Reviewed by Jen
TITLE: Rio
SERIES: Redcars #3
AUTHOR: R.J. Scott
PUBLISHER: Love Lane Books
LENGTH: 372 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 26, 2025
BLURB:
Hunted by killers. Protected by a monster.
Lyric Thornwood is on the run, his name stamped on a kill order flooding the dark web. Someone inside the system wants him erased—and Marcus Kessler, the billionaire who twisted Lyric’s stolen code into the murderous AI LyricNight, is hunting him like prey.
Desperate and alone, Lyric follows a ghost contact to a rundown LA garage. What he finds there isn’t safety—it’s Rio Villareal. Rio doesn’t care about code, firewalls, or ghost signals. He knows fists, loyalty, and the kind of violence that keeps his found family alive. When Lyric crashes into his world, Rio should walk away. Instead, he claims the stranger as his responsibility—and maybe something more.
Rio is a dark, explosive story of found family and recovery scarred by violence. With a hunted hacker, a fighter built for blood, and an AI hell-bent on revenge, survival comes at a cost—and only obsession might be enough to keep them alive.
REVIEW:
This series really needs to be read in order to keep up with the timeline on everything. In this installment, the Redcars crew is still on the hunt to take down Kessler and anyone else involved with what happened to Robbie. Lyric is an old gamer buddy of Jamie who has gotten himself involved with Kessler through his hacking and coding abilities. He is now on the run after the AI system they were using took control of itself, turned the tables and has been trying to take Lyric and others out via dark web contracts. With seemingly nowhere else to turn and trying to remain hidden, he turns to the Redcars crew for help. Rio is the one who finds him.
Rio has a few issues of his own, most notably his need to protect his found family, guilt issues over events in his past and his need to punish himself for same and simultaneously ease his aggressions through underground cage fighting. He is extremely skeptical of Lyric and his intentions, and it takes quite a bit of time for him to come around. The others get on board more quickly seeing Lyric as their best way to get to Kessler.
The story twists and turns a bit as they try to thwart the AI system and make a plan to both get to Kessler and shut the whole thing down. Eventually, Rio no longer fights his attraction to Lyric, especially when Lyric shows him he is actually a stronger alpha type than he appears and can be just what Rio needs.
I struggled a little with this one and all the AI stuff even though it was pivotal to the story. Rio’s fighting, which seemed to be such a big part of his life, seemed to just fizzle out, so I was hoping for that topic to have a little more meat to it. But, all in all, I love this series and the guys involved. I admit that I’m pretty excited to finally get Doc’s story. He has been a bit mysterious and clearly has a big story to tell. Hopefully, the guys will all end up finding the peace they have worked so hard to find while getting the second chances Redcars has given them.
RATING: 
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