Redcars #2
Burning is control. Craving Killian’s touch is surrender.
Jamie has never claimed to be good. He’s a former hacker, a convicted arsonist, and an ex-con who’s killed just to survive—but he’s found a home at Redcars. The men there aren’t just friends—they’re his brothers. And when the man who held Robbie gives up a name before dying in flames, Jamie uncovers a network of monsters. Rich. Protected. Untouchable. For the people he calls family—for Robbie, who was broken and caged—Jamie would burn the world down and watch it turn to ash to keep them safe.
Only Killian—a lawyer with secrets in his blood and a war room built on vengeance—wants him to wait.
Killian unsettles Jamie in ways he can’t explain. His presence is a spark too close to fuel. The fear, the pull, the heat—it all blurs into something dangerously close to want. Killian doesn’t try to fix Jamie’s broken pieces. And when his steady hands quiet the fire in Jamie’s chest, Jamie doesn’t know whether he wants to fight him… or fall apart in his arms.
Bound by revenge, addicted to control, and drawn to each other in all the wrong ways, Jamie and Killian are on a collision course of pain and need.
The monsters they’re hunting won’t go quietly.
But neither will they.
Jamie is a dark, obsessive MM romantic suspense featuring a man who found silence in fire, and hope in an unexpected touch, combustible attraction, found family, a lawyer with a secret identity who hunts monsters from the shadows—and two men who refuse to let each other self-destruct.
Trigger warnings for past abuse, murder by fire, intense obsession, and dark revenge.
I'm going to start off by saying this is slightly outside my comfort zone. Some might think that was a bad thing or that I didn't care for the story. No. I loved it! Stepping outside my comfort zone is not something I do often but when I do, I always do it with an open mind because if we don't challenge ourselves we don't learn, and life is always learning. What is it that puts this outside that comfort zone? The fire, Jamie's pull towards the flame, his need to watch it, to control it, to use it as his brand of justice. I don't personally understand that kind of pull toward something that is so dangerous, that holds the potential to get out of control and because of that I can't speak to how accurate the author got it. What I can be sure of is that RJ Scott did her homework, not just to get it right but because she respects life's differences, one's needs and desires.
Now for the book.
Jamie has it's own story but it is part of a four book story arc and Jamie is the middle so you need to start with Enzo. Is there a beginning and an end here? Yes and no. Yes, there is a more specific guilty party Jamie and Killian are focused on which does have a conclusion but there is more to come so again, this is a series best read in order. Because it is a read in order series, I won't delve into the plot so I don't spoil the series as a whole. I will say, it is dark, it is disturbing, it can be hard on your heart to read but because of the respect the author shows that I mentioned above, it is also deliciously satisfying.
I talked about Jamie's love of the flame and his own past that got him to Redcars but he is only part of the story, we also have Killian. Killian is a lawyer we met in Enzo and though he comes across as commanding, he too has a past that brought him to where and how he is. On the surface, you can't imagine two people more opposite and not right for each other but then you see inside and realize they are actually perfectly matched. They complete each other but they also understand the need to let the other be who and what they need to be.
As it is an ongoing story arc, we get to see Enzo and Robbie again and to see more of Robbie's healing. Robbie's scenes might actually be short in wordage and page time but it is another example of the author's respect for healing, that it can be an ongoing and never-ending journey. It also shows that found families are just as strong, actually stronger for some, as those stemmed in blood.
As I started with, I may not understand Jamie's pull toward the flame making it a bit harder to connect to him, it did not take away from loving the story or the characters. Frankly, the fact that I do love everything about Jamie, while not understanding the character's flame pull, speaks louder volumes to how brilliantly and emotionally told this story is. A winner on all sides.
One last mention, we originally met Redcars in the author's Single Dads 6th entry, Pride which tells(in part) Logan's story. We don't see Logan a lot in the Redcars first two entries but he is mentioned and because of that, I highly recommend reading Pride before you start Redcars, though it is not a must because it is not the same story arc but it does introduce the series and characters.
ONE
Jamie
The fire started in the kitchen.
Just like the last one.
The flames licked up the drapes, each faded flower vanishing in white sparks. I stood there, still holding the used match, and watched the edge of the fabric curl inwards, blackening, then opening with a hiss of release. The smoke thickened fast—it always did. Greedy. Hungry.
I didn’t run.
I waited until the heat reached the hallway, caught the old linoleum, the newspaper bundles, and the cracked, piss-yellow chair, until the air turned hostile, burning my throat.
Then, I walked out of the front door.
It was early. The street was quiet but not peaceful. Rows of tired brick apartments lined the block, tagged with graffiti and sagging with disrepair. Trash rustled in the gutters, and a broken streetlamp still flickered behind me, casting everything in a sick, pale glow. A busted bike frame leaned beside the stop sign as if even it had given up.
Shitty neighborhood. The kind no one cared about. The kind no one came looking in unless they wanted something worse than answers.
But quiet.
Not like the house.
The house was screaming now.
Wood groaning. Glass cracking. That beautiful, chaotic roar meant nothing could be saved.
I sat on the curb across the street staring at the fire. No shoes. Smoke on my clothes. My uncle was still inside. Passed out on the couch, maybe. Maybe, he woke up trapped and terrified. Didn’t fucking matter. I knew he hadn’t gotten out. That was the point.
By the time the sirens came, I was calm but didn’t know what to do with the silence. No belt snapping through the air, no fists, and no lock sliding into place behind me.
I was free.
When the fire crew arrived, I clutched my laptop close and didn’t move. One firefighter tried to grab me, shouting something I didn’t catch. His gloves smeared soot across my bare arms. He looked scared. Or maybe confused.
They always are.
The ambulance came next. Someone wrapped a blanket around me. I let them. A woman crouched beside me, her voice gentle, as though I was fragile.
“What happened?” she asked.
I looked past her to the smoke billowing into the sky. “It burned,” I said.
She blinked. “How did it start?”
I shrugged. “Match, I guess.”
Her expression changed. Not fear, exactly. Just the beginning of understanding. The moment when people realize I’m not the victim they thought I was.
“What’s your name?”
“Jamie Maddox.”
Then, the cops came with their questions, and when they searched my name and the other fire was flagged, the inevitable happened.
There’s a body, trapped, couldn’t get out, burned.
“…you’re under arrest for suspicion of arson and homicide.”
I didn’t fight them. I didn’t cry. I didn’t ask why. They took my laptop away from me, but that was okay. I’d hidden everything in the cloud, and no one would find it. All my tools and things I used to steal were gone. I walked to the cruiser barefoot, fingers twitching for another match I didn’t have. My skin itched for the flick of sulfur, the sharp tang of smoke. I could still taste the fire on the back of my tongue, feel the way heat had kissed my face. It wasn’t only the burn I missed—it was the control, the silence it gave me, the way everything else fell away when flames were dancing. If I could watch something fall apart correctly, the world could be wiped clean and made simple. The cuffs were too tight, but I didn’t complain. The pain felt real. Felt deserved.
I remember watching the dark smoke and the firefighters from the back seat. The house collapsed in on itself as if it had been waiting to die.
I knew that feeling.
They took me to a white room with plastic chairs and a table bolted to the floor. I waited. Eventually, someone came in and read me my rights. I asked for a cold soda, but they didn’t give me one, handing me water in a plastic bottle with no lid.
They called it an accident at first. They suggested it could have been faulty wiring, an electrical short in the kitchen, or maybe the old microwave gave out. One neighbor swore they heard a pop. Another said they smelled gas.
But I was too calm.
Too clean at first glance.
No soot on my face. No burns. Just a folded blanket around my shoulders and hands that didn’t shake. I hadn’t asked questions. I hadn’t cried then, and I hadn’t cried when I watched the smoke curl upward as if it was writing my name across the sky.
And when they’d checked me for injuries and found the marks on my back and thighs, the cigarette burns and the cuts, and they asked me what happened, all I said was that I’d been in the kitchen. I heard them talking about abuse, and they handed me pity in one hand and accusation in the other. It didn’t matter how badly someone hurt me. That wasn’t justification for burning them to death, and hell, no one walks out of a house fire that began in the kitchen without a mark on them. Not unless they’d set the fire.
They started looking closer.
And when they asked how the fire spread so fast, I said, “Accelerant helps.”
Eventually, they stopped calling it an accident.
They sent me to a facility outside Los Angeles. Not jail. Not at first. Psychiatric observation, they called it. I played the game—quiet, cooperative, unreadable. The diagnosis was difficult when pretending to be someone else was so easy. They looked for remorse, for cracks in the story, but I gave them blank calm and vague sadness. I could mimic empathy, mirror fear, and drip trauma in rehearsed doses until they believed what I needed them to. The doctors said I didn’t appear to understand guilt the way others did. I agreed with them. I didn’t feel guilty. I felt nothing.
Eighteen months of docs poking and prodding, of white padded rooms and meds.
After that, it was prison—two more years. I was under minimum security once the court accepted the diminished capacity argument, which I sold like a motherfucker. I kept my head down, memorized the schedules, worked in the auto shop they had there, and didn’t light a match in all that time.
It didn’t mean I’d stopped wanting to. I’d dream of it—heat curling under my skin, flames reaching for the sky. Sometimes, I’d close my eyes and imagine it: the sharp snap of a match, the whoosh of ignition, the way light flickered against the walls as if it were alive. Fire never judged. It didn’t ask questions. It simply consumed. It gave me power when everything else made me powerless. It took things away, but only the things I never wanted to keep.
Fire made sense in a way nothing else did. It was simple. Pure. I didn’t need to justify why I liked how it moved or why watching something burn down to its bones gave me a kind of peace nothing else ever did. Not even Tudor at Redcars, with all his calm and second chances, ever really saw the craving underneath—how it wasn’t just about destruction. It was about clarity and silence.
I didn’t understand either. I only knew that when things burned, my brain was quiet.
And for a moment, I could breathe.
I’d worked in the auto shop inside. Learned just enough not to look stupid and lied about the rest. Said the right things, kept my head down, let them think I was trying.
I wasn’t.
The plan was simple—stay long enough to get off the radar, then vanish. Tudor came to my room, told me about Redcars, said it was the kind of place that gave second chances to the worst of us. I didn’t believe in second chances. I believed in escape.
Tudor opened the garage door that first morning with oil on his hands and a don’t-fuck-with-me stare. He looked me over like I was a car wreck—twisted metal, something he couldn’t walk past. Then he gripped my chin, hard enough that I felt it in my jaw.
“You’re faking this shit,” he said. “I see the fire in your eyes. That thing that wants to burn it all down just to feel something. You so much as fuck up on my doorstep, you’re gone. You understand?”I didn’t answer. I stared back, let him see it—the fury, the heat, the part of me that didn’t give a damn.
But he didn’t flinch.
“Fuck kid, you’re trouble.” He sighed.
“Whatever,” I snapped. Fuck this bullshit.
“I’m not here to fix you,” he said. “I’m here to give you the tools to fix yourself. You learn to control the fire, or it’ll eat you alive. Your choice.”
Then he turned his back on me and disappeared into the shadows of the garage, like he already knew I’d follow.
And I did.
Not because I believed a word he said.
Because I figured he’d be easy to play—just another bleeding-heart idiot with a savior complex.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Single Dad
Writing love stories with a happy ever after – cowboys, heroes, family, hockey, single dads, bodyguards
USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always with a happy ever after.
She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. The last time she had a week’s break from writing, she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a box of chocolates she couldn’t defeat.
EMAIL: rj@rjscott.co.uk
Jamie #2
Redcars Trilogy
Single Dads Series
No comments:
Post a Comment