Page 99 of Make Them Bleed
“What about Nico?” I ask. The name tastes like metal.
“Render has eyes onD4,” Arrow says. “Rook too. If Nico moves something larger than an apology, we’ll see the ripple. But today? Today we either go to Church”—Greed—“and watch, or we go to Stonehouse.”
“Stonehouse,” I repeat. I can picture the back room—leather, ice cubes the size of dice, laughter that always sounds a hair too loud. “I want to know who hired them.”
“I know,” he says. “Render can seed a false reservation: venture capital parasite meets ‘new friends’ at nine. If Beau Latham thinks someone wants to talk distribution or purpose or prestige, he’ll show. He’s a peacock. Coleman may not. Rook won’t if he smells a camera. Devin will if Beau tells him to.”
“And Gray?” I say. “Do we poke the saint?”
His mouth twists. “We never poke the saint where he can paint himself persecuted. We invite him to sayno commentsomewhere we’re recording.”
I walk to the wall and stare at the nameMERRITTuntil the line through his name stops swimming. My chest tightens on the inhale.
“I’ve changed my mind, I want to go back to Club Greed,” I say, turning. “I want Devereaux’s eyes. I want to sit in Pride and watch them not come. Or come and pretend they didn’t.”
Arrow doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t sayAre you sure, because I am, and he knows I’ll only become more so if he challenges me. “Okay,” he says. “We go early. Not members’ night. We talk to Devereaux like adults who understand liability. We don’t ask for names. We ask for patterns.”
“What about asking for favors?” I ask. “Can we do that?”
“We can,” he says. “But we do it as people who can keep their side of a bargain. We don’t make him choose between his house and our war.”
“Fine,” I say, even though I want to keep wanting until someone gives me something illegal.
He reads my face and then looks away like he’s giving me privacy inside my own skin. “There’s another option,” he says. “It’s messy.”
“Sold,” I say, because of course it is.
“We use your voice,” he says. “The podcast. Ten-minute drop. Not names, not doxxing. Just… a story. A smart, sharp story that says ‘I’m closer than you think. I know what you call your jokes. I know where you drink.’ Beau will clench. Devin will post and delete. Coleman will pretend to be bored and then show up somewhere to preen. Gray will call a lawyer. Nico will…send a text.”
“Bright girl,” I say, jaw tight.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice soft and smooth.
I picture hitting record. I picture my voice steady and terrible in a good way. I picture people listening with their phones on their chests, breath held, rooting for a girl who colors circles in the afternoon and hunts men at night.
“I can do that,” I say. “I can write something that rattles them all.”
He nods. “We combine. You drop the episode at six. We ask Devereaux for a conversation at seven. We sit in Club Greed at eight without masks or games. Stonehouse at nine as a backup. We put a net under the night that catches whatever wriggles.”
“Team?” I ask, because thewehas to be larger than theus.
“Ozzy runs audio on your post—wires its push notifications through half the city without breaking terms,” he says. “Render will plant himself inPride’scorner with a jacket over his camera and a halo over his head. Gage keeps the reservation plates spinning and becomes the fire marshal if the building tries to burn down. Knight sits in the car and pretends he’s texting and actually memorizes every person who walks in for later.”
“Detective Huxley?” I ask, because the wordwesometimes have to include the people in actual suits.
“I’ll send her a packet at five-thirty that says ‘if you were me, you’d sit near Club Greed tonight,’” he says. “She won’t bring sirens. She’ll bring a coat and a notebook and a partner who thinks I’m annoying.”
He takes a sip of coffee, then reaches for me and pauses, asking without asking. I fold into him because my bones want the wordanchorwritten on them in permanent marker. For a minute, we just breathe like we’re scaling a wall together. His hand makes a warm line up my spine and I think about telling him the truth about my relief—about the cat that keeps stepping on my chest at 3 a.m. whisperingthere. I don’t. Not yet. The confession claws at my throat and then curls up, purring and mean.
“I keep thinking,” I say into his shirt, which smells like driftwood and good decisions, “that someone wrote a check. For them. For Arby.”
“Yeah,” he says into my hair. “And we’re going to find them.”
“And make them bleed,” I add.
“And that,” he says.
I pull back, wipe under my eyes with the flat of my finger, and try on a smile that doesn’t fit yet but might later. “Help me write the script?”
