Page 34 of Make Them Bleed (Pretty Deadly Things #1)

Arrow

I wipe a hand on my jeans and check the screen.

Juno: Found this in an old box. Blonde hair… a few weeks before. She doesn’t look happy. Can you pull anything?

Three images follow: a glossy print of Arby under string lights, blonde again—jaw tight, smile not touching her eyes; a tight crop of a menu corner with “...reed” in gold font; a zoom on a man’s wrist—all I get is a watchband and a sliver of jaw, turned away.

My scalp prickles. I flick the photos to the big screen at my station and scrub the contrast. The menu typeface is distinctive—thick downstrokes, whimsical curls, the font snapped so you get that broken edge on the “d.” The matchbook on the table catches a lick of gold foil—just enough to see a baroque “G” nested in laurel leaves.

I stand, already moving. “Dean,” I say, at his door. “You got a minute?”

He glances up, flips the pen once between his fingers, and waves me in. “What’d you break?”

“Hopefully nothing.” I airdrop the frame to his office display. He leans back, eyes going forensic.

One glance. Not even a second look. He exhales through his nose, a soft whistle. “Club Greed.”

My brows jump. “Say that again.”

“Club Greed,” he repeats, dead certain. He taps the photo. “Their patio bar—Gilt Garden. See the broken ‘d’? And the matchbook is the old monogram—single G with laurel before they rebranded as just the serif wordmark.”

I blow out a breath. “You’ve been?”

“Consulted,” he says, which is Dean for I have the number of the person who turns the house lights on . “Access control, locker policy, anti-camera protocols. They’re… thorough.”

My neck warms. “We think Arby was there a few weeks before—blonde hair timestamp. The guy with her is turned away. If this is Greed, she wasn’t just at a cocktail bar.”

Dean’s face rearranges into okay, then . “You want in.”

“I want eyes,” I say. “The kind that get receipts.”

He considers, then nods once. “Lucky for you, I know the owner.”

“You are an unending font of gifts.”

He smirks, picks up his phone, and scrolls.

“Devereaux Huxley,” he says. “Used to be in nightlife, and then pivoted to ‘members-only wellness and intimacy spaces’ before it was cool. We built them a clean-room device policy. Simple set up. Lockers with Faraday liners, staff trained to spot smart jewelry, the works. He owes me a favor.” He taps Call , putting the phone on speaker and setting it down on his desk.

On the first ring a man answers, “Hey, Dean.”

“Dev, how’ve you been?”

“Great,” he says with a laugh like they’re old friends. “Tell me your building hasn’t discovered glitter and I won’t have to fake a heart attack.”

He grins. “No glitter. I’m calling for a friend.”

There’s a beat. “You don’t have friends,” he says, amused. “You have clients and strays.”

“Well then, I'm calling for a stray,” he concedes. “High discretion. He needs to observe, not disrupt. One night. Two badges. No phones. They’ll play by your rules.”

“Purpose?” he asks.

“Closure,” he says, and leaves it there, which is why I let Dean make phone calls.

He’s quiet for a heartbeat. “Tonight is Seven , members’ night.

Theme is literal—seven rooms, seven cardinal sins painted artfully into the walls.

Masks optional. I can tuck your stray and his guest into the Pride gallery.

Sit. Watch. Sip. Do not poach. Do not recruit.

Do not pretend you’re there to fix the Wi-Fi. ”

Dean glances at me. I nod. “He’s not a fixer tonight,” he says.

Dev hums. “Send me legal names for waivers. They’ll sign at the door. Have them look for Adele at the velvet rope.”

“Thanks, Dev.”

“Don’t make me regret it,” he says, and hangs up.

Dean leans back, laces his fingers behind his head. “Looks like you’re going to church.”

I scrub a hand over my jaw. “It’s a sex club,” I say. “I’m not bringing a collection plate.”

“You’re bringing your eyes,” he says, and the humor fades. “And your rules. Club Greed has their own. Learn them.”

“Talk me through.”

He ticks them off. “Phones locked on entry—Faraday lockers, numbered bands. NDAs at the door—civil, not criminal, but violating them will make your life sticky. Consent system is wristbands—green, yellow, red. Green means approach is welcome; yellow means conversation only; red means no approach. Staff in black cuffs. Rooms themed and supervised. Pride is the gallery—drinks, controlled voyeurism. Lust is obvious; Gluttony is food play, believe it or not. Envy is mirrors—careful with angles. Sloth is… pillows.”

“Charming.”

He points a pen. “Your cover is simple. Dev comped you as ‘guests of the house’ on a trial membership. So, skip the wealth signals. It reads counterfeit. Wear clean lines. Look like you belong to yourself.”

“Juno and I go together,” I say, already cataloging wardrobe and comm logistics. “Two of us inside, three outside. Ozzy runs BLE sniff. Render sits on exterior cams. Knight sits in the car for exfil. Gage spoofs a member lookup if we need to confirm a name.”

Dean nods. “Have Adele route you to a back corner where the wall sees a lot and the room sees a little. Club Greed has a patio. Sometimes members slip out to call Ubers, or have a smoke. If your man moves from cocktail bars to private clubs, he’ll have tells. Keep your eyes open.”

I’m already halfway out of the chair. “You’re a miracle.”

“I’m a billable hour,” he says dryly. Then, softer, “Arrow.”

I pause.

“You don’t have to white-knuckle this alone,” he says. “You and the girl—Juno—you’re good in a fight. Don’t forget to tag your corners.”

“I won’t,” I say, and I mean it.

I send Devereaux the legal names and receive a reply so fast I imagine him texting with one hand while steering a Bugatti with the other:

Devereaux: Adele will expect you at 10. Rules attached.

A PDF follows. I memorize it on the elevator down.

In the car, the plan clicks into place, a familiar hum. Send the intake forms to the team. Print physical map overlays. We’ll use bone-conduction earpieces on whisper volume. No external mics. The pen mic stays home (kind of sad about this, I won’t lie).

By the time I hit Juno’s block, the river’s thrown a sheet of late-afternoon light up over the brick, and my phone has three new messages from Render:

Render: Waiver stub looks normal. Dev’s legal is tight. Don’t sign with your blood.

Render: Etta liked your DM and didn’t reply. She’s the kind who holds info to make friends with it later.

Render: I’m on call if you need a rescue voice pretending to be anyone. Owner, fire marshal, ghost of bad decisions.

I text back a skull, because we’re adults.

Then I look up at Juno’s door cam out of habit and remember it’s dark. The Ring’s disabled. The boundary set. I swallow, pocket my phone, and knock our pattern.

No answer.

I knock again. “Junebug?” I call, and the nickname leaves my mouth before the etiquette committee in my brain can draft a memo.

The latch clicks. The door opens on a crack, then a foot, then Juno, and my chest goes cold.

Her eyes are raw, lashes spiky with salt. She’s in one of my old hoodies. It’s black, and way too big for her. Nothing about her looks like the quick-tongued woman who fenced with a predator last night. She looks like grief dressed in cotton.

“Hey,” I say, uselessly gentle.

“Hi.” Her voice is paper-thin. She swallows, and tries for a smile, but fails it halfway. “Sorry. I—” Her mouth trembles. “I opened a box and the box had a bomb in it, I guess.”

I step in, kick the door closed behind me with my foot, and set my hands on her waist like that’s a lever that can lift her. “Come here.”

She does. It’s not careful. It’s not staged.

She just folds, a building finding its baseline after a quake.

I catch her, wrap, and hold. Her face goes into my shoulder with a sound that would make anyone with a pulse want to set the world on fire.

I breathe her hair. I breathe in her shampoo, her skin, all of her.

“Got you,” I say into the crown of her head. “I’ve got you.”

She shakes. Not dainty tears, not cinematic grief, but full-body aftershocks. I let it happen, sway with it, keep my hand splayed warm between her shoulder blades and the other at the back of her head like I’m covering a wound from the weather.

“I miss her,” she says, muffled. “I miss her so fucking much.”

“I know,” I say, and I do. Not because I’ve lost like she lost, but because the absence she carries has a shape even an idiot can memorize.

She hiccups a broken laugh. “I’m supposed to be tough and charming and a little terrifying, and instead I’m crying in your sweater.”

“You are tough and charming and a little terrifying,” I say. “And crying doesn’t cancel any of that.”

Her fingers curl in the back of my shirt. She nods, a small, stubborn movement against my chest like she’s agreeing to terms with oxygen.

“Bedroom?” I ask quietly.

She sniffles, steps back enough to look up at me, eyes red and fierce. “You carry me and I won’t fight you.”

I bend. She’s light in my arms, lighter than what she’s been holding all week. I walk the familiar path to the bedroom where the bed is half-made and the mandala book is face-down on the nightstand like a shallow apology.

I lay her down and then lie down beside her, mirroring, not crowding. She turns toward me on her own, finds my chest again like that’s where her head goes. I angle us into the hollow that makes us fit.

We breathe.

After a while the sobs taper to hiccups; the hiccups to the long, shaky inhales of someone who’s decided not to drown yet. My thumb draws slow circles on her upper arm, and I watch the ceiling fan do that lazy spin thing.

“I brought news,” I say, when her breath evens out. “But it can wait.”

She tips her face up, cheek damp, mouth wrecked into a half-smile. “Do the thing where you give me mission objectives so my panic has a spreadsheet.”

“Dean looked at your photo,” I say. “It’s Club Greed.”

Her brows knit. “Like the …?”