Chapter 8 - The Milk That Saved HimLiana could not understand the words at first.
Her milk.
Nico.
Alessia.
Alive because of her.
It made no sense and yet struck something deep inside her body, something older than logic. The ache in her chest, the leaking grief, the way Nico had quieted against her the moment she held him.
Not magic.
Memory.
Mirella Santi watched the realization unfold with sick satisfaction.
“You didn’t know,” she said. “How touching.”
Matteo’s voice was raw. “Explain.”
Mirella pressed a gloved hand to her throat, recovering from his grip. “Alessia became ill after Nico’s birth. Her supply failed. The boy rejected formula, rejected donor banks, rejected every approved substitute. Fragile digestion. Difficult temperament. Like his father.”
Matteo stepped toward her again.
Dario blocked him with one arm. “Nico first.”
Dr. Rowan’s voice crackled urgently through the comms. “He’s breathing, but unstable. Whatever triggered this, I need information now.”
Mirella smiled. “Then listen.”
Liana held Isaac closer, horrified by how weakly he moved. Her son was alive, but he needed a hospital. A real one. A safe one, if such a thing still existed.
Mirella continued, “We sourced milk privately. Screened. Matched. Liana Graves was an ideal donor candidate before she ever gave birth.”
Liana’s stomach turned. “I never donated.”
“No. We collected what we needed.”
Matteo’s eyes went black.
Liana remembered waking in St. Agnes with her gown damp, her body sore, a nurse telling her she had been confused. She remembered asking why there were cold packs beside her bed. Why her chart had a medication she did not recognize.
She had thought grief made memory unreliable.
Now she understood.
“They drugged me,” she whispered.
Mirella smiled. “You were already in recovery. We were efficient.”
Matteo’s voice shook with controlled rage. “You fed my son stolen milk from a woman whose baby you kidnapped.”
“I saved Nico.”
“You poisoned him.”
“I made him dependent.”
The honesty was colder than any lie.
Dario cursed.
Dr. Rowan’s voice came again. “Dependent how?”
Mirella looked amused. “Nico’s gut was conditioned gradually. Additives. Binding agents. Very delicate work.”
Matteo’s gun lifted. “You made my infant son an experiment?”
“I made him valuable.”
Liana looked toward the chapel doors. “Rowan needs my milk.”
Everyone turned.
The words had escaped before she thought them, but her body knew.
Mirella’s eyes gleamed. “There she is. Maternal instinct. The most exploitable force in nature.”
Liana ignored her. “Nico calmed with me. If he was fed something from me, and they triggered a reaction—”
Dr. Rowan finished over the comms, “It may stabilize him. Liana, are you lactating?”
The question struck like a private wound dragged into public.
Twenty-two days after Isaac’s supposed death, her body had not fully accepted loss. She had bound herself tightly every morning. Hidden the pain. Changed shirts in secret.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Matteo looked at her with something like devastation.
Not pity.
Horror at what had been done to her.
Dr. Rowan spoke quickly. “I need you back at the van now. Bring Isaac. Both babies need evaluation.”
Mirella laughed. “Unfortunately, leaving will not be simple.”
As if summoned, gunfire erupted from the corridor outside the chapel.
Dario turned, weapon raised.
Matteo moved instantly, placing himself between Liana and the door.
Mirella ducked behind the altar with surprising speed.
“Take her!” Matteo shouted.
Dario grabbed Mirella, but she twisted and struck him with something hidden in her sleeve. He staggered. A second later, smoke burst across the chapel.
Liana coughed, clutching Isaac to her chest.
“Matteo!”
His hand found her arm through the smoke. “Stay with me.”
Bullets cracked against stone.
Someone screamed.
Dario shouted orders, but the chapel had become chaos—candles overturned, smoke thickening, guards moving through shadows.
Mirella vanished.
Matteo dragged Liana toward the side passage behind the altar. “Move.”
“I can’t run with him like this.”
“You can.”
His certainty held her together.
They burst through a narrow service passage that led to an old sacristy. Dario followed, bleeding from the temple but upright.
“South corridor blocked,” he said. “Two shooters. Maybe three.”
“Nico?” Matteo demanded.
“Rowan is waiting at the van. He’s alive.”
Alive.
The word powered Liana’s legs.
They exited through a maintenance tunnel that smelled of damp concrete. Isaac whimpered weakly against her chest. Liana kept whispering to him, nonsense and promises.
“I have you. Mama has you. You’re safe. Stay with me.”
Matteo glanced at her every few steps.
Each time, his face tightened.
Outside, dawn had begun to gray the sky.
The van doors were open.
Dr. Rowan stood inside with Nico on a portable medical pad, one guard holding an IV bag, another scanning the street.
Nico’s face was pale.
Too pale.
Liana climbed into the van with Isaac and nearly collapsed beside him.
Matteo followed. “Fix him.”
Dr. Rowan looked at Liana. “I need milk now.”
There was no modesty left in terror.
No embarrassment.
Only two babies fighting consequences adults had built around them.
A female medic helped Liana turn away, shielding her with a blanket while Dr. Rowan prepared a sterile syringe and feeding tube. Isaac was checked first—temperature low, dehydrated but breathing steadily. Then Liana expressed what she could, hands shaking, tears running silently down her face.
Matteo stood outside the van with his back turned, one hand braced against the doorframe.
Protecting her privacy with the same body he used to threaten men.
When Dr. Rowan administered the milk to Nico, everyone waited.
Thirty seconds.
Nothing.
A minute.
Nico’s tiny body shuddered.
Matteo turned. “What’s happening?”
“Wait,” Dr. Rowan said.
Liana held Isaac and stared at Nico.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on, sweetheart.”
Nico inhaled sharply.
Then his color began to change.
Not completely.
Not magically.
But enough.
Dr. Rowan exhaled. “Again.”
Liana gave more.
Nico swallowed.
His hand opened.
Matteo saw it and gripped the side of the van like it was the only thing keeping him standing.
“He’s stabilizing,” Dr. Rowan said.
Matteo closed his eyes.
For one second, the most feared man in Chicago looked like any father bargaining silently with God.
Then Dario’s voice cut through the fragile relief.
“Boss.”
Matteo opened his eyes.
Dario stood beside the van, holding a phone taken from one of Mirella’s men.
“Message came through before he died.”
Matteo took it.
Liana watched his face harden.
“What does it say?” she asked.
Matteo looked at her.
Then at Nico.
Then at Isaac.
His voice was low.
“Mirella isn’t working alone.”
Dario’s jaw tightened.
Matteo turned the phone so Liana could see.
The message contained four words.
Rafe has the exit.
Matteo’s cousin.
The man with family access.
The man who had stood in Nico’s nursery after Alessia gave birth.
Matteo looked toward the hospital, where smoke now curled from a lower window.
May you like
By dawn, he had learned why his son recognized Liana.
But he had also learned the betrayal had slept at his own table.
