19. Zaria
ZARIA
Acall comes at three in the morning, yanking me from sleep where I'm curled around Greer in my bed. His arm is draped over my waist, face buried against my shoulder, breathing deep and even.
I grab my phone before it wakes him, but his eyes open anyway—instinct, training, whatever Hayes has been drilling into him for the past year. Green-gold meets mine in the darkness.
"Cain?" I answer.
"North docks are burning." His voice is tight. "Warehouse Three. They hit it with Molotovs twenty minutes ago. Fire department's there but the product—it's gone. All of it."
My blood goes cold. Warehouse Three holds two hundred kilos of processed cocaine waiting for distribution. Street value around six million.
"Casualties?"
"Two guards. Stabbed before the fire started.
" Cain's breath comes harsh through the line.
"Z, that's not all. I just got calls from Marco—they hit the bar.
Smashed the whole front, beat the night manager half to death.
And Vaughn says the Eastside betting operation got raided, money taken, two runners in the hospital. "
Three locations. Simultaneous hits. Professional coordination.
"Okafor," I say.
"Has to be." Something crashes in the background. "They're declaring war, Z. This isn't testing boundaries anymore."
Greer sits up beside me, already reaching for his jeans from the floor. He doesn't ask questions, just starts getting dressed with quick efficiency.
"Meet me at the north docks," I tell Cain. "Thirty minutes. Get whoever you can there—I want eyes on all our other operations immediately. If they're hitting multiple targets, there might be more coming."
"On it." He hangs up.
I'm out of bed before the call ends, pulling on clothes. Greer moves to my dresser where he's started keeping a change of clothes, grabbing the black henley and boots that have become his uniform in my world.
"How bad?" His voice is calm, steady.
"Bad. Three locations hit simultaneously. Product burned, money stolen, people hurt." I strap on my ankle holster, checking the magazine. "Okafor's making a statement."
"Simultaneous means coordination." Greer's brain is already working, I can see it in his face. "Multiple teams, planned timing, probably watching for weeks to understand patrol patterns and vulnerabilities."
This is what I love about him. No panic, no useless questions. Just immediately shifting into strategic mode, analyzing the problem.
"We need to move." I grab my keys.
He follows me to the elevator, and we're on the road in under five minutes. My Challenger eats up the miles to the north docks while Greer sits beside me, his knee bouncing—the only sign of agitation in his otherwise controlled demeanor.
"Three locations suggests they wanted maximum disruption," he says. "Product, money, and civilian-facing business. That's hitting your operational capability, your cash flow, and your public face all at once."
"Your point?"
"There's probably a fourth target." His fingers drum against his thigh. "Something bigger that they're waiting to hit once you're scrambling to handle these three. When you're distracted and spread thin."
The analysis makes my stomach clench because he's right. This feels like misdirection, like the real blow is still coming.
I pull up to the docks where fire trucks are still spraying down the smoldering warehouse. The structure is gutted, nothing but blackened beams and ash. The acrid smell of burning chemicals fills the air—cocaine and whatever accelerant they used mixing into something toxic.
Cain's motorcycle sits parked near the police tape. I find him talking to one of the firefighters, his face tight with barely controlled rage.
"Two million in infrastructure damage on top of the product loss," he says when I approach. "Fire chief says it was definitely arson. Multiple ignition points, professional job."
Greer stands slightly behind me, taking everything in with those observant eyes. The destroyed warehouse, the organized chaos of emergency responders, the way Cain's knuckles are white where his hands curl into fists.
"Witnesses?"
"None. They took out the guards first, then set the fires and disappeared. No cameras caught anything useful—they knew where the blind spots were." Cain's jaw works. "Someone's been feeding them information, Z. They knew exactly when and where to hit."
The implication sits heavy between us. Someone in my crew is working with Okafor.
My phone buzzes. Vaughn.
"Boss, the Hillside apartment complex—" His voice is shaking. "They just hit it. Drove by with automatic weapons, shot up the whole ground floor. Three dealers dead, two civilians caught in crossfire."
Four locations. Just like Greer predicted.
"Get everyone out of there," I snap. "Now. Before cops swarm. Move the product, burn anything that connects to us, get our people medical attention somewhere discrete." My hand tightens on the phone. "And Vaughn? Start asking questions. Someone gave them our locations."
I hang up and meet Cain's eyes. "Hillside apartment complex. Drive-by, automatic weapons. Three of ours dead, two civilians."
"Jesus." Cain rakes a hand through his hair. "They're escalating fast."
"No." Greer's voice cuts through. "They're sending a message."
We both turn to look at him.
"This isn't about territory or market share," he continues.
"If it was, they'd be trying to take over your operations intact, not destroy them.
Burning product is stupid from a business perspective—that's millions of dollars they could have stolen and sold themselves.
" His green-gold eyes are sharp with analysis.
"This is personal. Someone wants to destroy your father's legacy, not absorb it. "
He's absolutely right. This isn't standard gang warfare. This is targeted destruction.
"I've been digging into Chisom Okafor," Cain says slowly. "Rumor is your dad embarrassed him years ago over some deal gone wrong. Publicly called him out for being sloppy."
I remember hearing about it—my father explaining that respect in this world is built on reputation, and sometimes you have to make examples.
Chisom had tried to move product through Bennett territory without asking permission first. My father intercepted the shipment and sent it back with a very clear message about boundaries.
"He's been waiting," I realize. "Waiting for my father to be vulnerable, for me to be in charge instead of him. This whole time, watching for the perfect moment."
"And now he's found it." Greer moves closer, his presence solid beside me. "You're young, your father's in prison, you're a woman in a male-dominated world—from the outside, you look like an easier target than Malcolm Bennett ever was."
The assessment should sting, but it doesn't because Greer's not saying I am weak. He's saying how Okafor sees me, which is different.
But my dad has been locked away for years. Which means he was waiting for me to be distracted. The only thing that has changed is Greer.
That has my stomach in knots.
My phone rings again. Marco.
"They came back." His voice is rough with pain. "Different crew, said they had a message from Chisom. They want you to meet him at the old factory on Riverside, tomorrow night at midnight. Just you. Or he keeps hitting your operations until there's nothing left."
"Like hell she's going alone," Cain growls, hearing through my speaker.
"Marco, what else did they say?" I keep my voice level even as rage builds in my chest.
"That he knows you're playing house with some clean-cut outsider. That he could take out your boyfriend anytime he wants but he's saving that pleasure for when you're watching." Marco coughs, wet and pained. "Z, they beat the shit out of me making sure I'd remember the message exactly."
Greer goes very still beside me. Not scared—calculating. I can practically see him processing the threat, filing it away, planning responses.
"Get to the doctor," I tell Marco. "The one on Fifth. Tell him I sent you."
After I hang up, silence stretches between the three of us. Fire trucks are packing up now, leaving the ruined warehouse smoking in the pre-dawn darkness.
"They know about me," Greer says quietly.
"Someone's been watching." Cain's hand moves to the knife at his belt. "Probably the same person feeding them information about our operations."
"We have a mole." I state it flatly because there's no point dancing around the truth. "Someone in my crew has been giving Okafor intel for weeks, maybe months. That's how they knew about the product at Warehouse Three, the betting operation schedule, the patrol patterns at Hillside."
"And about Greer," Cain adds.
My blood runs cold at that because Greer is my vulnerability now. My one soft spot in a world where soft spots get people killed.
"You can't go to that meeting," Greer says.
I turn to face him fully. "I don't take orders from?—"
"It's obviously a trap." He cuts me off, no apology in his tone.
"Chisom wants you isolated and vulnerable.
The whole point of hitting your operations is to make you desperate enough to meet him alone.
Once he has you, he can ransom you to your father, publicly humiliate you, or just kill you and take everything. "
"I know it's a trap."
"Then you know you can't go."
"I have to." My hands curl into fists. "If I don't show, he'll keep hitting my people. More dealers dead, more operations destroyed. He'll escalate until he forces my hand anyway."
"So we force his hand first," Greer counters. "We find the mole, cut off his intelligence stream. We predict where he'll hit next and be waiting for him. We make him come to us on our terms instead of playing into his game."
Cain is watching this exchange with something like fascination, his gaze bouncing between us.
"You want to go on offense," I say slowly.
"I want to stop reacting and start acting." Greer's green-gold eyes are fierce. "You've been training me for three months. Cain and Hayes before that. I'm not some liability that needs protecting—I'm an asset. Use me."