Chapter 11 - THE CHILDREN WITH NEW NAMES
The arrests spread across four states.
Saint Aurelia suspended maternity operations.
Three physicians lost their licenses within forty-eight hours pending prosecution.
Two adoption attorneys surrendered.
A retired judge disappeared into Canada and was detained at the border.
Families began receiving calls nobody knew how to make.
Some learned the children they had adopted legally had originated through falsified documents.
Others learned babies they had buried decades earlier had not died.
Not every story ended happily.
Some records led nowhere.
Some children were adults who wanted no contact.
Some adoptive parents had known nothing.
The investigation became less about returning people and more about restoring truth.
Elena understood that immediately.
Her daughter, Claire, was eighteen.
Her son, Aaron, fifteen.
She refused to appear on their doorsteps.
“I won’t do to them what Vittoria did to me.”
Liana sat beside her.
“You’re their mother.”
“I gave birth to them.”
“That matters.”
“Yes.”
“So does the life they already have.”
Letters were sent through attorneys.
No demands.
No guilt.
Only truth.
Claire responded first.
She wanted time.
Aaron’s parents asked for a private meeting.
Elena cried when she read the message.
Not because it promised reunion.
Because for the first time in nineteen years, someone had given her a choice.
Nico remained at the Varric estate.
Legally, the situation was complicated.
Emotionally, it was strangely simple.
When frightened, he reached for Matteo.
When sleepy, he relaxed to Elena’s lullaby.
When Liana entered a room, he smiled.
He loved all three.
Children, it seemed, were less interested in legal categories than adults.
One afternoon, Matteo found Elena sitting beside the garden fountain with Nico.
“Lawyers say we need a custody agreement.”
Elena nodded.
“What do you want?”
She looked at him.
“You’re asking?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother spent her life deciding what other people were allowed to want.”
Elena smiled sadly.
“And you?”
“What do you want?”
Matteo looked at Nico.
“To remain his father.”
“You are.”
“Legally.”
“We’ll fix legally.”
He studied her.
“You trust me?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
Elena continued.
“Not completely.”
“I barely know you.”
“But Nico trusts you.”
“And Serena trusted you.”
“That is enough to begin.”
Matteo nodded.
It was perhaps the healthiest relationship agreement anyone in the Varric family had ever made.
Liana’s adjustment was harder.
Elias was alive.
That should have healed everything.
It didn’t.
She still woke at night reaching toward an empty bassinet.
She still heard the sound of dirt striking the small coffin.
She still panicked when a nurse entered the room.
One evening she found herself standing over Elias’s crib checking his breathing for the seventeenth time.
Matteo appeared at the doorway.
“He’s breathing.”
“I know.”
“You checked thirty seconds ago.”
“I know.”
“So why—”
“Because dead babies don’t breathe.”
The words silenced him.
Liana covered her face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I should be happy.”
“You are.”
“I’m terrified.”
“You can be both.”
She lowered her hands.
“Is that what you tell yourself?”
Matteo leaned against the door.
“Frequently.”
Liana looked toward Nico’s room.
“You thought Serena’s accident was your fault.”
His expression tightened.
“How do you know?”
“You carry guilt like expensive luggage.”
That almost made him smile.
“She asked me to stay home that night.”
“Why?”
“She said she wanted to talk.”
“I had a meeting.”
“I told her we would talk in the morning.”
“She died before midnight.”
Liana said nothing.
Matteo looked down.
“For eight months, I’ve replayed the last thing I said.”
“What was it?”
“Don’t wait up.”
The simplicity made it devastating.
Liana walked closer.
“She knew you loved her.”
“That does not change the last words.”
“No.”
“But maybe your last words aren’t the only words that count.”
Matteo looked at her.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Then Nico began crying down the hallway.
Both moved at once.
They stopped.
Looked at each other.
And laughed.
It was the first uncomplicated sound in the mansion in weeks.
But peace lasted less than a day.
The following morning, federal agents discovered that Vittoria had transferred twenty million dollars twelve hours before her arrest.
Destination unknown.
More troubling was the recipient name.
A shell company controlled by Matteo’s father.
Alessandro Varric.
May you like
A man Matteo had watched die six years earlier.
Or believed he had.
