The heater in the Rolls-Royce hummed, maintaining its perfect seventy-two degrees, but a deeper cold had settled in Arthur Vance’s bones. Stuck in gridlock, the billionaire glared at the grey Chicago sludge outside his window. His driver, Marcus, offered a quiet explanation about an accident on the bridge, but Arthur barely heard him. All he could think about was the merger meeting and the heavy anniversary that winter always brought. Ten years. A decade since his world had ended.
A sudden, wet slap against the windshield broke his brooding. A bedraggled boy, no more than twelve, was smearing the glass with a filthy rag. Arthur’s simmering frustration boiled over. He barked at Marcus to honk, then threw his own door open into the biting wind. He marched toward the child, shouting about the car’s paint, his expensive shoes sinking into the slush. The boy flinched, offering a desperate plea for just five dollars. Enraged, Arthur grabbed the boy’s damp shoulder to shove him away. As the child twisted in panic, his hoodie snagged and tore open.
Something swung out and struck the car’s hood with a soft, metallic clink. Time fractured. Arthur’s breath caught. There, on a rusty chain around the boy’s neck, was a silver locket shaped like a mockingbird in flight. He knew every contour, every scratch, especially the tiny dent on the left wing. He had bought it for his wife, Sarah. She had placed it around their son Ethan’s neck for protection. The locket had vanished with three-year-old Ethan a decade ago, leaving only emptiness and grief in its wake.
Arthur’s anger evaporated, replaced by a terrifying, hopeful dread. “Where did you get that?” he gasped, his grip on the boy’s shoulder now one of desperate need, not anger. The boy, seeing the wild look in the man’s eyes, panicked. He stomped on Arthur’s foot, wrenched free, and the fragile chain snapped. Clutching the locket, the boy darted into the maze of traffic. Arthur stumbled after him, falling to his knees in the filthy snow, screaming a name he hadn’t spoken in years: “Ethan!” But the boy was gone, leaving behind only a single, cracked ID card in the slush. It read: Leo. Foster ID #8940. Arthur Vance, the powerful CEO, was gone. In his place was a father who had just seen a ghost, and he would tear the city apart to find him again.
