Chapter 10 - The DNA That Changed EverythingMatteo refused to accept the photograph.
Not because he thought it was fake.
Because he understood what it meant.
If Sofia had been telling the truth, Nico wasn't the only stolen child.
There was another.
A second son.
One whose existence had been erased.
Liana looked at the photograph again.
“Why didn't she tell you?”
Matteo's face tightened.
“Maybe she tried.”
“Then why hide it?”
“Because someone was watching her.”
Silence.
The investigator entered.
“Boss, I recovered the corrupted metadata.”
Matteo turned.
“And?”
“The transfer happened after the birth.”
“How long after?”
“Thirty-seven minutes.”
Liana frowned.
“That's impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw Gabriel at the hospital nursery two hours after he was born.”
“Maybe you saw him.”
“Not your baby.”
She turned.
“What?”
The investigator pointed to the timestamp.
“The nursery camera was reset.”
Liana felt cold.
“The footage was changed.”
“Yes.”
Matteo stared at the report.
“Then every memory we have from that night could have been manipulated.”
Liana remembered the nurse who had handed her baby.
The blue cap.
The white blanket.
The mark.
Maybe the woman had been lying.
The investigator continued.
“There's something else.”
He placed a small evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a hospital bracelet.
Liana recognized it immediately.
“Gabriel.”
But the number was wrong.
B-17-05.
Nico's code.
Her stomach dropped.
“This bracelet was buried with your son,” the investigator said.
Liana stared.
“So the baby in the coffin wore Nico's bracelet.”
“Yes.”
Matteo looked toward her.
“And Nico was wearing your son's identity.”
Liana whispered,
“They switched them.”
“Exactly.”
The question became simple.
Why?
The answer arrived that afternoon.
A private laboratory completed a full genetic sequencing report.
The result was undeniable.
Nico Varric was Liana Graves's biological son.
And Matteo Varric's biological son.
The child she had buried twenty-two days earlier had been someone else's infant.
Liana stared at the document until the words blurred.
She touched Nico's photograph.
“He was mine.”
Matteo nodded.
“For nine months.”
She looked at him.
“You raised him.”
“I didn't know.”
“You loved him.”
Matteo's eyes became wet.
“Yes.”
Liana didn't know what to do with that truth.
Anger.
Relief.
Grief.
Everything collided.
Nico began crying from the next room.
Liana walked toward him.
The baby reached for her.
She picked him up.
He stopped crying.
Matteo stood in the doorway.
For the first time, Liana saw him not as a mafia boss.
Not as a powerful man.
Just a father.
A father who had unknowingly stolen another mother's child while losing his own truth.
Liana looked down.
“Nico.”
The baby's fingers curled against her cheek.
Then she noticed something behind his ear.
A second mark.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
Three dots.
She froze.
“What?”
Matteo approached.
“What did you find?”
Liana moved the baby's hair aside.
There it was.
A second symbol.
Not the birthmark.
A tattoo.
A tiny number.
03.
Matteo's eyes narrowed.
“Three.”
“The third baby.”
They looked at each other.
“Samuel,” Liana whispered.
Then Nico suddenly turned toward the bedroom door.
He stared into the empty hallway.
And began smiling.
Someone was standing there.
But no one was visible.
Matteo drew his weapon.
“Who's there?”
The hallway remained empty.
Then a child's voice came from the darkness.
A boy's voice.
Soft.
Calm.
And unmistakably real.
“Mom?”
Liana went rigid.
Nico began reaching toward the hallway.
“Mom.”
The voice came again.
“Mom, I'm here.”
Liana's heart stopped.
May you like
Because the voice belonged to a boy.
And she had never heard it before.
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