Victor drove his luxury sedan the way he handled everything in life—precise, controlled, almost mechanical. The windshield wipers moved back and forth in a steady rhythm, marking time in the quiet life of a man who had achieved success but not much else.
From the outside, Victor seemed to have everything. He owned companies, properties in the city’s most exclusive areas, and enough money that it kept growing even when he wasn’t paying attention. People respected him—sometimes out of admiration, sometimes out of caution.
But inside the silent, comfortable cabin of his car, the truth was very different.
No one waited for him at home.
Only silence.
His thoughts drifted through business deals and financial charts as he drove, the usual distractions he used to avoid thinking about the emptiness waiting behind his front door. Then, as he rounded a dark bend on a poorly lit road, something unusual caught his eye.
A shape near the edge of the road.
Most drivers would have ignored it, assuming it was trash or maybe a stray animal. But something inside Victor made him slow down.
He pressed the brakes.