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)
I do none of those things. Instead I pull the mandala book toward me and color three petals purple and two black and set the pencil down when the lines start to look like a target. The Ring camera sits like a dead eye on the entry table. I turn it back on. We’re in the thick of it now, and better safe than sorry.
Three knocks makes me breathe again. Arrow fills the doorway like he knows how to stand there. He’s in jeans and a black jacket and the careful, unflappable face he wears when he’s about to say something ordinary that is also a plan. His eyes slide over me like a check-in and land on my hands. I tuck the purple pencil behind my ear and pretend I look like someone who slept.
“Coffee,” he says, offering peace in a paper cup.
“Bribery,” I say, taking it.
He steps in, and the door clicks shut. He sets the bag on the table and doesn’t touch me until I lean and then he does—the softest press of lips to my temple, which is sometimes better than a kiss and sometimes worse. My body can’t decide which today.
“How are you?” he asks, the way people ask what time is it when they’re scared of clocks.
“I’m fine,” I lie, then amend, “I’m not fine. I’m… upright.”
He nods. “Upright is an achievement.”
We do the ritual of normal for five minutes—he complains about Ozzy’s new obsession with inventing the perfect martini algorithm. I tell him my neighbor appears to be fostering a small herd of feral scooters, and we act like the timer will go off if we don’t talk about Merritt by minute six. The timer goes off anyway.
“What now?” I ask, catching his eyes.
“The remaining Four are spooked,” he says. “And I’m going to tell you something you already know. Spooked men leak.”
“You think we should go to Club Greed?” I ask.
“Maybe,” he says. “Or Stonehouse. Or the marina. Gage’s got three flags on Gray’s calendar—two ‘private’ lunch holds and a donor dinner at the South Conservatory. None scream Five, but Coleman never calendar-screams. He calendar-whispers.”
“What about Nico?” I ask. The name tastes like metal.
“Render has eyes on D4,” Arrow says. “Rook too. If Nico moves something larger than an apology, we’ll see the ripple. But today? Today we either go to Church”—Greed—“and watch, or we go to Stonehouse.”
“Stonehouse,” I repeat. I can picture the back room—leather, ice cubes the size of dice, laughter that always sounds a hair too loud. “I want to know who hired them.”
“I know,” he says. “Render can seed a false reservation: venture capital parasite meets ‘new friends’ at nine. If Beau Latham thinks someone wants to talk distribution or purpose or prestige, he’ll show. He’s a peacock. Coleman may not. Rook won’t if he smells a camera. Devin will if Beau tells him to.”
“And Gray?” I say. “Do we poke the saint?”
His mouth twists. “We never poke the saint where he can paint himself persecuted. We invite him to say no comment somewhere we’re recording.”
I walk to the wall and stare at the name MERRITT until the line through his name stops swimming. My chest tightens on the inhale.
“I’ve changed my mind, I want to go back to Club Greed,” I say, turning. “I want Devereaux’s eyes. I want to sit in Pride and watch them not come. Or come and pretend they didn’t.”
Arrow doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t say Are you sure, because I am, and he knows I’ll only become more so if he challenges me. “Okay,” he says. “We go early. Not members’ night. We talk to Devereaux like adults who understand liability. We don’t ask for names. We ask for patterns.”
“What about asking for favors?” I ask. “Can we do that?”
“We can,” he says. “But we do it as people who can keep their side of a bargain. We don’t make him choose between his house and our war.”
“Fine,” I say, even though I want to keep wanting until someone gives me something illegal.
He reads my face and then looks away like he’s giving me privacy inside my own skin. “There’s another option,” he says. “It’s messy.”
“Sold,” I say, because of course it is.
“We use your voice,” he says. “The podcast. Ten-minute drop. Not names, not doxxing. Just… a story. A smart, sharp story that says ‘I’m closer than you think. I know what you call your jokes. I know where you drink.’ Beau will clench. Devin will post and delete. Coleman will pretend to be bored and then show up somewhere to preen. Gray will call a lawyer. Nico will…send a text.”
“Bright girl,” I say, jaw tight.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice soft and smooth.
I picture hitting record. I picture my voice steady and terrible in a good way. I picture people listening with their phones on their chests, breath held, rooting for a girl who colors circles in the afternoon and hunts men at night.