Before we dive in, let us know in the comments what time is it and where are you watching from. Let’s start.
The alley behind East Harbor Boulevard wasn’t supposed to belong to anyone.
Not really.
It belonged to the heat first, the kind that pressed down on your skull until thoughts felt slow and sticky. It belonged to dust second, a pale film that clung to brick walls and bent chain-link fences like the city was trying to erase its own fingerprints. And after that, it belonged to whoever was desperate enough to walk through it.
That morning, the alley was already boiling when the barefoot street boy stumbled through it, dragging an old sack almost heavier than his entire body.
His name was Rafi. That wasn’t what was printed on any birth certificate. He didn’t even know if he had one. But it was what people shouted when they wanted him gone, what other street kids used when they needed someone small enough to slip between parked cars, what he answered to because answering was easier than arguing with life.
Eight years old, and he survived the way weeds survived in cracked sidewalks: by refusing to stop.
His brown torn shirt clung to his skinny back, soaked through with sweat. His ripped pants slapped against his legs every time he ran. His stomach growled so loud it hurt, as if it was furious at him for not finding food sooner.
But hunger was normal.
Hunger was routine.
Hunger was the one thing that never left him.
Rafi’s sack bumped along the ground, filled with metal scraps, plastic bottles, bent bits of wire, and whatever else he’d pulled out of trash cans before sunrise. He’d already been to the junkyard once.
The junkyard man had screamed at him for bringing “useless trash” and thrown a broken chair at him like Rafi was a stray dog that wouldn’t learn.
Another man had shoved him off the sidewalk near a coffee shop, muttering something about “filth” and “kids like that.”
A shopkeeper had slapped his hand for getting too close to a display of pastries that smelled like heaven and cost more than Rafi made in a week.
Everyone treated him like dirt. Like something unwanted crawling in their perfect city.
Rafi didn’t cry.
Crying didn’t help.
Crying didn’t feed him.
He wiped his dirty face with the back of his arm and kept walking, because walking was the only thing he could afford to do.
Then he stopped.
A sound cut through the entire alley.
Sharp. High. Desperate.
A baby’s cry.
Not just a cry. A terrified scream, like the baby had discovered the world could swallow you whole.
Rafi frowned, shoulders tensing. It wasn’t normal to hear a baby back here. Poor families lived far from this road, crammed into apartments where you could hear neighbors arguing through the walls. Rich families… rich families didn’t step foot into narrow dusty spaces like this unless they were lost or looking for something they didn’t want anyone else to see.
Another cry came, louder, panicked, like the baby couldn’t breathe.
Rafi dropped his sack.
His instincts moved before his brain could finish arguing with fear. He followed the sound behind an old concrete wall tagged with faded graffiti and then froze so hard his bones felt locked.
A baby sat on the ground.
Not just any baby.
A white baby, maybe around one year old, red-faced from crying, dressed in clean beige clothes that looked soft enough to be a blanket. Chubby hands shook as his little palms slapped at the dirt. Tears carved clean tracks through dust on his cheeks as he sobbed like the world was ending.
Rafi’s heart slammed against his ribs.
A rich baby. Here. Alone.
His eyes locked on the tiny gold bracelet on the baby’s wrist. The initials were clear even under dust.
A. M.
Rafi swallowed.
“Millionaire’s kid,” he whispered, like saying it louder would summon lightning.
Kids like him never got close to families like that. Guards usually shoved him away before he even reached the gate. Sometimes they didn’t shove. Sometimes they kicked.
The baby let out another scream and reached both arms toward Rafi, begging for someone, anyone, to hold him.
Rafi stepped back.
“Hey, hey… don’t do that,” he muttered, panic rising like a siren in his skull. “I can’t touch you. They’ll beat me if they see me near you.”
But the baby didn’t understand. Babies didn’t understand rich or poor. They didn’t understand accusations. They didn’t understand how quickly a story could become a sentence.
The baby cried harder, desperate, scared, helpless.
Rafi clenched his fists so tight his nails bit skin.
He knew exactly what people would think if they saw this.
A dirty barefoot kid next to a millionaire’s child.
They wouldn’t ask questions.
They wouldn’t listen.
They would assume the worst because the worst was easier than the truth.
But Rafi also couldn’t walk away.
He didn’t have that kind of heart.
He knew exactly what it felt like to be alone, crying, ignored. He knew what it felt like when the world didn’t slow down for you, even if you were small enough to disappear.
He took a shaky step closer.
“Okay,” he whispered, voice cracking like a thin board. “Okay, brother. Stop crying. I won’t leave you. I promise.”
He touched the baby’s arm gently, trembling like he was touching something forbidden.
The baby leaned into him instantly, gripping Rafi’s dirty shirt with tiny fingers, burying his face against Rafi’s chest as if trusting him completely.
That trust hit Rafi harder than any slap.
He stood there, still as a statue, feeling the baby’s hot tears soak his shirt.
“Man,” Rafi breathed, almost angry at the unfairness of it. “You really don’t know who you’re holding, huh?”
He looked around desperately.
No guards. No nanny. No car. No footprints he could make sense of. Nothing.
Someone messed up. Someone from that rich family screwed up big time.
And now Rafi was holding the proof.
He needed to calm the baby down fast. Not just for the baby’s sake, but because a crying baby was basically a flare shot into the sky.
Rafi scanned the alley and spotted an old rusted wheelbarrow leaning against a wall. Its metal was dented and scratched, but it still stood, stubborn as him.
He hurried over, wiped the inside with his hands even though it made his palms sting. The rust left tiny cuts across his skin, and he didn’t stop. Blood and dirt mixed, turning his palms into something sticky and red.
He made a little space. A little nest.
Then he lifted the baby carefully, surprised by how heavy a well-fed child felt.
“Man, you eat good food,” he muttered, half amazed, half bitter.
The baby looked at him with tear-filled eyes, then suddenly burst into the biggest smile Rafi had ever seen.
And when Rafi placed him inside the wheelbarrow, the baby laughed.
Not a tiny giggle. A full-body laugh. The kind that made his whole face light up like the sun didn’t have to pay rent.
He clapped. He kicked his feet. He squealed like the world was a playground.
Rafi blinked, stunned.
“You like that?” he asked, like he needed confirmation that joy was real.
The baby squealed again, delighted.
Something cracked inside Rafi’s chest. A small part of him that had been frozen for so long it felt like it might never thaw.
He grabbed the handles and pushed slowly.
The baby laughed harder.
Rafi pushed faster.
The wheelbarrow rattled and squeaked. Dust kicked up under Rafi’s bare feet. The baby threw his head back, clapping wildly, face glowing like pure sunshine.
Rafi started laughing too.
Real laughter. The kind he didn’t know he still had.
For a moment, he wasn’t starving.
He wasn’t unwanted.
He wasn’t invisible.
He felt like a big brother.
He ran back and forth through the alley, careful not to tip the wheelbarrow, careful like the baby was made of glass. The baby giggled uncontrollably, and the whole alley echoed with joy that had no reason to exist in a place like this.
Rafi whispered to himself, breathless, “Look at you laughing like I gave you the whole world.”
The moment didn’t stay safe.
It never did.
Heavy footsteps thundered at the far end of the alley. Voices crashed into the air like breaking glass.
“Panic!”
A man’s voice roared, raw and ragged. “My son! Find my son!”
Rafi’s blood turned cold.
He knew that voice. Everybody in the city knew that voice. The kind of voice that bought silence when it entered a room. The kind of voice that made people stand straighter, even when they hated him.
The millionaire.
See more on the next page
Advertisement
