Chapter 1 - The Rabbit Under the Chandelier
I wasn't there when my six-year-old daughter confronted him.
Later, security footage showed me everything.
Lily had waited nearly two hours beneath the enormous crystal chandelier inside Moretti Plaza, clutching her worn stuffed rabbit and my termination letter in her small, sticky hands.
She had taken two subway lines all the way from our cramped apartment in Brooklyn.
Alone.
When Dominic Moretti crossed the polished white marble lobby flanked by six bodyguards, Lily stepped directly into his path.
“Why did you fire my mom?”
Everyone in the lobby froze.
Dominic Moretti was not a man people confronted. At thirty-four, his family controlled shipping terminals, real estate empires, trucking fleets, and luxury restaurants across New York. Their name carried the kind of reputation respectable newspapers described carefully and politicians feared.
Yet Lily knew none of that. She only knew that her mother had cried at the kitchen table that morning.
Dominic crouched on one knee before her, his bespoke wool coat brushing the floor.
“What's your name?”
“Lily Carter.”
He glanced at the crumpled paper in her hand. “May I see that?”
“Are you going to tear it up?”
“No.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
She handed him my termination letter. Dominic read it once. Then his slate-grey eyes darkened, and he read it again.
“Who gave this to your mother?”
“Her boss. Mr. Henderson.”
“And what is your mother's name?”
Lily hugged her rabbit tighter against her chest. “Anna Carter.”
Dominic went completely still. According to the front desk security guard, the color visibly drained from the billionaire's face.
“Anna Carter?”
“My mommy worked in your basement accounting office for eight years.”
Dominic stood up immediately, towering over his men.
“Marco.”
Marco Stone, his chief of intelligence, stepped forward. “Yes, Boss?”
“Find out who authorized this termination notice. Now.”
Lily looked up, her voice clear and sweet. “She has your letters too.”
Dominic looked down sharply. “What letters?”
“A whole shoebox in our closet.”
“Letters from me?”
Lily shook her head. “No. Mommy wrote them to Mr. Moretti.”
Dominic's voice dropped to a low, intense baritone. “Lily... I am Mr. Moretti.”
Lily frowned, pointing toward the large oil portrait hanging above the reception desk. “Not you. The old Mr. Moretti. The one with the white hair.”
The entire lobby went dead silent.
May you like
Dominic's father, Don Salvatore Moretti, had been dead for three years.
“Those letters were never opened,” Lily whispered. “And under the letters is a big blue paper with the old man's gold sticker.”
