Page 108 of Make Them Bleed

Render: His HOA hates dogs and noise complaints. He’s alone.

Alone. The word makes my stomach drop and my shoulders square at the same time.

Juno looks at me, eyes bright, jaw set. “We go,” she says.

“We go and we stay outside,” I say automatically, the new rule I wrote after Merritt. “We talk through the door. We don’t step into anyone’s house.”

She nods like she agrees. I believe her because I want to.

“Render,” I type, “get eyes. Knight, take the curb. Ozzy, scan the block. Gage, anything connecting Nereus Brand Partners LLC to Gray that isn’t a fever dream?”

Gage: Nereus Brand Partners is helmed by a woman named Etta Hoy. Former Gray Foundation staff, now “consultant.”

Gage: Etta set up three pass-throughs last year for “artist grants.” Two of the three intersect with PikeShift. It smells like Gray two degrees removed.

“Juno,” I say, routing a wire around her mic arm because I need my hands to do something besides tremble. “It’s Etta.”

“We need answers from Devin,” she counters. “We need him raw. Before he posts. Before he gets coached.”

She’s right. It’s also exactly the kind of moment that ruins people when they forget to breathe. I grab the keys.

We’re in Knight’s car in under three minutes, the city sliding by like it promised not to look us in the eye. Juno watches the city pass by in a blur. I squeeze her hand and my shoulder loosens half an inch.

“Talk to me,” I say, as Knight hits the light at Ransom and Fourth.

“I keep thinking about the DM,” she says. “Arby telling him to walk. He told her, snooze you lose. He wanted to win. If he thought she was going to ruin his payday—if she was going to talk?—”

“Then the Five weren’t hired to murder an influencer,” I finish. “They were hired to kill a problem.”

She swallows a sound that might be a laugh if we lived in a nicer world. “I want him to tell me that to my face,” she says.

“What about Etta and Bob?” I ask, and she shrugs.

“I’m not sure yet.”

We hit Franklin at a green. Render ghosts a wave from a church shadow, and Ozzy texts a coffin and a little radar dish.

Ozzy: I’m on the cross street. Nothing spicy on BLE. One “Nest-cam-4C” ping. Also a “WEMO-BARISTA”—dude really has a smart coffee machine.

Knight parks where sightlines don’t look like sightlines. Gage drops a code in the thread.

Gage: Entry keypad takes a six-digit. Building is lazy, and they keep the master as 051718 (opening date). Don’t. Use. It. Wait for a resident.

“Copy,” I type, and then I don’t use it. A woman with a dog that could have its own mortgage comes out of the building and holds the door like she’s on an etiquette show. I murmur thanks. Juno scratches the dog’s head and gets a sigh for her trouble.

Inside smells like concrete and expensive laundry. The elevator has that tilt of age converted into charm. We step in, hit 4, and ride quietly.

“Rules,” I say, because I need to hear them said.

She says them with me. “We don’t go inside. We stand where neighbors can see. We don’t touch anything. We breathe. Lemon means stop.”

“Good,” I say, and meanplease let this be enough.

The hallway is industrial-chic—pipes painted matte, doors heavy, numbers stenciled like this is a safehouse in a nicer movie. 4C’s Nest cam is a tiny, stupid eye over a doorbell button that glows like a target.

Juno presses. We hear the chime inside, then footsteps, then the extra second of hesitation before he opens.

Devin Pike is younger than his playlist and older than his stubble suggests—early twenties, money in his posture, nerves in his jaw. He smells like cologne that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be sharp or sweet and settled for loud. His t-shirt is a brand with a subtle logo that says he likes his sponsorships to whisper luxury.