21. Zaria
ZARIA
The factory meeting with Chisom plays out exactly like I expected—posturing, threats, neither of us backing down.
His crew positions themselves around the perimeter while I stand in the center of the gutted space, moonlight filtering through the broken roof.
Every instinct screams this is a setup, but that's why Cain, Lex, and Greer have positions covering all approaches.
Except Chisom seems almost distracted, checking his phone too often, his attention divided. Like he's waiting for something that has nothing to do with me.
The realization hits cold and immediate. This isn't about negotiation. It's a distraction.
"Greer's compromised, east building!" His voice cuts through my earpiece. "Multiple hostiles?—"
The transmission dies mid-sentence.
My blood goes ice. "Greer, report. Greer!"
Nothing.
"Cain, Lex, converge on the east building now." I'm already moving, Chisom forgotten behind me as I sprint toward the exit. His laughter follows me out.
"Wrong target, Bennett. Always the wrong target."
I hit the street running, Challenger engine roaring to life as I peel toward the apartment building where Greer positioned himself. Cain's motorcycle screams around the corner seconds behind me, Lex's SUV following.
The building is dark, abandoned, no signs of struggle from the outside. I take the stairs three at a time, Glock drawn, heart slamming against my ribs in a way that has nothing to do with exertion.
Third floor, east corner. The door hangs open.
Inside, the room tells the story in brutal detail. Blood on the floor—not enough to mean death but enough to mean serious damage. Spent shell casings. The rifle Cain loaned Greer lying abandoned near the window. His earpiece crushed under a boot print.
Signs of a fight. Multiple attackers based on the scuff marks and scattered blood. Greer held his own but numbers overwhelmed him.
And they took him alive.
"Z." Cain's voice behind me sounds careful, the way it only does when shit is catastrophically wrong. "They knew. Someone told them exactly where he'd be positioned."
"We have a traitor." The name comes out flat. "I think I know who."
Cain nods. "Want me to find him?"
"Later. First we find Greer." I holster my Glock with mechanical precision, cataloging evidence with the detached part of my brain that handles crisis. The emotional part threatens to crack me open, so I shove it down deep where it can't touch me.
Lex appears in the doorway. "Chisom's crew cleared out. Factory's empty. It was all theater."
"That meeting was never about me." My voice sounds distant even to my own ears. "They wanted Greer. Chisom kept me busy while his sister grabbed the real prize."
"Ezinne." Cain spits the name like poison. "She runs their intelligence operations. If anyone would recognize Greer's value?—"
"I know what she does." The room tilts slightly and I lock my knees, refusing to show weakness.
Greer is alive. He has to be alive because the alternative isn't something I can process right now.
"She'll want information. Supply chains, distribution networks, crew structure.
Everything Greer knows about our operations. "
"He won't talk." Lex sounds confident.
"Everyone talks eventually." Cain's realism cuts through false hope. "Question is how long he can hold out and how much damage they do getting it."
The image that creates—Greer tied up somewhere, Ezinne's crew systematically breaking him—makes something violent twist in my chest. I've seen what the Okafors do to prisoners.
Methodical. Professional. They know exactly how to extract information while keeping someone conscious through the process.
"We need to find him before that happens." I'm moving again, heading for the stairs. "Pull everyone. I want every contact, every informant, every person who owes us a favor working on this. Someone saw them take him. Someone knows where Ezinne operates. Find me something."
We regroup at Marco's bar within the hour. The place is packed with my crew—everyone I trust, everyone with resources or connections that might help. I stand behind the bar where Marco usually works, looking at the faces watching me for direction.
Cain leans against the wall to my left, arms crossed, face grim. Lex stands near the door. The rest of my people fill the space with tense energy, waiting.
"Greer was taken by Okafor crew approximately two hours ago," I tell them.
No point softening it. "Ezinne Okafor is likely running the operation.
They'll want information before they kill him, which gives us a window.
I need locations—any warehouses, safe houses, or properties the Okafors use for interrogations.
I need informants questioned, connections leveraged, anything that gets us closer to where they're holding him. "
People start calling out suggestions, pulling phones, making connections. The bar fills with urgent conversation as my crew mobilizes.
But it's not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough when I know what's happening to Greer right now.
Cain pushes off the wall and jerks his head toward the back hallway. I follow him away from the crowd, into the narrow space that smells like stale beer and Marco's cigarettes.
"Talk to me," Cain says quietly.
"About what? We need to?—"
"Z." He catches my wrist, stopping me before I can spiral. "You're holding it together for them, but I've known you since we were kids. I see what you're not saying."
The careful control I've maintained since finding that empty room cracks slightly. I pull my wrist free. "I'm saying plenty. Greer was taken, we need to find him, and I'm about to burn down anyone standing in my way. What else is there?"
"You tell me." Cain's dark eyes bore into mine. "Because you're running on pure rage right now, which means someone got to you where it matters."
"He's crew. Of course it matters."
"Bullshit." The word hits flat and definitive. "You've lost crew before. You didn't look like this. Like the world just tilted sideways and you're trying to pretend gravity still works the same."
My jaw locks. "Cain?—"
"Say it." He steps closer, voice dropping. "Stop deflecting and say what we both know is true. Say why you're barely holding yourself together right now."
The walls I've built brick by brick since Greer first walked into my life crack wider. I can see through them to the truth underneath—the one I've been avoiding because acknowledging it makes me vulnerable in ways I haven't allowed myself to be since I was young enough to think love meant safety.
"He knows our operations." The words come out defensive, grasping at strategy. "If Ezinne breaks him?—"
"She could get that information from a dozen other sources.
" Cain cuts through my excuse with surgical precision.
"This isn't about operational security. This is about the fact that the clean-cut marketing analyst who showed up at fight clubs looking for something real became the person you can't lose. "
My throat tightens. Saying it out loud makes it real, makes it a weakness Ezinne can exploit, makes it the kind of attachment that gets people killed in our world.
But Cain already knows. He's seen it developing for weeks, probably saw it before I did.
"When?" I manage.
"When what?"
"When did you know?"
Cain's expression softens slightly. "Pennsylvania warehouse. The way you looked at him when he came back with that intelligence, covered in ash and grinning like he'd won you the world. You lit up, Z. I've never seen you light up for anyone."
That night. Greer standing in my apartment explaining his research with that fierce pride, looking for my approval and getting it. The way my chest had expanded when he smiled, like suddenly there was more room in it than before.
"He got under my skin," I admit quietly.
"I tried to keep him out. Told him to walk away, told him he didn't belong, pushed back every time he proved he did.
But he just kept showing up. Kept proving himself.
Kept looking at me like I was worth—" The words stick.
"Like I was worth everything he was becoming. "
"And now?"
"Now I'm in love with him." The confession cracks something open inside me, all the feelings I've been containing spilling out.
"Somewhere between him tying up Rasheed and going down on me in his kitchen and planning operations with that sharp mind of his—I fell.
Completely. And I didn't even realize it until Ezinne took him. "
Cain nods like this confirms something he suspected. "You know what that means."
"It means I'm compromised." The words taste bitter. "It means I'm about to make emotional decisions that could cost us everything. It means Ezinne can use him against me exactly like she planned."
"It means you're human." Cain's voice gentles. "You've been carrying this territory alone since your father got locked up, never letting anyone close enough to matter. Greer matters. That's not weakness—it's the first real thing you've let yourself have."
The validation shouldn't affect me this much, but it does. Cain understands what I've sacrificed building this life, the isolation required to lead without vulnerability.
"He's soft," I say, needing to voice the fear. "He's smart and capable and he's learned to fight, but this world breaks people like him. Dylan almost destroyed him once already. What if?—"
"Greer isn't soft." Cain cuts me off firmly.
"You keep wanting to see him that way because it makes it easier to justify protecting him.
But the man who intercepted an Okafor shipment alone, who beat Rasheed unconscious, who exposed Felix and kept showing up despite every warning you gave him?
That man knows exactly what he signed up for. "
"Ezinne will torture him." The words come out raw. "She'll hurt him to break him, and when that doesn't work fast enough, she'll hurt him to hurt me. She'll send pieces of him back until I trade myself."