His true routine began every Sunday afternoon, when he drove himself—no chauffeur—to the cemetery. He carried white lilies because Leo had once declared them “honest flowers,” simple and unpretentious. That ritual was the only moment when Richard allowed himself to feel openly. On one such gray, rain-soaked afternoon, something disrupted that fragile balance. As he approached the grave, he noticed a boy sitting nearby, small and thin, dressed in worn clothes that clashed starkly with the polished granite stones around him. The child’s posture—still, thoughtful, almost reverent—unnerved Richard.

When he called out, the boy startled and fled, vanishing among the trees with a speed that suggested fear more than guilt. Richard stood there, unsettled, his heart pounding for reasons he couldn’t explain. That night, sleep refused to come. The boy’s eyes haunted him, carrying a sadness far too heavy for someone so young. Acting on an instinct he had learned to trust in business but rarely in life, Richard summoned Daniel, his longtime assistant and investigator, and asked him to find the child. It was the first time in years Richard had pursued something that wasn’t a contract or an acquisition.