The New Boss Made Me Hide My Daughter’s Existence at Work, but Her Face Suddenly Turned Pale During the Meeting with the School Principal

I entered the principal’s office and there my seven-year-old daughter was sitting on the lap of a billionaire woman whom everyone at work knew as the sworn enemy of all children.

At that moment the blue plastic thermos fell from my hand. The lid rolling across the floor struck the wooden door, and such a sound rang out in the room, as if something had finally broken.

Chloe was arranging pencils, while Evelyn Cross was sitting beside her. My boss usually stood as though the whole world’s time belonged to her. Now, however, she was holding the little drawing with both hands.

“Dad!” Chloe looked at me and immediately jumped up. “Why do you know Evelyn?”

Evelyn slowly raised her eyes.

“Mr. Meladze, close the door.”

There was still that same cold calmness in her voice that had deprived me of sleep during the last three months. But I noticed a red-pencil mark on her fingers.

“Chloe, is everything all right?” I asked, although I could barely recognize my own voice.

“Yes. Mrs. Cross was talking with me. She told me that fathers sometimes get very tired and are still heroes.”

Evelyn’s face tensed in one second.

“I did not say those words like that.”

Principal Mrs. Harper was standing at the desk and clutching a white folder so tightly in her hand that the edge of the cardboard had bent.

“David, your daughter was found this morning near the school’s rear stairs,” she said. “Someone was talking to her. An unknown man.”

Chloe bit her lip.

“Dad, he told me that you have problems at your work.”

I felt coldness around my neck.

For three months I had been hiding from Evelyn that I had a child. I woke at five in the morning, prepared Chloe’s breakfast, took her to school, and then rushed to work. I slept four hours, and every morning I was afraid that one sick day would be enough for my dismissal.

Evelyn had fired an employee named Tommy only because his wife was giving birth. When the boy was taken out of the office, he was holding a small pink baby hat in his hand. From that day I understood: a family must not exist at work.

“Why are you here?” I asked Evelyn.

She did not answer me. She picked up Chloe’s bag and placed it to the side. Attached to the bag was a small yellow fabric moon sewn by my own hand. On nights when Chloe was afraid, she pressed this moon to her chest.

Evelyn ran a finger over it.

“Did you make this?” she asked.

“Dad did. It came out badly, but I still love it.”

The principal cleared her throat awkwardly.

“The unknown man showed Chloe a photograph of your office. He told her that you would soon lose everything and that she would be taken to another family.”

“Who was he?” I asked.

“He was wearing a hat. We could not see his face,” Harper said.

Evelyn stood up. Her chair slid heavily across the floor.

“Did you check the cameras?” she asked.

“We will give it to the police,” the principal answered.

“The police will be later. Now tell me who knew that this child was David Meladze’s daughter?”

The principal looked toward me. And I could no longer remain silent.

“You knew,” I told Evelyn. “Or did you find out only now? I never mentioned my private life at work.”

For the first time her eyes lost that impenetrable firmness.

“I do not monitor your private life.”

“Then why did you come here?”

Evelyn looked at the folder lying on the desk. Something heavy could be seen beneath the papers. A metal corner appeared for a moment and disappeared again.

“Because this matter concerns more than the school stairs,” she said.

Chloe squeezed my hand. Her fingers were cold.

Someone quickly passed through the corridor. Evelyn immediately looked toward the door, then sternly told the principal:

“Give me that folder.”

Mrs. Harper slowly reached toward the lock, and I saw Evelyn’s fingers touch the sealed brown envelope…

Evelyn’s fingers reached the sealed brown envelope, but before she could open it, the principal placed a hand on her wrist.

“This must be kept for the police,” she said.

“The police already have a copy,” Evelyn answered. “But I need to know who had access to this information.”

Her voice was calm, but the air in the room became so heavy as if the windows had all closed at once.

“What information about me is there?” I asked.

Evelyn opened the envelope. Inside lay one printed sheet and a small memory card. The card almost slipped from her fingers.

Chloe hid behind me.

“The child was not alone in the corridor,” the principal said. “A second person appears in the camera recording. A woman.”

“A woman?” I repeated.

“Her face was covered,” Evelyn added. “But I recognized the bag.”

“Whose does it belong to?”

She looked toward me.

“To the head of human resources in our company, Marko Beridze.”

Marko was the man who stopped by my desk every morning and looked over my notes for too long. Once he told me that Evelyn did not need to know anything about employees’ family members. At the time I took it as a warning.

“How would he know my daughter’s name?” I asked.

“That is precisely the question,” Evelyn said.

Chloe picked up the house drawn on the sheet. Beside the house, large eyes had been drawn with a red pencil.

“The man told me that these eyes watch us everywhere,” she said quietly.

Something contracted in my stomach.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I was afraid that you would get angry.”

Evelyn turned her gaze to the child.

“You are not guilty, Chloe.”

My daughter nodded, but she saw a small black bag behind Evelyn and suddenly stepped back.

“That bag was with the woman.”

Evelyn opened the bag. Inside she found a school pass, a black glove, and a folded sheet of paper. Her jaw tightened as she read it.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“That tomorrow morning, in your work office, you will meet a person whom you must not trust.”

“Is this a threat?”

“No, David. It is an invitation.”

The principal immediately called the police, but Evelyn shook her head.

“By the time they come, Marko will disappear.”

“Are you protecting him?”

“On the contrary. I know how a person thinks when control is slipping from his hands.”

“And is all this happening because of me?”

Evelyn remained silent for several seconds.

“Not because of you. Because of the file that is on your work computer.”

My breath caught.

“I only store project reports.”

“You think you store them.”

She inserted the memory card into the principal’s old computer. A video appeared on the screen: a night office, an empty corridor, Marko coming out of my room. He was holding my work bag.

“When is this?” I asked.

“Last night,” Evelyn said.

The little yellow moon that Chloe had lost and that I had accidentally taken to work was in my bag. On camera Marko took something out of the bag, then looked at the screen.

The sound of the video turned on.

“If Meladze finds this, everything is over,” Marko said.

In the next shot Evelyn appeared. She was standing in front of Marko, but their conversation could not be heard.

I looked at her.

“You were meeting him?”

Evelyn lowered her eyes.

“Yes.”

“Then why are you telling me not to trust him?”

“Because at that meeting he told not just one lie.”

Mrs. Harper went to the window and raised the blind slightly. On the opposite side of the street stood a black car. A man was sitting at the wheel and looking at the school building.

Evelyn took out her phone.

“He is already here.”

“Who?”

She turned the screen toward me. A message had arrived from an unknown number: “If you want your daughter to be safe, come alone to the old warehouse this evening.”

Chloe squeezed my hand more tightly.

“Dad, don’t go alone.”

For the first time Evelyn looked at me not as an employee, but as a person who had to make a choice.

“David, now you must decide whether you will believe me or not.”

“And if I do not believe you?”

“Then that man will reach you tonight.”

Footsteps approached in the corridor. The door handle moved. Evelyn hid Chloe behind her, and I saw the door slowly opening and realized that the person entering the room no longer had a reason to hide…

The man who entered the room was not Marko Beridze. It was a police officer whom the principal had called, but Marko standing behind him still showed me that Evelyn had not been lying.

Marko stopped at the door. Water dripped from his coat, although the rain outside had already stopped.

“So much noise because of one child?” he sneered. “You have become very emotional.”

Evelyn walked toward him.

“My security service is already in your office.”

“You always thought you controlled everyone.”

“No. I was simply recording all your steps.”

Marko’s smile disappeared.

I looked at the memory card lying on the desk.

“What is in that file?” I asked.

Evelyn gestured to the police officer to lock the door.

“Three years ago, when my company expanded, Marko secretly replaced several contractors. Money went to accounts belonging to deceased employees. I began an audit. You accidentally found the main confirming account.”

“I only noticed a discrepancy in the delivery report.”

“That was exactly the problem,” Marko said. “You turned out to be too attentive.”

The principal played the video. Marko appeared on the screen near the school’s rear stairs. Beside him stood a woman with a black bag. The woman showed Chloe’s photograph, then opened a picture of my office on her phone.

Chloe cried out quietly.

“That is the woman!”

The police officer immediately knelt beside her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She had a silver bracelet.”

Evelyn enlarged the woman on the screen. Her face could not be seen fully, but a small star-shaped scar was visible on her wrist.

“She is Marko’s wife,” Evelyn said. “Years ago she worked with my sister.”

Marko struck the desk with his fist.

“Enough!”

Evelyn held out the memory card to him.

“No. You have not yet heard the main part.”

She played the second part of the recording. This time the voice could be heard clearly.

“Intimidating the child will be enough,” Marko was saying. “The father will give us the file himself.”

The woman’s voice answered:

“And if he does not give it to us?”

“Then Evelyn will fire him. We will tell everyone that the employee is leaving work because of family problems.”

I heard the sound of blood in my ears.

“You knew,” I told Evelyn. “You knew that Marko would use this against me.”

“I knew he was preparing something. I did not know whether he would reach your child.”

“Is that why you fired Tommy? Is that why you forced us to hide our families?”

Evelyn’s face collapsed.

“I fired Tommy because of Marko. That day he stole evidence from me. I thought Tommy was helping him. I was wrong.”

Marko smiled bitterly.

“Now will you tell everyone that you are a kind woman?”

“No,” Evelyn answered calmly. “I will say that I was terribly wrong.”

The police officer handcuffed Marko. He did not resist. He only looked at me.

“You will still lose your job, Meladze. People like her blame others for their own mistakes.”

Evelyn looked at the police officer.

“He will not leave the job. And today he will receive the position for which he was hired three years ago.”

“What position?” I asked.

“Head of the company’s internal control.”

My eyes remained fixed on the screen. In the recording, the woman gave Marko something: a small folder on which my name was written. But at the end of the video Marko called another number on the phone.

“Meladze is frightened,” he said. “But we do not have the file yet.”

An unknown voice answered:

“We already have the file. We only lack the evidence.”

The recording switched off.

Evelyn picked up the phone. At that same moment a new message appeared on the screen.

“If David Meladze cooperates with the police, the next meeting will no longer be at the school.”

Chloe ran to me. I knelt down and hugged her to my chest.

Evelyn watched the message for a long time, then went to the window.

“This is not Marko,” she said.

“Then who is it?”

She slowly looked at me.

“The person whose existence we should never have hidden in my company. And he already has access to my personal archive…”