Chapter 9 - Blood at the Family TableBy sunrise, the Varric estate no longer pretended to be a home.
It was a fortress under siege.
Every staff member had been confined to the west wing. Every guard code had been reset. Every camera feed was watched by two men instead of one. The nursery was sealed. The hidden device, the hospital files, the genetic samples, and Isaac’s empty coffin evidence were locked in Matteo’s private office.
Nico slept in a medical crib beside Isaac.
Two babies.
Two fathers’ names on paper.
One nightmare between them.
Liana sat in a chair between the cribs, one hand resting lightly on Isaac’s blanket and the other within reach of Nico’s foot. Nico kept waking every few minutes to check that she was still there. Each time, his eyes found her and closed again.
Matteo watched from the doorway.
He had not slept.
Neither had she.
Dr. Rowan moved between the babies, adjusting monitors and speaking in low clinical phrases that somehow kept the room from falling apart.
Isaac was weak but stable.
Nico was improving.
For now.
Those two words lived inside every breath.
Dario entered without knocking. “Rafe is here.”
The room changed.
Matteo did not move. “Alone?”
“With two of his men. He says he heard about the hospital.”
Liana looked up.
Rafe.
The cousin.
The exit.
The blood betrayal.
Matteo’s eyes stayed on the babies. “Bring him to the dining room.”
Dario nodded.
Liana stood.
Matteo looked at her. “No.”
“You need me.”
“I need you alive.”
“You need to know if he recognizes my voice, my name, anything about Isaac.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
Dr. Rowan surprised them both by saying, “She’s right.”
Matteo turned on her.
The doctor held his stare. “Rafe may react to her. And after what was done to both infants, I would prefer not to remove Liana from this room for long, but if she goes, I go.”
Dario muttered, “Fantastic. Everyone into the trap.”
Matteo looked at Liana for a long moment.
Then he said, “You stand behind me. You do not speak unless I tell you.”
Liana almost laughed.
He heard the laugh before it left her.
His eyes narrowed. “This is not the moment to prove you are brave.”
“No,” she said. “It is the moment to prove I am not disposable.”
The words landed.
Matteo’s expression shifted, just slightly.
Then he nodded.
Rafe Varric waited in the dining room beneath a chandelier shaped like falling ice.
He was younger than Matteo by a few years, handsome in a polished way, with the relaxed confidence of a man born close enough to power to mistake reflected light for his own.
He smiled when Matteo entered.
The smile faltered when he saw Liana.
Only for half a second.
But Matteo saw it.
So did she.
“Cousin,” Rafe said. “What the hell happened? I heard there was gunfire at St. Agnes.”
Matteo walked to the head of the table but did not sit. “Who told you?”
Rafe blinked. “Everyone is talking.”
“No one outside my circle knows St. Agnes.”
A pause.
Rafe recovered quickly. “Then maybe your circle leaks.”
Matteo’s face remained calm. “It does.”
The air tightened.
Rafe’s eyes moved to Liana again. “Who is this?”
“You don’t know?”
“Should I?”
Liana felt Matteo’s silence like a blade being drawn.
Rafe laughed lightly. “Matteo, I came to help. If this is some loyalty performance—”
“Alessia trusted you,” Matteo said.
Rafe’s smile disappeared.
The name entered the room like a ghost.
“What does Alessia have to do with anything?”
Matteo stepped closer. “She found something before she died.”
Rafe swallowed.
Another small movement.
Another crack.
Matteo continued, “A file. A hospital network. Babies taken. Mothers silenced.”
Rafe shook his head slowly. “You sound insane.”
“Do I?”
“You’re grieving. You never dealt with it, and now—”
Matteo slammed a photo onto the dining table.
Nico.
Isaac.
Two infants beneath the crescent moon mural.
Rafe stared.
Too long.
Matteo noticed.
“Tell me you’ve never seen that room.”
Rafe looked up. “I’ve never seen that room.”
Liana heard it.
Not the lie itself.
The speed of it.
Too smooth.
She spoke before Matteo could stop her. “You didn’t ask what room.”
Rafe’s eyes snapped to her.
There it was.
Recognition.
Cold and furious.
Matteo smiled without warmth. “There she is.”
Rafe’s mask slipped. “You have no idea what you’re touching.”
Matteo stepped around the table. “Then explain it to me.”
“You think Alessia was innocent?” Rafe spat.
The room went deadly quiet.
Matteo stopped.
Rafe saw the hit land and pressed harder. “She knew about the Cradle before she married you.”
Dario stiffened near the wall.
Liana looked at Matteo.
His face had gone unreadable.
Rafe laughed bitterly. “That saint you built in your head? She was born into it. Her father funded half of it. She came to you because she wanted out. Because she thought marrying Matteo Varric would scare the monsters away.”
Matteo’s hand curled.
Rafe continued, voice rising. “Then she got pregnant and realized monsters don’t scare. They adapt.”
“Why kill her?” Matteo asked.
Rafe looked almost sad. “Because she was going to confess. Publicly. She had records. Names. Buyers. Doctors. Judges. Priests. Your allies. Your enemies. Everyone.”
“And you helped stop her.”
“I helped stop a war.”
Matteo moved.
No one saw the blow coming.
Rafe hit the floor hard enough to shake the table.
Dario’s men drew weapons on Rafe’s guards. The guards froze.
Matteo crouched beside his cousin.
“You helped murder my wife.”
Rafe spat blood. “I helped keep Nico alive.”
Liana stepped forward. “By stealing Isaac?”
Rafe looked at her from the floor, hatred in his eyes. “Your child was collateral.”
Matteo hit him again.
Dario did not stop him this time.
Rafe coughed, laughing through blood. “You still don’t understand. Mirella didn’t keep Isaac because of Nico. She kept him because of her.”
His eyes slid to Liana.
Liana went cold.
“What does that mean?” Matteo asked.
Rafe smiled.
“Ask her who Isaac’s father is.”
Liana froze.
The room tilted.
Matteo looked at her.
She shook her head. “No.”
But memory was already opening.
The man who had left before Isaac was born. The charming stranger with false warmth. The one who vanished when she told him she was pregnant.
Daniel Vale.
Or so he had said.
Rafe laughed softly. “She doesn’t know.”
Matteo grabbed him by the collar. “Who?”
Rafe’s smile widened.
Before he could answer, the dining room window exploded inward.
Gunfire tore through the chandelier.
Matteo shoved Liana to the floor and covered her body with his as crystal rained down around them.
Dario shouted. Men returned fire. Rafe rolled beneath the table, laughing like a man who had expected salvation.
Through the shattered window, a smoke canister bounced across the floor.
Matteo dragged Liana up.
“Move!”
But Rafe was already crawling toward the broken glass.
Dario fired.
Rafe disappeared through the smoke.
Liana coughed, ears ringing.
Matteo’s hand closed around hers.
For one second, amid gunfire and betrayal, she looked down at their joined hands.
Then from upstairs came a nurse’s scream.
May you like
The babies.
Liana ripped free and ran.
