Page 74 of Make Them Bleed
“And if I saymore,” she adds, flicker of a smile despite the tension, “you keep pace.”
Knight coughs something that sounds likestanding orderinto his fist. The room relaxes around the laugh it earns, the same way teams breathe in unison before kickoff.
I hold up the pen mic. “Voiceprint. If I get him talking long enough, we build a clean model. Later we match bar audio and Marina audio without needing a face.”
“Scary,” Ozzy says.
“Useful,” I correct.
We roll.
Atlas Roomat eight is the same dim velvet cathedral it always is: a hush at the door, a hush at the bar, and a hum of conversation that acts like fog—muting, anonymizing, making secrets feel inevitable. The neon ATLAS sign flickers a low gold, and mirrors double the bottles until it looks like the world is made entirely of glass and amber.
Megan’s behind the bar with her honeybee tattoo, eyes catching Juno’s first. She gives me a look that saysplay niceand Juno a look that saysI’ve got you. She sets two coasters with the compass rose logo just off center—and it feels like the room splits along that axis.
Gage and Knight drift to A4 with the posture of colleagues who have already closed a deal. Render dissolves toward the back wall where a velvet curtain hides a service corridor and—conveniently—gives him a dark frame to work from. I take A3 but stand long enough to point the pen at a glass shelf; in the reflection, I can see the bar, the door, the mirror toward the restrooms that doubles as a periscope. The pen hums once meaning the recorder is live.
Across from me, Juno orders in a clear, easy tone. “Smoked honey, please—Megan’s call.” The way Megan’s mouth tightens tells me we made the right kind of noise in the right kind of hive.
“Coming up,” Megan says. To me, under her breath as she moves, “North booth at ten o’clock has two guys who think they invented venture capital. Nothim. Accent at the rail at eight o’clock—French? Not him either.”
“Merci,” I murmur.
Our comms chirp once as Ozzy’s voice slides into my ear. “Smoker live. I’m seeing fifteen devices within ten meters: three phones with random MACs, one tablet namedIsabelle’s iPad, six wearables, two security cams broadcasting BLE, and an AirPods case named…NEREUS-NAV-PRO.”
“Say again?” I reply, heart rate quietly redlining.
“NEREUS-NAV-PRO. Could be a coincidence. Could be exactly our brand of terrifying.”
“Angle?” Render whispers.
“Northwest of the front door,” Ozzy says. “Signal strength says just came into range and paused.”
I don’t turn. I watch the mirror. A man steps in with the kind of posture that’s more habit than choice—upright, practiced. He hands a coat to the hostess and takes the room’s temperature with a slow sweep that reads as bored if you don’t know what you’re looking at. Tailored navy suit, white shirt, no tie. The cuff—blue piping, an anchor embroidered near the button. The ring: signet, compass rose over waves.
My pen mic picks up Megan’s exhale. “That’s him.”
Juno’s fingers find the bottom of her glass on the bar and skate, just once, around the perimeter—a minuscule circle only I would clock. She does not look at the door. She shifts so her profile faces the mirror, pretends to check her lipstick reflection, and lowers her chin half an inch.
“Juno,” I say.
“I’m okay,” she breathes before I can ask her.
The man’s accent lands before he does. Mediterranean edges filed smooth by money and time. He takes the rail at Juno’s ten o’clock. Megan slides him a napkin like a perfectly executed handoff. His fingers brush the napkin as his ring flashes and my stomach drops with it.
“What is it tonight?” he asks Megan, tone wry. “Do you still smoke the honey?”
“Still do,” she says, unruffled. “Stronger wood. Less pretense.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “Pretense makes the world tolerable.”
“Disagree,” Megan says, and moves to the smoker, giving me a sliver of line-of-sight.
Ozzy again: “Same device name. Closer. RSSI minus forty. He’s parked.”
Gage: “Marina called back—membership confirmsNicolas Armand. Etta DM is read, no reply.”
Render: “I’ve got the crest: high-res, forty-five degree. I can match to Marina signage later.”
