18. Greer
GREER
Iwake up the next morning in my own bed for the first time in three days, sunlight streaming through the windows I forgot to close last night. My body aches in ways that have nothing to do with the workout Cain put me through yesterday and everything to do with Zaria against that warehouse wall.
The memory makes heat curl low in my stomach even as I reach for my phone on the nightstand. No messages from her, which isn't unusual—she doesn't do good morning texts or casual check-ins. What we have exists in her world, on her terms, and I'm fine with that.
More than fine.
I'm halfway through making coffee when someone pounds on my front door hard enough to rattle the frame.
My hand goes automatically to the knife I've started keeping in the kitchen drawer—Cain's influence, always be armed—before I register that whoever's outside isn't trying to be subtle about their presence. Not a threat, then. Just someone who has no concept of appropriate morning visit etiquette.
I pull open the door to find Hayes on my porch, Lilah beside him looking worried.
"Morning," I say carefully, because the expression on my sister's face tells me this isn't a social call. "Everything okay?"
"Can we come in?" Hayes asks, and there's something in his voice that makes my stomach drop.
I step back, letting them inside. Lilah immediately moves to the living room, arms wrapped around herself like she's cold despite the warmth of the morning. Hayes closes the door behind them with deliberate care.
"What's going on?" I set my coffee mug on the counter, watching them both.
Lilah turns to face me, and her eyes are red-rimmed. "Hayes told me you're seeing someone."
The words land like a punch. I shoot a look at Hayes, who holds up one hand.
"She asked directly," he says. "That was the deal—if she asked, I'd tell her what I knew." His gray-blue eyes meet mine. "But I said she had to ask you the rest."
Right. Because Hayes saw me in Jersey at Marco's bar weeks ago, made me promise to be careful, agreed not to tell Lilah unless she asked directly about whether I was seeing someone. And now she's asked, which means the rest of this conversation is on me.
"Okay." I lean against the counter, needing the support. "Yeah. I'm seeing someone."
"Someone in Jersey." Lilah's voice shakes. "Someone connected to Bennett territory, based on where Hayes saw you."
There's no point in lying. I'm done lying to my sister, done pretending I'm the same person I was four months ago when I first walked into that fight club and watched Zaria kill someone.
"Her name is Zaria Bennett," I say. "She runs Bennett operations while her father serves federal time. And yes, before you ask—I'm involved in her world. Completely involved."
Lilah makes a small, pained sound. Hayes moves closer to her, his hand finding the small of her back.
"Greer." Her voice breaks on my name. "Do you understand what you're saying? You're involved with a crime boss. You're—" She swallows hard. "You're choosing violence and danger and a world that could get you killed."
"I know exactly what I'm choosing." The words come out harder than I intend, but I need her to understand this isn't some naive mistake. "I've been training with Hayes for almost a year. I know what that world looks like. I went into this with my eyes open."
"No." Lilah shakes her head, tears spilling down her cheeks now. "No, you don't know. You can't possibly understand?—"
"Because of Dylan?" I push off the counter, moving closer but not crowding her.
"Because you spent three years with someone who hurt you and controlled you and made you feel like you were nothing?
I know that story, Lilah. I lived through the aftermath.
I'm the one Dylan tortured to tell me every detail of what he did to you. "
She flinches like I've hit her.
"This is different," I continue, gentler now.
"What I have with Zaria—it's nothing like what you had with Dylan.
She didn't manipulate me into this. She tried to push me away for weeks because she didn't want to corrupt me.
I'm the one who kept coming back. I'm the one who proved myself, who chose to be part of her operations, who wanted this life. "
"You wanted violence?" Lilah's voice rises. "You wanted to become someone who—who interrogates people and—" Her breath hitches. "That's not like you."
Not like the man she used to know, maybe. It's like me now.
"People who deserved it," I say quietly. "Thieves stealing from Zaria's operation. Traitors working against her. I'm not hurting innocent people, Lilah. I'm protecting what's hers."
"That's what he said." Her hand finds Hayes's arm, gripping tight. "Dylan used to say he was protecting me. That everything he did was for my own good. That the violence was necessary?—"
"Stop." The word comes out sharp enough that she falls silent. "Don't compare them. Don't compare what Dylan did to you with what Zaria and I have. They're not the same thing."
"How?" Lilah's tears are flowing freely now. "How is it different? You're choosing darkness and violence and?—"
"Because Zaria never asked me to change who I was.
" I can hear my voice getting louder, frustration bleeding through.
"She never demanded I become smaller or weaker or more dependent.
She gave me space to become more myself.
The darkness was already there, Lilah. From the kidnapping, from watching Dylan torture me, from understanding what Hayes's world really looks like—that darkness has been sitting inside me waiting for an outlet. "
Hayes is watching me with an expression I can't quite read, his hand still steady on Lilah's back.
"Zaria didn't create that," I continue. "She just gave me permission to stop pretending it doesn't exist. To use it for something that actually matters instead of letting it eat me alive while I sit in marketing meetings and pretend I'm fine."
"You're not fine." Lilah's voice cracks. "Greer, you're not fine if you think violence is the answer?—"
"I think violence is a tool." I meet her eyes steadily. "Same as Hayes does. Same as you accepted when he killed Dylan to protect you. You didn't think violence was wrong then."
"That was different!"
"Why?" I challenge. "Because it saved you instead of me choosing it for myself? Because Hayes used violence to give you freedom instead of me using it to find purpose?"
Lilah opens her mouth, closes it again. Her hands are shaking.
"I love her," I say, and the words feel like jumping off a cliff.
"I'm in love with Zaria Bennett. I love working with her crew, I love who I am when I'm in her world, I love the way she challenges me and trusts me and lets me be dark without trying to fix me.
" The admission pours out of me in a rush.
"I like interrogating people who threaten her operations.
I like hunting down traitors. I like using my brain to solve her problems and my hands to eliminate threats.
I like all of it, Lilah. I'm not pretending anymore. "
"Oh god." Lilah covers her face with both hands. "Oh god, Greer, you can't—you can't just embrace violence like it's a good thing?—"
"I can if it serves a purpose." My voice is steady now, certain.
"Dylan's violence was about control and abuse and making you smaller.
What I do with Zaria—it's protection. Strategy.
Eliminating actual threats from people who would hurt her and her crew if given the chance. That's not the same thing."
"It could become the same thing." Lilah drops her hands, and her amber eyes are desperate. "Violence has a way of escalating, of becoming normal until you don't remember what it was like before?—"
"I remember perfectly what it was like before.
" The counter digs into my back where I've retreated.
"I remember feeling empty and disconnected and like nothing mattered.
I remember going through the motions of a life that felt meaningless.
I remember—" My throat closes for a second.
"I remember lying awake every night replaying what Dylan did to me, feeling that darkness grow and having nowhere to put it. "
Hayes shifts slightly, his expression tightening. We've never really talked about what those months after were like for me, the way the kidnapping twisted something fundamental inside me. And I know they both see me as a good guy, a boring marketing analyst who should run far away from this.
But I can't. Hayes understands because this is who he is and we've always been close. I just thought Lilah would, too, given she loves Hayes. I understand that it's different with him—his name protects him, he has plenty of people who fear him—and she just wants me to be safe.
But I'm sick and tired of playing it safe.
"Zaria gave me somewhere to put it," I continue quietly. "She gave me purpose and partnership and a life that actually feels real instead of like I'm playing a role. That's not abuse, Lilah. That's not manipulation. That's me finally being honest about who I've become."
"Who you've become is someone I don't recognize." Lilah's voice breaks completely. "My brother was kind and gentle and good?—"
"I'm still all those things." I move toward her slowly, like approaching a spooked animal.
"I'm still your brother. I still care about you more than anything.
But I'm also someone who can be violent when needed, who understands how that world works, who wants to be part of it.
" I stop a few feet away. "Both things can be true. "
"No." She shakes her head violently. "No, you have to choose. You can't be good and violent?—"
"Hayes is both," I point out. "He's violent as hell, runs mafia operations, has killed people—and you love him anyway. You trust him completely. Why is it different with me?"
"Because—" Lilah looks at Hayes helplessly. "Because I know Hayes will protect me. That his violence is contained, controlled, only used when necessary?—"