Asking Nice

Grant wakes up to five hundred thirty-one points and a building that already knows he is awake.

He did not open the map. The web did it for him. Mary in the other unit. Eve on the roof. Leanne on two. Priya still in his bed, her head on his chest, breathing even.

He sits up. Priya’s eyes open like she felt the shift.

“Morning,” he says.

She starts to say his name. What comes out is, “Morning, mas—” She stops. Swallows. “Grant.”

It costs her. He hears it.

He does not correct her. He also does not say it’s fine. He just nods, and that is how the day starts.

The penthouse kitchen is already busy.

Ashlyn puts a plate in front of him and says, “Please eat, master,” then blinks like the word surprised her too. She does not take it back. She looks at Mary.

Mary’s mouth is a line.

“His name is Grant.”

Ashlyn nods, small. “I know. It just—” She flexes her fingers. “It sits there first now.”

Grant picks up the fork.

“I didn’t tell anybody to do that.”

“You didn’t have to,” Mary says. “Five hundred did it. Same as the speed. Same as I knew where Eve was before I looked. It’s in us. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

She calls him Grant on purpose, twice, in the next five minutes, like she is holding a door shut with her shoulder.

He lets her.

Noor comes in with the list and says, “Master, I need a rule for the third-floor bathrooms. Some of them aren’t working anymore and the rooms are overcrowded. Maybe some of the women could move to the second floor,” then, realizing her words, she winces. “Grant. Sorry. The list is—”

“The list is fine. Third floor shares. Two stays Leanne’s.”

“Yes, mas— yes.”

She leaves faster than the list needs.

Grant eats. The five miles sits behind his eyes. Nine small. Five bigger. Two at a hundred. The blank, east-northeast, still sitting. No women around him. Nothing moved in the night.

Good. One problem at a time. Floors. Then six. Then I look from here like I said.

He walks the building on purpose.

The step would be faster. Instant. He does not use it. He wants the stairs. He wants to see who says what when they pass him.

On fifteen, Dara says, “Morning, master,” and does not catch it. She looks proud of herself. On fourteen, a girl from Holt’s lot whose name he has on Noor’s page and not in his mouth yet just drops her eyes and waits for him to go by. On nine, June stops in front of Grant, looks down for a brief moment, and finishes with “Do you need anything?”

On seven, Kate says it clearly.

“Master. The door at the end sticks. We jammed it. Was that what you wanted?”

“That’s right.”

He does not say don’t call me that. The word lands and stays. Something in him that used to flinch does not flinch as hard. He notices that too.

Mary’s going to hate this. I don’t love it. It also fits. I killed two men yesterday and I own their army.

Two is Leanne’s.

Olivia is in the hall with a mattress. She sees him and color hits her face like she is shy and doesn’t know the reason.

“Master,” she says, quiet, testing.

He nods. She bites her lip and looks at the floor.

Leanne is in the corner unit with the street window. She does not slip. She picks the word and uses it.

“Master. Bus is still in the street. Jose is waiting on you. Also, Noah’s door opened once this morning. Cindy was on the floor. He looked out, saw Zoya, and shut it. I thought you should know.”

Grant’s attention goes to six without him meaning to open the map again.

Noah. Cindy. Door shut again. Ordinary heart. One girl who is not his.

“He looked at Zoya how?”

“Like a man with an idea. Not like a man coming out, but I still don’t like it.”

“I’ll go check on him.”

“Please take someone, master.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Leanne’s jaw flexes. She did not say Grant again.

He walks to the stairs.

Six is quiet until it is not.

Grant is on seven going down when the web jerks.

Not a tag going blank. A spike. One of his, close, fast, afraid and angry at the same time.

Olivia.

He forgets the stairs.

He thinks of her.

He is instantly in the sixth floor hallway.

Noah has her by the upper arm, half out of his doorway, trying to haul her in. He is in the undershirt from two nights ago. Cindy is on her hands and knees behind him, naked, watching like this is a rule she already knows. Olivia’s shirt is twisted. Noah’s other hand is on her waistband.

Olivia is faster than he is.

The ten percent of five hundred is not a miracle. It is enough. She rips her arm free hard enough that Noah staggers into his own frame. She hits him in the face with the heel of her hand. She is already three steps down the hall when Grant arrives, breathing like she ran a flight, eyes huge.

“He grabbed me,” she says. “He said Cindy needed company. He said you agreed to trade.”

Noah sees Grant and tries to make it seem like a misunderstanding.

“Relax, bro. Door was open. She was in the hall. I thought we were still—”

Grant hits him.

Noah is an ordinary man. Grant is not. The first punch puts Noah through his own living room and into the far wall. Drywall. A picture. Noah slides down leaving a smear.

Cindy screams and does not get up. She crawls toward Noah because that is the only direction she knows.

Olivia is behind Grant.

“I’m fine. He didn’t— he didn’t get further than the door.”

“Go to the penthouse, Olivia. Now.”

“Yes, master.”

She runs. The word is just there. She does not hear herself say it.

Noah is slowly trying to stand up. He wipes blood from his mouth. He laughs once, like he isn’t scared.

“You said the deal held. You said I keep my toy, but you walk around with hundreds of holes and I only get one and I can’t even—”

Grant picks him up by the shirt.

“I said Cindy was yours. I said you don’t touch mine. That was the new rules of the deal.”

“But she was in the hall!”

“She is mine.”

Noah spits blood on Grant’s wrist.

“You going to pretend you’re better than me again? You left me down here with a girl on her knees and a building full of—”

Grant throws him into the kitchen counter. The counter loses. Noah’s ribs make a sound. The healing does not help Noah. He is just a man.

Cindy crawls to the broken counter and puts her forehead against Noah’s shin, shaking. Enraged, she grabs a kitchen knife and runs at Grant.

He swats her away.

Mary is in the hall. She felt the spike. Eve is coming down the stairs. Leanne is already on the landing with a bat and Jaz behind her.

Grant does not look at them.

He looks at Noah.

“You grabbed her to put her on the floor with Cindy.” He says, gritting his teeth.

Noah’s mouth is red.

“Hey, I asked nice first.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Grant’s hands tighten at his sides.

He hits Noah until Noah stops talking.

Then he stops, because Noah will not get up if he keeps going, and Grant has not decided yet if Noah gets to leave the building on his feet.

Mary’s voice, from the door, tight.

“Grant.”

Not master. On purpose.

He holds Noah off the floor by what’s left of the shirt. Noah’s eyes are not tracking well.

“The deal is over,” Grant says. “You don’t get a room. You don’t get a trade. You laid a hand on one of mine.”

“Cindy—” Noah slurs. She gets to her feet and rushes at Grant, but he stops her again with his free hand.

“Cindy was the deal. You broke it.”

He could throw Noah down six flights. He could put him on the street. He could finish it here.

Cindy is on the floor. Naked. She tries to get up again to help her master, but fails.

Grant looks at Mary.

Mary looks at Noah’s stunned face, then at Cindy, then at Grant.

“If you let him stay, he tries again,” Mary says. “If you put him outside, he tells the next army where we sleep. I’m not telling you to kill him. I’m telling you what the options are.”

Leanne, from the landing:

“He grabbed Liv. That doesn’t deserve just a warning. That’s the line you already said.”

Noah tries to smile. It does not work.

“Still pretending, bro? Come on! Admit to yourself that you just wanna fuck these stupid bitches too. Don’t be so greedy. Just let me use some of their holes. You don’t need all of ‘em. We can ma—”

Grant decides.

He does not make a speech.

He puts Noah down on the kitchen tile and hits him one more time, in the throat, with the exact amount of power that ends an ordinary man.

Noah goes still.

Cindy’s tag goes blank.

She makes a sound like the floor dropped. The crawl-rule is gone. The claim is gone. She is just a naked woman on tile next to a body, shaking, trying to cover herself with her arms like she just remembered modesty.

The hallway is quiet.

Grant crouches. He does not rush. He doesn’t tell her to crawl.

“Look at me.”

She does. Eyes wide. Unclaimed. Loose, in his building, less than two feet from him. He touches her shoulder gently.

“I claim you.”

The lock hits. Instant. Her hands drop to her sides, no longer covering her nude form.

“I’m yours, Master,” she says. Soft. Immediate. To him.

532.

She does not drop to her knees. She looks at his face like she is waiting for rules and there isn’t any yet.

“Get her a shirt,” Grant says.

Mary already has one. She puts it over Cindy’s head herself. Her hands are not gentle, but they are not cruel.

“She stays off this floor tonight,” Mary says. “She does not stay in this room with that.” She tips her head at Noah.

“Good idea.”

“Also, I’m still calling you Grant. Don’t get used to the other thing from me.”

“I’m not asking you to call me that.”

Grant steps to the penthouse, directly to Olivia.

She is crying in the quiet way. Priya has an arm around her.

Grant sighs and then opens the map to get his mind off things.

Still no suspicious movement.

All the rooms are his now. The deal is a body on the floor.

He thinks about Cindy in Mary’s shirt, Olivia’s face full of tears, and the word that has been coming out of mouths all morning.

He didn’t tell them to stop, but he also didn’t tell them to start.

Five hundred thirty-two claimed points in the building now.

There are no more deals in the tower.