Richard Moreau did not go home after leaving the café.
Home implied attachment. Roots. A place where things could be taken from him.
Instead, he walked.
The city shifted as the day aged, light sharpening against glass, shadows retreating into doorways. Richard let the movement steady him.
Rejection still sat beneath his ribs,not sharp, not dramatic, just present. He had invited it. I expected it. And yet, it lingered.
Lina Hart hadn't dismissed him cruelly. That was the problem.
Cruelty would have been easier. He could have folded it into his long list of reasons for staying invisible. But honesty,quiet, practical honesty,left no place to hide.
You're drifting.
And drifting isn't attractive.
She had said it like a fact, not a judgment.
He stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the signal. Around him, people checked phones, adjusted bags, hurried toward lives they had decided were worth being late for.
Richard wondered, not for the first time, what it would feel like to move without calculation.
The light changed. He crossed.
By the time he reached the building, dusk had begun its slow takeover. The structure was unremarkable,six floors, concrete façade, balconies with mismatched furniture.
Richard entered through a side door, climbed the stairs instead of using the elevator, and unlocked a door on the fifth floor.
The apartment was spare. Not minimalist in the curated sense,just empty of anything unnecessary.
A mattress on the floor.
A table.
Two chairs. A small bookshelf with titles that ranged from economic theory to old paperbacks with cracked spines. The only luxury was the view: a slice of city framed by the window, alive even at night.
Richard set his keys down and removed his jacket, folding it carefully despite its wear. He stood still for a moment, listening.
No footsteps outside. No unfamiliar sounds. No threat.
Only then did he exhale.
He crossed to the table and opened his laptop.
The screen glowed softly, asking for a password that was not a word but a pattern, a sequence only he could remember. Within seconds, the device became something else entirely,secure channels, live feeds, financial dashboards updating in real time.
The world he pretended not to own greeted him like a loyal animal.
A message blinked in the corner of the screen.
MARCUS: You missed the call.
Richard typed back.
Richard : I was busy.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
MARCUS: You're always busy when it's about the board.
Richard leaned back, eyes closing briefly. Marcus had been with him since the beginning,or as close to the beginning as Richard allowed anyone to get. Former military intelligence. Loyal to a fault. Dangerous when underestimated.
Richard : What do they want?
The reply took longer this time.
MARCUS: Victor's pushing for an emergency review. He's planting doubt. Mental fitness. Absentee leadership. Same old song, louder volume.
Richard opened a financial report, scanning it automatically.
Numbers never betrayed him. People did.
Richard : And the shareholders?
MARCUS: Split. They trust results. They don't trust ghosts.
A humorless smile touched Richard 's mouth.
Richard : They raised a ghost.
He closed the laptop before Marcus could respond.
Tonight was not for strategy. Tonight was for remembering why he kept his distance.
He crossed the room and stood by the window. Below, headlights traced glowing lines through traffic. Somewhere in the city,
Lina Hart was likely still working,late meetings, careful decisions, the steady climb she'd chosen over comfort.
She had chosen certainty.
Richard understood that. He respected it.
What unsettled him was how easily he had wanted to cross a line he'd sworn never to approach.
Connection.
He hadn't sought her out. That was the truth. Their meeting had been a coincidence, nothing more. But his interest in her hadn't been accidental. He had known who she was long before she asked if the seat was taken.
He had let himself sit there anyway.
That was on him.
Lina returned to her office long after most of the building had emptied.
The city outside her window glowed in layers,streetlights, passing cars, distant towers pulsing with life. She dropped her bag by the door, kicked off her heels, and rolled her shoulders, tension cracking faintly along her spine.
She should have gone home.
Instead, she stood by her desk, staring at a document she'd read three times already without absorbing a word.
Her mind kept drifting,back to the café, to the man in the worn hoodie, to the way his eyes had held hers without pleading or resentment.
You're drifting.
She hadn't meant it as an insult. She told herself that again, as if repetition might make it truer. She had been honest. That was what mattered.
Honesty was efficient.
Still, there had been something about him. Not ambition,she could smell ambition a mile away. Not insecurity, either. If anything, he'd seemed…contained. Like someone who had already lived through something and survived by learning restraint.
Lina shook her head, annoyed at herself.
She didn't have time to psychoanalyze strangers.
Her phone buzzed on the desk. Naomi's name lit up the screen.
"Tell me you're leaving," Naomi said without preamble.
"I will," Lina replied. "Eventually."
Naomi laughed. "You say that like it's a strategy."
"It is. Delay until exhaustion forces compliance."
"Healthy," Naomi said dryly. "How was your mysterious coffee break?"
Lina hesitated, then answered honestly. "Strange."
"That's a review, not an answer."
"I met someone."
There was a pause on the line,brief, but charged.
"Oh?"
"Don't," Lina warned.
"I didn't say anything," Naomi said innocently. "Yet."
"He wasn't…right," Lina continued, choosing her words carefully. "Nice. Thoughtful. But ungrounded."
Naomi hummed. "You always say that when someone doesn't fit the spreadsheet."
Lina frowned. "I don't date chaos."
"No," Naomi agreed. "You date potential with acceptable risk margins."
"That's not fair."
"It's accurate."
Lina sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm tired, Naomi."
"I know," Naomi softened. "Just,don't confuse tired with settled. They look the same from the outside."
After the call ended, Lina sat at her desk and stared at the city again. For reasons she didn't want to examine too closely, she found herself wondering where the man from the café had gone after he left.
The following morning, Richard woke before dawn.
Sleep came lightly to him,always had. He rose, dressed, and left the apartment as the city yawned itself awake.
By the time most people poured their first coffee, Richard had already completed a circuit of streets, mapped exits, noted anything new or out of place.
Paranoia, his uncle had once called it.
Richard called it survival.
He stopped at a corner vendor for breakfast and paid in cash. The vendor nodded at him, already forgetting his face. Richard liked it that way.
His phone vibrated.
MARCUS: We have a problem.
Richard stepped aside, leaning against a wall where he could see the street.
Richard : Define problem.
MARCUS: Victor hired a private firm.
They're tracing your movements,not the money, the man.
Richard 's jaw tightened. That was new.
Richard : How close?
MARCUS: Close enough that you shouldn't stay predictable.
Richard glanced at the street, at the people moving past him without a second look. "I'm never predictable."
MARCUS: You sat in the same café three times this week.
A beat.
Richard : That was a coincidence.
MARCUS: Richard .
He ended the call without replying.
Predictable. The word echoed unpleasantly.
He resumed walking, choosing routes at random, letting instinct guide him. And then,inevitably,his path curved toward the district with polished glass and curated spaces.
Toward the café.
He stopped half a block away.
This was how it started. Small allowances. One exception. One rationalization.
He turned away.
Across the street, a black sedan idled too long at the curb.
Richard noted it, cataloged the license plate, the tint, the driver's posture. His pulse remained steady, but something else stirred beneath it,not fear.
Resolve.
Victor was moving faster than expected.
And Lina Hart,unaware, unguarded,was closer to Richard 's orbit than she should ever be.
He made a decision then, quiet and final.
He would not see her again.
Not until the world stopped trying to drag him into the light.
And not until he could meet her without lying,by omission or disguise,about the man he truly was.
The city moved on, unaware that lines had been drawn.
And that somewhere between a rejection and a threat, everything had begun to shift.