Chapter 4 - The Woman They WantedMatteo did not explode.
That frightened Liana more.
Men shouted when they lost control. Matteo Varric became still.
In the cemetery, surrounded by wet earth and the empty coffin of her son, he took the phone from his ear, handed it to Dario, and spoke in a voice so quiet every guard leaned closer to hear it.
“No one leaves her side.”
Liana turned on him. “I’m going.”
“No.”
“She has Isaac.”
“She says she has Isaac.”
“She said alive.”
“She said what she needed to say to make you useful.”
The cruelty of the sentence landed hard because Liana knew it was not meant to hurt her.
It was meant to keep her alive.
Still, she stepped toward him with Nico between them, asleep now from exhaustion.
“You don’t get to decide what my child is worth.”
Matteo’s eyes flashed. “I know exactly what a child is worth.”
The cemetery fell silent.
For a moment, their pain stood facing each other like two armed enemies.
Liana looked away first.
Not because she was weaker.
Because if she kept looking at him, she might see understanding, and understanding would break her.
Dario returned from the SUV, phone in hand. “Trace bounced through three towers, then died. But we got a partial location before the signal cut.”
“Where?” Matteo asked.
“South side. Old medical district.”
Dr. Rowan’s mouth tightened. “St. Agnes owns storage buildings there.”
Matteo looked at her.
“Closed clinics,” she said. “Charity outreach, mobile units, abandoned labs. The hospital sold half of them years ago. Some were never properly cleared.”
“Give Dario every address.”
“I don’t have them memorized.”
Matteo’s stare was enough.
Dr. Rowan took out her phone. “I’ll get them.”
Liana watched the exchange with a growing coldness in her chest.
The woman on the phone had asked for her.
Not Matteo.
Not money.
Not revenge.
Her.
Why?
Her voice had been stolen. Her baby had been stolen. Nico had been conditioned with her lullaby. Someone had woven her life into Matteo’s long before she walked through his front door.
“You knew I was coming,” she said.
Matteo turned.
“What?”
Liana looked from him to Dario. “The housekeeper hired me yesterday.”
Dario’s face changed. “Who approved it?”
“Mrs. Bellardi.”
Matteo’s expression sharpened. “Bellardi doesn’t hire nursery staff.”
“I wasn’t nursery staff.”
“But you were placed in the main house,” Dario said slowly. “On a day Nico was in the foyer instead of upstairs.”
Liana’s skin prickled.
Matteo looked at Dario. “Bring Bellardi.”
A guard shifted uneasily. “Sir.”
Matteo turned.
The guard swallowed. “Mrs. Bellardi left the estate forty minutes ago.”
Dario cursed.
Matteo’s voice remained level. “How?”
“Service gate.”
“Who authorized it?”
The guard went pale. “Her own code.”
Matteo stared at him until the man lowered his eyes.
Dario spoke into his phone. “Lock her accounts. Track her vehicle. Pull tolls. Freeze every staff code issued in the past six months.”
Liana felt suddenly surrounded by enemies she could not see.
Mrs. Bellardi had smiled at her that morning. Had handed her the red uniform. Had said, “You’ll do well here if you remember your place.”
Your place.
Maybe her place had always been beside Nico.
Maybe it had been arranged.
Matteo took Nico from Liana carefully while the child slept. For once, Nico did not wake. Perhaps exhaustion had finally defeated fear.
The absence of his weight left Liana feeling exposed.
Matteo noticed.
“You are coming back to the house.”
“I’m going to the old medical district.”
“No.”
“My son—”
“Will not be helped by you walking into a trap with no plan.”
Liana stepped closer. “Then make a plan.”
Dario watched them, silent.
Matteo looked down at her. “You think because you found one device, you understand what these people are?”
“I understand they take babies from grieving mothers and hide behind paperwork.”
“You understand the surface.”
“And you understand what? Power? Guns? Fear?”
“Yes.”
The blunt answer silenced her.
Matteo shifted Nico against his shoulder. “And that is why you are not going anywhere without me.”
The ride back to the estate felt longer than the ride to the cemetery.
Liana sat in the back of the SUV beside Dr. Rowan while Matteo sat opposite with Nico asleep in his arms. The baby looked impossibly small against his father’s chest.
A mafia boss.
A grieving maid.
A stolen baby.
A second child haunted by a voice he should never have known.
Outside, Chicago’s night moved past in streaks of black glass and yellow light.
Dr. Rowan broke the silence. “Liana, I need to ask about Isaac’s birth.”
Liana closed her eyes. “He was early. Thirty-six weeks. Small, but breathing. They said he needed observation.”
“Who took him?”
“A nurse. Not Mara Bell. Another one.”
“Name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Badge color?”
Liana opened her eyes. “Purple.”
Dr. Rowan and Matteo exchanged a look.
“What?” Liana asked.
Dr. Rowan’s voice was careful. “St. Agnes used purple badges for temporary neonatal contractors.”
“Contractors?”
“Private agencies. Sometimes brought in during staffing shortages.”
Matteo looked at Dario through the front mirror. “Find every purple badge.”
Dario nodded.
Liana rubbed her hands together. They still smelled faintly of Nico’s baby soap. “I asked to feed him. They kept saying later. Then they gave me medication to sleep.”
Dr. Rowan’s face hardened. “Without consent?”
“They said I signed something.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know. I was bleeding. I was tired.”
Matteo’s fingers curled against Nico’s blanket.
Liana’s voice lowered. “When I woke up, they told me he was gone.”
No one spoke for a long while.
Back at the estate, the mansion no longer looked cold and beautiful.
It looked infiltrated.
Every hallway might hold a secret. Every camera might have missed something. Every smiling staff member might be waiting to run.
Matteo carried Nico to a different room, not the nursery. A smaller guest suite with no adjoining servant corridor, two exits, and windows facing the guarded courtyard.
“Here,” he said.
Dario swept the room with a scanner. Dr. Rowan checked the crib they brought in from storage. Two guards took position outside.
Liana stood near the door, suddenly uncertain of where she belonged.
Matteo noticed again.
“You stay with him.”
Her heart kicked. “With Nico?”
“He stays calm with you.”
“That doesn’t mean you should trust me.”
“I don’t trust you.”
The honesty should have offended her.
Instead it steadied her.
“I trust what my son does when you leave the room,” Matteo said.
Liana looked at Nico. He was awake now, watching her with heavy eyes.
Matteo placed him in the crib.
The baby’s lower lip trembled.
Liana stepped closer and rested a hand lightly on his stomach.
Nico settled.
Matteo watched as though witnessing a miracle he hated needing.
Dario entered with a tablet. “We found Bellardi’s car.”
“Where?”
“Burned. Empty. Near the river.”
Liana’s stomach dropped.
“Dead?” Matteo asked.
“No body.”
“Then she’s not dead.”
Dario’s mouth tightened. “There’s more. Bellardi had an outside account receiving payments for seven months. The sender name was hidden, but one transfer memo wasn’t scrubbed.”
Matteo took the tablet.
His face changed.
Just slightly.
But Liana saw it.
“What?” she asked.
Matteo did not answer.
Dario looked away.
Liana stepped closer. “What did it say?”
Matteo handed her the tablet.
The memo contained only two words.
For Alessia.
Matteo’s dead wife.
And beneath it, attached to the same transfer file, was a scanned photograph.
Liana touched the screen with shaking fingers.
It showed Nico as a newborn, wrapped in a blue star blanket.
Beside him lay another baby.
Tiny.
Dark-haired.
Wearing a hospital bracelet.
May you like
Isaac Graves.
Her son had been next to Nico from the beginning.
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