused to die even as I pinned him, too weak to throw me off. He squirmed under my hold, muscles straining, hisstrength failing him—but that desperate fight stayed alive in his eyes. I needed it to break. I needed him to let it die. I needed him to submit.
Jamie shoved at my shoulder. “Jesus, let him breathe!”
But I didn’t let go.
Jamie was talking, answering something the pinned man must have said. I knew there was talking, but I was focusing on holding him and nothing else. I’d choke him out in an instant if he was here to hurt us.
“L-Lyric,” he forced out, and I tightened my hold as my heart stopped. Lyric? Lyric Thornwood, the man who’d been part of the organization that hurt Robbie? I shoved him hard against the wall.
“You fucker,” I snarled, my voice rough with fury.
He let out a rasping gasp, clawing at my arm before falling away, weak as shit, and his strength draining fast. His whole body trembled, feet dangling inches above the ground. I could feel the fight bleeding out of him, breath hitching in shallow bursts. Jamie was speaking, his voice cutting through the haze, but I didn’t register the words. The man in my grip tried to speak, mouth opening and closing. His head sagged, heavier with each heartbeat, as if he might pass out any second.
And still that fight remained.
“Nightjar!” he forced out! “Night… Jar…Root…”
Jamie asked questions as I squeezed.
“Let him down, Rio,” Jamie demanded, his voice strident now, cutting through the rush of blood pounding in my ears. I could hear the edge of fear underneath his words—not just for the man I had pinned, but for me too, for how far I’d already gone. My muscles resisted, still locked, heart hammering as if I were standing in the middle of a fight that hadn’t ended yet. But Jamie’s voice anchored me, dragged me back enough for me to react.
I loosened my grip enough for his feet to find the ground, though his legs barely held him up, shaking under his own weight. My hand stayed locked on his jacket, steadying him more out of instinct than mercy, ready to react if he so much as flinched the wrong way. My hand was wet with his blood, the metallic scent flooding my senses. It yanked me back to the ring, to the fights where blood on my knuckles meant control, dominance, survival. But this wasn’t the ring. This wasn’t some opponent I was meant to take down. And still, my body hummed with the same brutal satisfaction, the same instinct that kept me alive, even as my mind fought to pull me out of it.
