My name is Mia Carter, and the day everything broke started with a puppy asleep in a navy-blue travel bag behind the reception desk.
He was three months old, all oversized paws and soft gold fur, small enough to curl into my forearm. I had named him Finn two nights earlier after pulling him from behind a dumpster in the alley behind my apartment building. He had been shivering in the rain with a plastic tie still looped around his neck, ribs showing, one eye swollen half shut. The emergency vet told me he was dehydrated, underweight, and lucky to be alive. She also told me I needed to keep him warm, close, and monitored for at least another day.
I couldn’t afford to miss my shift at Hawthorne House, the luxury furniture showroom where I worked reception, and I couldn’t leave Finn alone.
So I brought him with me and hid him behind the desk, praying nobody would notice.
For most of the morning, it worked. The showroom smelled like leather, polished walnut, and expensive perfume. Wealthy clients drifted through the rooms speaking too loudly, touching things they had no intention of buying. I smiled, answered calls, booked consultations, and every few minutes bent down to check the bag. Finn slept through all of it.
Then the front bell chimed.
A man and woman walked in dressed like magazine ads. The man wore a charcoal coat, a steel watch, and the kind of expression that made every employee straighten up. The woman’s heels clicked across the tile like she expected the floor to apologize for being there.
Finn whimpered once.
The man stopped. “What was that?”
My whole body tightened. “Nothing, sir. Sorry.”
