The isolation afforded by extreme wealth is a peculiar kind of narcotic. From the forty-fifth floor of the Sterling Heights Tower, the sprawling metropolis below was reduced to a silent, glittering circuit board. Up here, the chaos of the city couldn’t touch me. The climate control maintained a sterile, museum-quality sixty-eight degrees. The air was filtered twice. My sanctuary was impenetrable. Or so I believed, until the elevator chime announced the arrival of an infection.
I remained seated in my custom wingback chair, the leather cool against my skin, an original first edition of Vanity Fair resting open on my lap. The penthouse was usually a cathedral of silence by nine o’clock, save for the faint, rhythmic hum of the city vibrating through the reinforced glass. Every object in this sprawling five-thousand-square-foot space—from the hand-woven Persian silk rugs imported from Tabriz to the abstract bronze sculptures anchoring the foyer—was curated by me. Financed by my family’s empire.
“Elena?”
The voice belonged to my husband, Mark. It echoed slightly off the Carrera marble of the entryway. He sounded horribly strained, his pitch ratcheted up half an octave into a nervous, reedy frequency.
“I’m in the main lounge,” I called back, my eyes scanning the same paragraph for the third time without absorbing a single word.
I heard the heavy, oak door click shut. Then came the footsteps. Mark’s familiar, heavy-heeled loafers thudded against the floor, but they were accompanied by an alien rhythm. Click, clack, click, clack. The sharp, staccato strike of cheap stiletto heels.
I closed the antique book, the spine groaning softly, and set it on the mahogany side table.
Mark materialized in the grand archway. His bespoke charcoal suit, which usually gave him a veneer of unearned authority, looked wrinkled and suffocating. His tie was yanked askew, and a sheen of terrified perspiration coated his upper lip. He looked precisely like a man who had walked onto a minefield and just heard the definitive click beneath his shoe.
Lurking half a step behind him was a girl.
