Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
And Arrow in his jeans, black Henley, beard looking hot enough to ride, and his sunglasses pushed up into his hair. He’s at the whiteboard, already drawing a timeline with a neat hand. He turns when I enter and the room shifts almost imperceptibly, like everyone rotates a few degrees to face me. It’s not threatening. It feels like being backed up.
“Final Girl,” Render says, using the nickname with a tiny smile, as if checking whether it still fits. “Ready to set a small, legal-adjacent fire?”
“As long as it’s pointed the right way,” I say, setting my bag down and spreading my notes across the nearest table.
Knight taps the whiteboard. “We’ve got a skeleton plan. You flesh it out, we’ll give it muscle.”
Ozzy slides a hot tea toward me. “Mint. For nerves. No judgment if you spike it with whiskey later.”
I take the mug and meet Arrow’s eyes across the table. For a second, everything else blurs. I’m still mad, still cracked down the middle… and I’m safer just looking at him. I hate how true that is.
“Okay,” I say, pulling myself into the circle. “Here’s what we know, plus the scraps I scraped up today.”
I walk them through it: Arby’s Close Friends stories; the matchbook; Megan at Atlas Room remembering smoked honey and a signet ring. Nereus Marine LLC – Legacy Slip D4; Render’s text about Nicolas Armand; the burner text—bright girl—and how it curdled my stomach. I show the blurry photo of the signet crest, the boat shot, the half-caught license plate: NRS-0417.
Gage’s eyes sharpen. “I can stabilize that plate photo more. Also pull any city cams along the marina exit and build a car path.”
“Valet logs,” Render adds. “Marina Club’s system is outsourced. If they run a cloud POS, I can angle a spear-phish.”
Knight gives a low whistle. “English, please.”
“Render will politely trick the valet vendor into giving us the guest list,” Ozzy translates. “And we’ll send them cookies. Always cookies.”
“Cookies are essential to any op,” Knight says solemnly.
Arrow spins the whiteboard toward us—timeline tight and legible: ATLAS → MARINA → NEREUS → UNKNOWN TEXT. He boxes Nicolas Armand and draws arrows to Marina Membership, Boat Registration, Atlas Tabs, Cell Pings.
“Two tracks,” he says. “Soft and hard. Soft: social engineering, human contact. We use Atlas and Marina Club to pull what people will give us if we look confident and slightly annoying. Hard: metadata. Plates, cell towers, public cams, vendor crumbs.”
Gage nods. “I’ll sit in a car and become a bat.”
Knight claps him on the shoulder. “Bats are underappreciated.”
“Atlas,” I say. “Megan said he came back twice after. Alone. Watching the door. If he thinks I’m coming back—”
“Bait,” Render finishes, eyes thoughtful. “We can set a perimeter and let him give himself away.”
Arrow’s jaw tightens. “We control the room if we do that. Two plainclothes at the bar, one at the door, one outside on comms. You never order a drink we haven’t watched poured.”
“Dad voice,” Ozzy stage-whispers, and Knight coughs “standing order” into his fist. Gage doesn’t look up but I catch the twitch of a smile.
Heat crawls up my neck. I try not to smile and fail. “He’s not wrong,” I say, and Arrow’s shoulders subtly drop half an inch.
“Marina,” Render continues, businesslike again. “Armand’s paper trail is thin—LLCs that lead to shells. But the club loves a list. I’ll work the membership angle. Juno, do you know anyone in their orbit? Sponsor reps? That PR girl who invited Arby to the Gracewood thing?”
“Etta,” I say, making a face. “She’d answer if I DM with the right amount of faux glam and moral superiority.”
“Do it,” Render says. “Ask about ‘Nico’ like he’s a known quantity and you haven’t been in mourning. People love to fill gaps with their own info.”
Gage flips open his tablet. “I can build a facial composite from the Close Friends reflections and the Marina cams. Not perfect. Good enough to track if he goes past the angles we can borrow.”
Knight leans on the table. “And this bright girl text?”
“I’ve got the last tower ping before that phone went swimming,” Render says. “Under the bridge by the rowing sheds. I can drop a micro-crawler there to sniff for any burner that goes live in the same square foot. Creeps are habitual.”
Gage sucks in a breath. “Pizza for Render. Extra cheese. Forever.”
They move like a machine that learned to dance. I watch and feel the panic loosen, a centimeter at a time. Then Knight turns to me.
“What do you need?” he asks. “Like, specifically. What gets you through the next forty-eight without detonating?”
I blink. The question is a hand held out in a dark room. “Structure,” I admit. “A schedule. Check-ins that aren’t lectures. And… someone to tell my mom I’m not sleeping with a knife under my pillow even if I am.”
“Copy,” Gage says, tapping his phone. “I’ll text Karen from ‘Unknown Number’ with a tasteful check-in. Kidding. I’ll text you reminders and you text Karen. No fake-outs.”