Page 34 of Make Them Bleed

“Stairwell C is open,” Knight rumbles. “Staffers moving crates to a VIP suite on twelve. Boxes marked ‘gift bags.’”

Gift bags. Sometimes gift bags hold swag; sometimes they hold phones wiped clean.

I tilt my head toward Juno. Behind Ghostface, my voice is for her alone. “We’ll tail them to the roof. Slow. If they split, we split. We don’t engage without eyes within ten feet, and we don’t say names.”

“Copy,” she whispers.

We drift toward the elevator bank. Ozzy falls in behind us, still Arthur, now holding a highball like he was born to it. Render and Knight ghost the opposite flank. Gage’s voice at our ears becomes our sixth sense: “Valentino’s elevator. Twelve…thirteen…roof.”

We pile in another car with a pack of tech bros dressed as villains. The ride is a strobe of perfume and bass. The doors open to an autumn-brittle skyline and a rooftop dressed in heat lamps and money. Cigars glow like fireflies. Laughter cuts the air.

There—Valentino, by a glass balustrade, talking to Dove-Gray Suit, whose profile matches the Gracewood headshot from our dossier. They speak too quietly for my mics to catch without moving closer. Render drifts that way on a tangent line that looks accidental. I stay with Juno at a high-top, my fingers barely touching the small of her back.

Gage murmurs, “I can’t get closer without stepping on the CFO’s shoes.”

Render says, “Service corridor behind the bar. Might get a cleaner line.”

“Do it,” I say.

On the horizon, lightning flickers where the river meets the bay. Juno watches Valentino with the focus of a hawk. The wind liftsstrands of her hair, and I fight the urge to tuck them back. The Ghostface mouth smiles emptily at the night.

She leans closer. “He said ‘funerals.’ Hoover, do you think…”

“I heard.”

“Do you think—” Her voice fractures. She clears it. “Do you think they’re tied to the Five?”

“Yes,” I say, because sometimes a lie is a kindness and sometimes the truth is the only way you respect someone’s strength. “I think they paid for it. I think they’re arrogant enough to joke about it at a launch party.”

Her jaw hardens. Her eyes shine. “Then let’s make them pay twice.”

“Working on it,” I murmur.

Knight: “Got a clean line. Black-on-black just said, ‘We didn’t send him to the cemetery. That wasn’t us.’ Valentino told him to ‘control the fans.’”

Juno goes rigid. Cemetery. The HOLO-BURST T-shirt. The man who asked for the time. Not corporate, then—adjacent, inspired, or opportunistic. It’s a small mercy I file underlater.

“Polk?” I ask.

“Gray Suit is Gracewood, confirmed,” Gage says, smooth as a jazz sax. “Calls himself ‘Mr. Vale’s shepherd,’ which I think is code for ‘guy who cleans messes with money.’ He just told Valentino to keep ‘payments consolidated’ and ‘avoid creators with leverage.’”

Creators with leverage. Arby had leverage. She had a platform and a spine. My hands curl into fists.

Ozzy:“Heads up—two security guards approaching the bar from opposite ends. Might be a sweep.”

“Time to go,” I say, and touch Juno’s back. She nods, and we move like leaves on a current back toward the elevator, Render and Gage crossing to intercept. Knight murmurs, “Stairwell C is clean,” and we veer that way instead, slipping down concrete steps that smell like bleach and secrets.

On twelve, the door bangs open and we freeze in the shadow of a vending nook. A server hustles past with a box of gift bags—custom HOLO-BURST tumblers and noise-cancelling earbuds. I snag one when she’s gone. Render peeks inside and huffs. “Nothing fun. Not even a bribe.”

“Bribes are digital now,” Ozzy says. “Crypto is the new tote.”

We regroup on ten in a housekeeping corridor. My pulse starts to come down. Juno’s breathing evens out in tandem with mine, as if our nervous systems are learning each other’s steps.

“We have names,” I say softly. “We have faces. We have a pattern.”

“And we have motive,” she answers, fierce and steady. “Arby cost them money. She said no.”

I nod. “We’ll get them.”