Chapter 1: The Girl in the Yellow Rain Boots
A Little Girl Asked the Mafia Boss Why He Fired Her Mom, and Her Next Five Words Made Him Forget How to Breathe
Dominic Moretti had made grown men beg without blinking.
He had watched politicians lower their voices around him, watched businessmen straighten their backs when he entered a restaurant, watched men twice his size suddenly remember appointments somewhere else when his black sedan pulled up outside.
But at four seventeen on a freezing Tuesday afternoon, the most feared man on Long Island found himself unable to answer a five-year-old girl wearing yellow rain boots on the wrong feet.
She stood alone beneath the enormous chandelier in his mansion, clutching a ragged stuffed rabbit against her chest.
Her lower lip trembled.
Her blue eyes did not.
"Why did you fire my mom?"
The entire marble foyer went silent.
Dominic stopped halfway down the staircase.
Behind the child stood two embarrassed security guards who looked as though they would rather explain a missing shipment than explain how a kindergartner had gotten through three layers of security.
"She came through the delivery entrance, sir," one finally said.
"Wouldn't leave.
Said she had to see the boss."
Dominic barely heard him.
He looked at the girl.
Five, maybe six.
Blonde hair tied crookedly with a pink elastic.
Cheap winter coat.
One mitten missing.
Rabbit worn almost flat from years of being loved.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Lily."
"Lily what?"
"Lily Carter."
Something moved beneath Dominic's ribs.
Not pain.
Not yet.
He descended the final steps.
"Who is your mother?"
Lily lifted her chin proudly.
"Sophia Carter."
Dominic forgot how to breathe.
For six years, he had trained himself not to think about that name.
Six years ago, Sophia had been a junior accountant in one of Moretti Holdings' Manhattan offices.
She had been smart, stubborn, funny when she forgot to be careful, and unimpressed by Dominic's expensive suits.
He had fallen in love with her before he understood it was happening.
Then someone had fired bullets into his sister's car.
The war between the Moretti family and the Vescari organization had begun again.
Dominic had understood immediately what Sophia would become if his enemies discovered her.
A weakness.
A hostage.
A grave.
So he had ended their relationship in the cruelest way he knew.
He had told her she had been entertainment.
He had told her men like him did not marry women like her.
He had watched her face collapse and had not taken a single word back.
Two weeks later, she resigned.
Then she disappeared.
Dominic had spent six years telling himself that breaking her heart had saved her life.
Now Sophia Carter's little girl was standing in his home.
And she had his eyes.
Dominic slowly lowered himself onto one knee.
"How old are you, Lily?"
"Five."
His heartbeat changed.
"When's your birthday?"
"March eighteenth.
I'm almost six."
The math struck him with physical force.
He stared at the small crease between Lily's eyebrows.
His crease.
His father had had it.
His grandfather too.
Dominic's hand tightened around the silver pocket watch inside his vest.
Lily mistook his silence for anger.
"I'm sorry I came here," she whispered.
"Mama says I'm not supposed to bother people at work.
But she cries at night now."
Dominic's gaze sharpened.
"Why?"
"Because you fired her."
"I didn't."
"You're the boss."
The simplicity of it almost destroyed him.
Lily continued quickly.
"Our landlord says we have to pay by Friday.
Mama said we'll figure it out, but that's what she says when she's scared.
Yesterday she ate cereal for dinner and told me she wasn't hungry, but she gave me her chicken."
Dominic looked away.
He had sat through executions with steadier nerves.
"Did your mother tell you to come here?"
Lily's eyes widened.
"No.
She'll be really mad."
"How did you get here?"
"Train.
Then bus.
Then I walked."
One guard quietly cursed under his breath.
Dominic stood.
"Cancel my meeting."
His chief of security blinked.
"Sir, the Baltimore delegation is already—"
"Cancel it."
Dominic looked at Lily.
"I'm taking you home."
The black SUV looked out of place parked outside Sophia's Brooklyn walk-up.
Dominic thought so himself.
Lily sat beside him in a child safety seat his men had somehow acquired within eight minutes.
For most of the drive, she talked.
She told him about kindergarten.
About a boy named Noah who ate glue even though everyone had repeatedly explained that glue was not food.
About the orange cat living behind the laundromat.
Dominic listened as though someone were reading him the combination to a vault containing the rest of his life.
When they reached Sophia's building, Lily went quiet.
"Mama's going to yell."
"You deserve it."
Lily looked offended.
Dominic almost smiled.
"Running away was dangerous."
"I know."
"Then why did you?"
---
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What will Sophia say when she opens that door and finds Dominic standing there with Lily?
Comment **"NEXT"** if you want Part 2 — it's in the comments.
