The grandeur lounge of Richard Stuyvesant’s Hamptons estate was a room designed not just for comfort but for command. It was an expanse of obsidian marble and firelight, the kind of space where whispered deals had once determined the fate of markets, where billionaires had sat in thick silence, swirling scotch as fortunes were sealed or shattered.

Tonight, it was quiet.

Not the silence of emptiness, nor of peace—Richard did not believe in such things—but the silence of calculation. A silence that breathed, that moved, that waited.

The air carried the faintest trace of aged leather and expensive paper, mingling with the rich, smoky scent of his untouched Macallan 1946, still sitting in a crystal tumbler by the arm of his chair. The whiskey was poured, but not indulged—Richard never drank out of boredom. Only out of purpose. A drink was a punctuation mark, a calculated pause in conversation, a moment granted to let lesser men catch up. Tonight, it remained still, amber and undisturbed beneath the glow of the chandelier.

The fireplace, a monumental thing of carved limestone, crackled with slow-burning embers, its glow casting long, flickering shadows across the polished floors. The flames did not rage—they simmered, controlled, curated, much like the man who sat before them. It made the room seem both cavernous and intimate, a place where power did not have to raise its voice to be heard.

Richard sat with deliberate ease, his long frame draped in a midnight cashmere turtleneck and dark wool slacks, the kind of attire that whispered wealth rather than shouted it. His house slippers, custom-made in Florence, rested against the pristine rug, though he barely shifted as he sat. Even in solitude, he never allowed himself to slouch. His spine remained straight, his posture composed—still a king, even when no one watched.

A Montblanc Meisterstück 149 rested between his fingers, the weight of it familiar, grounding. He tapped it idly against the mahogany end table, the soft rhythm barely audible.