Inside a sleek black car, Ethan Cole, a billionaire known for his ruthless precision in business, barely noticed the world outside. His mind was still tangled in numbers, contracts, and decisions worth millions. The city blurred past him—until a small knock broke through the glass.
Tap. Tap.
He frowned slightly and turned his head.
A little girl stood beside the car.
She couldn’t have been older than eight. Her clothes were worn thin, damp from the rain, and in her small hands she held a bundle of wilting flowers—roses, their petals beginning to curl at the edges.
“Sir… would you like to buy one?” she asked softly.
Ethan almost looked away.
He had seen children like her before—at intersections, outside cafés, on sidewalks where life moved too fast to stop. Normally, he would have signaled the driver to ignore it.
But something made him hesitate.
The driver lowered the window just slightly.
The girl stepped closer, careful, as if afraid of crossing an invisible line.
“Please… they’re fresh,” she said, though both of them knew they weren’t.
Ethan reached into his coat and pulled out a bill—far more than the flowers were worth. He handed it to her without thinking.
“You can keep the flowers,” he said.
The girl blinked, surprised.
“No… you should take one,” she insisted, holding out a single rose.
For a moment, Ethan almost refused.
Then his eyes dropped to her hands.
And froze.
Around her neck, resting just above the collar of her faded shirt, was a thin silver necklace.
A small pendant.
A crescent moon.
His breath caught.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, his voice sharper than he intended.
The girl instinctively stepped back, clutching the flowers closer.
“My mom gave it to me,” she said cautiously.
Ethan stared at the pendant.
He knew it.
He knew it because he had bought it years ago—on a night that now felt like a different lifetime. A gift for a woman he had once loved deeply.
Lena.
The only person who had ever walked away from him… and never come back.
“What’s your name?” he asked, his voice quieter now.
“Mia,” she replied.
The world seemed to tilt slightly.
“How old are you?”
“Eight.”
Ethan’s chest tightened.
Eight years.
Eight years since Lena disappeared without explanation. No goodbye. No explanation. Just gone.
He had searched at first—quietly, through contacts and influence—but when nothing surfaced, he told himself she had chosen to leave.
He told himself it didn’t matter.
But now—