3. Greer #3
This is going to ruin me.
I can't fucking wait.
The next three weeks unfold in a pattern: work during the day, Jersey at night.
I learn Zaria's territory in pieces—the warehouse district near the port where shipping containers hold more than legal cargo, the bar that fronts for a gambling operation, the garage that moves stolen cars through a legitimate auto body shop.
I stay in public spaces, don't push into anything actually dangerous, but I watch and I learn.
Malcolm Bennett built an empire. Zaria's holding it together while he serves federal time, maintaining alliances and territory through a combination of strategic violence and business sense.
The media coverage from five years ago paints Malcolm as a criminal mastermind, but also someone who kept Bennett territory stable, who didn't tolerate random violence against civilians, who ran his operations with more structure than chaos.
Zaria seems to be following his playbook.
I see her at fights three, four times a week. She doesn't fight every time—sometimes she's just there, taking meetings with people I can't identify, collecting money, maintaining presence. When she does fight, it's brutal and efficient. She doesn't showboat, doesn't drag it out. Just ends it.
And every time she sees me in the crowd, that same amused irritation crosses her face.
We develop a rhythm. She approaches, tells me to leave, I refuse. We trade barbs, each trying to land hits that draw blood. She calls me good boy with venom. I call her sweetheart with enough condescension to make her jaw tighten.
The tension builds like pressure behind a dam, every interaction adding weight, neither of us willing to break first.
"Still here," she says one night, appearing beside me at the bar after a fight where she broke someone's orbital bone. Her knuckles are bleeding through tape, her sports bra splattered with someone else's blood. She looks like violence incarnate and I want?—
"Still here," I confirm.
"Persistent."
"You keep saying that like it's a bad thing."
"Because it is." But she signals the bartender, orders us both of us a beer. When the glasses arrive, she slides one to me, our fingers brushing. "What does your family think about you spending every night in Jersey?"
"They don't know."
"Lying to them. That's healthy."
"Says the woman who kills people for entertainment."
"For territory," she corrects. "Entertainment's just a side benefit."
"My mistake. That's so much better."
Her smile is sharp. "You're learning. There's hope for you yet, private school."
"Stop calling me that."
"Stop acting like it, sweetheart."
We're close now, the bar at our backs, the crowd a buffer around us. Her amber eyes are bright with challenge and something else—curiosity maybe, or reluctant interest.
"Why do you keep coming back?" The question is quieter, more genuine. "Seriously. What are you chasing here?"
"Maybe I'm chasing you."
"Bad idea."
"Probably." I drink, the beer doing nothing to distract me. "But I'm good at bad ideas lately."
She studies me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she reaches up, touches the scar on my temple—the one Dylan left behind. Her touch is gentle, completely at odds with everything else about her.
"Someone hurt you," she says. Not a question.
"Yeah."
"And now you're here trying to reclaim the feeling or make sense of it or some psychological bullshit like that."
"Maybe."
"That's fucked up, Greer."
"I know."
Her hand drops. She finishes her beer, sets the bottle down with deliberate care. "This isn't going to end well."
"I don't care."
"You should."
"But I don't." I meet her eyes, letting her see the truth. "I don't care about ending well. I just want to feel something that isn't numb or terrifying or wrong. And you—this place, this darkness—it's the only thing that's worked."
She's quiet, processing. Around us, the club pulses with energy, people living their violent truths without apology.
Finally: "You're going to regret this."
"Maybe. Or maybe I'll finally figure out who I am when nothing's forcing me to be good."
Her expression shifts—something almost like understanding, like recognition. "You're already darker than you think, aren't you? That trauma didn't just hurt you. It changed you."
"Yeah. It did."
"And nobody in your clean life knows."
"No."
She steps closer, eliminating space, her body nearly against mine. My breath catches. This close, I can see the faint scars on her knuckles, the intensity in her eyes that promises danger and honesty in equal measure.
"This is your last chance," she says quietly. "Walk away now. Go back to your life. Forget you ever came here."
"No."
Her lips twitch. "I kind of think I like when you don't listen like a good boy."
The words send a thrill through me, and before I can respond, she's gone—disappearing into the crowd while my heart pounds and every nerve fires and something dark and hungry in my chest finally feels satisfied.
I'm going to ruin myself chasing this woman.
And I'm going to love every second of it.