“False Comfort”

Lucian

The soft buzz of my phone broke the rhythmic scratching of my Montblanc pen against legal documents. I glanced at the notification: an encrypted message from Eliza, my PR relations manager.

All ready. Photographer briefed. Pickup scheduled for 1pm.

I smiled faintly, my thumb tapping the phone case as I leaned back in my office chair. Sunlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting clean golden beams across my polished mahogany desk. The city lay beneath me like a chessboard, each block and skyscraper a piece under my control.

“Micah,” I called, my voice echoing through the partially open office door.

Micah appeared almost instantly, his suit immaculate,...