Chapter 4 - Ten Minutes
Matteo did not move for three seconds.
Then everything in him changed.
The exhausted father disappeared.
The man who had spent a decade negotiating hostile acquisitions, lawsuits, and threats took his place.
He disconnected the tablet from the estate network.
He removed the memory card and slipped it into his pocket.
Then he crossed to the nursery door.
"Stay here."
Liana stood.
"Absolutely not."
"Someone inside this house knows what we just opened."
"Which is exactly why I'm not sitting alone in a room with your baby."
Matteo looked at Nico.
She was right.
He hated that she was right.
He opened the door.
The hallway remained empty.
"Rosa," he called.
No answer.
He took out his phone and tried Dominic again.
Voicemail.
He called the gatehouse.
A guard named Luis answered.
"Sir?"
"Lock the property down."
There was a pause.
"Mr. Vale ordered the north gate opened five minutes ago."
Matteo's jaw tightened.
"For whom?"
"He didn't say."
"Close it now. No one leaves."
"Yes, sir."
Matteo ended the call.
Liana watched his face.
"Dominic?"
"Maybe."
"You don't sound surprised."
"I don't enjoy being surprised twice."
They moved into the corridor together.
Liana carried Nico.
Matteo kept one hand near the small of her back without touching her, guiding her toward the private study at the end of the hall.
He keyed in the lock.
The door did not open.
He entered the code again.
Red light.
"Someone changed it," he said.
"Can they do that?"
"Only three people have administrator access."
"You, Dominic, and?"
Matteo looked at her.
"My mother."
Liana's expression hardened.
"That's comforting."
Matteo ignored the comment and pressed his thumb to the biometric panel.
The lock released.
Inside, he went directly to a steel drawer hidden behind a wall painting.
He opened it and removed an old laptop that never connected to the estate network.
"What is that?"
"A machine nobody can watch remotely."
"You have one of those lying around?"
"I have enemies."
"You keep saying that like it's normal."
"For me, it is."
Matteo inserted the memory card.
The folder opened without asking for a password this time.
He copied everything to the laptop.
Then he copied it to a second encrypted drive.
Liana watched him.
"You really think someone will try to destroy it."
"Someone already tried to keep it hidden."
He handed her the second drive.
"Put this somewhere they won't search."
She stared at it.
"You trust me now?"
"Your sister told me to."
"A dead woman you met through a video ten minutes ago?"
"Apparently she's been more honest with me than people I've known for years."
Liana slipped the drive into the pocket of her dress.
Nico stirred and opened his eyes.
The moment he saw Matteo, his mouth trembled.
Matteo reached for him.
Nico immediately turned his face into Liana's neck.
The rejection hurt more because Liana saw it.
Matteo lowered his arms.
"He used to reach for me."
Liana's expression softened.
"He still knows you're his father."
"Then why does he look at me like I'm leaving?"
"Maybe because you keep leaving the room when he cries."
Matteo looked at her sharply.
"I don't."
"You were trying to hand him to a guard when I came outside."
"I had a call."
"He doesn't understand calls."
The words landed with uncomfortable precision.
Liana adjusted Nico against her.
"He understands whether you're there."
Matteo said nothing.
Camila had once told him almost the same thing.
He pushed the memory away and clicked the second video.
Elena appeared again.
This recording had a date eight months earlier.
"Camila knows," Elena said.
Her voice was hurried.
"She found the original lab order."
Matteo leaned closer.
"We met today at the old greenhouse on the Varric property."
Liana looked at Matteo.
"You have a greenhouse?"
"Not one anyone uses."
Elena continued.
"Camila thinks someone in the family arranged the switch because the Varrics needed a genetic heir."
Matteo felt sick.
The words made no sense.
His sperm had been used.
Any child born from the procedure would already be his genetic heir.
Unless there had been another problem.
Elena looked down at a sheet of paper.
"She says the frozen embryos marked with her name were never viable."
Matteo gripped the edge of the desk.
Camila had never told him that.
"Someone knew before the transfer," Elena said.
"Someone decided the pregnancy had to succeed anyway."
Liana whispered, "Who?"
As if responding, Elena looked directly into the camera.
"Camila thinks it was Marisol Varric."
Matteo slammed the laptop shut.
Liana flinched.
Nico startled and began to whimper.
"Your mother?" Liana asked.
"No."
"Elena just said—"
"My mother loved Camila."
"People can love someone and still control them."
"You know nothing about her."
"I know your wife suspected her."
Matteo stepped away from the desk.
The accusation felt obscene.
Marisol Varric could be difficult, manipulative, proud, and relentless.
But she had stood beside Matteo at Camila's grave with tears running openly down her face.
She had taken Nico for nights when Matteo could barely function.
She had funded every specialist who examined him.
She had called him every morning for seven months.
Matteo stood at the window overlooking the south lawn.
For years, he had believed security meant reducing uncertainty.
More cameras.
More locks.
More employees trained to notice what he missed.
Now every layer looked like another place where someone could hide a lie.
Liana sat near the desk with Nico asleep against her.
"You don't know who to trust," she said.
"I trust myself."
"That wasn't the question."
He looked at her.
She did not sound mocking.
That made the admission easier and harder.
"No," he said.
"I don't."
Liana nodded.
"Then start with what you can prove."
"Which is?"
She counted quietly.
"Elena carried Nico."
One finger.
"Camila found out something was wrong."
A second.
"Someone blocked Elena's messages."
A third.
"Someone inside this house can control cameras and locks."
A fourth.
"And somebody knew we opened that card almost immediately."
Matteo watched her.
He had spent years around executives who used polished language to make uncertainty sound intelligent.
Liana did the opposite.
She reduced chaos to facts.
"Everything else is a story someone wants us to believe," she said.
"Including your mother's story?"
"Including yours."
He raised an eyebrow.
Liana held his gaze.
"I believe you are scared for Nico. I don't know yet what else I believe about you."
The sentence should have offended him.
Instead, Matteo found it unexpectedly fair.
"Good," he said.
She looked surprised.
"Good?"
"Don't trust me because I own the house."
A tiny, tired smile appeared.
"That was never a risk."
For the first time all day, Matteo almost laughed without bitterness.
Matteo's phone rang.
The screen showed MOM.
Neither he nor Liana spoke.
It rang again.
Matteo answered.
"Where are you?"
Marisol's voice was calm.
"On my way to the estate."
"Why?"
"Dominic called me."
Matteo's eyes lifted to Liana.
"What did he say?"
"That a new employee has created a security problem around Nico."
Liana went pale.
Marisol continued.
"He said the woman claims to be related to Elena Graves."
Matteo's fingers tightened around the phone.
"You know that name."
Silence.
Only a second.
But it was enough.
"Mother."
Marisol exhaled.
"Matteo, listen to me carefully."
Her voice had changed.
"Do not let that woman leave the house with Nico."
Matteo looked at Liana holding his son.
"Why?"
Another silence.
May you like
Then Marisol said the sentence that turned suspicion into terror.
"Because Elena Graves did not die in that fire."
