The Sterling-Vance offices were eerily quiet at 9:00 PM. The army of coders, marketing executives, and administrative staff had long since abandoned the glass-walled cubicles, leaving the sprawling floor in semi-darkness. Only the emergency exit signs cast a bloody, red glow over the polished concre

Thorne Capital occupied the top twelve floors of the most imposing glass-and-steel monolith in the financial district. There were no ping-pong tables here. There was no kombucha on tap, no neon signs quoting disruptive tech mantras, and absolutely none of the forced, toxic positivity that infected J

The penthouse Julian and I shared was a monument to his ego. It was a sprawling, multi-level glass box in the sky, decorated in stark whites, cold marbles, and metallic accents that screamed of new money and desperate validation. There was not a single personal touch of mine in the entire five thous