The rain had stopped twenty minutes before dinner service, leaving the sidewalk outside Maison Laurent shining like black glass.
People stepped out of polished cars and walked past the boy without looking down. His coat was too thin, his shoes were too old, and the guitar case beside him had one broken latch.
Still, he played as if the whole city had come to hear him.
The melody was quiet at first, almost shy. Then it rose above the traffic, above the clinking glasses inside the restaurant, above the laughter of men who thought money made them untouchable.
That was when Victor Hale stopped at the door.
“Move,” he said, not to the doorman, not to his driver, but to the child sitting near the brass menu stand.
The boy lowered his hand from the strings. “Sir, I’m not blocking the entrance.”
Victor smiled the kind of smile that made other people nervous. “You are blocking the image.”
Before anyone could speak, his expensive shoe struck the guitar case. The case flipped open, the old guitar slid out, and the instrument cracked against the wet stone.
The sound silenced the entire sidewalk.