Chapter 4

By the time the elevator doors slide open onto the rooftop ballroom, my skull is already buzzing. The room is a catalog-perfect fantasy: glass walls looking over New Crest City’s skyline, chandeliers dripping light, champagne flutes catching it and throwing it back in a hundred fake sparkles. Strings hum in the corner, waiters glide like they’re on rails, and the Genexis logo glows in soft blue everywhere, like a benevolent god. “It looks incredible,” Lila breathes next to me, smoothing...