Melissa's penthouse wore wealth the same way Melissa herself wore composure: deliberately, beautifully and with enough restraint that people mistook restraint for softness right before realizing those were not the same thing at all.
Unlike Phei's suite, there were no cathedral ceilings stretching upward with the desperate energy of architecture trying to negotiate itself entry into heaven or polished obsidian floors reflecting their occupants from every angle like some expensive exercise in narcissism.
His penthouse existed because Chaos loved her grandson with the terrifying enthusiasm of a woman who had watched empires rise, watched them fall and concluded that none of them had been ambitious enough when it came to spoiling family.
Melissa's home was different.
Not lesser.
Never lesser.
She was simply quieter.
