Richard Moreau learned early that invisibility was a skill.
It wasn't taught in schools or inherited like the fortune sitting in accounts under his name.
It was learned the hard way,through silence, restraint, and the careful erasure of anything that invited attention. He moved through the city the way smoke did: present, unmistakable, and yet never grasped.
That morning, the city woke up loud and impatient. Horns argued at intersections, vendors shouted prices that rose with the sun, and glass towers reflected a version of the world Richard did not belong to,at least not outwardly.
He stood at a bus stop with chipped paint and a leaning signpost, dressed in a faded hoodie, worn jeans, and scuffed sneakers whose soles had begun to separate at the heel.
No one looking at him would have guessed he owned half the skyline.
The bus arrived late. It always did. Richard didn't check the time. He had learned to exist without urgency. Urgency made people sloppy. Urgency invited mistakes.
As he stepped onto the bus, the driver barely glanced at him. That was good. Richard paid his fare in exact change and moved toward the back, taking a seat beside a window smeared with old fingerprints and dust.
The city slid past him in fragments,faces, billboards, ambition printed in bold fonts promising success for a price.
He watched it all with practiced detachment.
There was a time when Richard Moreau had worn tailored suits and moved with an entourage that cleared rooms before he entered them. There was a time when his name bent conversations, when deals paused until he spoke, when security hovered so close he could feel their breath.
That time had nearly killed him.
The bus jolted to a stop, and Richard steadied himself without thinking, fingers tightening briefly on the metal pole. The reflex annoyed him. Old habits resurfaced when he least expected them,discipline drilled into his body long before he had a choice.
He got off three stops early and walked the rest of the way.
The neighborhood changed gradually, concrete giving way to newer pavement, buildings rising taller and cleaner, windows reflecting light instead of dust.
Richard adjusted his pace, shoulders slightly hunched, gaze lowered. It was not an act anymore. It had become instinct.
He stopped outside a café with polished glass doors and minimalist lettering.
Inside, people sat with laptops and delicate cups, conversations soft and curated. This place was not meant for him. That, too, was intentional.
He entered anyway.
The bell above the door chimed, and for a fraction of a second, several heads turned. Richard felt it,the subtle shift, the assessment. Clothes.
Posture. Shoes. Then, just as quickly, attention slid away.
Invisible again.
He ordered the cheapest item on the menu and took a seat near the window.
From here, he could see the street, the reflection of himself layered over passing strangers. He looked exactly as he intended to: unremarkable, slightly tired, forgettable.
Good.
He took out a notebook, its cover creased and soft from use. Inside were handwritten notes,numbers, sketches, fragments of ideas. Anyone glancing at it would assume it was the scribbling of a man trying to plan a life he didn't yet have.
In truth, those same numbers existed in encrypted files across secure servers on three continents.
Richard wrote anyway. Writing grounded him. It kept his hands busy, his mind focused.
It reminded him that this life,this stripped-down version of himself,was a choice.
A choice born from betrayal.
The memory surfaced uninvited: a boardroom washed in white light, men in expensive suits smiling too easily, his uncle's voice calm as poison.
For your own good, Richard. You're not stable enough to lead.
That was the day Richard realized wealth did not protect you from being hunted. It simply made the knives sharper.
The café door opened again, bell chiming, and this time the shift in the room was different. Richard felt it before he looked up.
She moved like she belonged to the world,confident, unhesitating.
Dark hair pulled back loosely, eyes sharp and alert, as if she was always calculating the next step before others realized a step was needed.
She wore a simple blazer, nothing flashy, but it fit her the way certainty fits those who've earned it.
Lina Hart.
Richard knew her name long before she knew his face.
She was a junior partner at a real estate firm quietly reshaping half the city. Smart.
Ruthless when necessary. Ethical when it cost her something. He had read her case files, watched her negotiations through reports and recordings, admired the way she cut through arrogance without raising her voice.
She was dangerous in the way truth often is.
Lina stepped up to the counter, ordered without looking at the menu, and scanned the café as she waited. Her gaze brushed over Richard once, briefly, then moved on.
Dismissed.
He told himself he didn't care.
Fate, however, had a sense of humor Richard did not appreciate.
The café was crowded, and the only available seat was the empty chair across from him. Lina hesitated, glanced around, then gestured politely.
"Is this seat taken?"
Her voice was calm, professional, not unkind. Richard looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time. Something flickered there,curiosity, perhaps,but it was fleeting.
"No," he said. His voice was low, careful. "Go ahead."
She sat, placing her phone and a slim folder on the table. Up close, she smelled faintly of citrus and something sharper,determination, maybe.
Richard returned his attention to his notebook, though every instinct told him to catalog details, to assess.
Old habits again.
They sat in silence for several minutes, the kind that could be awkward or peaceful depending on who you were.
Richard preferred silence. It asked nothing of him.
Lina broke it.
"You write like someone who's planning," she said, glancing at his notebook.
"Not daydreaming. Planning."
Richard almost smiled. "Is there a difference?"
"There is if you intend to survive what you're planning for."
He closed the notebook slowly. "And you?"
She arched her brow. "Me?"
"Are you surviving? Or planning?"
Something shifted in her expression,guarded now. She studied him more closely, really looking this time.
The frayed cuff of his sleeve. The cheap pen. The absence of anything that suggested security.
"Surviving," she said after a moment. "Planning is a luxury."
Richard nodded. "I've heard that."
She hesitated, then added, "You don't look like you belong here."
There it was. Not cruel. Just honest.
"Neither do you," he replied.
A small smile tugged at her mouth despite herself. "Fair."
They talked after that,about nothing and everything. The city. Work. The quiet pressure of expectations. Richard chose his words with surgical precision, revealing just enough to be human without being interesting.
Too interesting invited questions.
For a brief, dangerous moment, he forgot to be careful.
When the conversation drifted toward relationships,toward the way ambition carved space for loneliness,Richard found himself saying, "I think people see what they expect. Not what's real."
Lina looked at him thoughtfully. "And what do you expect people to see when they look at you?"
He considered the truth. Then chose the safer answer.
"Nothing," he said. "That way they can't be disappointed."
The silence that followed was heavier this time.
Lina checked her phone, her expression tightening.
"I should go."
She gathered her things, hesitated, then said, "You seem… decent. But you're drifting. And drifting isn't attractive."
The words were not meant to wound. They did anyway.
"I need someone grounded," she continued, honest to a fault. "Someone who knows where they're going. I can't afford uncertainty."
Richard met her gaze, heart steady despite the quiet fracture inside him. "Understood."
She nodded once, a polite end, and walked out of the café without looking back.
The bell chimed. The city swallowed her.
Richard sat alone, staring at the space she had occupied. Around him, conversations resumed, the world indifferent to the moment that had just passed.
Rejected.
Not for who he was,but for who he appeared to be.
He paid for his coffee, left a tip that would have surprised the barista if she noticed, and stepped back onto the street. His phone vibrated once in his pocket.
A secure message. Encrypted. Urgent.
Victor is moving. The board meets in forty-eight hours. They're questioning your absence.
Richard slipped the phone away, his expression unreadable.
Lina Hart thought she had dismissed a drifting man with nothing to offer.
She had no idea she had just turned away the one man who could change everything.
And Richard Moreau,billionaire, ghost, target,walked on, already disappearing again, knowing one thing with terrifying clarity:
The world had just reminded him why he never let himself be seen.