3. Greer #2
My phone sits face-down beside my keyboard. I flip it over, pull up Google Maps, zoom in on that industrial area of Jersey.
If there's one fight club, there are probably more. Underground networks don't operate in isolation—they spread, interconnect, create ecosystems. Basic business principle applied to illegal operations.
I can find them. I have the skills—data analysis, pattern recognition, strategic thinking. I just need to approach it systematically.
By lunch, I've created a spreadsheet tracking warehouse locations in Bennett territory, cross-referenced with noise complaints and police reports in the area. By three PM, I've identified four potential locations based on building ownership, proximity to transportation, and patterns of activity.
By five PM, I've decided I'm going back tonight.
The first club I find is three blocks from where Jake took us, smaller but running the same setup—cage in the center, betting tables, bar along one wall. Different fighters, different crowd, but the same energy.
Violence as entertainment. Blood as currency. The raw honesty of people who don't pretend civilization matters here.
I don't see Zaria.
I go back the next night. Different location this time, closer to the waterfront. Bigger crowd, higher stakes based on the money changing hands. A fighter takes a knee to the face and doesn't get up. The medical team hauls him out while people scream about their lost bets.
Still no Zaria.
Third night, fourth night, fifth night—I'm cycling through locations, becoming familiar enough that some of the regulars nod at me. The bartender at the dockside club stops asking what I want and just pulls out a beer when I approach.
I learn the rhythms. Which nights have better fights. Which fighters to watch for. The subtle hierarchies in the crowd, the way certain people command respect while others just take up space.
I learn that Bennett territory is a patchwork of legitimate businesses and criminal operations, that Zaria's name carries weight even when she's not present. People mention her casually—Viper would've ended that in round one or Bennett's girl doesn't fuck around like this—and I absorb every detail.
I'm not sure what I'm doing anymore. This started as curiosity, as chasing a feeling, but it's becoming something else. Something that makes my regular life—the office, the meetings, the careful professional persona—feel like a costume I'm wearing wrong.
Here, in these basements where violence is honest and danger is tangible, I can breathe.
The trauma isn't gone. Dylan's voice still echoes sometimes, describing what he did to Lilah in graphic detail specifically to break me. The rope burns on my wrists have faded but the memory hasn't. Some nights I wake up convinced I'm still tied to that chair, helpless while someone I love suffers.
But here, I'm not helpless. Here, I'm choosing the darkness instead of having it forced on me.
It's fucked up. I know it's fucked up.
I don't care.
Seventh night. I'm at the original club, the one where I first saw her, standing at the bar with my beer while a heavyweight fight plays out in the cage.
The crowd is different tonight—more intense, higher energy.
Money moves in larger denominations. The fighter currently dominating has brass knuckles and no conscience.
Then the crowd shifts, parts, and she's there.
Zaria moves through the space like she owns gravity itself, wearing black jeans and a tank top that shows arms corded with muscle. Her hair is different tonight—twisted back in a way that emphasizes her face, those amber eyes that catch light like a predator's.
She heads straight for the betting table, exchanges words with the man running it, collects cash I'm guessing she won on the current fight.
My heart kicks against my ribs.
I shouldn't approach. Should stay here, let her handle her business, maybe just watch from a distance like a normal person who understands boundaries.
Instead, I'm moving before conscious thought approves it.
She senses me before I speak—her body language shifts, shoulders pulling back slightly, like she's preparing for confrontation or entertainment. When she turns, her expression cycles through surprise, recognition, then something that looks like amused irritation.
"You're kidding." She faces me fully, crossing her arms. "Private school came back."
"You told me to go home." My voice comes out steadier than expected. "I'm bad at following directions."
"Clearly." Her eyes track over me, assessing. I'm wearing dark jeans and a henley, no longer trying to look like I belong but not exactly embracing the aesthetic either. "How many nights you been coming here?"
"Seven."
"That's commitment or stupidity. Hard to tell which."
"Maybe both."
Something flickers across her face—grudging respect maybe, or just confirmation that I'm exactly as idiotic as she suspected. She steps closer, invading my space deliberately, forcing me to either hold my ground or back up.
I hold.
"You looking for something, Greer?" His name in her mouth sounds different than it does in Sarah's, or Jake's, or Lilah's. Like she's testing how it fits, deciding if it's worth remembering.
"Maybe I just like the atmosphere."
"Yeah? The blood and broken bones really do it for you?"
"The honesty does it for me." The words surprise us both. "Nobody here pretends. Nobody's polite. They're just..."
"Violent?"
"Real."
Her laugh is short, sharp. "Real. That's what you're calling it. You know what I call it? Tuesday."
"Must be nice." I lean against the bar, matching her casual posture even though my pulse is racing. "Having Tuesday be this interesting."
"Oh, you think this is interesting? This is maintenance, sweetheart. This is me showing my face so people remember who runs this territory."
The endearment lands like she intended—patronizing, dismissive. I smile.
"That's cute. The whole 'I'm so dangerous' routine. Does it usually work on the boys you bring home?"
Her expression shifts—surprise giving way to something sharper. "Careful. That mouth's going to write checks your body can't cash."
"You keep threatening me, but I'm still standing here."
"Because I haven't decided what to do with you yet." She reaches up, pats the side of my face in that same condescending gesture from last week. Her palm is warm, calloused. "Run on home like a good boy. This isn't a game."
But she doesn't step back. Her hand lingers for a heartbeat longer than necessary, thumb brushing my cheekbone before she drops it.
"What if I don't want to be a good boy?"
"Then you're stupider than you look, and you look pretty fucking stupid right now.
" But there's heat in her voice underneath the mockery.
"What exactly do you think is going to happen here?
You're going to what—keep showing up until I reward your persistence?
Take you home and let you play in the darkness for a night? "
"I'm not playing."
"Yeah you are. You're a tourist. You come down here, get your fix of violence and danger, then go back to your clean life and your office job feeling like you touched something real.
" She's closer now, close enough I can see the faint scar on her collarbone, smell leather and smoke on her skin. "That's not real. That's role-play."
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know enough. I know you've got trauma written all over you, something bad that makes ordinary life feel wrong now. I know you're here because you think this"—she gestures at the club, the cage, the violence—"will fix whatever broke inside you. Newsflash: it won't."
"And if I don't care?"
"Then you're even more fucked up than I thought, private school."
The tension between us is knife-sharp, electric. Part of me wants to push harder, see what happens when I finally crack through her defenses. Part of me wants her hand back on my face, wants more of that rough honesty that makes every interaction feel consequential.
"So walk away," I tell her. "Like you did last week. Prove you're not interested."
Her jaw tightens. We stare at each other across two feet of charged air, neither backing down, both aware that something is building here that neither of us knows how to handle.
Then she laughs—short, incredulous. "You're something else, you know that?"
"I've been told."
"Not a compliment."
"I didn't take it as one, sweetheart."
The endearment hits her the way I intended—mockery turned back on itself, challenge in the syllables. Her eyes narrow.
"Okay." She steps back abruptly, like she's made a decision. "You want to play in the darkness? Let's see how long you last."
She walks away before I can respond, disappearing into the crowd with that same easy confidence.
My heart is racing, palms slightly damp, every nerve alive.
I down my beer, order another, and smile at nothing.