Chapter 12 - Nico Was Never the Target
Liana answered.
Her mother's voice trembled.
“Don't go to the hospital.”
“Why were you at Aaron's accident?”
Silence.
“Mom.”
“I was trying to save him.”
“From whom?”
“Victoria.”
Liana closed her eyes.
Another lie that wasn't exactly a lie.
Her mother had discovered Victoria following Aaron.
She reached the crash minutes afterward.
Aaron was alive.
Sofia's network moved him before Victoria returned.
Liana's mother had kept silent because Aaron begged her to.
“I watched you grieve.”
“I know.”
“You watched me bury an empty coffin.”
“I know.”
Liana began crying.
“I needed my mother.”
“I know.”
There was no defense.
Only consequences.
Her mother gave them Victoria's location.
St. Catherine's.
The abandoned pediatric wing.
Matteo wanted Liana to remain behind.
She refused.
Sofia came too.
At the hospital, they found Victoria inside the old nursery.
She looked so much like Sofia that Matteo stopped in the doorway.
Victoria smiled.
“Now you understand.”
Sofia stared at her sister.
“You hurt my son.”
“I saved him.”
“You poisoned him.”
“To expose the people around him.”
“You used babies.”
Victoria's expression hardened.
“Our father used us first.”
“That doesn't make this right.”
“It makes it inevitable.”
“No,” Sofia said. “It made it your choice.”
The words landed.
Victoria had spent years making everyone else responsible for what she became.
Sofia refused to give her that escape.
Police surrounded the building.
Victoria held no weapon.
Instead she held one final file.
“Nico was never the target.”
Matteo stared.
“Then who was?”
Victoria looked at Liana.
“You.”
Liana froze.
Why?
Because Aaron had hidden the only complete financial ledger under her identity.
Victoria needed Liana broken, isolated, and desperate enough to enter the Varric estate.
Eli's death had created exactly that path.
Liana felt physically ill.
“You arranged my job.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted me near Nico.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Sofia trusted you after Eli.”
Victoria smiled.
“And because Matteo would eventually trust anyone Nico trusted.”
Every moment had been engineered.
Except one.
Nico calming in Liana's arms.
Victoria hadn't expected that.
Nobody had.
Police moved closer.
Victoria looked toward the window.
Then at Sofia.
“You always got everything.”
Sofia shook her head.
“No. I lost almost everything.”
Victoria's expression cracked.
For one second, she looked less like a mastermind than an abandoned child who had spent decades feeding her pain.
But pain did not erase what she had done.
Police arrested her.
As they led her away, she stopped beside Liana.
“You still don't know why Nico stopped crying for you.”
Liana stared.
Victoria smiled.
“There was something in Eli's medical file you never saw.”
She was taken away.
May you like
Liana immediately opened the file.
The final page was missing.
