Chapter 160: The Bartender Who Kept the Last Bullet
The roar of the falls was still a phantom vibration in their chests as they turned onto Clarence Street. Here, the cold river mist was replaced by a warmer, stickier fog of spilled beer, frying oil, and the febrile energy of a weekend night straining against its seams. The Heart & Crown was a landmark of brick and faux-Victiana, its windows glowing like heated amber in the dark, spilling chatter and the thump of live Celtic folk-rock onto the wet sidewalk.
Inside was a controlled riot. The air was thick with the smell of yeast and wool damp from melted snow. A quartet of musicians sawed away on a cramped stage, their reels fighting a cheerful losing battle against the din of a hundred conversations shouting to be heard. Bodies were packed around scarred wooden tables, leaning across the long, gleaming bar, navigating the narrow spaces with the careful, slightly tilted determination of the well-lubricated.
And behind the bar, moving through the chaos like a dancer in a familiar, frantic choreography, was Melody Gill.
She was a flash of dark hair and quick smiles, her hands never still. Two pints drawn while taking an order over her shoulder. A cocktail shaker rattling in time with the fiddle’s manic pace. A credit card run, a joke told to a flushed patron, a bottle snatched from a low shelf without looking. She moved with a preternatural economy, her gaze sweeping the crowd, landing on empty glasses, on hesitant newcomers, on trouble before it bubbled over. She smiled constantly, but it was a professional instrument—warm, inclusive, and capable of shifting in an instant to cool a too-forward advance or placate a impatient customer.
Xia and Antoinette swam through the human current and found two recently vacated stools at the bar’s far end, near the service station. They watched her work for several minutes. Melody noted them with a flick of her eyes—assessing, categorizing—but didn’t approach until she had dealt with a rowdy group demanding shots.
When she finally slid over, wiping her hands on a dark towel tucked into her apron, her smile was fresh, as if she’d just started her shift. “Welcome back. The usual chaos, right? What can I get you?” Her voice was a melody cut with city-smarts, threading easily through the noise.
“Just water, please,” Xia said.
“Same,” Antoinette added.
Melody’s eyebrows lifted a fraction, not in judgement but in updated calculation. She filled two tumblers with ice and filtered water, setting them down without comment. “Takes a certain kind of focus to come into a place like this on a dry run.”
“We are observing,” Xia said, her fingers tracing the cold condensation on the glass. “You see a great deal from here.”
“It’s the best seat in the house. Front row to the human comedy, tragedy, and everything tacky in between.” Melody leaned her elbows on the bar, a posture of relaxed confidence. A group at the other end called for her; she held up a single finger without looking—wait—and they fell silent, obedient.
“You must hear many stories,” Xia continued.
“People talk to the gin. I just happen to be holding the bottle.” She shrugged, but her eyes were sharp, watching them. “Honestly, it’s less about hearing stories and more about hearing the spaces between the words. The silences are usually louder. The guy who orders a double when he said he was ‘fine.’ The woman who laughs too hard at a date’s unfunny joke. The confession that slips out right before last call, when the courage finally outweighs the shame.” She smiled. “It’s more honest than confession, sometimes. Whiskey doesn’t judge, but it also forgets nothing. I’m just the temporary witness.”
Antoinette took a sip of water, her gaze steady on Melody. “And what do you do with those confessions? Keep them safe? Or do you save them?”
Melody’s smile didn’t fade. It brightened, becoming almost luminous. It was a beautiful, empty answer. “Safe is a relative term, isn’t it? My job is to listen, not to archive. The second I start writing things down, I’m not a bartender anymore. I’m a liability.” She pushed off the bar to grab a bottle of bourbon for a waiting customer, poured a precise measure, and was back in the same fluid motion. “Let’s just say the ice melts, the glass gets washed, and the memory… well, it gets filed under ‘tips.’ Some stuff, you remember just to make sure you never end up in that story yourself.”
A young man stumbled against the bar, sloshing a drink. Melody caught the glass before it fell, steadied him with a firm hand on his arm, and guided him back toward his friends with a laugh that sounded genuinely caring. “Easy there, tiger. The floor’s hungry tonight.” She turned back, her expression seamless. “See? Just managing the ecosystem.”
“Some parts of the ecosystem are more volatile than others,” Antoinette pressed. “Like Eric Lake’s races.”
Melody’s right hand, reaching for a cloth to wipe the spill, paused for a half-second on the neck of a soda gun bottle. The pause was so brief it could have been a stutter in the light. Then her fingers closed around the cloth and she swept it across the polished wood. “Eric’s a patron. Enjoys the theatrics. Some people like hockey fights, some like niche political Twitter, Eric likes engines and adrenaline. It’s a hobby.” Her tone was studiously light, but the words were chosen like stones for a narrow path.
“A hobby that requires specialty deliveries,” Xia said softly. “From people like Francis Menton.”
This time, the reaction was different. Melody let out a quick, musical laugh that felt a fraction too loud for the comment. “Francis? Oh, he’s the unofficial mayor of the back alley. Keeps the world turning so the rest of you can pretend it spins on sunshine and ethics.” She shook her head, the laugh dying into a fond, wry smile that didn’t touch the watchfulness in her eyes. “He’s practical. Doesn’t ask questions his invoice can’t answer.”
“Practical people keep records,” Antoinette said. “Of deliveries. Of conversations. Of debts.”
“Sounds exhausting.” Melody began polishing a glass, holding it up to the light. “I prefer to travel light. Less to lose.”
The protective smile came when Aria’s name entered the air, unprompted. Antoinette simply said, “Aria Baker navigates different rooms.”
Melody’s expression softened, the professional sheen giving way to something genuine and fierce. “Aria navigates minefields in stilettos. She remembers every name because nobody else bothered to learn hers. She’s the reason some of the worst nights for some of the best people didn’t end in the headlines.” She set the glass down with a quiet click. “You don’t touch Aria. That’s one of the few rules in this town that actually has teeth.”
The thread was there, tightening. Eric’s orchestrated fear. Francis’s logistical memory. Aria’s social cartography. And here, in the warm, noisy heart of it all, Melody Gill—the living conduit, the confessor who pretended not to remember.
Xia watched her. Saw not just the ease, but the curated nature of it. The way her eyes continually scanned, not just for empty glasses, but for threats, for shifts, for the moment a familiar, dangerous presence might darken the door. She remembered everyone’s poison, their tipping point, their secret. She had survived not by being tougher or louder, but by being more fluid, more necessary, and by knowing exactly where every body was buried.
More than knowing.
Xia’s gaze dropped to Melody’s hands. One rested on the bar, fingers drumming a silent, patient rhythm. The other was out of sight below the counter, likely near the till, or maybe near the small, discreet shelf where bartenders kept their personal items—a phone, keys, a can of deterrent spray.
Or a recording device.
It was there. It had to be. The unfired bullet. The insurance policy that was also a self-destruct button. Melody hadn’t survived by being lucky. Luck ran out. She had survived by holding the one piece of actionable truth that could bring the whole delicate, toxic structure tumbling down, and by having the discipline, every single night, to weigh it in her hand and choose, again, not to pull the trigger.
Because firing it wouldn’t just wound Eric. It would detonate shrapnel through Francis, expose Aria, incinerate Sterling and Kiara’s fragile cover, and scorch her own life down to the foundations. The confession was safe only as long as it stayed silent. The moment it spoke, it ceased to be a shield and became the first brick in her own tomb.
Melody met Xia’s understanding look. The bright, playful bartender facade was still there, but behind it, in the unflinching steadiness of her return gaze, was the weariness of the jailer who holds the only key.
The fiddle player launched into a frenetic, joyful jig. The crowd whooped. Melody’s professional smile snapped back into place.
“Last call’s in an hour,” she said, her voice once again the sound of a good time. “Sure you won’t have anything stronger?".
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Major’s Hill Park, Ottawa, Canada — near Mackenzie Avenue, overlooking the Ottawa River, with Parliament Hill, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Château Laurier nearby.
The park was a vault of frozen stillness after the bar’s furnace blast. Frost limned every branch of the skeletal trees, glittering under the strategic glow of Victorian-style lampposts that carved islands of hazy gold in the deep blue night. Below the stone retaining wall, the Ottawa River moved like a slab of black polished slate, its surface catching and smearing the illuminated towers of Parliament Hill into trembling, august streaks.
They arrived in pairs and solo, their breath pluming in the bitter air, their footsteps crunching on the gritted ice of the path. Sterling was first, of course, a kinetic silhouette bursting from the shadow of the Château with a restless, jogging energy. “Park meetup, nice. Very clandestine. Are we getting murdered or recruited? Because I didn’t bring a resume.”
“You never bring anything useful,” Kiara said, materializing beside him. Her voice was low, meant only for him, but it carried in the cold silence. She wore a practical, dark puffer jacket, her hands jammed in the pockets, her gaze already performing a tactical sweep of the space. She looked at Antoinette and Xia, then past them, cataloging exits, sightlines.
Francis appeared next, looking like a man who’d rather be billing for this. He gave a tight, economical nod, his eyes doing a quick headcount and monetary assessment of the group. “Evening,” he said, the word a placeholder with no warmth. He stood apart, positioning himself with a clear view of who approached from which direction.
Aria and Melody came together from the direction of the market. They walked close but not touching, a united front of disparate energies: Aria was polished serenity in a tailored wool coat, Melody was a bundle of vibrant, nervous warmth in a faux-fur trimmed parka. “You picked a spot with good lighting,” Aria observed softly, her hostess smile already in place, acknowledging everyone with a graceful, inclusive glance that still felt like being individually weighed.
Eric Lake was last. He didn’t sneak up; he let them hear the deliberate, steady tread of his boots on the path. He walked into the lamplight as if taking a stage, leather jacket open over a thin sweater, his face a mask of congenial curiosity. He stopped next to a bench, leaning back against it, crossing his ankles. “A convocation,” he said, his voice a smooth roll in the quiet. “This feels momentous.”
Sterling barked a laugh. “Or it’s a really elaborate intervention. Which, for some of us…” He trailed off, his joke dying as his eyes found Eric. The air crackled, suddenly thinner. Kiara’s hand drifted subtly toward Sterling’s arm. Francis watched the exchange with the detached interest of a market analyst. Melody’s bright smile stayed fixed, but her eyes became very still.
Antoinette broke the silence. “This isn’t a social call.” She stood beside Xia, a study in contrasts: Antoinette all sharp angles and focused intent, Xia a pool of unnerving calm. “You’ve each been evaluated. You represent a unique portfolio of… attributes.”
Xia’s voice, when it came, was softer than the rustle of the frozen trees. “There is a competition. It is called the Temporal Dynamics Challenge. Season Four.” She paused, letting the unfamiliar name hang. “It is not a game show. It is an engineered pressure environment. Filmed. It tests physiological endurance, psychological resilience, social strategy, and the capacity for calculated alliance.” Her mercury-flecked eyes moved from face to face. “Also the capacity for necessary betrayal.”
Eric’s grin returned, wider now. “I’m listening.”
“We will remain here for two weeks,” Xia continued, ignoring him. “Further observation. Further testing. In the end, we will select only two individuals from this group. One male. One female. They will be contestants from this locale.”
Sterling leaned forward. “Select for what, though? Like, a talent agency? A secret militia? You’re being weirdly vague for lady space recruiters.”
Antoinette cut in, her tone leaving no room for dramatics. “You will be tested as a group. Your ability to cooperate, even temporarily, even with those you distrust, will be part of the evaluation. None of you operate in a vacuum. Your networks are your strength and your vulnerability. We are assessing which of you can navigate that reality under extreme duress.”
Francis cleared his throat. “Okay. Let’s talk numbers. What’s the operational budget? Compensation for time spent? Liability waivers?”
Xia looked at him, then slowly scanned the entire circle—Sterling’s impatient energy, Kiara’s protective suspicion, Francis’s calculated greed, Aria’s polished ambivalence, Eric’s performative intrigue, Melody’s guarded watchfulness.
Then she gave the number.
“One hundred million dollars.”
The words didn’t echo. They were absorbed by the cold, swallowed whole by the immensity of the night and the river. But their impact was total.
Sterling’s smirk vanished, his mouth actually hanging open. Kiara’s tactical composure shattered, her head snapping toward Xia as if physically struck. Francis stopped breathing, his entire world of invoices and favors recalibrating around a new, impossible decimal point. Aria’s perfect smile froze, then melted into a look of pure, undisguised shock, her polish cracking to reveal the raw ambition beneath. Eric’s amused detachment evaporated, his posture straightening, eyes narrowing with a feverish, predatory focus.
Melody let out a tiny, choked sound that was neither laugh nor gasp.
For that one breath, held collectively in seven frozen lungs, every performance ceased. The loyal protector, the chaotic brother, the greedy archivist, the social climber, the cruel director, the secret-keeper—all erased. What remained was the bare, human machinery of want, stunned into honesty by the sheer gravitational pull of the number.
The river slid past below, indifferent. The lights of Parliament glowed, impartial. In the park, seven people stared at the two who had spoken, and the world they knew dissolved into a terrifying, glittering possibility.