Page 23 of Make Them Bleed (Pretty Deadly Things #1)

I google Saint Pierce private marina compass rose crest . A logo pops up that’s so close it makes my skin prickle: and the Marina Club logo pops up. I remember Render mentioning Gray’s breakfast at the Marina Club with Valentino. My heart ricochets. Nico and Gray could be neighbors. Or coworkers.

Okay. So: Nico probably belongs to the Marina Club. Wears a signet ring with their crest. Drinks smoked honey cocktails at Atlas. Calls women bright girl like it’s a line.

I stand, adrenaline spiking so hard my knees go loose. I yank on jeans and a sweater, stuff pepper spray into my pocket, and cram my feet into boots. The coffee is half-cold and goes down like penance. I don’t text Arrow. If I involve them, they’ll overprotect me until I sit on my hands.

I grab the Moleskine, tuck it into my bag, and tell the quiet apartment, “I’m going to find the man who smiles when he calls people bright.”

Outside, Saint Pierce is all low clouds and puddled sidewalks.

The wind tastes like the river. I walk fast to Atlas Room because taxis in my neighborhood pretend I’m invisible.

The sign over the door hums faint blue. Inside, it’s all velvet and whisper and the clink of old-fashioned glasses conquered by beautiful ice.

The bartender is a woman with silver hair in a low knot and a tattoo of a honeybee on her wrist. Her name tag says Megan. Her eyebrows ask you okay? the second she clocks my face.

“I know you,” she says gently.

“Nice to meet you.” I hold out my hand and she shakes it. Then she laughs.

“However, I don’t agree that Scream is clever with their commentary on the horror genre.”

My eyes widen. “How can you not? They are depicting classic horror movie tropes while being stalked and murdered by said horror tropes. It’s brilliant.”

“What brings you to the Atlas Room midday?”

“Research,” I say, shimmying onto a stool. I pull Arby’s Moleskine from my bag and lay it on the bar like a talisman. When Megan sees the pages, her expression shifts—recognition, then careful neutrality.

“You knew her,” I say.

Megan nods, lips softening. “She ordered like she was flirting with the menu. Wanted to be surprised and still get what she liked.”

“She wrote smoked honey next to this place’s name.” I slide the notebook so Megan can see the line. “Did she come here with a man named Nico?”

Megan’s fingers go still on the bar rag. “Pretty boy,” she says finally. “Older than the crowd. Tailored suits you wanted to touch. Accent that made tips appear in his wake.”

“Accent?”

“Not thick. Just rounded edges, like the vowels were on vacation.” She smiles, then sobers. “Was that…something?”

“I don’t know yet.” My voice wobbles. “Did he say his last name?”

“Nico something-with-an-A,” Megan says slowly. “Ar—Arno? Al—” She shakes her head. “He paid cash. Never left a tab. When he did card, it was black.” She taps her finger. “Signet ring on his right hand.”

“The crest,” I say, breathless. “Compass? Waves?”

She laughs. “You’d make a good detective, or bartender.”

I dare a smile. “I watch a lot of movies.”

Megan leans closer, and lowers her voice. “He kept the matchbooks. Like a man with secrets thinks he’s romantic.”

“Did he come back after…?” I can’t say after she died . My throat won’t do it.

“Twice,” Megan says. “Alone. Sat at the end and watched the door.” She studies me. “You should be careful.”

“I’ve got a faithful can of pepper spray,” I say, waggling the little cylinder.

“Get a friend,” she says, like a benediction. “Pepper sprays jam. However, friends don’t.”

Not always, the petty part of my heart whispers. I nod anyway. “Thank you.”

Megan glances down the bar, then back at me.

“There’s a server who remembered his cologne.

Old-school. Vetiver and woods. The kind your dad wore if he sailed.

” She wrinkles her nose affectionately. “Said he mentioned the marina once. Something about the ‘north slips’ being for people with no taste.”

“Rich people,” I translate.

“Rich and bored.” She tops off the water glass I didn’t notice she poured for me. “Leave a number. If he shows again, I’ll text you.”

I scribble my number and slide it across. “If you see a man with a ring and that voice… I just want to look him in the eye.”

Megan nods solemnly, and I leave with the heavy certainty of having touched the edge of the thing that cut me.

Next stop, the marina.

The Marina Club sits on the riverbend like a silver shell, all glass and teak and quiet opulence. A woman with hair so smooth it has a reflection stands at the front desk. Her nameplate says Blair. She smells like an expensive candle that grew up near salt water.

“Can I help you?” she asks, professional smile at ninety percent.

“I’m meeting someone,” I improvise. “Nico. He said to meet by the bar.”

“Nico…?” she prompts.

A shrug. “Tall, late thirties, signet ring with your logo. The kind of man who calls the bartender love and gets away with it.”

Something flickers in her pupils—recognition buried under training. “We value our members’ privacy,” she says sweetly.

“Me too,” I say, just as sweet. “I just don’t want to wait in the wrong place.”

Her smile holds. She taps her keyboard. I don’t think she’s actually typing anything; this is a theater of keystrokes. “I can’t confirm member names, but if your friend arrives, he’ll find you. The upstairs lounge is for members and guests.”

I glance over her shoulder. The lounge gleams like a magazine page—low couches, museum lighting, a view of gray water that makes you feel expensive just by looking at it.

A woman in a white tennis skirt is laughing at something a man with enviable hair is saying.

My grief makes a noise in my throat. Arby would’ve mocked them affectionately and then tried on the skirt.

“Can I see the slips?” I ask. “Just—outside?”

Blair considers. “There’s a public boardwalk along the east side. Past the gate.”

“Thanks,” I murmur, and angle left.

Outside, the wind ramps up. Boats clack against their cleats. Seagulls perform a crime spree overhead. Along the boardwalk, I pass a series of plaques with donors’ names etched in brass. I run my finger over each one like a diviner, not sure what I’m hoping to feel.

Third plaque from the gate: NEREUS MARINE LLC – Legacy Slip D4 . An anchor engraved beneath the name.

Nereus. Mythology’s old sea god. The anchor stitches everything together in my head and then unravels all at once.

I glance down the slips. At D4, a sleek, black-and-white motor yacht rocks like a sleeping beast. No one onboard.

A security camera under the awning hums and swivels, bored and watchful.

“Okay, Nico,” I whisper. “Do your worst.”

I take a photo of the plaque and the boat, feeling like a tourist with malice.

On my way back, a car eases out of the garage ramp—matte black, low and quiet.

It idles by the curb, waiting for an opening.

A sticker on the windshield: Marina Club .

License plate: NRS-0417 . I snap a picture, adrenaline making my fingers a fraction too slow. The photo is fuzzy, but legible enough.

My phone buzzes as I walk away.

Unknown: Looking for Nico? Wrong place to hunt, bright girl.

The world tips like the deck of a ship. I stop in the shadow of a pillar, thumb trembling above the keyboard.

Who is this?

Three dots. Then:

Unknown: Careful. Some ghosts don’t like being chased.

“Cool,” I whisper to the river. “Cool-cool-cool.”

I should send that screenshot to Arrow. The team. It would be the smart play. But the memory of spyware crawls under my skin like ants. The ache in my chest tells me I’m safer with my walls up than with my door open.

I forward the text to a number that isn’t Arrow’s.

To: Render — Got a creep text. Can you spoof this number’s carrier?

(screenshot attached)

A beat. Then Render’s reply, all business:

Render: On it. Stay in public places. Don’t be a hero without backup, Final Girl.

I smile despite the ice-water in my veins.

The sky bruises toward late afternoon. I walk, on purpose, through crowded streets—past the noodle shop, the vintage store with the mannequin that always looks like it’s judging you, and then past the quiet bookshop that I always tell myself that one day I’ll stop in there to read.

My phone buzzes again. For half a second I think it’s Unknown Creep. It’s not.

Arrow 4:12 p.m. You okay?

I stare at the bubbles that bloom and break as he edits, re-edits, deletes. Another text:

Arrow 4:14 p.m. You don’t have to answer. Just…please don’t turn everything off. Doors. Cameras. Me.

I stop at a crosswalk and type a dozen responses in my head.

I turned you off because I needed to hear my own thoughts.

You don’t get to be sad about the walls you made me build.

I miss you so much it’s stupid.

I put the phone away without sending any of them. The light changes. Cars crawl. A siren wails two blocks over like a wolf.

Back home, I lock the door and slide the chain because habits comfort more than cameras. I set the Moleskine on the counter and make a list with the confidence of a woman who has no idea what she’s doing:

Run plate NRS-0417 (find a cop who still likes me? Huxley?).

Stake out Marina Club public boardwalk at dusk. (Bring puffer jacket + patience + pepper spray + portable charger.)

Ask Render to triangulate Unknown number location (is this even a thing?).

Check Arby’s Dropbox for any files titled “N,” “Nico,” or emoji-coded (she did that when she thought she was clever).

Don’t text Arrow. (Try. Fail. Try again.)

I take my phone to the couch and open Arby’s Dropbox.

Search: “Nico.” Nothing. Search: “N.” Too many.

I add “Atlas,” “Marina,” “matchbook,” “smoked honey.” One ping: a photo of my hand clinking a coupe glass, captioned in her private shorthand: BG.

Bright girl. I swallow a laugh that breaks halfway out of me and sounds like a sob.

The apartment hums. The Ring is dark. The dead zone makes everything feel both vulnerable and quiet. I sit there until the streetlights flicker alive and my resolve hardens into something that feels like purpose.

I put on my puffer and laced boots and slide pepper spray into my pocket. Before I step out, I look at the black rectangle of the Ring where the blue light used to blink.

“I’ll turn you back on,” I tell it, like I’m making a promise to a friend. “When I can do it because I want to, not because he tells me to.”

My phone buzzes one last time. Render:

Render: Unknown = prepaid. Last ping near river. Burner likely tossed. Also: Nereus Marine has two LLCs. Both list registered agent: Nicolas Armand. Boom.

My heart goes double-time. Nico A. Armand.

You’re amazing.

Render: Bring me cookies later. And backup now.

I’ll bring both.

I crack the door, step into the hall, and breathe. Fear comes. So does the feeling I get right before a horror-movie final girl grabs a weapon and walks into the dark.

I’m still angry at Arrow. I’m still hurt. Both things can sit beside the fact that I’ve never felt safer in my own skin than I do right now, making choices for myself, not because someone’s watching me breathe on a grainy screen.

Nico Armand. The man with the ring. The voice that said bright girl.

The next time he says it, I’m going to make sure the brightness he sees is the spark lighting his carefully constructed world on fire.

When I barrel out of my apartment building I do not expect who I see.