Morning arrived softly over Hell's Paradise Island not with the aggressive brightness of ordinary cities where sunlight barged rudely through cheap curtains and dragged exhausted people back into routines they hated, but with the quiet arrogance of luxury itself.
The sun here seemed calmer somehow as it filtered first through the endless skies above the island, then the rooftop of the towering architecture, before finally slipping through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls surrounding Phei's penthouse until the light entering the room no longer resembled ordinary sunlight at all.
It felt curated, golden and warm as though even nature behaved differently around enough money — adjusted its intensity, softened its edges, arrived fifteen minutes later than it did for poor people because wealth had purchased it a more civilized schedule.
