Chapter 9 - The Empty Grave
Matteo read the sentence twice.
Then he looked at Nico's photograph.
Liana felt Aaron grip her hand.
“What does it mean?”
Nobody answered.
The drive contained thousands of documents.
Birth records.
Blood tests.
Payments.
Videos.
Matteo found Nico's DNA report.
Then Eli's.
The room became silent.
The two boys were not related.
But Nico's paternity field contained a warning.
MATERNAL SAMPLE CONFIRMED.
PATERNAL SAMPLE INCONSISTENT.
Matteo stared at it.
“Nico isn't mine?”
Aaron shook his head.
“Not necessarily. That test was tampered with.”
They found the original.
PATERNITY: 99.99%.
Matteo exhaled.
Nico was his.
So what did the message mean?
Then Liana saw another document.
Eli Graves.
Biological father: Aaron Graves.
Biological mother—
She stopped.
“No.”
Aaron looked.
The name was not Liana Graves.
It was Sofia Varric.
Liana dropped the page.
Sofia arrived minutes later.
One look at Liana's face told her the secret was over.
“Explain.”
Sofia began crying.
Years earlier, before meeting Matteo, she had frozen embryos during cancer treatment.
One had been stolen from storage.
Elena arranged its implantation without Sofia's knowledge.
Liana had carried Eli believing he was genetically hers.
The revelation devastated everyone.
“But he was my son,” Liana whispered.
Sofia took her hand.
“Yes.”
“No document changes that.”
“No.”
“You're his biological mother.”
“And you were his mother every day he lived.”
Liana cried.
Sofia cried with her.
Matteo stood nearby holding Nico.
For once, nobody was fighting.
Then Aaron found another recording.
Elena appeared on screen.
“If you're watching this, you found the grave.”
She smiled.
“And you're still missing the point.”
The video cut to footage of Nico's nursery.
Recent footage.
From that morning.
A hand entered frame and placed something beneath his mattress.
Matteo ran upstairs.
He tore the mattress away.
An envelope waited beneath it.
Inside was a medical report.
Nico had been exposed to the compound again.
Yesterday.
Someone currently inside the Varric household was still poisoning him.
Matteo checked the staff logs.
Only four people had entered the nursery.
Sofia.
Liana.
Matteo.
And one guard.
Matteo stared at the name.
The guard had protected him for fourteen years.
Then footsteps sounded behind him.
May you like
The guard stood in the doorway.
Holding Nico's bottle.
