11. Greer
GREER
The elevator in my office building dings, and I step out into the lobby with my messenger bag slung over my shoulder, already calculating how long it'll take to get back to Jersey.
It's only six-thirty, which means I can grab food, change into clothes that don't scream "corporate drone," and be at Marco's by eight.
Maybe Zaria will be there. Maybe she'll have something to say about the gift I left her.
Maybe she'll look at me the way she did on the beach, like she's trying to figure out if I'm real.
I push through the revolving door onto the street, the early evening air carrying that particular Manhattan smell of hot concrete and exhaust. The sidewalk is crowded with people heading home from work, everyone moving with that end-of-day urgency.
And leaning against a sleek black Challenger parked illegally at the curb, arms crossed, is Zaria.
I stop walking so abruptly that someone behind me mutters a curse and sidesteps around me.
But I can't move. Can't process what I'm seeing.
Because Zaria Bennett doesn't come to Manhattan.
She doesn't leave her territory. She definitely doesn't show up outside my office building in broad daylight wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket that makes her look like every dangerous fantasy I've ever had.
Her amber eyes find mine across the crowd, and the corner of her mouth lifts.
My feet remember how to work. I cross the sidewalk toward her, weaving between pedestrians, my heart doing something complicated in my chest. She came here. She came to find me instead of making me hunt for her in Jersey.
"Hey, sweetheart." Her voice is that low, smoky rasp that's been living in my head for weeks. "Fancy office building. Very corporate."
"Zaria." Her name comes out rougher than I intend. "What are you doing here?"
"Got your note." She straightens from the car, uncrossing her arms. "Appreciated the gift. Real thoughtful. But I need my things back."
The duffel bag. Right. The money and product I recovered from Rasheed.
I'd brought it home instead of leaving it with him in the alley because I'm not stupid—leaving a hundred and forty thousand in cash and twenty kilos of product unguarded is how you lose both.
Plus, some possessive part of me liked the idea of Zaria having to come to me to get it back.
I just didn't think she'd actually show up at my work.
"They're at my place." I can't keep the grin off my face. "Want to come get them?"
She studies me for a long moment, those eyes reading something in my expression that makes her mouth curve into something that's almost a smile. "Lead the way, private school."
The nickname should annoy me. It did annoy me, that first night at the fight club when she used it like an insult.
But somewhere over the past two months it's become something else.
Something that sounds like affection wrapped in sarcasm, like she's acknowledging what I am while appreciating that I'm trying to be more.
I gesture toward where my car is parked two blocks away in the garage I pay too much for. "This way."
She falls into step beside me, and I'm hyperaware of her presence in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that she's a known criminal walking through midtown Manhattan in rush hour.
It's the way she moves—loose and confident, like she owns every space she enters.
The way people instinctively give her room on the crowded sidewalk even though she's not physically imposing.
The way she smells like leather and something darker, more complex.
The way every cell in my body is screaming finally because she's here, in my world, instead of me always chasing into hers.
We reach the parking garage and I lead her to my sensible gray sedan—nothing flashy, nothing memorable, exactly the kind of car a marketing analyst should drive. She raises an eyebrow when I unlock it.
"This is your car?"
"What were you expecting?"
"I don't know. Something with more personality?" She slides into the passenger seat anyway, studying the pristine interior with something that might be amusement. "It's very... clean."
"I'm a very clean person." I start the engine and pull out of my parking spot, navigating toward the exit. "Unlike some people who show up covered in other people's blood."
"That was one time."
"It was literally last night."
Her laugh is low and genuine, and it does something dangerous to my chest. I merge into traffic, heading toward the highway that'll take us out of the city toward the suburbs where Hayes and I live.
The silence that settles between us isn't uncomfortable, but it's charged.
Loaded with everything that's been building for months.
I'm achingly aware of her in my passenger seat, of her eyes on me as I drive, of the fact that this is the first time she's been in my space instead of me being in hers.
"You need to stop," she says after a few minutes.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. "Stop what?"
"Getting involved. Going after people. Playing vigilante." Her voice is serious now, lacking the teasing edge. "You're going to get hurt."
"I can handle myself."
"Greer." She shifts in her seat to face me more fully. "You beat the shit out of Rasheed and left him tied up in an alley like you were delivering a pizza. You intercepted an Okafor shipment by yourself. You're operating on emotion instead of strategy, and that's how people end up dead."
"I'd gladly bleed for you."
The words come out before I can stop them, raw and honest in a way that makes her go very still beside me. I don't look at her. Can't. If I see her expression right now I might crash the car or pull over and do something stupid like kiss her until she understands exactly how far I'm willing to go.
"Jesus Christ," she mutters.
"I mean it." I change lanes, keeping my eyes on the road. "You think I don't know it's dangerous? You think I'm too naive to understand what I'm getting into?" I finally risk a glance at her. "I know exactly what I'm doing, Zaria. And I'm choosing to do it anyway."
She shakes her head, but there's something in her expression that isn't quite exasperation. Something that looks almost like she wants to believe me. "You're insane."
"Yeah, well. You already knew that." I return my attention to the highway. "Sane people don't spend weeks hunting through fight clubs looking for the woman who killed someone in front of them."
"Most people run away when they see someone die."
"I'm not most people."
"No," she agrees softly. "You're really not."
We fall back into silence, but it's different now.
Heavier. The tension that's been building between us for weeks is palpable in the confined space of the car, making the air feel thick.
I've been hard since the moment I saw her leaning against her Challenger outside my office, and having her this close—in my car, in my world, heading to my house—is making it impossible to think about anything except how badly I want her.
How badly I've wanted her since that first night.
The rest of the drive passes in that charged quiet. By the time I'm pulling into my driveway, parking next to Hayes's empty spot (he and Lilah must be out), my pulse is hammering.
Zaria climbs out and looks at my house—the modern craftsman exterior, the wide front porch, the carefully maintained flower beds that I absolutely cannot take credit for because a landscaping service handles them. "You've got a real fancy place, sweetheart."
I unlock the front door and hold it open for her. She steps inside, her eyes sweeping over the foyer—the light oak floors, the photo of me and Lilah on the entry table, the shoe rack that she ignores as she tracks dirt from her boots across my clean floor.
I don't care. She could burn the whole house down and I wouldn't care as long as she stayed in it with me.
She moves deeper into the living room, taking in the plush sofa, the soft lighting, the coffee table stacked with books. "Very... adult."
"I am thirty."
"Mm." She trails her fingers along the back of my couch, and I track the movement like a starving man watching food. "So where's my money?"
I should move. Should walk to my bedroom where I stashed the duffel bag in my closet. Should get her what she came for so she can leave and I can spend another night lying awake thinking about her.
But I don't move.
Instead, I lean against the doorway between the foyer and living room, letting my eyes rake over her. The way her jeans hug her legs. The way her leather jacket emphasizes her shoulders. The way she holds herself like she's ready for violence even in my painfully domestic living room.
"Is that the only reason you came to find me?" My voice comes out lower than usual. "The money?"
She turns to face me fully, eyebrows lifting. "What else would there be?"
I push off the doorway and close the distance between us. Not touching her yet, but close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in her amber eyes, close enough to catch that scent of leather and darkness that's been haunting me. "You know what."
Her chin lifts, meeting my challenge head-on. "Do I?"
"You didn't have to come here yourself." I take another step closer. "You could've sent Cain. Could've texted me an address to deliver it to. But you showed up at my office. Got in my car. Came to my house." Another step. "That's not about money."
"Maybe I wanted to see where a good boy like you lives." Her voice has that edge to it now, sharp and teasing. "See if your house is as boring as your car."
"Is it?"
"It's very beige." But her eyes are locked on mine, not looking at my décor at all. "Very safe. Very clean."
"You like clean." I'm close enough now that I could reach out and touch her if I wanted to. And I want to so badly my hands ache with it. "You said so."
"That was about different things."