The eighteen-square-meter studio apartment on the outskirts of Queens felt incredibly cold that night. The noise of the subway passing by behind the thin walls once every fifteen minutes felt like a constant reminder for Valera Dawson of exactly where her social position lay. On a thin mattress without a frame in the corner of the room, Valera sat hugging her knees, staring blankly toward the ceiling where the paint was beginning to peel due to rainwater seepage.
Everyone at Columbia Law School and on the fifteenth floor of Valen Group assumed she bore the name 'Dawson' because she was part of the elite property dynasty that ruled a portion of the Upper East Side. However, not a single person knew that the last name was merely a curse left behind on her birth certificate.
Since her mothe
