Chapter 2 - THE NAME HE NEVER FORGOT
Dominic unfolded the termination letter.
He expected incompetence.
A payroll error.
A manager who had abused his authority.
Something ordinary enough to be corrected with one phone call and followed by someone losing a job before dinner.
Then he reached the employee name.
ELENA CARTER.
The lobby disappeared.
For one suspended second, Dominic heard nothing except the soft crackle of paper between his fingers.
Marco noticed.
“Dom?”
Dominic did not answer.
He read the name again.
Seven years.
Seven years since Elena Carter had walked out of his life without saying goodbye.
Seven years since he had stood outside her apartment in Brooklyn and discovered it empty.
Seven years since his calls had stopped connecting.
Since every letter he sent had been returned.
Since his father had told him the humiliating truth Dominic had eventually forced himself to accept.
She had chosen to leave.
Except now her six-year-old daughter was standing beneath his chandelier wearing yellow boots on the wrong feet.
Dominic’s eyes moved slowly from the letter to Lily.
“What is your mother’s full name?”
“Elena Marie Carter.”
Marco inhaled sharply.
He knew the name.
Everyone who had been close to Dominic back then knew it.
Dominic looked at the date printed near the top.
Four days earlier.
The letter stated that Elena Carter, senior financial analyst for Bellmont Storage Solutions, had been terminated immediately for “unauthorized access to confidential financial records and conduct inconsistent with Moretti Group standards.”
Dominic read the final line.
Then his blood went cold.
His signature appeared beneath it.
**Dominic A. Moretti.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.**
He stared at it.
It looked perfect.
Almost.
Dominic had signed thousands of contracts.
He knew every curve his hand made.
He also knew he had never seen this letter.
“Marco.”
His voice was quiet.
Marco stepped closer.
Dominic handed him the page.
Marco read it.
His expression hardened.
“You sign this?”
“No.”
Lily’s eyes widened.
“You didn’t fire her?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
Dominic looked directly at her.
“I promise.”
Her face changed.
It was not relief.
It was something far more painful.
Hope.
Children should never look surprised by hope.
“Then can you give her job back?”
Dominic stood.
“We’re going to find out exactly what happened.”
Lily squeezed the rabbit.
“She needs it.”
“Why?”
The child hesitated.
“Our landlord says money is late.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Does your mother know you came here?”
Lily became fascinated with the rabbit’s repaired ear.
“No.”
“Lily.”
“She was sleeping.”
“At six o’clock in the evening?”
“She sleeps a lot now.”
Dominic crouched again.
“Is she sick?”
Lily nodded.
“Her chest sounds funny.”
Everything inside Dominic sharpened.
“Marco, car.”
“Already moving.”
Dominic turned toward the security director.
“Call Bellmont. Nobody touches Elena Carter’s employee files, computer logs, access records, or office until Marco clears it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And find out who authorized that letter.”
The director nodded.
Dominic looked back at Lily.
“You’re coming with me.”
Her eyebrows pulled together.
“Are you kidnapping me?”
Marco coughed.
One of the executives suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.
Dominic stared at the child.
“No.”
“That sounds like what a kidnapper would say.”
“I have a car downstairs.”
“Also sounds suspicious.”
For the first time that evening, Dominic nearly laughed.
Instead, he removed his overcoat and draped it around her thin shoulders.
The coat swallowed her.
“You can sit beside Marco.”
Lily studied Marco.
“Is he nicer?”
“No.”
Marco frowned.
“I’m standing right here.”
Ten minutes later, Dominic’s black SUV crossed the Williamsburg Bridge through thickening snow.
Lily sat between Dominic and Marco because she had decided neither man was trustworthy enough to sit beside her alone.
She provided directions with astonishing seriousness.
“Left after the laundromat.”
The driver glanced at the navigation screen.
“It says right.”
“The machine is wrong.”
They turned left.
The machine recalculated.
Marco looked amused.
“She’s right.”
Dominic said nothing.
He watched Lily.
Elena’s brown hair.
Elena’s stubborn chin.
But the eyes—
He turned toward the window.
Dark gray.
His mother had possessed those eyes.
So did Dominic.
He did not allow himself to complete the thought.
Not yet.
The building in Crown Heights was worse than he expected.
Four stories.
Cracked brick.
A broken entry lock.
One hallway light blinking like it was deciding whether to die.
Dominic climbed three flights behind Lily.
Apartment 3C.
She reached beneath a loose strip of carpet and produced a key.
Dominic’s expression darkened.
“You hide your key in the hallway?”
“Mom says I’m not supposed to tell strangers.”
“You told me.”
“You already know where we live.”
Marco turned away again.
The apartment was freezing.
Not cold.
Freezing.
Dominic saw his breath.
A portable heater sat unplugged beside the couch.
Two past-due utility notices rested on a small table.
The kitchen contained half a loaf of bread, peanut butter, three apples, and a carton of milk.
Then Dominic heard the cough.
Deep.
Wet.
Painful.
Lily ran toward the bedroom.
“Mom?”
Dominic stopped in the doorway.
Seven years vanished.
Elena lay beneath two blankets, pale with fever, dark hair stuck to her forehead.
She looked thinner.
More tired.
Older around the eyes.
But it was Elena.
The woman he had once planned to marry without ever having gathered enough courage to ask.
Her eyes opened.
She saw Lily.
Then Marco.
Then Dominic.
Terror replaced feverish confusion.
“No.”
She pushed herself upright.
The effort triggered a violent cough.
Dominic moved forward.
She raised one trembling hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Lily climbed onto the mattress.
“I fixed it, Mommy.”
Elena looked at her.
“Fixed what?”
“I asked him why he fired you.”
Silence.
Elena’s face drained of what little color remained.
“You did what?”
“He says he didn’t.”
Her gaze snapped toward Dominic.
For seven years, Dominic had imagined this reunion hundreds of ways.
Anger.
Questions.
Maybe indifference.
He had never imagined Elena sick in an unheated apartment while their possible daughter sat between them holding a rabbit.
Dominic removed the termination letter from his coat.
“I didn’t sign this.”
Elena laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s true.”
“You said the same thing seven years ago.”
Dominic froze.
“About what?”
Elena’s expression changed.
Now she looked almost confused.
“The letter.”
“What letter?”
She stared at him.
“The one you sent me.”
“I never sent you a letter telling you to leave.”
“You told me I was becoming a liability.”
“I never said that.”
“You told me never to contact you again.”
Dominic took one step closer.
“Elena, I wrote to you for months.”
Something flickered in her eyes.
“No.”
“Thirty-seven letters.”
“No.”
“I went to your apartment. You were gone.”
“You told me you wanted me gone.”
“I spent a year trying to find you.”
Elena shook her head.
“That isn’t possible.”
“It happened.”
Her breathing quickened.
Dominic lowered his voice.
“What did the letter say?”
Elena looked toward Lily.
Not now.
Not in front of her.
Dominic understood.
He pulled out his phone.
“To what hospital?”
“I don’t need—”
“You have a fever.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Lily quietly touched her mother’s hand.
“Mommy, you’re not.”
That ended the argument.
Within twenty minutes, a private physician Dominic trusted was climbing the stairs with medical equipment.
Elena had pneumonia.
Not yet life-threatening.
Close enough to become dangerous without treatment.
Dominic listened as the physician explained antibiotics, hydration, rest, and warmth.
Warmth.
Dominic looked toward the disconnected heater.
He understood immediately.
“You stopped running it because of the electric bill.”
Elena looked away.
That answer hurt more than if she had shouted.
After the doctor left, Lily fell asleep on the couch beneath Dominic’s coat.
Marco remained outside making calls.
Dominic stood near the kitchen window.
Elena joined him slowly.
“You should leave.”
“No.”
“My daughter doesn’t belong around men like you.”
“Your daughter rode the subway across Manhattan alone to confront me.”
Pain flashed through her face.
“I know.”
“She thought you needed saving.”
“I know.”
“So do I.”
Elena looked at him.
“I don’t need you to save me.”
“Then help me understand.”
She folded her arms.
“What?”
“The letter seven years ago.”
Her eyes hardened.
“You really want to pretend you don’t know?”
“I want to see it.”
She was silent for several seconds.
Then she walked to a closet.
From behind a stack of folded towels, she removed an old envelope.
Dominic recognized the stationery.
Moretti Plaza executive office.
His name embossed across the top.
Elena handed it to him.
He read.
The message was brutal.
Cold.
It told Elena their relationship had become inconvenient.
It told her not to contact Dominic again.
And near the bottom was a sentence that made his stomach turn.
If there are consequences from our relationship, handle them yourself. Do not involve me.
Dominic stared at it.
Then at Lily sleeping beneath his coat.
Finally, he reached the signature.
His signature.
Perfectly reproduced.
But not written by him.
Dominic raised his eyes.
“Elena.”
She looked exhausted.
“Don’t.”
“How old is Lily?”
Her face changed.
“Dominic.”
“How old?”
“You already know.”
Six.
He looked toward the couch.
The repaired rabbit.
The wrong boots.
The gray eyes.
His voice became almost inaudible.
“Is she mine?”
Elena closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, seven years of anger, fear, and grief were standing behind them.
“You don’t get to ask that like the answer won’t destroy both of us.”
Dominic did not move.
Elena’s voice cracked for the first time.
“She is.”
And somewhere outside the apartment, Marco suddenly stopped speaking on his phone.
Because he had just discovered something else.
The termination order had not come from Human Resources.
It had come directly from the executive floor of Moretti Plaza.
Using credentials belonging to a man Dominic had trusted since childhood.
His uncle.
May you like
Adrian Moretti.
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