Wednesday, 4:00 PM. Georgetown, Washington D.C.
Silicon Valley had been a sterile, sun-drenched landscape of glass, steel, and algorithmic precision. Washington D.C. was something else entirely. It was a city built on a swamp, both literally and metaphorically. The air was thick with humidity, the architecture was heavy, imposing neoclassical stone, and the power didn't hum in server racks—it whispered in the dark corners of expensive steakhouses.
We didn't rent a corporate office this time. D.C. didn't respect tech startups; it respected old money and established roots. Instead, using Vanguard's untraceable funds, I had leased a massive, historic, four-story brick townhouse in the heart of Georgetown. It came fully furnished with antique mahogany, Persian rugs, and a state-of-the-art security system that Darius had spent the last three hours ripping out and replacing with our own.
