Chapter 1: The Little Girl Who Wouldn't Leave
"A Little Girl Asked Me, 'Why Did You Fire My Mom?'—Then I Saw Her Mother's Name on the Termination Letter and Realized Someone Had Used My Signature"
"Why did you fire my mom?"
The question stopped me halfway across the lobby of Moretti Plaza.
I had been walking toward the elevators with Marco Bellini and three senior executives when I heard the little girl's voice behind me.
When I turned around, I saw a child standing beneath the chandelier with a stuffed rabbit pressed against her chest.
She couldn't have been older than six.
Her cream-colored shirt had a small pink bow on the front.
A bright fuchsia skirt fell around her knees, and yellow rain boots covered her feet.
The boots were on the wrong feet.
Outside the glass doors, snow swept across Forty-Eighth Street while taxis crawled through evening traffic.
Inside, almost everyone had stopped moving.
Nobody was used to hearing someone challenge me in my own building.
Especially not a little girl.
I walked back toward her.
"What's your name?"
"Lily Carter."
Something about the last name caught my attention, but I couldn't place it.
Then I noticed the folded paper in her hand.
She had opened it so many times that the creases had nearly turned white.
I crouched until we were almost eye level.
"Did you come here with someone?"
She shook her head.
Marco stepped closer.
"You came here alone?"
Lily nodded.
"From Brooklyn."
My stomach tightened.
She had taken two subway lines and transferred by herself in the middle of a winter evening.
All because of the paper she was holding.
I glanced toward security.
"How long has she been waiting?"
The security director swallowed.
"Almost two hours, Mr.
Moretti."
I stared at him.
"She's six."
"She wouldn't leave."
Lily looked over at him.
"He used his big voice."
Marco turned his face away, hiding what was probably the closest thing to a smile he had shown all week.
I looked back at Lily.
"Can I see the letter?"
She hugged the rabbit tighter.
Then she held the paper toward me.
"Mom keeps saying everything is okay," she said.
"But she cries when she thinks I'm sleeping."
That sentence did more damage than any accusation could have.
I took the letter carefully.
At the top was Moretti Group's corporate logo.
Below it was a standard employment termination notice.
Her mother had been dismissed effective immediately.
No severance.
No transition period.
No review.
I frowned.
"That isn't how we normally handle terminations."
Lily looked confused.
"You fired her."
I glanced at the employee name.
And for the first time that evening, I stopped breathing normally.
**Emily Carter.**
The name hit me with the force of a door opening somewhere deep in my memory.
Marco noticed.
"Dominic?"
I ignored him.
I read the name again.
Emily Carter.
I had heard that name before.
Years earlier.
Not in a boardroom.
Not in an HR report.
In my father's study.
I looked farther down the letter.
The termination authorization had been approved by the chairman's office.
Then I saw the signature.
My signature.
Every curve was correct.
The hard downward stroke of the M.
The long final line beneath Moretti.
It looked perfect.
There was only one problem.
I had never signed it.
I stared at the page for another moment.
Then I raised my eyes toward Marco.
His expression changed when he saw mine.
"What?" he asked quietly.
I lowered my voice.
"I never signed this."
The lobby suddenly felt much colder.
Lily looked between us.
"Does that mean Mommy can have her job back?"
I didn't answer.
Because now I wasn't thinking about her job.
I was thinking about who inside my company had enough access to forge my authorization and bury an employee without triggering an alert.
Then Lily reached into the small backpack hanging from one shoulder.
"There's something else."
She pulled out an old photograph.
The edges were bent.
I recognized my father immediately.
He was twenty years younger in the picture.
Standing beside him was a woman I had never seen before.
And beside that woman—
was Emily Carter.
My eyes moved to the handwritten date on the back.
Seventeen years ago.
Lily pointed at her mother.
"That's Mommy."
Then she pointed at the woman beside her.
"And that was Grandma."
I turned the photograph over again.
Someone had written one sentence beneath the date.
**If anything happens to me, give Dominic the letters.**
I looked at Lily.
"What letters?"
She swallowed.
"Mom has a whole shoebox."
"Where?"
"At home."
"And she knows you brought this?"
Lily slowly shook her head.
"No."
May you like
Then she said the words that made Marco go completely still.
"She thinks the letters never reached you."
