The skyscraper was a spear of black glass and steel aimed at the heart of a starless New York sky. It was a monument to a power I no longer understood, built on a foundation of capital so clean it was sterile. As I stepped out of the cab, the cheap, off-the-rack suit I’d bought for a few hundred dollars felt like a shroud. The fabric chafed against my skin, a constant reminder that I was an imposter in a world that had once been mine to command.
The lobby was a cathedral of marble and gold, whispering of unimaginable wealth. People flowed around me like a river, their faces smooth and confident, their laughter like the clinking of ice in expensive crystal. I was a rock in that river, a piece of filth washed in from the gutter.
Two guards, built like mountains in tailored suits, blocked t
