Chapter 3 - The Hidden Message
Matteo called Dominic's phone twice.
Both calls went directly to voicemail.
That had never happened before.
Not during meetings.
Not during flights.
Not even when Dominic's father died and he spent the night at the hospital waiting for paperwork.
Matteo stood in the nursery doorway with the memory card in one hand and a new suspicion taking shape behind his eyes.
Liana watched him from the rocking chair.
Nico had fallen asleep against her.
The baby's quiet breathing made the room feel more fragile, as if one raised voice could break it.
"Where would he go?" she asked.
"Dominic doesn't go anywhere without telling me."
"He did now."
Matteo looked at her.
"You're enjoying this?"
"Watching you realize rich people can be lied to?"
She shook her head.
"No. I'm terrified."
That answer cooled him.
He locked the nursery door.
Then he took the tablet to the desk and inserted the memory card through an adapter.
A password box appeared.
"Encrypted," he said.
Liana looked at the note again.
IF LIANA COMES, TRUST HER FIRST.
"Try my birthday."
Matteo raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"Because Elena used it for everything."
"That's terrible security."
"She wasn't hiding state secrets."
Liana gave him the date.
The password failed.
"Try hers."
That failed too.
Liana closed her eyes.
"Bluehouse."
"What?"
"The house in the photo. We called it Bluehouse even after the paint turned gray."
Matteo typed the word.
The folder opened.
Liana sucked in a breath.
There were fourteen files.
Seven videos.
Four scans.
Two audio recordings.
One document titled NICO.
Matteo clicked the document first.
A single page appeared.
The header belonged to Saint Arden Women's Center.
Patient Name: Elena Graves.
Procedure: Assisted reproduction - gestational carrier program.
Matteo stopped reading.
Liana leaned forward.
"What is that?"
He did not answer.
His eyes moved faster.
Embryo transfer date.
Medical record number.
Expected delivery window.
The dates aligned perfectly with Nico's birth.
Liana stood so quickly that Nico stirred.
She pressed him closer and lowered her voice.
"Why is my sister's name on that?"
Matteo felt the floor shift beneath the life he thought he knew.
"Camila couldn't carry a pregnancy."
Liana stared at him.
"Your wife?"
"After two miscarriages, her doctors told us another pregnancy could be dangerous."
He looked at the screen.
"We used a gestational carrier."
Liana's lips parted.
"Elena?"
"No."
Matteo said it too fast.
He heard himself.
Liana did too.
"You recognize this clinic."
"Yes."
"You knew your surrogate was there."
"I knew Saint Arden coordinated the process."
"Did you know her name?"
Matteo did not answer.
Liana's face hardened.
"Did you know her name?"
"The carrier was supposed to be anonymous."
"That wasn't my question."
Matteo looked at Nico.
The baby's face was peaceful against Liana's shoulder.
The sight suddenly felt impossible.
"I saw the name once," he said.
Liana's expression changed.
"Once?"
"On a hospital document after the birth."
"And you forgot it?"
"I was told the document was included by mistake."
"Her name is Elena Graves."
"I didn't know you then."
"You knew her."
"I knew a name."
"She carried your child inside her body for nine months."
Liana's voice cracked.
"And she was a name?"
Matteo's shame surfaced as anger.
"Do you think I designed the system?"
"You paid for it."
"We followed legal advice."
"That's what rich people say when they don't want to ask who got hurt."
Matteo stepped back as if she had slapped him.
Liana looked instantly regretful, but she did not apologize.
Nico shifted.
She rubbed his back until he settled.
Matteo returned to the document.
"If Elena was the carrier, that explains the recording."
"No."
"It explains why she came here."
"It doesn't explain why Nico knows her."
Matteo looked at her.
Liana pointed to the date.
"You said his crying started three weeks ago."
"Yes."
"The woman in that video came three weeks ago, and Nico smiled before she even touched him."
She looked toward the frozen image.
"That wasn't the first time he'd seen her."
Matteo felt the same cold sensation from the patio.
He opened the first video on the memory card.
Elena appeared on screen.
This time there was no hood.
She sat in a dim room with a blank wall behind her.
Her face was thinner than the woman in Liana's locket.
A scar crossed her eyebrow.
She looked exhausted.
But alive.
Liana made a sound that was half laugh and half sob.
"Elena."
The woman on the recording looked directly into the camera.
"If you're watching this, something went wrong."
Liana covered her mouth.
Matteo increased the volume.
"My name is Elena Graves."
The recorded woman swallowed.
"I carried Nico Varric, but I was not told the truth about the pregnancy."
Matteo's pulse hammered.
"The contract says I was a gestational carrier for an embryo belonging to Matteo and Camila Varric."
Elena looked down for several seconds.
When she looked back up, her eyes were wet.
"That was a lie."
Liana whispered, "What does she mean?"
Elena answered from the screen.
"The embryo was not Camila's."
Matteo stopped breathing.
"The clinic used my egg."
The room became absolutely still.
Nico slept between them.
Elena continued.
"Nico is biologically my son."
Liana sat down slowly.
Matteo stared at the screen.
Every thought in his head seemed to collide at once.
Camila holding Nico after the birth.
Camila crying with happiness.
His mother saying the anonymous carrier had signed every waiver.
The doctor assuring them all records were clean.
The private settlement.
The clinic fire.
Camila's accident.
Elena's supposed death.
"No," Matteo said.
The word came out empty.
Liana looked at him.
"You didn't know?"
"No."
"I don't believe you."
"I did not know."
His voice rose.
Nico flinched in his sleep.
Matteo immediately lowered it.
"Camila didn't know either."
On the tablet, Elena kept speaking.
"I discovered the truth six weeks after Nico was born."
Liana leaned closer.
"I tried to contact the Varrics."
Elena's mouth tightened.
"Someone intercepted every message."
Matteo's skin prickled.
"Then Camila found me."
He stared at the screen.
Elena wiped her cheek.
"She believed me."
Matteo whispered his wife's name.
"Camila."
"She said Matteo had to know."
Elena paused.
"She never got the chance to tell him."
The video cut to black.
Liana looked at Matteo.
Neither needed to say what happened next.
Camila died seven months ago.
Elena was declared dead three months earlier.
The dates did not make sense.
Unless at least one death had been manufactured.
Matteo opened another file before moving on.
It was a photograph taken through a café window.
Camila sat at a small table opposite Elena.
The date stamped in the corner was six months after Elena had supposedly died.
Camila wore dark glasses and a baseball cap.
Elena's hair was shorter than in Liana's locket.
Between them lay a yellow legal pad covered with notes.
Matteo enlarged the image.
At the top of the page, in Camila's unmistakable handwriting, one sentence had been circled twice.
WHO BENEFITS IF MATTEO NEVER KNOWS?
Matteo stared at the words.
Liana leaned over his shoulder.
"Your wife was helping her."
"Yes."
The answer hurt.
For seven months, Matteo had remembered Camila mostly through the stillness of death.
A coffin.
A black dress.
Flowers he could not smell because grief had numbed everything.
The files restored movement to her.
Camila had been asking questions.
Meeting Elena.
Taking photographs.
Building a path toward the truth while someone around them worked to close it.
He hated that she had not come to him sooner.
He hated more that the world he had built around himself might have given her reasons to hesitate.
"Maybe she was trying to protect you," Liana said.
Matteo looked at her.
"People keep saying that."
"That doesn't mean it was the right choice."
He appreciated that she did not excuse Camila simply because she was dead.
Liana touched the screen near the circled sentence.
"We should ask this about everyone."
"Who benefits?"
"Yes."
Matteo began mentally listing names.
The clinic.
Dominic.
His mother.
The family office.
Even himself, whether he liked it or not.
He had benefited from a child he believed had been conceived exactly as promised.
He had benefited from paperwork designed to keep difficult questions away.
He had not created the deception.
But comfort had made him slow to examine it.
The thought sat heavily between him and the screen.
The tablet chimed.
A new message had arrived through the estate's internal security system.
No sender.
No traceable account.
Four words filled the screen.
DELETE THE CARD, MATTEO.
May you like
Then a second message appeared.
YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES.
