Chapter 6 · Contract of Submission

I hit the DOWN button on the private elevator for the fourth time. Nothing. Not even a click.

"Won't work." Marcus Sterling didn't look up from his coffee. "It's biometric now. I had it swapped out at four this morning."

I turned around. He was standing at the window with his sleeves rolled to the elbow, one hand around a cup he hadn't touched. The city was doing its early gold thing behind him and he wasn't even watching it.

He was watching me. My feet, specifically. Bare. One heel still under the couch where I'd kicked it off somewhere around midnight.

"You locked me in."

"I gave you a door that opens for me." He set the cup down. "Different thing."

"That's not a different thing. That's the same thing with better vocabulary."

He almost smiled. Almost. Then he picked a folder off the mahogany and slid it across the desk, and the sound of paper on wood was so ordinary it made my stomach drop.

Two pages. Heavy stock. A title in small caps, like a will.

"Read it," he said.

I picked it up because my hands wanted something to do.

"Personal Advisory Agreement.