ONE
RUBY
The office is silent as I pace, reading through the merger agreement one final time. It’s 11:47 p.m., and as usual, I’m the only one left on the fortieth floor of the Hughes Center. The cleaning crew left hours ago, leaving behind the faint scent of lemon polish and emptied wastebaskets. My desk is still a mess; they know better than to touch it.
My reflection fragments across the wall of windows: auburn hair falling from what was a neat chignon sixteen hours ago; green eyes shadowed by fatigue; Chanel suit wrinkled from too many hours in my ergonomic chair. I have dark circles under my eyes, my collar has lost its crisp line, and there’s a smudge of coffee on my legal pad. I used to care about these things. I used to care about a lot of things.
“Section 7.2(b),” I mutter, scanning the dense text for the hundredth time. The words blur together, black ants marching across white paper. I blink hard, forcing my vision to clear. Sixty million dollars doesn’t allow for tired eyes. “The Seller agrees that for a period of five (5) years followingthe Closing Date?—”
My phone buzzes against the glass desk, cutting through the silence. Another late-night email from the other side’s lawyer, trying to slip sneaky changes into our agreement while hoping I’m too tired to notice. Classic move, but an amateur one. I’ve been handling corporate mergers for almost a decade—I didn’t build the city’s most feared law firm by missing tricks like this.
I sink into my chair and pull up the document on my second monitor. My fingers fly across the keyboard, adding comments in track changes. I’m surgical in my approach to contracts, dissecting the clause and rearranging its innards until it says exactly what I want it to say.
The Las Vegas lights sprawl beneath my window, a glittering carpet of false promises stretching all the way to the mountains. The Stratosphere pierces the night sky, its top lost in low-hanging clouds. Out there, people are living their lives, celebrating, falling in love, getting in trouble, making mistakes.
My office still looks like I just moved in, despite the three years I’ve occupied this corner space. No photos, no plants, no personal touches. Just law books, my degrees from Yale, and stacks of folders arranged in piles. Everything has its place, and its place is exactly where I left it. The only concession to comfort is the cashmere throw draped over my chair—charcoal gray, like everything else in here.
The motion-sensing lights in the hallway flicker off, and I welcome the darkness. It makes the city lights sharper, more defined, like the edges I’ve honed around myself. In the dark, I can pretend I’m the only person left in the world. Sometimes, that doesn’t feel far from the truth.
I check my watch—a Cartier Tank, Claire’s gift. Her last gift. Time to head home. The thought of my big, emptyhouse in The Ridges makes my chest tight, but I push it away. I’ve gotten good at pushing things away. Too good, my mother would say, if I ever answered her calls.
Standing, I smooth down my skirt and begin my nightly ritual. Files arranged by priority for tomorrow. Laptop sleeve zipped closed. Papers gathered into my Hermès briefcase. Each motion automatic like a dancer going through a well-worn choreography.
Movement catches my eye—a flash of light in the building across the street. Another late-night worker, another soul trading sleep for success. Through the glass, I see a desk lamp, a computer screen, a silhouette. We’re all running from something, aren’t we? The thought comes unbidden.
The security guard—Marcus? Mario?—looks up from his crossword puzzle as I cross the lobby. I should know his name by now. He’s here almost every night.
“Good night, Ms. Walsh,” he calls out.
I smile and nod, the closest thing to social interaction I’ve had all day.
My Tesla waits in its usual place, gleaming black and spotless. The navigation system automatically sets a course for home. Twenty-five minutes between me and another sleepless night.
As I pull onto the freeway, my phone lights up with a text from my mother.Just checking in, sweetheart. We miss you.The blue light illuminates the car’s interior for a moment before fading to black. I let it sit there, unanswered. Like the last dozen. Like the dinner invitations from colleagues. Like the life that’s waiting to be lived.
The Strip glows to my left, a neon rainbow against the desert night. Each casino charts its own peak: the Olympus rising like a modern Parthenon in white and gold; the Bellagio’s fountains throwing liquid silver into the night; the Venetian’s faux-Italian towers somehow less artificial in the darkness.
From this distance, you can’t see the desperation, the quick-rich dreams, the wedding chapels and pawn shops. Instead, it’s almost beautiful—a city’s fever dream rendered in neon and ambition. During the day, it’s gaudy, trying too hard, but at night…at night, it becomes something else entirely. Like all of us, it wears its best face in the dark.
The city thins out as I drive west, tourist traps giving way to local bars, then to quiet malls, then to nothing but desert and darkness. Red Rock Canyon looms ahead, and my headlights catch the eyes of a coyote watching from the scrubland. Out here, the air smells different—clean and sharp, with the lingering heat of sunbaked stone.
The entrance to The Ridges appears, marked by palms and meticulously maintained desert gardens. The guard waves me through without checking—I’m a regular fixture of these early morning hours. Houses grow larger and farther apart as I wind up into the foothills, each one a small kingdom unto itself.
I never wanted to live this far from the city. Our downtown penthouse suited me—close to the office, no yard and pool to maintain. But Claire fell in love with The Ridges the first time we drove through. She saw something here that I didn’t. Possibility, maybe. Future. Now the house feels too big, too quiet, too full of plans that never happened. Some mornings, I wake up and think about calling a realtor, but I haven’t found the courage yet. Maybe I never will.
The bass starts as I wait for my gate to open and turn into my driveway, a low throb coming from my neighbor’s house—Ms. Stavros. I’ve never met her, only caught glimpses: dark hair, elegant silhouette, expensive cars. Sheowns the Olympus on the Strip. The noise started recently, a steady pulse that vibrates through my walls at night.
I should complain to the HOA. I should do a lot of things. Like answer my mother’s texts. Like go to the firm’s monthly dinners. Like finally clean out Claire’s closet, still untouched after two years.
Instead, I park in my garage, take off my heels, and prepare for another hour of work until exhaustion claims me. It’s easier this way. Safer. The contracts don’t ask questions. They don’t expect me to smile, to engage, to move on. They just need my attention and focus. I can give them that. It’s all I have left to give.
TWO
ATHENA
The security feed from the club fills my phone screen, silent figures moving through the underground space. Below my home in The Ridges, twenty-seven women are letting go of their daytime personas. I watch a state senator shed her blazer, a tech CEO kick off her shoes and knock back a shot of tequila, a federal judge unpin her hair. My fingers trace the rim of my espresso cup as I observe, making mental notes of who’s carrying too much tension, who might cause problems.
My office at the Olympus sits thirty-eight floors above the Las Vegas Strip, all glass and steel and intimidation. The casino floor spreads out below, a labyrinth of lights and sound designed to disorient. But up here, everything is peaceful.
