PART 2: At two in the morning, I caught a six-year-old girl cleaning my private study with a baby strapped to her back because she was terrified her mother would lose her job and leave them homeless

ALESSANDRO MUST NEVER KNOW ABOUT MIA.

For several seconds, no one in the room moved.

The words seemed larger than the photograph that carried them.

I read them once.

Then again.

Six words, written in the unmistakable slant of my father’s handwriting.

Mia stood in the doorway in borrowed pajamas, one hand holding the frame while the other clutched the edge of the door. Someone from my staff had found clothes for her after I’d ordered her out of the freezing service uniform she’d been wearing.