By two a.m., the building is less a workplace and more a mausoleum for corporate ambition. The windows shudder with wind, rain streaming in sheets that blur the outside world into streaks of blue, orange, and the occasional shock of streetlamp sodium. Inside, the only light comes from three screens—Lila’s laptop, Lucas’s battered iPad, and the soft, predatory glow of my own monitor. Each screen paints its watcher a different color: Lila in ghostly cobalt, Lucas in gold and gunmetal, and me in a fevered, red-white fluorescence that seems to pulse with every thump of my heart.
The conference table has become a war zone. Open files, legal pads, empty coffee cups, and half-eaten protein bars—the detritus of last-ditch survival. The room hums with electricity, the old HVAC wheezing in counterp
