The city was quieter when Jake got home.
Not silent—Aurelia City never truly reached that point—but the late-night traffic had thinned enough that the hum outside his apartment felt distant instead of constant. Lights still glowed in nearby buildings, though fewer windows were lit now, and the streets below looked calmer in the way cities do when most of their inhabitants finally surrender to sleep.
Jake parked in the underground garage and rode the elevator up to his floor. The ride was short, but his thoughts stayed fixed on the same number.
Fifty million.
The proposal Marcus had presented earlier kept replaying in his head, not because the concept was complicated but because it was simple in a way that made it powerful. Four partners pooling resources into a private investment company had advantages Jake understood immediately. With two hundred million in combined capital, opportunities would open that individual investors rarely even saw.
