CHAPTER 1 — "Daddy, Please Don't Leave Me..."
The little girl's tiny fingers tightened around her father's sleeve.
"Daddy... please stay with me."
Her voice was barely louder than a whisper, but it shattered every nurse's heart in the emergency room.
Michael Carter looked down at his eight-year-old daughter, Lily. Her face was pale, her lips trembling as she fought to stay awake. The doctors had rushed her into the hospital only minutes earlier after she suddenly collapsed at school.
But Michael wasn't looking at her.
He kept checking his phone.
Another notification.
Another business call.
Another meeting that, in his mind, couldn't wait.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he muttered, gently pulling his sleeve away. "Daddy has something important to do. I'll be back before you wake up."
Lily forced a weak smile, trying not to cry.
"I'll wait..."
Those were the last words she spoke before the operating room doors closed.
Michael walked away without turning around.
Several nurses stared at him in disbelief.
"What kind of father leaves now?" one whispered.
Nobody noticed the elderly janitor quietly watching everything from the corner of the hallway.
He lowered his mop...
...and silently followed Michael.
Outside the hospital, Michael jumped into his luxury sedan and sped toward the headquarters of Carter Technologies.
He believed he was saving a billion-dollar contract.
He had no idea someone else was already destroying everything he had built.
Inside his office, his trusted business partner, Daniel Reeves, smiled while copying confidential files onto a flash drive.
Daniel had spent years pretending to be Michael's closest friend.
Tonight...
he planned to steal the company.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital...
Lily's condition suddenly became critical.
Doctors rushed into the operating room.
Machines began screaming.
The chief surgeon shouted,
"We're losing her!"
At that exact moment...
the old janitor quietly entered the hospital security room.
He replayed the hallway camera footage.
Then he froze.
His eyes widened.
"What..."
"That can't be possible."
On the screen...
someone in a doctor's uniform had secretly injected Lily with something moments before she collapsed.
It wasn't medicine.
It was poison.
And the person wearing the mask...
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had just entered the hospital again.
To be continued...
