Page 102 of The Silent War

I was already at the door.

Our men at the lobby didn’t ask questions.

The elevator doors opened. The corridor to her wing had soft carpet, expensive paint.

He stepped out of her hallway like the building belonged to him. It didn’t. We owned it under a shell company. First building we acquired after the academy.

You could tell the type by the first five seconds. Expensive shoes. Shoulders back in a way that tried to sell height he didn’t have. He saw me and did the little smile men do when they think they’ve met a peer.

“Morning,” he said.

I leaned against the wall and took my time lighting a cigarette. The first drag hit. “Is it.”

He clocked the ink at my throat. Clocked the black. The gun. Decided to pretend none of it meant anything.

“Do you live here?”

“No,” I said. “I haunt it.”

A flicker of confusion. He covered it with a chuckle. “That supposed to be funny?”

“No.”

He shifted his weight. The corridor made men honest if you let it.

“You’ve been circling,” I said. My voice carried just enough to fill the space between us. “Seeing what sticks. Who looks at you. Which doors open.”

His smile tightened. “It’s a big tower.”

“Too big for you.”

The little flare in his eyes told me I’d hit something he cared about. He straightened. “You always block hallways like a bodyguard, or is this new?”

I took another drag, slow. “Depends who tries to use them.”

“Relax. No one’s unsafe.”

“You mistake quiet for permission.”

He laughed again. “You mistake silence for power.”

I stepped off the wall, closed the distance. Close enough for him to feel how much bigger I was. Close enough to watch his pulse jump. “No,” I said. “I measure power by whether a man understands he doesn’t have any.”

He held my stare one second too long. Then he gave me the kind of smirk that gets teeth knocked out in cheaper buildings. “You here to impress me?”

“No,” I flicked ash. “To measure you.”

“Measure away,” he said lightly.

I looked down him like inventory. Shoes, scuff at the right toe from dragging it when he’s bored. Soft hands. No gym. The way he kept glancing past me—not toward her door, toward the elevator. Flight built into the posture of a man who likes to perform near danger and leave before it acts.

“You like talking near sleeping girls. Makes you feel tall.”

The smirk twitched. “You know how dynasty is,” he saidtoo quickly, like we were friends. “Lots of handlers. Someone has to lead.”

“You don’t lead anything here,”

“You think you do?” He tilted his head. “You can’t own every hallway.”