He ordered far more than the boy had asked for—sandwiches, cake, juice, coffee. When the table filled up, the boy’s eyes watered.
“It’s too much, sir…”
“Eat,” Ethan said, more gently now. “You’re Noah, right?”
“Yes, sir. I’m twelve.”
As Noah ate, first carefully and then with the hunger of someone who had been empty for too long, Ethan began asking questions. Not like a businessman. Like a man who suddenly wanted to understand.
“You learned all that from your father, didn’t you? You don’t get skills like that off the internet.”
Noah paused. “Yeah. My dad was a mechanic. The best. He always told me everything can be fixed. Machines talk if you know how to listen.”
“Where is he now?”
The boy swallowed hard. “He died three years ago. They said it was an accident.”
“They said?”
Noah looked up, and something dark passed through his young face. “He wasn’t just a mechanic. He was an inventor. He was working on something important. Said it would change our lives. Then one day he was just gone.”
Ethan felt a chill. “What kind of invention?”