Across the room, a man froze mid-motion.
The porcelain cup hovered inches from his lips.
Richard Callahan—sixty-five, self-made, untouchable in every room that mattered—felt something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in decades.
A crack.
A memory.
A boy standing outside a window.
Watching.
Wanting.
Learning… how to pretend he didn’t.
His hand lowered slowly.