I backed out of the room, shut the door behind me, and stood at the top of the stairs for a moment. This was fucked-up.
“Rio? Jamie has the Mustang,” Enzo called up to me, and I quickly headed down.
It was in for a basic tune-up—oil, plugs, filter, brakes. Nothing glamorous. Just enough to keep her humming. I slid beneath the front end on the creeper, a socket wrench in hand, and tried to focus on the bolts under the oil pan, my knuckles knocking the cool metal as I worked.
I loved cars. Engines. The way everything fit together if you listened and gave it what it needed.This was my peaceful place—normally with the radio on low in the background, the scent of oil thick in the air. Yeah, peace. Even when my hands were scraped and my back ached from the creeper, I felt more myself here than anywhere else.
But the thoughts wouldn’t shut up.
Lyric. Danny. Robbie. Rinse and repeat.
“Focus, asshole,” I muttered, yanking on the wrench.
Boots scuffed on the concrete near my head.
“You talking to the car again?” Enzo drawled, crouching beside the wheel well.
“It listens better than most people.”
Enzo snorted. “Figures. Only thing you ever sweet-talked was a busted carburetor.” I gave him a sideways glance, and the asshole smirked. “Yeah, but it still ain’t gonna rotate the damn bushings on its own. You want me to crack’em loose from the top?”
“Yeah. They’re rusted to shit. I’ll hold from underneath.”
He disappeared for a beat, then called out, “So, you gonna tell me what’s eating you? You’ve been tighter than a seized axle since Lyric arrived.”
I said nothing. Just braced the wrench and waited for the knock of Enzo’s mallet above.
“How can we trust him?” I asked, voice sharper than I meant.
There was a pause. Then, thethunkof the mallet again. “Jamie says we can.”
“That’s it?” I snapped. “We’re taking Jamie’s word as gospel now?”
Enzo grunted. “I don’t know what else to say. Jamie doesn’t stick his neck out unless he’s sure. You know that.”
“Yeah, well, sure isn’t good enough. How can you accept that when we’ve got someone with Kessler’s name in his mouth sleeping ten feet from Robbie?”
Enzo cursed, knelt back down, and met my eyes through the undercarriage. “Lyric’s a victim.”
I bit down hard on the next words.
Because the man upstairs, who was recovering too fast, with bruises fading and fire in his stare, wasn’t a victim.
He was aproblem.
One I couldn’t stop staring at.
I turned back to the car, fingers digging into grease as I reached into the engine bay. The air smelled of oil and warm metal, the cooling block ticking softly under the weight of silence. I adjusted the spark plug leads, grounding myself with the feel of something that made sense. Something I could fix.
But even the damn engine couldn’t drown out the noise in my head.
Lyric—stretching, confronting me with those sharp eyes. Jamie, taking him at face value, as if it were gospel. Robbie, circling him constantly, as if he’d found someone who matched his broken self. Enzo, just rolling with it because Robbie believed, despite his love for Robbie and the need to keep him safe. And then Danny—flashing into my mind with those dead eyes and surrender written in his blood.
I twisted the socket wrench harder than necessary. The bolt gave way with a screech.
Enzo’s voice cut through the haze. “You over-tighten that, and Robbie will have your balls. And I don’t want to see that.”
I snorted, shaking off the heat in my chest. “He can add crushed bolt threads to the list of things I’ve fucked up this week.”
