Page 87 of Make Them Bleed
He whispers, so soft I feel it more than I hear it. “Do you want Bob to get an ‘I saw Juno’ text from Paul?”
Accepted. I turn my head just enough to see Paul without staring. He looks… not happy. Not unhappy, either.
The door at the far end opens and the room tilts. You can tell a shift in power the way you can feel a weather front—pressure drops and everyone’s hair learns a new trick.
Five men waltz into Pride like they’re cutting a ribbon. Not literally—no choreography, no parade—but their arrival organizes the air.
I know them before I know them. Not their faces, not their names, not their scent. I know them because the shape of the space around them is wrong. Because the murder in my sister’slive feed had a rhythm, and this is the percussion section walking in with sticks.
Man One is the kind of handsome that looks good as a logo: mid-forties, all angles and rested ego, suit charcoal with a silk sheen like he came here straight from a boardroom that keeps a decanter for him. A small scar tracks over the knuckle of his index finger—white and smooth, like old paper. Watch: black ceramic. Ring: glossy onyx set low. His smile looks expensive.
Man Two is tall enough to change light bulbs without a ladder. Shaved head, a dark line of ink just above his collar that disappears into money. Shoulders like a linebacker and posture that says “former something.” His band is… red. No approach. A statement as strategic as a chess move.
Man Three is pretty and knows it—collar open, gold chain fine as spider silk. He wears loafers with tassels (which should be a crime) and a pinky ring that glints when he gestures. The staff glance at him too long; I can’t tell if it’s caution or credit.
Man Four is shorter, compact, eyes like a fox. Restless leg jig. He keeps touching his ear as if there’s an itch under the skin. Scars along his knuckles too, but messier, recent.
Man Five is young—early twenties, maybe, jaw tight in a way that suggests he’s auditioning for a role he’s over-practiced in the mirror. His tie is a fraction too slim. His laugh, when it comes, is a fraction too loud. He’s the kind of man who brings knives to poker and loses his shirt to a bluff, then learns how to count cards.
They fan through the room like a slow wave. Staff in black cuffs do that dance that’s part welcome, part warning. Pride tilts to include them without admitting it.
Man One clocks Paul the way sharks clock the silhouette of a seal. His smile clicks into place like a blade in a pocket. He raises his hand—casual, careless—and shapes his fingers into a gun. Thumb up. Index extended. He winks.Pew.
My blood goes to ice. All the air in Club Greed rushes out a slit in the side of the world and I’m a vacuum.
Arrow’s body is still, which is how I know he’s vibrating. I nudge him, fingernails biting his thigh. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t look away. His voice—a breath, a ghost—slips into our tiny channel. “We’ve got them.”
The Five. In a room with mirrors and rules and a ceiling that reflects our faces back at us when we look up for help.
Paul startles like the finger-shot grazed him. It didn’t. That’s the point. He forces a smile, the kind you give a boss you don’t like at a party you didn’t want to attend. The woman in sequins pats his arm; her eyes are wide above the mask.
“Names,” I whisper, this time audibly. The word tastes like a dare.
Arrow’s mouth hardly moves. “Not yet.” His hand slips off my knee and finds my fingers instead, lacing them, which might be the only thing keeping me anchored to the couch.
Staff drift closer to the Five like planets nervous about a gravity well. I catch a half-soft greeting: “Good evening, gentlemen… your usual table?” Not names. Greed is too careful to toss those around like confetti.
“Look at their wrists,” Arrow breathes. “Cuffs, watches, habits.”
I do. Man One’s onyx ring sits low; the scar on his index—left hand—matches the angle in the freeze-frame in my head fromArby’s feed when a glove elbowed and a hand curled, index straight, thumb flicked. Man Two’s red band reads like a man who wants to be off-limits until he chooses to be a problem. Man Three’s gold chain catches in his throat when he laughs; his pinky ring is engraved—tiny letters I can’t read on sight. Man Four never stops scanning—door, bar, exit, frames, door again. Man Five’s shoes squeak. It’s stupid, but I file it: youth buys bad varnish.
“Breathe,” Arrow reminds me, and it turns out I need the instruction.
We watch. Pride watches. Felt eyes behind masks watch. The Five don’t touch anyone. They claim a low table near the center like a chess piece planted deep in your side of the board. The servers bring them something amber and expensive. Man Three talks with his hands. Man Two nods once, which in some languages is a paragraph.
I return my attention back to Paul. The woman in sequins excuses herself, hand warm on Paul’s shoulder, and Paul stands like he remembers where he is. He doesn’t go to the Five. He goes to the bar. The bartender asks him something with her eyes. He shakes his head minutely. The Five don’t watch him go. They don’t need to.
“Field notes,” Arrow says, clinically calm and a little vicious. “Man One: onyx ring, knuckle scar, watch—black ceramic, likely Hublot or Rado. Vetiver and smoke. Man Two: military habit, red band, no tie, slight limp left foot on the pivot. Man Three: pinky ring engraved, tassel loafers—idiot—laughs like a microphone. Man Four: touch to ear every thirty seconds like it’s programmed. Man Five: fidgeter, too much cologne, jaw clench on the downbeat.”
I file them like poses on a police lineup, like saints in stained glass if saints were rotten.
Pride shifts again. Someone changes the track. A Greedy Girl drops a napkin and Man Four notices and gives the woman a look that would make a lesser person apologize to their ancestors. The Greedy Girl doesn’t flinch. Club Greed trains its staff well.
“Do we leave?” I ask, because I want to do anything but sit.
“We observe,” Arrow says. “Then we learn their exits. Then we leave. We don’t poke a hive indoors.”
He’s right. I hate him for it for exactly one second and then I love him for it so much I want to start a fight and make up in the same breath.
