The office was quieter these days. No one dared joke. No one lingered at the coffee station. Everyone walked quickly, eyes down, afraid to draw attention. Because Richard Knight was in a mood.
A dark one.
He no longer barked orders. He didn’t even speak unless he had to. But the silence was worse than shouting. It carried weight, guilt and pain. And slowly, the people around him began to whisper what he himself had just started to accept. He had made a mistake.
It wasn’t sudden. The regret came in pieces, like a puzzle falling apart. The first piece came when he walked into his office and saw her desk empty, untouched, cold. She used to sit there every morning, typing quickly, her hair tied in a messy bun, glasses slipping down her nose. Now, the chair was pushed in. The desk was spotl
