Page 16 of Make Them Bleed (Pretty Deadly Things #1)

The public launch is all flash: projected lightning, brand slogans, a hype video that pretends caffeine is a personality.

The CEO, Van Benton—chin like a shovel—announces a partnership with a pro gamer, the crowd roars, champagne sprays.

I watch the founding members instead: who they lean toward, who they avoid.

Twice, a silver-haired VC in a dove-gray suit glances at the side doors, as if waiting for someone who’s late. Gracewood, maybe. My jaw tightens.

Juno sticks close, eyes alert, posture deceptively relaxed. When her gaze lands on a HOLO-BURST rep with a familiar smirk, she squeezes my forearm—a silent there, that one . I log the face.

When the velvet rope at Ballroom C parts, we drift with the herd.

The theme shift is immediate: public razzle becomes private decadence.

“Neon Noir” means black velvet couches under ultraviolet, servers in LED bowties carrying trays of liquid sugar, and a DJ in a half-mask spinning a remix that sounds like a migraine feels.

The masks—half the room in them—turn the scene into a masquerade shot through a cyberpunk filter.

We split. Ozzy moves slowly toward the VIP bar. Gage loiters by a cluster of founders pretending to admire the ice sculpture. Render becomes a shadow on the balcony rail, his camera winking like a distant star. Knight positions himself at a service door, ready to slip where staff slip.

I keep Juno to my left, one hand hovering at the small of her back without touching, every sense tuned to her. She laughs once, too brightly, and I lean in.

Someone stops her, and I turn to see who.

“Juno, it’s been so long. How are you?” Etta Hoy’s voice is paper-thin. She doesn’t care how Juno’s doing.

Etta’s an influencer. She’s all big money and low views. However, she acts like she has fifty million followers, not fifty thousand.

“Etta, long time,” Juno smiles like they’re old friends.

“Fancy seeing you here.” She quirks a brow, and then glances my way. She takes in my mask and huffs out a short laugh. “I knew you always liked older men like your sister.”

At the mention of her sister, Juno stiffens beside me.

“Steady,” I murmur.

“Trying,” she says, and the word trembles.

Etta doesn’t notice Juno’s posture has inflated since she’s walked over. She’s too busy waving to other friends, and then she slowly drags her attention back to Juno. “I’d love to interview about… you know.”

My jaw tenses. But Juno’s a pro.

“Sure thing. I’ll DM you next week.” I can tell by the tremor in Juno’s voice that she has zero plans to message Etta. However Etta finds this answer acceptable and leans in for a quick hug, and then she’s off like she was never here.

“You okay?” I ask her.

She nods, once. “I’m fine.”

We orbit the room. Snippets of conversation drift:

“…we don’t need another compliance audit…”

“…the creator skew was worth the spend…”

“…Gracewood will eat the PR hit…”

“…five payments—no, that’s not what I said…”

Juno goes stiff at that last one. I turn. Two men in their forties—one in a cobalt suit, the other in black-on-black—stand half in shadow by a glowing art wall. Cobalt checks his phone and hisses, “I said re-bundle the five payments, not re-send the five payments. Do you speak English?”

My blood chills. I angle us closer, pretending to admire the art. Black-on-black lifts a hand, calming. “Relax, Valentino. We’ll consolidate through the shell like we used to. Benton’s too busy glad-handing streamers to notice.”

Valentino. Cobalt. I drill the name into my brain. Juno’s fingers find my hoodie cuff and tug. We both strain to hear more. Black-on-black lowers his voice. “Gracewood’s pushing for a Q2 clean slate. We just need to keep the loud ones quiet until then.”

“The loud ones,” Valentino sneers, “have funerals, apparently.”

Juno’s breath hitches with such violence I think she’ll lunge. I step in, my body a wall, and feel her entire frame shake. The mask lets me keep my voice steady even as fury shakes my bones.

“Not here,” I say in her ear. “Not now.”

She swallows, nods so subtly an outsider would miss it. I ease us away, call quietly into the channel, “Cobalt suit: ‘Valentino.’ Black-on-black: unknown. Fillmore?”

“Got them,” Render whispers. “Zoomed and tagged. Following their orbits.”

“Arthur?” It’s hard to remember who is who, and wish I could just shout out, Ozzy, but can’t let Juno know real names.

“Already flirting with their handler,” Ozzy says through Arthur’s mustache. “She loves my ‘brand story.’”

Gage crackles on comms. “Security’s tightening at the east exit. Ten minutes ’til they shift to the rooftop cigar bar, per a very chatty server who hates her shoes.”

“Hayes?”

“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 lifts strands 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 under later .

“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.”

We stand there too long for people who are supposed to be ghosts. Render eventually clears his throat. “Not to break the cinematic moment, but if we walk out the front we’ll hit a checkpoint.”

“Service elevator to the garage,” Knight suggests. “I clocked the route.”

We take the path he maps, unglamorous and lifesaving. In the garage’s dim belly, our cars wait like faithful steeds. Before we split, Juno turns to the squad—four ridiculous presidents and one faceless Ghostface—and raises her chin.

“Thank you,” she says. “For tonight. For everything.” She looks at me last. “Ghosts, huh?”

“Worked,” I say.

They pile into Ozzy’s car. Engines turn. The team peels away and I stand with Juno once they’re all gone.

Render slipped me his keys earlier, letting me know I should take Juno home alone.

Juno and I pile into Render’s sedan, and ride in silence toward the river. The city is softer here, the streets running out of steam before they hit the water. When we slip into the shadowed lot at her apartment, she doesn’t immediately reach for her door.

“Hoover?” she asks, voice smaller than it’s been all night.

“Yeah.”

“I think I’m…falling apart and falling forward at the same time.”