And the difference between those two projects — the hollow one they displayed and the real one they hid me for building — was the whole difference between us, and it was about to be made very public.

Chapter 5 — They Don’t Know

“The press release drops in the morning,” Devra said.

“Your family’s going to need a moment when it does.”

My family. I looked down at the black town cars pulling up to the entrance far below.

My father, Yancy Steadwell, an aging real-estate developer clinging to the fading illusion of great wealth, had described the ground-floor ballroom as “the room where people finally see what we built.” “They don’t know,” I said quietly.