13. Greer #2
Hayes Carelli, my best friend's fiancé, my brother-in-law-to-be, the man who taught me how to hurt people and how to make bodies disappear.
Hayes, who should be in Manhattan handling his family business or wrapped around Lilah on their couch, not standing in a Bennett territory bar staring at me like I just grew a second head.
His gray-blue eyes are wide with genuine shock. His hand on my shoulder tightens.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
Hayes pulls me toward the corner of the bar before I can answer, his hand tight on my elbow in a grip that looks casual but isn't. We end up in the narrow space between the jukebox and the back hallway where the bathrooms are, away from the main crowd but not private enough that anyone watching would think we're plotting something.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" he repeats, voice low and tight with the kind of protective anger that only comes from actually caring. "This isn't—Greer, this is Bennett territory. Do you have any idea what that means?"
I do. Better than he thinks I do. Better than I should after only a few weeks, but that's what happens when you throw yourself headfirst into a world that was never meant to be yours—you learn fast or you don't survive.
I meet his eyes, keeping my expression neutral. "I'm handling my own business."
"Business." He says it like the word tastes wrong. "What kind of business could you possibly have in a place like this?"
The kind that involves a woman with amber eyes and blood on her hands. The kind that makes me feel alive for the first time since Dylan beat me unconscious and I woke up realizing violence isn't always the monster under the bed—sometimes it's the hand that pulls you out from under it.
But I can't tell Hayes that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
"The kind that's mine to handle."
"Are you in trouble?" His hand moves to my shoulder, gripping hard enough that I feel it through my henley. "Did you get mixed up in something you can't get out of? Because I can help. Whatever it is, however deep you're in, I can fix it. You know that."
I do know that. Hayes Carelli could make almost any problem disappear with a phone call or a body bag, depending on the situation.
He has connections that stretch from Manhattan to Jersey and probably further, the kind of power that comes from being born a Carelli and proving you deserve the name through blood and loyalty.
But I don't need him to fix this because nothing about this is broken.
"I don't need help."
"Then why are you here?" The frustration in his voice cuts sharp. "You don't just show up in Bennett territory for no reason. This isn't your world, Greer."
"Maybe it is now."
"Bullshit." He steps closer, lowering his voice further. "You're a marketing analyst. You live in a house with flowers in the front yard and throw blankets on your couch. You host game nights, for fuck's sake. You don't belong in places like this."
The words sting more than they should because they're true—or they used to be. That was me a year ago. Hell, that was who I was still trying to be before I watched Zaria kill a man in a cage and felt something fundamental shift in my understanding of who I am and what I want.
But I'm not that person anymore. Or maybe I am, but I'm also more than that now.
I'm both the man who folds his throw blankets and the man who beats traitors unconscious in motel rooms. I'm both the brother who worries about Lilah and the obsessed bastard who can't stop thinking about tasting Zaria's violence along with her skin.
I'm learning to hold both versions of myself at once, and I refuse to apologize for it.
"You don't get it," I say quietly.
"Then explain it to me." His eyes search my face, looking for something I'm not sure I can show him. "Talk to me. You've been distant for months. Did something happen? Are you in over your head?"
"I'm exactly where I want to be."
"That's what worries me." He runs a hand through his hair, making it stand up in different directions.
"You've been different. Distracted. Lying to Lilah about where you're going, wearing clothes that aren't you, looking like you haven't slept.
I thought—I don't know what I thought. That maybe you were dealing with shit from what happened with Dylan.
That you were ashamed of something you did and didn't want us to know. "
The concern in his voice makes guilt twist in my chest because he's right—I have been lying. To Lilah, to him, to everyone in my old life because I don't know how to explain this new one without them trying to pull me back from it.
"I'm not ashamed," I tell him, and it's the truth. "And I don't need you to save me from myself."
"Then what do you need?"
The question hangs between us, honest and raw. What do I need? Space to become whoever I'm becoming. Permission to want things that scare me. The freedom to chase someone who runs from me and the patience to wait until she stops.
But I can't say any of that to Hayes, who looks at me like I'm a problem to solve instead of a person making choices, so I settle for something simpler.
"I met someone."
His expression shifts—surprise, then understanding, then something that looks like wariness. "Someone."
"Yeah."
"Here. In Bennett territory."
"Yeah."
He's quiet for a long moment, processing. I can see him working through it, connecting dots I haven't given him enough information to actually connect but that he's smart enough to guess at anyway. Hayes didn't get where he is by being oblivious.