Valentina parked her new car beneath the golden throat of Infinity Chaos Hotel's private entrance, the engine lowered from a deep, satisfied growl into silence as the night folded itself back around the marble driveway.
For a moment, Valentina stayed behind the wheel, hands resting on the leather, her reflection faint across the windshield while the hotel's lights poured over the hood in long liquid bands. The car still felt unreal. Too smooth. Too powerful. Too expensive.
It was really a sort of machine she would have once watched on a screen while making some dry comment about rich people losing their moral compass at high speed, and now here she was, stepping out of it like a woman who apparently belonged to this world.
