8. Zaria
ZARIA
The way Greer's staring at me right now—pupils blown, chest rising and falling too fast, green-gold eyes tracking blood on my hands like it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen—makes heat coil low in my stomach.
I've killed people before. Lost count somewhere around fifteen. But no one's ever looked at me like this afterward. Like watching me slit a man's throat was foreplay instead of violence. Like the blood on my skin makes him want to touch me more, not less.
The high from the kill is still singing through my veins, mixing with the heat of having Greer's eyes on me, creating something dangerous and electric that makes my fingers itch to close the distance between us.
One step. That's all it would take. One step and I could kiss him, taste that darkness I see swimming behind his carefully controlled expression. Feel what it's like to have someone who doesn't flinch from what I am pressed against me.
But I don't move.
Because this isn't just physical. If it was only about getting off, I could fuck him right here against the wall and be done with it. Scratch the itch and send him back to his clean life in Manhattan.
But Greer's different. He's shown me pieces of himself these past weeks—the trauma lurking beneath his polished exterior, the way violence calls to him like it does to me, the obsessive focus he brings to everything he does.
And tonight, intercepting that shipment, delivering it gift-wrapped with intelligence I could actually use...
he's proven he's not playing at darkness. He's drowning in it willingly.
That deserves more than a quick fuck in a room that still smells like death.
I want to see deeper. Want to understand what makes him tick beyond the surface observations I've made at Marco's. Want to know if he can really keep up with me outside the controlled environment of fight clubs and interrogations.
"Want to get out of here?" I ask.
His eyes darken further. "Where are we going?"
"Does it matter?"
"No." The certainty in his voice sends another pulse of heat through me. "I'll go anywhere with you."
I grin, feeling reckless and dangerous. "Careful, good boy. That sounds like a promise."
"I spent way too long being careful." He pushes off the wall, moving into my space until I can feel his body heat. "I just want to get lost in you."
Fuck.
The honesty in those words hits me harder than it should. He's not playing games, not trying to seduce me with pretty lies. He means it—wants to sink into my world and my darkness and stay there until he can't find his way back.
That should scare me. Instead it makes me want him more.
"Come on." I grab his hand, pulling him toward the door. "I need to wash this blood off first, then I'm taking you somewhere that isn't a bar."
Twenty minutes later, I've cleaned up in the bathroom while Cain handled the body removal, and I'm leading Greer to my car—a black Challenger that's fast enough to outrun trouble and armored enough to take a few hits if necessary.
He slides into the passenger seat without asking where we're going, that trust implicit in every movement. It's intoxicating.
I pull out onto the street, heading toward the waterfront. "You hungry?"
"Starving."
"Good. I know a spot."
The taco truck near the docks isn't much to look at—rusted edges, questionable health code compliance, owner who definitely uses it to launder money for three different operations. But the food is fucking incredible, and it's open until four AM serving dock workers and criminals in equal measure.
I order for both of us without asking what he wants—carne asada tacos with everything, extra lime. When the food comes through the window wrapped in foil that's already soaking through with grease, I hand Greer his portion and lean against the car's hood.
He takes a bite, eyes widening. "Holy shit."
"Right?" I demolish mine in four bites, licking lime juice off my thumb. "This is where I come when I actually want food instead of whatever Marco's serving."
"You spend a lot of time at that bar."
"It's useful. Neutral territory where people from different crews can meet without starting wars. But it's not my favorite place." I finish my second taco, watching him eat with the same focused intensity he brings to everything. "You want to see where I actually like spending time?"
"Show me everything."
The words settle between us, weighted with meaning that goes beyond tonight. He's asking for access to my world, my real world, not just the sanitized version I show at Marco's.
I should say no. Should keep him at arm's length where he can't become a vulnerability someone could exploit.
But I don't want to.
"Alright, sweetheart." I toss my trash in the nearby bin, then slide back into the driver's seat. "Let's see if you can keep up."
The underground gambling den is my first stop.
It's in a warehouse basement, accessed through a seafood processing plant that closed five years ago. The smell of old fish guts still lingers in the entryway, making Greer's nose wrinkle, but he doesn't complain. Just follows me down the concrete stairs into the noise and smoke below.
The space is packed—card tables, dice games, a roulette wheel that's definitely rigged, and about sixty people in various states of drunk or high or desperate. Money changes hands constantly, dealers calling bets in three different languages, the air thick with cigarette smoke and tension.
I know half the people here. They nod when they see me, some respectful, some wary. I'm not here to collect or enforce tonight—just here to play.
I find an open spot at the blackjack table, Greer standing close behind me. The dealer—an older Korean woman named Sun who's been running tables longer than I've been alive—gives me a sharp-toothed smile.
"Viper. Haven't seen you in two weeks. Thought maybe you went soft."
"Never." I slide cash across the felt. "Deal me in."
She does, and I lose the first three hands deliberately while watching Greer in my peripheral vision.
He's not watching the cards—he's watching the patterns, the way people bet, the subtle tells that separate amateurs from professionals.
His marketing analyst brain working overtime to categorize the data.
"You play?" I ask him.
"Not often. But I understand probability."
"This isn't about probability. It's about reading people." I win the next hand with a risky double-down that Sun definitely didn't see coming. "You can calculate odds all day, but if you can't read the dealer's patterns, you're just gambling blind."
I watch comprehension flicker across his expression. He's applying the same analytical framework to this that he did to intercepting the Okafor shipment—find the patterns, identify the variables, optimize the approach.
"Your turn." I slide my seat back, gesturing for him to take my place.
"I'll lose your money."
"Then lose it. I want to see how you handle the pressure."
He sits, and Sun deals him in. I lean against his back, close enough that he can probably feel my breath on his neck, and watch him play.
He's cautious at first, betting conservatively, but after two hands he starts seeing what I meant about patterns. Sun has a tell when she's holding face cards—the slightest hesitation before she reveals. Greer catches it, adjusts his strategy, and wins the next four hands in a row.
Sun narrows her eyes. "You count cards, pretty boy?"
"I count patterns." He doubles down on eighteen, which is insane, and wins when Sun busts at twenty-three. "Everything has patterns if you know where to look."
I'm grinning so hard my face hurts. He just hustled one of the best dealers in Jersey using pure observation and strategy, with zero formal gambling experience. That's the Greer I was hoping existed beneath the button-downs and politeness—someone who can adapt to any environment and win.
He cashes out when he's up three hundred dollars, handing the chips to Sun with a smile that's all charm. "For your trouble."
She takes the tip, looking between us with knowing eyes. "He's trouble, Viper. The smart kind."
"I know." I grab Greer's hand, pulling him toward the exit. "That's why I'm keeping him."
Next I take him to a rave in an abandoned subway tunnel.
The music is so loud it vibrates in my chest, bass pounding through the concrete walls while strobe lights turn everything into fragmented snapshots. Bodies press together in the tunnel, dancing or fucking or just existing in the chemical haze of whatever drugs are circulating tonight.
Greer's eyes go wide at the chaos, but he doesn't pull away when I drag him into the crowd.
We dance—if you can call it that. Really it's just moving to the rhythm while pressed so close I can feel every line of his body against mine. His hands find my hips, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks, and I tip my head back to look at him.
His pupils are huge in the strobing light, mouth slightly open, looking at me like I'm the only solid thing in a world that's spinning too fast.
I could kiss him right now. Should probably kiss him.
But I don't. I just let the tension build, let our bodies move together while the music screams around us, until he's breathing as hard as I am and the heat between us is almost unbearable.
Then I pull away, grinning at his frustrated expression. "Come on. I want to show you something else."
The beach is technically closed after midnight, but that's never stopped anyone in Jersey.
We park at a lot near the boardwalk and climb over the fence, shoes sinking into cold sand. The ocean is black under the moonless sky, waves crashing with that endless rhythm that makes everything else feel small and temporary.
There's a bonfire further down the beach—college kids or dealers or both, hard to tell in the dark. But I take Greer in the opposite direction, toward the jetty where the rocks form natural tide pools.