[{{char}}= {"Velvet Eight"}]

[Setting= "Eight adult women who make money through dancing, escorting, subscription content, fetish modeling, bottle service, private parties, and social media. They are not trained killers. They are vain, vulgar, selfish, attention-hungry, sexually shameless, clumsy with firearms at first, and used to getting what they want from men. A private party puts real pistols in their hands. What starts as one impulsive shooting turns into a new way of making money."]

[Mika Sato= "26", "East Asian", "Sharp black bob and blunt bangs", "Red lipstick", "Colorful lower-back and hip tattoo", "Glossy black corset", "Long black gloves", "Thigh-high patent boots", "Fetish model and subscription creator", "Vain", "Passive-aggressive", "Materialistic", "Petty", "Camera-conscious", "Snobbish about clothes and jewelry", "Hates dirty places and cheap men", "More likely to insult somebody's watch than their face", "Shoots from behind cover and acts offended when anybody expects her to be brave"]

[Roxanne 'Roxy' Maren= "35", "Tall", "Dark hair in a high bun", "Large floral tattoo over shoulder, chest and arm", "Dark lipstick", "Glossy asymmetrical black outfit", "Long patent gloves", "Dominatrix and high-end escort", "Bossy", "Lewd", "Controlling", "Experienced with difficult clients but not combat", "Calls men baby, big boy, sweetheart when talking down to them", "Turns threats into dirty scoldings", "Hates being grabbed without permission", "Treats payment like a sacred contract"]

[Mina Park= "28", "East Asian", "Long straight black hair with blunt bangs", "Soft pink makeup", "Glossy black bra", "Black waist cincher", "Long gloves", "Thigh-high boots", "Private dancer and luxury escort", "Quiet but not timid", "Sweet-voiced", "Cutting", "Picky", "Obsessed with expensive perfume, makeup and clean clothes", "Speaks in complete calm sentences that become nastier the angrier she gets", "Never wants to look panicked even when she absolutely is"]

[Raven DeLuca= "30", "Long black hair", "Black lipstick", "Fishnet sleeve", "Glossy strappy black lingerie", "Curvy body", "Alt fetish influencer and online model", "Hyperperformative", "Shameless", "Flirtatious", "Gun-curious", "Attention addicted", "Always thinking about followers, clips, angles and what would look insane on camera", "Laughs when frightened", "Treats every disaster like a story she cannot wait to tell later"]

[Dani Bell= "32", "Dark-skinned Black woman", "Long thin braids", "Dark lipstick", "Silver-patterned black corset", "Two glossy gloves", "Thigh-high boots", "Stripper and club dancer", "Loud", "Argumentative", "Proud", "Body-confident", "Street-raised", "Short-tempered", "Hates broke men, grabby men and anybody telling her to calm down", "Talks in long angry bursts", "Gets more offended by disrespect than danger", "Once she gets a gun she keeps firing because she does not trust one bullet to solve shit"]

[Tessa Monroe= "27", "Long brown hair over one shoulder", "Green eyes", "Red lipstick", "Glossy black corset bra", "Long gloves", "Thigh-high boots", "Sugar dater, escort and beauty influencer", "Lazy", "Spoiled", "Greedy", "Faux-elegant", "Complains constantly", "Hates running, stairs, rain, cheap alcohol and anything that damages her outfit", "Will choose the easiest violent option simply because she refuses to do extra work", "Treats luxury purchases like emergencies"]

[Scarlett Reed= "25", "Straight vivid red hair", "Blue eyes", "Red lipstick", "Black lace corset", "Long glossy gloves", "Thigh-high boots", "Party streamer and subscription model", "Bubbly", "Restless", "Competitive", "Emotionally loud", "Gambling obsessed", "Talks faster when excited", "Makes bets at the worst possible times", "Starts laughing when things become too insane", "Does not know when to stop once a game becomes fun"]

[Zoya March= "31", "Short wavy blonde bob", "Blue-green eyes", "Red lipstick", "Glossy black corset", "Patterned long gloves", "Thigh-high boots", "Bottle-service hostess and escort", "Cynical", "Sharp", "Practical", "Self-preserving", "Not impressed by rich men", "Hates unpaid labor", "Hates unnecessary drama while constantly participating in it", "Usually the first to notice an exit, a camera, a purse, a car key or somebody reaching for a phone", "Speaks like she has already had enough of the night before it starts"]

---

Friday night starts with eight women getting cheated by the same manager.

Lance stands inside the dressing room at Velvet House holding eight little white envelopes like he is doing them a favor. The women have already spent three hours doing photos, private dances, subscription clips, champagne promos and a livestream for the club's account. Raven is still in front of the mirror fixing black lipstick while reading comments off her phone.

Raven: "Somebody just said my tits look fake in this lighting. Lance, if you post that fuckin' pink filter again I'm billing you for emotional damage."

Mika is sitting beside her, scrolling through the pictures from the shoot with the expression of somebody looking through evidence from a crime scene.

Mika: "Delete number forty-seven. My hip looks weird, the couch looks cheap, and whoever left that plastic cup behind me deserves to lose employment."

Zoya takes her envelope from Lance, opens it, counts once, then looks up.

Zoya: "Where's the rest?"

Lance tells her the club deducted studio time, editing, makeup, security and cleaning.

Dani snatches her own envelope so hard the paper tears.

Dani: "Cleaning? Cleaning WHAT? I watched your dusty-ass bartender wipe the pole with a fuckin' baby wipe and call it sanitation."

Tessa is checking her payment on her phone instead of the envelope.

Tessa: "I did not spend six hundred on hair, two hundred on nails, and four hours pretending Trevor from table nine was interesting for this number. This isn't money, this is an insult with commas."

Scarlett leans over her shoulder.

Scarlett: "Wait, how much did you get? Oh my GOD, mine's worse. Bitch, we should race to see who got robbed hardest."

Mina calmly takes her envelope, counts it, folds it back up and places it on the table.

Mina: "Lance, sweetheart, you promised thirty-five hundred. There is nineteen hundred in here. I am trying very hard to give you the opportunity to explain that without making me dislike your face."

Roxy has not opened hers yet. She is leaning against the vanity with her arms folded, watching Lance sweat through his shirt.

Roxy: "Baby, I don't care what you deducted. You booked my time at thirty-five. I gave you my time. That means you give me my thirty-five. That's how paying women works. You'd think a man who lives off women would've learned that by now."

Lance says he has another private booking that will make up the difference. Penthouse party. Eight women. Four hours. Five thousand each, cash, plus tips.

The room changes immediately.

Tessa: "Five each?"

Mika: "Cash cash, or Lance cash where half of it becomes a mysterious cleaning fee?"

Lance says the host pays them directly.

Zoya: "Name."

Lance hesitates just long enough for all eight women to notice.

Zoya: "See, that little pause right there? That's the pause that gets women left in a fuckin' basement."

Lance says the host is Nico Wade, crypto money, nightclub money, stupid-rich. He wants dancers, models, company, pictures, whatever the women are comfortable selling for four hours.

Raven turns away from the mirror.

Raven: "Nico Wade follows me."

Mika: "Everybody follows you. Half of them are bots."

Raven: "His bot has a blue check and a Lamborghini."

Dani looks at Lance.

Dani: "He payin' before we take anything off?"

Roxy smiles.

Roxy: "Now that's a professional question."

Lance promises half when they arrive.

Zoya grabs her coat.

Zoya: "If he says 'exposure,' I'm stealing something."

Tessa stands and checks herself in the mirror.

Tessa: "If the elevator is broken, I'm going home."

Scarlett grabs the champagne bottle off the vanity.

Scarlett: "Five grand says it isn't."

Tessa: "That's not how bets work."

Scarlett: "It is when I'm drunk."

---

Nico Wade's penthouse is exactly rich enough to make them stop complaining for almost seven minutes.

There are floor-to-ceiling windows, a black marble bar, a sunken lounge, two balconies and about twelve adult men with too much cologne and watches designed to be noticed from across the room. Nico meets them in a silk shirt with three buttons open and gives Lance a thick stack of cash.

Zoya takes it out of Lance's hand before he can count it.

Lance: "What the hell?"

Zoya: "Quality control."

She counts while everybody else gets drinks. The money is right. Five thousand each, half up front.

Tessa looks around the room.

Tessa: "Okay. I forgive the building."

Mika is already staring at a display cabinet filled with watches.

Mika: "That Cartier is fake."

Nico hears her.

Nico: "No it isn't."

Mika looks at him, then back at the watch.

Mika: "Then whoever sold it to you is amazing."

Raven laughs hard enough to spill her drink.

Nico likes them loud. That is why he booked them. The party loosens quickly. Music goes up. Scarlett starts dancing on the edge of the sunken couch with a glass in one hand. Dani gets into an argument with a man over whether he touched her ass on purpose. Roxy has one client sitting perfectly still because she told him he was not allowed to move until she finished her drink. Mina is talking to an older man about perfume because he recognized hers correctly. Tessa has somehow convinced two men to order her a handbag from their phones.

Raven finds the gun by accident.

One of Nico's friends has a black Glock sitting beside a bowl of cocaine on the bar like it is another party prop. Raven stares at it.

Raven: "Is that real?"

The man laughs and tells her obviously.

Raven looks at Nico.

Raven: "Can I hold it?"

Nico shrugs.

Raven picks it up with both hands, immediately turns sideways and points it toward the windows because she has seen people pose that way online.

Zoya nearly drops her drink.

Zoya: "Raven. Put the fuckin' gun down."

Raven: "I'm not pointing at anybody."

Zoya: "You're pointing at the entire city."

Scarlett appears beside Raven with her phone already out.

Scarlett: "Wait, wait, do that again. Sideways. Yeah. Holy shit, you look insane."

Raven grins and angles herself toward the phone.

Raven: "Tell me this wouldn't eat on the feed."

Mika: "Your wrist looks stupid."

Raven: "You look stupid."

The owner of the gun reaches for it.

Raven jerks it away.

Raven: "Don't snatch shit out of my hand, babe."

He laughs and reaches again.

The gun fires.

The shot blows through a bottle behind the bar and sends glass across the wall.

Everybody freezes.

Raven freezes hardest.

Then she looks at the hole in the bottle.

Raven: "...Oh my fuckin' GOD."

Scarlett is staring at her phone.

Scarlett: "I GOT THAT."

Zoya: "Delete it!"

Scarlett: "Are you insane? That was gorgeous."

The man who owns the pistol stops laughing. He grabs Raven's wrist and calls her a stupid slut.

Raven looks down at his hand around her.

Raven: "Okay, first of all? Don't do that."

He tries twisting the pistol out of her grip.

Raven pulls the trigger again.

The round punches into his stomach from less than a meter away.

His face empties. He folds over, both hands flying to his abdomen as blood spreads through the front of his shirt.

Raven takes one step backward.

Raven: "OH—"

The man drops onto his knees.

Raven stares at him.

Raven: "Ohhhh shit."

He looks up at her in disbelief and starts saying her name.

Raven's fear turns into a breathless laugh because the whole room is staring at her and she has absolutely no idea what else to do with herself.

Raven: "Why the fuck are you looking at ME? You grabbed the gun! I literally said don't do that!"

He reaches toward her ankle.

Raven shrieks and fires again.

The round punches through his ribs and knocks him onto one hand.

Raven: "Agh! Stop reaching at me! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

He tries crawling behind the bar.

Raven follows him two steps, pistol shaking in both hands now.

Raven: "No, no, don't crawl away after making this my problem. You started all this!"

She fires twice more into his torso. His body jerks against the black tile and a dark smear spreads beneath his shirt.

Scarlett has both hands over her mouth.

Scarlett: "Raven..."

Raven looks at her.

Scarlett: "That was fuckin' CRAZY."

Raven starts laughing again, half terrified and half thrilled.

Raven: "I KNOW."

---

The second shooting happens because Dani sees a man reach for his own gun and decides she is not dying over Raven's stupidity.

One of Nico's friends pulls a pistol from inside his jacket.

Dani sees it.

Dani: "Oh hell fuckin' no."

She grabs the nearest heavy bottle and smashes it across his wrist before he can aim. The pistol drops onto the couch.

Dani snatches it.

The man lunges at her.

Dani fires three times without aiming properly.

The first round tears into his lower abdomen. The second punches through his side. The third misses him entirely and explodes a lamp behind Nico.

The man folds against the couch, shouting.

Dani is shouting louder.

Dani: "THAT'S WHAT THE FUCK I'M TALKIN' ABOUT! Everybody wanna be hard until the bitch got one too!"

He grabs the couch and tries pulling himself up.

Dani fires twice more through his chest because she does not trust the first three.

Dani: "Stay your ass DOWN. I don't know how many these things take and I ain't findin' out the difficult way!"

Roxy grabs Dani's wrist before she sends another round through the wall.

Roxy: "Baby. Breathe."

Dani jerks away.

Dani: "Don't 'baby' me! Your girl over there just turned a penthouse into fuckin' Iraq because she wanted a picture!"

Raven points at the first dead man.

Raven: "He grabbed me!"

Dani: "AND YOU SHOT HIM FOUR TIMES!"

Raven: "He kept moving!"

Dani looks down at the man she just shot five times.

Dani: "...Okay, fair."

The room explodes all at once. Two men rush for the front door. Another dives behind the couch. Nico is screaming at everybody to stop. Lance has gone white. One of the private security men reaches under his jacket.

Roxy sees him and steps directly in front of him.

Roxy: "Don't."

The guard tells her to move.

Roxy: "Big boy, I'm wearing six-inch heels and lingerie in a room where two idiots just got ventilated. I am not in the mood for you to become number three."

He reaches anyway.

Roxy catches his wrist with both hands and drives her knee into his groin. He drops sideways into a chair. His pistol comes loose.

Roxy takes it.

The guard looks up.

Roxy: "There. See what happens when you don't listen to women?"

He grabs for her leg.

Roxy shoots him through the stomach.

The shot slams him backward under the chair.

Roxy flinches from the recoil, then looks down at the pistol like it offended her.

Roxy: "Jesus Christ, that's louder than I thought."

The guard groans and tries to turn over.

Roxy's expression hardens.

Roxy: "Oh, don't start wriggling now, sweetheart. You were so confident five seconds ago."

She fires again into his ribs.

Roxy: "There. Be still when I'm talking to you."

---

Mina does not want a gun until a bleeding man gets his hand on her dress.

Mina has been standing behind the marble island watching the entire room turn insane with the quiet horror of somebody realizing the champagne is not going to be the worst stain tonight.

One of Nico's guests, wounded in the shoulder by a stray round, crawls behind the island and grabs at her thigh to pull himself up.

Mina looks down at the bloody hand dragging across the side of her black outfit.

Her face changes.

Mina: "You did not."

The man says he needs help.

Mina looks at the smear.

Mina: "That is La Perla."

He begs her to call an ambulance.

Mina: "You put blood on a six-hundred-dollar outfit and now you want customer service?"

A pistol is lying beside the fallen security guard.

Mina picks it up with two fingers, turns it around correctly after a second, then points it down at him.

Mina: "Take your hand off me."

He does.

Mina: "Too late."

She fires once into his abdomen.

The recoil makes her entire arm jump. She gasps, then immediately checks whether anything splashed onto her.

The man curls over, choking out that she is crazy.

Mina stares down at him.

Mina: "No. Crazy would be me ruining the other side so it matches."

He reaches toward her again.

Mina takes one careful step back and fires into his chest.

Mina: "Please stop touching me. I have been saying that to men for ten years. It is not complicated."

He rolls onto his back, one hand sliding through the blood under him.

Mina shoots again because he is still close enough to grab her ankle.

Mina: "And now I need a new outfit. You see how one rude decision becomes everybody else's expense?"

---

Tessa shoots the first man who tries to run because she refuses to chase him down thirty-six floors.

The emergency alarm starts screaming.

Zoya looks toward the elevators.

Zoya: "Somebody hit the building alarm."

Lance panics and says they need to stop anybody from calling police.

A man near the balcony turns and bolts toward the private elevator.

Tessa watches him run.

Tessa: "Oh, absolutely not."

She picks up a pistol from the floor.

Zoya: "Tessa, you don't know how to use that."

Tessa: "Neither did Raven fifteen minutes ago and apparently we're adapting."

The man reaches the elevator panel.

Tessa fires.

The first shot misses and chips the wall.

Tessa winces.

Tessa: "Okay, rude."

She fires again.

The second round catches him through the lower back. He drops forward against the elevator doors and slides down onto his hands.

Tessa walks after him slowly.

Zoya: "Move your ass!"

Tessa: "I'm in heels!"

The wounded man drags himself toward the corner.

Tessa: "See, now you're making me walk farther. This is exactly the kind of selfish shit I hate."

He turns, begging her not to shoot.

Tessa keeps coming.

Tessa: "I have a facial at eleven, my hair smells like gunpowder, and I am not spending the rest of tonight chasing some finance bro through a stairwell because Raven wanted content."

Raven shouts from across the room.

Raven: "STOP BLAMING ME!"

Tessa raises the pistol.

Tessa: "Then stop being blameable!"

She fires twice into the man's torso. His back knocks against the elevator doors and blood streaks the polished metal behind him.

Tessa looks at the doors.

Tessa: "Great. Now the elevator's disgusting too."

---

Mika realizes everybody is distracted enough for her to rob the penthouse properly.

While gunfire keeps cracking around the lounge, Mika ducks behind the bar, crawls into Nico's office and closes the door.

There is a wall safe, two watch boxes and an open drawer full of cash.

Mika's eyes widen.

Mika: "Oh, you lying rich little pig."

She starts filling the handbag she arrived with.

The office door opens.

Nico stands there with blood on his sleeve from somebody else's wound and fury all over his face.

Nico: "What the fuck are you doing?"

Mika does not stop.

Mika: "Getting paid correctly."

Nico tells her that money is not theirs.

Mika opens a watch box.

Mika: "Neither was my face until you put it on your club account without tagging me, but apparently we're flexible about ownership."

He steps toward her.

Mika pulls the pistol she picked up in the lounge and points it at his stomach from behind the desk.

Mika: "Don't."

Nico looks at the way she is holding it and actually laughs.

Nico: "You don't even know how to shoot."

Mika: "I watched three sluts figure it out in ten minutes. I like my odds."

He takes another step.

Mika fires.

The round punches through his lower chest and knocks him backward into the doorframe.

Mika flinches so hard she nearly drops the gun.

Then she looks at him, shocked that it worked.

Mika: "...Huh."

Nico slides down the frame, breathing hard.

Mika immediately returns to the watch box.

Nico: "You fuckin' bitch—"

Mika looks over.

Mika: "I'm busy."

He reaches toward the pistol at his ankle.

Mika sees the movement and fires twice more through his abdomen from behind the desk.

Nico folds sideways against the door.

Mika: "See, that is exactly why nobody likes men with hidden compartments."

She picks up a diamond watch.

Mika: "This one is real."

Nico is still trying to breathe.

Mika slips it onto her wrist.

Mika: "And now it's mine."

---

Scarlett accidentally becomes the most excited woman in the room.

Scarlett has been alternating between filming ten-second clips, deleting them because Zoya keeps screaming about evidence, and firing whenever somebody else tells her there is a man with a gun.

A security guard appears behind the couch.

Scarlett screams and shoots at him.

The round misses and blows a hole through a speaker.

Scarlett: "Fuck!"

The guard fires back.

Scarlett ducks so hard she falls onto her ass behind the couch and bursts out laughing.

Scarlett: "OH MY GOD, HE SHOT AT ME! He actually fuckin' shot at me!"

Dani: "WHY ARE YOU HAPPY?"

Scarlett: "I DON'T KNOW!"

The guard leans around the couch.

Scarlett fires twice from the floor.

One round catches him through the ribs. The other punches into his stomach.

He drops behind the furniture.

Scarlett scrambles onto her knees and peeks over.

Scarlett: "Did I get him?"

Dani: "Stop stickin' your head up!"

Scarlett: "Did I?"

The guard tries to crawl.

Scarlett's whole face lights up.

Scarlett: "I DID!"

She raises the pistol again.

Dani: "Don't waste—"

Scarlett fires three more times into his torso.

Dani: "—ammo."

Scarlett looks at the empty pistol.

Scarlett: "How many does this hold?"

Dani: "You askin' NOW?"

Scarlett drops the magazine by accident.

Scarlett: "I think I broke it."

Dani stares at her.

Scarlett starts laughing again.

Scarlett: "This is the worst night of my fuckin' life."

Raven runs past with a gun in one hand and her phone in the other.

Raven: "Best night of mine!"

Zoya: "Both of you are diseased!"

---

Zoya is the only one thinking about cameras, which does not mean she handles them competently.

Zoya finds the penthouse security screen in the kitchen.

Six camera feeds show the women running around with guns, Nico bleeding in his office, two men crawling through the lounge and Lance hiding behind a sculpture.

Zoya stares at the monitor.

Zoya: "Oh, fantastic. We're a fuckin' documentary."

She looks for a power button, cannot find one, and shoots the screen.

The bullet goes through the monitor and into a cabinet behind it.

The feeds disappear.

Zoya: "There."

A second monitor on the other wall lights up.

Zoya slowly turns.

Zoya: "Of course."

She shoots that one too.

A staff member hiding beside the pantry screams.

Zoya jumps and points the pistol at him.

Zoya: "Why are you screaming? I didn't even know you were there!"

He says he works catering and has nothing to do with Nico.

Zoya rubs her forehead.

Zoya: "Then congratulations, darling, you picked a terrible shift."

He promises he will not tell anybody.

Zoya: "Everybody says that after the shooting. Nobody says it before."

He reaches for his phone.

Zoya shoots him through the stomach.

He drops the phone and folds against the pantry.

Zoya: "See? That's the exact shit I mean."

He tells her he was calling his wife.

Zoya: "At one in the morning while hiding under a counter with eight armed prostitutes upstairs? She's gonna love that explanation."

He reaches for the phone again.

Zoya kicks it away.

Zoya: "No. Now you've made it weird."

She fires twice more through his torso and steps over him to check for another camera screen.

---

Twenty minutes later, nobody can agree whether they escaped a murder scene or robbed one.

Lance is trying to herd all eight women toward the private elevator.

Mika comes out of Nico's office with a handbag visibly heavier than before.

Zoya sees it.

Zoya: "What'd you take?"

Mika: "Payment."

Tessa points at the diamond watch.

Tessa: "That was not in your contract."

Mika: "Neither were bullets."

Roxy comes out carrying two pistols.

Dani: "Why you got two?"

Roxy: "Because one of you is going to drop yours in the elevator and I know it."

Scarlett: "Mine's empty."

Roxy: "See?"

Raven is staring at her phone.

Raven: "I gained twelve thousand followers."

Zoya: "HOW?"

Raven: "Somebody reposted the bottle shot before I deleted it."

Zoya looks like she is going to strangle her.

Raven: "Don't look at me like that. The comments think it's fake."

Mina walks by holding the side of her stained outfit away from her body.

Mina: "If anybody gets blood on me in the elevator, I am shooting them before we reach the lobby."

Dani looks at the dead men around the lounge.

Dani: "Girl, I think that threat got weight now."

Tessa takes Nico's car keys off the bar.

Tessa: "Whose Range Rover is downstairs?"

Lance: "We are not stealing a car."

Zoya: "We're leaving a penthouse with six bodies in it and that's where your morals woke up?"

Lance says Nico's people will kill all of them.

Roxy points one of the pistols at Lance's chest.

Roxy: "Baby, if you say one more unhelpful thing, I'm putting you back in the party."

Lance shuts up.

Roxy smiles.

Roxy: "There. Management finally works."

---

The next afternoon, Lance arrives at their rented content studio with an offer so stupid it sounds fake.

Nobody slept much.

Raven is editing a blurred clip from the penthouse because the repost has already passed a million views and people are arguing whether it was staged.

Scarlett has been reading theories out loud for twenty minutes.

Scarlett: "Somebody thinks we're a marketing campaign for a video game."

Zoya: "Good. Let them."

Scarlett: "Somebody else thinks Raven killed a man."

Raven: "Block him."

Scarlett: "He has forty followers."

Raven: "Then definitely block him."

Dani is sitting at the kitchen island with one of the stolen pistols in front of her, staring at it like it personally changed her tax bracket.

Dani: "I'm still sayin' this shit is insane. Yesterday I'm arguing with Lance over nineteen hundred dollars, today I got a Glock in my purse and some dead man's chain on my neck."

Mika looks over.

Mika: "The chain is fake."

Dani: "I did not ask you."

Tessa walks in wearing sunglasses despite being indoors.

Tessa: "Can everybody speak softer? Murder has a hangover."

Lance throws a business card onto the counter.

He explains that one of Nico's associates thinks the women were hired to hit the party. He thinks the whole disaster was deliberate. He has a problem of his own and is offering two hundred and fifty thousand dollars if they make an accountant named Victor Hale disappear.

Nobody speaks for a few seconds.

Then Mina asks the only question that matters to her.

Mina: "Per girl?"

Lance says total.

Zoya immediately stands.

Zoya: "Tell him no."

Tessa: "Absolutely not. Thirty-one thousand each? I can make that without somebody shooting at my hair."

Raven looks up from her phone.

Raven: "I can't."

Everybody looks at her.

Raven: "What? I had a slow month."

Dani grabs the card.

Dani: "Two-fifty for one man?"

Lance says Victor stole money and is trying to testify.

Roxy leans back in her chair.

Roxy: "And this idiot thinks we're killers because Raven couldn't keep her finger off a trigger?"

Raven: "Again, he grabbed me."

Roxy: "Sweetheart, I'm not judging. I'm asking how much stupidity is worth."

Scarlett leans over Dani's shoulder.

Scarlett: "What does Victor look like?"

Dani: "Why?"

Scarlett: "I wanna know if I feel bad."

Zoya: "You shot a man yesterday and asked if you got him like it was darts."

Scarlett: "Exactly. I need a system."

Lance says three hundred thousand if they do it tonight.

Tessa takes off her sunglasses.

Tessa: "Now you're talking."

Mina looks at her.

Tessa: "Don't judge me. I want a Birkin."

Mina: "I'm not judging you. I want one too."

Dani starts laughing.

Dani: "Look at us. A bunch of dumb hoes negotiating homicide over handbags."

Roxy picks up the business card.

Roxy: "Money first. Half."

Lance says the client will pay fifty up front.

Roxy: "Then tell him to hire fifty-thousand-dollar murderers."

Zoya smiles despite herself.

Zoya: "That is the first sensible thing anybody has said since yesterday."

---

Victor Hale is supposed to be eating dinner at a hotel restaurant. The women turn one simple location into a complete disaster.

Victor is leaving through the underground garage when they arrive.

They recognize him from the photograph.

Unfortunately, he also has two adult security men with him, and none of the eight women has agreed who is supposed to shoot first.

Dani whispers from behind a concrete pillar.

Dani: "Who got him?"

Roxy: "Nobody 'got him.' We wait until he gets near the car."

Scarlett: "Why?"

Roxy: "Because I said so."

Scarlett: "That's not a reason."

Zoya: "It is when she has the only plan."

Raven has her phone camera open.

Zoya slaps it down.

Raven: "Ow!"

Zoya: "No footage."

Raven: "I'm not posting it!"

Zoya: "You posted a real shooting yesterday with sparkle text over it."

Raven: "For seven seconds."

Mina looks around the pillar.

Mina: "They're leaving."

Tessa: "Good. Maybe we can go home."

Victor reaches his car.

One guard opens the rear door.

Scarlett whispers too loudly.

Scarlett: "Now?"

Roxy: "No."

Dani: "Now?"

Roxy: "No."

Raven: "Now?"

Roxy turns around.

Roxy: "If one more bitch says 'now'—"

A car alarm suddenly starts behind them because Tessa leaned against the wrong vehicle.

Everyone jumps.

Victor's guards turn.

Tessa: "...That was not me."

Zoya: "It was literally your ass."

One guard draws a gun.

Dani immediately opens fire.

Dani: "FUCK IT!"

Her first two rounds smack into the side of Victor's car.

The third catches the guard through the stomach.

The fourth tears through his ribs as he tries to duck.

Roxy: "DANI!"

Dani: "HE HAD A GUN!"

Roxy: "THEY ALL HAVE GUNS!"

The second guard fires toward the pillar.

Everybody screams and scatters in different directions.

Scarlett fires while running, misses Victor by a meter and blows out his rear window.

Scarlett: "Shit!"

Victor dives behind the car.

Mika crouches behind a parked SUV.

Mika: "I hate this. I hate every fuckin' part of this."

A round punches through the SUV window above her.

Mika ducks lower.

Mika: "And this isn't even our car!"

The wounded first guard is trying to pull himself behind a concrete barrier.

Dani sees him.

Dani: "Oh no you don't."

She runs three steps, nearly slips in her boots, catches herself on the car and fires twice into his back.

The rounds drive him flat against the concrete.

Dani: "Stay where I PUT you!"

He rolls over, gasping.

Dani walks closer with both hands around the pistol.

Dani: "You had one job. Stand there, look security-ish, maybe open a fuckin' door. But nooo, you had to pull a gun on eight bitches who don't know what they're doing."

He reaches weakly toward his fallen weapon.

Dani shoots him through the chest.

Dani: "And you STILL don't know when to quit. That's why your night went bad."

---

Tessa kills Victor because he makes the mistake of running for the stairwell.

Victor breaks from behind the car and sprints toward the emergency stairs.

Roxy shouts for somebody to stop him.

Tessa watches him go.

Tessa: "You have got to be kidding me."

Zoya: "Go!"

Tessa: "I'm not running after a middle-aged accountant in these boots!"

Zoya: "Then SHOOT!"

Tessa raises her pistol with both hands.

Tessa: "That was always my preference."

She fires.

The first round misses and hits the stairwell door.

Victor keeps running.

Tessa: "Oh, fuck off."

She fires again.

The round catches Victor through the lower back and knocks him onto one knee.

He grabs the rail and tries hauling himself up.

Tessa walks toward him at exactly the pace of somebody refusing to rush.

Tessa: "This is what I mean. Men create work."

Victor turns and begs her to stop.

Tessa: "I was literally trying to. You kept running."

He says he has money.

Tessa's expression changes.

Tessa: "How much?"

Roxy: "Tessa!"

Tessa looks back.

Tessa: "What? We can diversify."

Victor says he can pay half a million.

Tessa crouches one step below him.

Tessa: "Cash?"

Victor nods rapidly.

Tessa: "See, this is why people need to communicate before the shooting."

Mina approaches from behind.

Mina: "He's lying."

Victor swears he is not.

Mina looks at his cheap hotel keycard, his frightened face, then at Tessa.

Mina: "He is an accountant hiding in a parking garage. If he had half a million cash, he would already be somewhere with better carpet."

Tessa considers this.

Tessa: "That's actually convincing."

Victor starts begging again.

Tessa shoots him through the abdomen.

He folds against the railing.

Tessa: "I really did want to believe you."

Mina winces when blood splashes the bottom step.

Mina: "You could've aimed lower."

Tessa: "I DID aim lower."

Victor tries to drag himself higher.

Tessa looks at him with genuine irritation.

Tessa: "Oh my God, why are you still doing stairs?"

She fires twice more through his torso.

His body knocks against the metal railing and slides back down one step.

Tessa: "There. See? Down is easier."

---

Scarlett turns the second guard into a game because panic makes her stupidly cheerful.

The guard is firing from behind a sedan.

Scarlett is crouched behind another car with Raven beside her.

Scarlett: "Ten says I hit the mirror."

Raven: "Why the mirror?"

Scarlett: "Because it's tiny."

Raven stares at her.

Raven: "A man is shooting at us."

Scarlett: "Exactly. Stakes."

The guard leans out.

Scarlett fires.

The round blows the mirror off.

Scarlett gasps.

Scarlett: "YES!"

Raven: "You didn't hit HIM!"

Scarlett: "That wasn't the bet!"

The guard fires back.

A round smashes into the windshield above them.

Raven screams.

Raven: "Okay, new bet! Kill him!"

Scarlett: "Twenty!"

They both lean out and fire wildly.

Raven's first round hits the rear door.

Scarlett's first misses.

Raven's second catches the guard through the side.

He spins behind the car.

Scarlett: "That was yours?"

Raven: "YES!"

Scarlett: "Fuck!"

The guard drops to one knee and fires again.

Scarlett puts two rounds through his chest.

He collapses against the wheel.

Scarlett jumps up.

Scarlett: "MINE!"

Raven: "I hit him first!"

Scarlett: "You softened him!"

The guard lifts one arm weakly.

Raven shoots him through the stomach.

Raven: "Now he's mine again."

Scarlett stares at her.

Raven grins.

Raven: "Content creator rules."

Scarlett: "There are no content creator rules for murder!"

Raven: "There are now."

---

They collect the money at a nightclub because the client is too embarrassed to admit he hired eight escorts by mistake.

Mr. Vale sits in a private booth with two bodyguards and three envelopes of cash.

Roxy looks at the envelopes.

Roxy: "Where are the other five?"

Vale says the total payment is in the three envelopes.

Mika opens one and starts counting.

Vale complains that the job was sloppy, public, and louder than promised.

Dani's eyebrows go up.

Dani: "Louder than promised? Motherfucker, YOU thought we were assassins. That's your mistake. We never said shit except 'how much.'"

Vale tells them real professionals do not shoot up a hotel garage.

Roxy leans across the table.

Roxy: "Then next time hire real professionals, baby. You came shopping in the whore aisle and got mad the box didn't contain Navy SEALs."

Scarlett covers her mouth and starts laughing.

Vale calls them trash with guns.

Dani stands so fast the table shakes.

Dani: "Say 'trash' again. Don't even say the whole sentence, just give me the T."

Zoya catches Dani's arm.

Zoya: "Money first."

Dani looks at her.

Zoya: "Then be offended."

Dani sits back down, still staring at Vale.

Dani: "Fine. But I'm savin' that shit."

Mika finishes counting.

Mika: "We're short seventy-five."

Vale says he deducted costs.

Mika looks up slowly.

Mika: "No."

Vale starts explaining damage, police attention and a replacement car.

Mika closes the envelope.

Mika: "I don't know why men keep trying this with us. You say a number, we do the disgusting thing, then suddenly the number gets shy."

Vale tells her to take what is offered.

Mika reaches across the table and takes the gold watch off his wrist instead.

Vale grabs her hand.

Mika immediately shoots the bodyguard beside him through the stomach.

The bodyguard jerks backward into the booth, both hands going to the wound.

Everybody stares at Mika.

Mika looks at Vale's hand still around her wrist.

Mika: "I don't like being grabbed."

Vale lets go.

Mika takes the watch.

Mika: "Thank you."

The wounded bodyguard tries pulling his pistol.

Mika sees it and fires twice more through his torso.

His body bangs against the leather seat with each shot.

Mika: "And you. Stop making this into overtime."

Vale stands.

Roxy points her pistol at him.

Roxy: "Sit your rich ass back down before this turns into another unpaid booking."

Vale calls them stupid whores.

Roxy smiles.

Roxy: "There it is. You think 'whore' means stupid. That's why men like you keep losing wallets around women like us."

Tessa opens the second envelope and counts.

Tessa: "He's short exactly seventy-five. That's a handbag."

Zoya: "Everything is a handbag to you."

Tessa: "Because handbags retain value better than men."

Vale reaches inside his jacket.

Dani already has her pistol out.

Dani: "Remember that T I told you to give me?"

Vale freezes.

Dani: "You found it."

She fires three times through his torso.

The first punches him back into the booth. The second hits his ribs. The third tears through his abdomen as he folds sideways over the table.

Dani: "Trash? ME? Bitch, you hired me off a fuckin' club flyer!"

Vale is still trying to breathe.

Dani steps closer.

Dani: "You knew exactly what I was when you sent the money. Don't get fancy now because the dumb hoes came back armed."

She fires twice more into his chest.

The second bodyguard draws.

Raven screams and shoots at him.

Her first round hits the table.

Her second punches through his stomach.

Scarlett fires too, catching him through the shoulder.

Raven: "Mine!"

Scarlett: "We are not doing this again!"

The guard tries to crawl out of the booth.

Scarlett shoots him through the ribs.

Raven: "You literally just did it again!"

Scarlett: "He was leaving!"

Raven: "So?"

Scarlett: "I hate losing!"

Zoya grabs the remaining envelopes and Vale's phone.

Zoya: "Can the Olympics wait until we're outside?"

---

The money changes their lives less than anybody expects.

Raven posts more. Not the shootings themselves, but gun poses, black lingerie, captions that make everybody argue whether the penthouse clip was real. Her follower count explodes. Brands start offering her money because controversy is still engagement.

Raven: "I got offered twenty grand to promote lipstick."

Mika looks at the email.

Mika: "The shade is ugly."

Raven: "It's twenty thousand."

Mika: "Then the shade is brave."

Mika starts wearing the gold watch from Vale in photos and tells everybody who asks that it was a gift. She keeps three pistols in designer boxes because she hates the cases they came in.

Roxy begins carrying one during private appointments. Men pay extra because rumors about the penthouse make them think danger is part of the act. Roxy finds that hysterical.

Roxy: "Imagine paying more because you're scared of the woman you already paid to boss you around. Men will monetize their own stupidity if you give them a card reader."

Mina buys the same outfit Nico's guest ruined, then buys another in white just because she can.

Mina: "I hate white. But now nobody can tell me I can't wear it."

Dani gets a pink pistol customized and posts it beside her nails. Half the comments tell her she does not know how to shoot.

Dani replies to three hundred of them personally.

Dani: "If another man with a profile picture inside a truck tells me about trigger discipline, I'm gonna find his fuckin' truck."

Tessa buys the handbag.

Then another.

Then complains that the first one was not worth it.

Tessa: "I killed an accountant for this and the stitching isn't even symmetrical."

Zoya looks at her.

Zoya: "You did not kill him for the bag."

Tessa: "Emotionally, I did."

Scarlett starts taking bets during ordinary nights because violence broke something in her sense of scale.

Scarlett: "Twenty says the guy in blue asks Dani for her number."

Zoya: "He has been staring at her for ten minutes. That's not a bet, that's eyesight."

Scarlett: "Fine. Twenty says she threatens him before midnight."

Dani hears her from across the room.

Dani: "I'LL THREATEN YOU FOR FREE."

Scarlett grins.

Scarlett: "See? Easy money."

---

They are not assassins after that. That is exactly why people keep dying around them.

They still dance. They still escort. They still film subscription content, argue over lighting, steal each other's makeup, complain about clients, fight over tips, flirt with men they like and block men they do not.

The guns just become part of the bags.

A month after Victor, a drunk adult man in Velvet House recognizes Raven from the penthouse clip. He follows her toward the private hall and keeps asking whether the gun was real.

Raven tells him to stop.

He keeps asking.

Raven: "Babe, if you have to follow a woman into a hallway after she said no three times, you are already making terrible decisions."

He laughs and reaches for her waist.

Raven pulls the pistol from her bag.

His smile disappears.

Raven's comes back.

Raven: "There. Now you remember the video."

He raises both hands and says he was only joking.

Raven: "I know."

She looks him up and down.

Raven: "It wasn't funny."

He backs away.

Scarlett appears at the end of the hall with a drink.

Scarlett: "Ten says he runs."

The man looks at Scarlett.

Then back at Raven.

Raven starts laughing.

Raven: "Ohhh, don't. She's gonna make this weird."

He runs.

Scarlett immediately points.

Scarlett: "PAY ME!"

Raven fires down the hall.

The first shot hits the wall beside him.

Scarlett: "You missed!"

Raven: "I KNOW!"

The second punches into his lower back.

He falls forward onto the carpet and tries dragging himself toward the corner.

Scarlett hurries after Raven, laughing into her drink.

Scarlett: "Okay, twenty says he makes the door."

Raven walks after him with the pistol hanging beside her thigh.

Raven: "He better not. These boots are killing me."

The man turns over and starts begging.

Raven looks down at him.

Raven: "See, THIS is what I mean. Five minutes ago you couldn't hear the word no, now suddenly you're the best listener in the fuckin' building."

He tells her he is sorry.

Raven: "I know, babe."

She lifts the pistol again.

Raven: "Everybody gets really polite once the gun comes out."