War God in Disguise

Chapter 5

Tiger Kain collected on the first of the month, which meant the lobby of the Ashford Residences smelled like his cologne a full ten minutes before he actually walked through the door — something sharp and expensive that clashed badly with the building's usual mildew, like a wolf that had rolled in perfume before visiting the henhouse.

Jack was mopping the entryway when Tiger's two men came in ahead of him, the way they always did, boots deliberately loud on the tile Jack had just cleaned.

"Careful," one of them said, stepping directly through the wet patch anyway, tracking gray footprints across the floor. "Wouldn't want you to slip and hurt yourself, 'uncle'."

Jack was twenty-eight. The man calling him 'uncle' was maybe twenty-four, built like someone who spent more time in front of a mirror than in front of an actual opponent, with a folding knife clipped visibly to his belt in the specific way young men carried weapons when they wanted to be noticed rather than to be effective. Jack had killed men who carried knives properly, quietly, with the blade never showing until it needed to.

He kept mopping.

That was the trick to staying small. You didn't act like you were hiding anything. You simply became so thoroughly uninteresting that nobody bothered to look closer.

Tiger came through the doors then, immaculate in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than Jack made in six months. He was thirty-nine, broad through the shoulders, with a face that would have been handsome if there weren't something permanently hungry about the eyes.

"Morning, uncle," Tiger said.

Jack nodded. "Morning."

Tiger stopped.

His men stopped too.

For three seconds, nobody moved.

Then Tiger smiled.

"You know, I like you."

Jack kept the mop moving.

"You're quiet. You don't ask questions. You don't complain when my boys make a mess. You don't complain when I make a mess." Tiger glanced down at the wet footprints. "Useful quality."

"Thank you."

Tiger laughed.

One of his men leaned against the reception desk, knocking over the little plastic sign that said PLEASE KEEP THE ENTRANCE CLEAR.

Jack looked at it.

Then at the man.

Then back at the floor.

He said nothing.

"See?" Tiger said. "That's what I'm talking about."

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded envelope.

"Grace West."

Jack's hands didn't stop.

"She still behind on her payments?"

"That's between her and the management office."

Tiger's smile thinned.

"Everything in this building is between me and the management office."

Jack finally looked up.

Tiger held his gaze for a moment, then laughed again, softer this time.

"Don't worry, uncle. I'm not here for her today."

He tucked the envelope away.

"Not directly, anyway."

Then he turned and walked toward the elevators.

His men followed.

Jack waited until the doors closed behind them before he looked at the wet footprints crossing the lobby.

He could have stopped them.

He could have stopped Tiger.

He could have stopped every man who had ever walked through those doors believing that nobody in the building could make them regret it.

Instead, he finished mopping.

Because that was the promise.

And promises, Jack had learned a long time ago, were sometimes harder to keep when keeping them meant doing nothing.

The elevator numbers climbed.

Jack watched them on the little screen above the doors until they disappeared.

Then he looked at the security monitor.

Tiger's men were already stepping off on the fourth floor.

Jack set the mop against the wall.

He picked up the radio.

"Front desk."

Static.

Then a voice answered.

"Go ahead."

"Fourth floor."

A pause.

"What about it?"

Jack looked at the monitor.

Tiger was standing outside Grace's door.

His hand was raised.

He hadn't knocked yet.

Jack's eyes narrowed.

"Nothing," he said.

And he put the radio down.

The hand knocked.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Three floors above, Grace was still at her desk, still working through numbers that refused to make sense, still unaware that the cost of staying small was about to become much more expensive.