Page 36 of Make Them Bleed (Pretty Deadly Things #1)

Juno

The first thing I notice about Club Greed is that the air has opinions.

It smells like bergamot and old money, like someone taught a thunderstorm to swagger.

A velvet rope cuts the entry in half, and a woman with cheekbones that could open safes—Adele, per Arrow’s briefing—smiles like she knows all my secrets and has rated them four stars.

“Welcome,” she purrs, voice warm and velvety. “House rules on the screen. Phones in the lockers.” She flicks her gaze to our wrists and gives me a yellow band. “Yellow bands—conversation only.”

Arrow thanks her with that mild, corporate-angel tone he uses when he’s pretending not to be the most dangerous person in the room.

He slips our phones into Faraday-lined lockers, accepts two numbered bands like they’re boarding passes to a strange country, and touches the small of my back in a way that feels like both permission and check-in.

My pulse doesn’t flatten. Instead, it sharpens.

Greed’s foyer is all hushed lighting, framed stills of black-and-white bodies arranged like art (consent-coded captions beneath each one), and a long bar carved from something so glossy I can see both our faces upside down.

A mural of a G arches over the back bar; the glass shelves double into infinity in the mirror behind it, bottles marching like jewel-toned soldiers toward a horizon only they can see.

We swing by the far end of the bar, and the bartender slides us sparkling water with lime wedges as if she can read our minds. The soundtrack is low and silk-smooth. The place is packed with people, and some of them are not shy at all. I blush as a couple of women make out with a man on the couch.

I pretend to sip. Arrow actually does, which is impressive.

He appears unfazed by everything. He wears a white-button down, no tie, shirt open at the throat just enough to say I’m relaxed and not arrest me .

He blends so well he creates a negative space.

Like if you stopped looking actively, you wouldn’t see him at all. And yet I can feel him. I always do.

“Pride?” he murmurs.

“Pride,” I say, and we drift past Lust (obvious), past Gluttony (there’s a buffet and some truly committed whipped cream architecture), past Sloth (pillows, god help me), and into Pride: a gallery with plush white banquettes along the walls, a mirrored ceiling that feels like a sky made of facets, and a central installation: a ring of frames that look empty until you catch them from the right angle and realize they’re polarized glass, hiding and revealing scenes in a slow, curated pulse.

We take a corner banquette near the exit that sees everything—the door, the bar station, the frames, the full sweep of sin in good lighting.

Arrow angles himself so he can watch the room with his eyes and the mirrors with the rest of his brain.

He sets our water on the low table. His knee touches mine, a line that’s ridiculous in a room where two people three couches over are testing the strength of a zipper like an Olympic sport.

Pride hums with permission. People make out.

Some do more. The Greedy Girls glide like priests of a tender religion, checking in with a glance, a hand to their own wrist to ask band colors again before anyone’s mouth goes where mouths go.

It’s consensual choreography, and it’s doing things to my ability to breathe evenly.

Arrow’s finger draws lazy circles on my knee, casual and devastating. It’s nothing and everything. I lean in like gravity is a rumor and he’s the only true thing here. His breath warms the delicate skin beneath my ear. He doesn’t touch it, because if he does I will forget why we’re here.

“Okay?” he asks, voice so low it feels private.

“Unfair,” I whisper back, which doubles as yes .

“Unfair isn’t a safe word,” he says, and presses one dry, careful kiss to the corner of my mouth that lights a fuse I did not authorize.

“Hey,” a voice says gently, and we blink apart as if we’re teenagers caught on a church pew.

A woman stands near our table, green band, kind smile, and her hair in tight curls.

A man stands a respectful few feet behind her, hands in his pockets like he knows where they’ve been invited to go and is willing to wait.

“You two are beautiful,” she says, no hunger in it, only admiration.

“If you want to watch, we’re over there.

” She nods toward a blank frame that will not be blank if viewed at the right angle.

“Or if you want company…?” She gestures to her own wrist, green band bright. “We’re good with yellow, too.”

Arrow’s thumb presses once to the side of my knee: your call. My heart does a weird, grateful thing.

“Thank you,” I say, meaning it because she asked instead of assumed. “We’re… first-timers.”

Her eyes soften. “Then you’re doing great. Yellow is a good first night. If you change your minds, my name’s Desire. That’s Brad. We’ll be around.”

“Have fun,” Brad adds, giving us a quick nod.

They drift. I exhale a breath I didn’t know I’d been bracing. Arrow’s mouth is so close to my hair that if he were anyone else, I’d be mad. Because he’s him, I lean. The room’s heat has nothing on the line of his thigh fitted to mine.

“We can leave,” he says, not because he wants to, but because he’ll walk me out even if I’m the one who dragged us in.

“We can’t,” I say, because we came here to hunt, not to hide. “But if you keep drawing circles I am going to?—”

He stops drawing circles. His hand slides closer to the hem of my dress, warm through the fabric, not crossing—because yes, but also because we have a job.

I try to watch like a detective and not like a girl whose pulse is trying to tap out Morse code for please.

Pride’s frames flick to reveal a tableau: a couple in masks, kissing slow.

Another flick shows nothing and everything: my reflection and, beyond it, a man I know from boring cookouts with store-bought potato salad and Bob’s jokes about cholesterol.

“Arrow.” I don’t say it out loud. I breathe it, and his posture shifts by a molecule. “Look over there.”

He follows my gaze. Three couches down, under a painting of a laurel-wreathed mirror, sits Paul Felder.

He’s out of his navy polo and into a suit that fits too well to be new.

His green band glows like an invitation.

He works with Bob—city contracts, I think, Procurement or Utilities, the office with bad ceiling tiles and pep talks about fiscal responsibility.

He’s not doing anything illegal—talking to a woman with a sequined mask, her hand light on his forearm as she laughs —but the last place I expected to see Bob’s favorite second-in-command was at Club Greed.

I lift my hand without thinking, a reflex wave from a thousand barbecues. Arrow’s fingers close around mine, and he presses our hands back into my lap. I glare at him. He tips his head a fraction.

He whispers, so soft I feel it more than I hear it. “Do you want Bob to get an ‘I saw Juno’ text from Paul?”

Accepted. I turn my head just enough to see Paul without staring. He looks… not happy. Not unhappy, either.

The door at the far end opens and the room tilts. You can tell a shift in power the way you can feel a weather front—pressure drops and everyone’s hair learns a new trick.

Five men waltz into Pride like they’re cutting a ribbon. Not literally—no choreography, no parade—but their arrival organizes the air.

I know them before I know them. Not their faces, not their names, not their scent. I know them because the shape of the space around them is wrong. Because the murder in my sister’s live feed had a rhythm, and this is the percussion section walking in with sticks.

Man One is the kind of handsome that looks good as a logo: mid-forties, all angles and rested ego, suit charcoal with a silk sheen like he came here straight from a boardroom that keeps a decanter for him.

A small scar tracks over the knuckle of his index finger—white and smooth, like old paper.

Watch: black ceramic. Ring: glossy onyx set low. His smile looks expensive.

Man Two is tall enough to change light bulbs without a ladder. Shaved head, a dark line of ink just above his collar that disappears into money. Shoulders like a linebacker and posture that says “former something.” His band is… red. No approach. A statement as strategic as a chess move.

Man Three is pretty and knows it—collar open, gold chain fine as spider silk. He wears loafers with tassels (which should be a crime) and a pinky ring that glints when he gestures. The staff glance at him too long; I can’t tell if it’s caution or credit.

Man Four is shorter, compact, eyes like a fox. Restless leg jig. He keeps touching his ear as if there’s an itch under the skin. Scars along his knuckles too, but messier, recent.

Man Five is young—early twenties, maybe, jaw tight in a way that suggests he’s auditioning for a role he’s over-practiced in the mirror.

His tie is a fraction too slim. His laugh, when it comes, is a fraction too loud.

He’s the kind of man who brings knives to poker and loses his shirt to a bluff, then learns how to count cards.

They fan through the room like a slow wave. Staff in black cuffs do that dance that’s part welcome, part warning. Pride tilts to include them without admitting it.

Man One clocks Paul the way sharks clock the silhouette of a seal. His smile clicks into place like a blade in a pocket. He raises his hand—casual, careless—and shapes his fingers into a gun. Thumb up. Index extended. He winks. Pew.

My blood goes to ice. All the air in Club Greed rushes out a slit in the side of the world and I’m a vacuum.

Arrow’s body is still, which is how I know he’s vibrating. I nudge him, fingernails biting his thigh. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t look away. His voice—a breath, a ghost—slips into our tiny channel. “We’ve got them.”