I watched it on a live feed from the television in my hotel suite, a glass of ice water sweating onto the polished wood of the table beside me. The sky over the city was a brilliant, cloudless blue, the kind of aggressively perfect day that marketing departments dream of. On the screen, the base of Ascentia Tower was swarming with the city’s elite. The air crackled with a thousand flashbulbs.
There he was. Julian. He stood on the polished granite dais, resplendent in a bespoke Tom Ford suit, the very picture of a modern titan. He was shaking hands with the mayor, laughing with a senator, his smile practiced and dazzling. He was the king of his new domain, the master of the fifty-billion-dollar universe we had built together.
I could read his posture, the confident set of his shoulders. H
