Chapter 5 - The Brother Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Gabriel Varric had been dead for eleven years.
At least officially.
Liana learned that in the armored SUV racing toward Bellmore shortly after one in the morning.
Matteo sat opposite her.
Rafe drove.
Two security vehicles followed.
Nico remained at the estate with Naomi and Beatrice under guard.
Liana hated leaving him.
But she hated the thought of doing nothing more.
“Your brother became a priest?”
She asked.
Matteo stared out at the dark road.
“He tried.”
“Tried?”
“He entered a seminary when he was twenty-four.”
Matteo’s mouth hardened.
“My father considered it betrayal.”
“What happened?”
“Gabriel disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“His car went into the river.”
“Body?”
“No.”
Liana stared.
“You believed he died without a body?”
“I was twenty.”
Matteo looked at her.
“My father told me he was dead.”
That explained more than he probably intended.
“Why would Gabriel drug Nico?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Sofia know him?”
Matteo hesitated.
“That’s what I’m trying to remember.”
Rafe glanced into the mirror.
“She did.”
Matteo looked forward.
“What?”
Rafe kept driving.
“I saw them together once.”
“When?”
“About a year before her death.”
Matteo’s face hardened.
“You never told me?”
“It was outside Saint Michael’s.”
Rafe said.
“I thought Sofia was meeting a priest.”
Matteo’s voice chilled.
“You knew what Gabriel looked like.”
“Not after eleven years.”
Rafe met his eyes in the mirror.
“He had a beard.”
Liana leaned back.
Secrets inside secrets.
Nobody trusted anyone enough to tell the whole truth.
That was how people like Damian and Vale had survived.
Bellmore Children’s Center had officially closed six months earlier.
Its windows were boarded.
The sign had been removed.
A chain hung across the main gate.
Rafe cut it.
They entered through a side door.
The air smelled of mildew and old disinfectant.
Their flashlights swept across abandoned reception desks.
Children’s drawings still hung on the walls.
A faded cartoon giraffe smiled above a doorway.
Liana stopped.
She had walked through that doorway with Ava in her arms.
For a second she could not breathe.
Matteo noticed.
“You can wait outside.”
“No.”
“Liana.”
“No.”
She moved forward.
Her shoes echoed along the corridor.
Room 214 was not a storage room.
It was underground.
The brass key opened a stairwell behind the radiology wing.
They descended two floors.
A metal door waited at the bottom.
214 was painted across it.
Rafe unlocked it.
The room beyond was enormous.
Shelves lined the walls.
Boxes.
Medical files.
Hard drives.
Coolers.
Photographs.
Liana stopped in the doorway.
“This wasn’t abandoned.”
Dust covered most surfaces.
But not all.
Matteo pointed.
Footprints.
Recent.
Rafe drew his weapon.
They entered slowly.
Liana’s flashlight moved across a corkboard.
Dozens of children’s photographs were pinned to it.
Infants.
Toddlers.
Hospital ID photographs.
Beside each picture were numbers.
Not names.
Subjects.
Liana felt sick.
Then she saw Ava.
A photograph of her daughter smiling from a hospital crib.
Liana made a sound that wasn’t quite a scream.
She rushed toward it.
“Ava.”
Her fingers touched the picture.
Matteo came behind her.
A label underneath read:
A-17.
ENZYME POSITIVE.
SECONDARY RESPONSE GROUP.
Liana stared until the letters blurred.
“No.”
Matteo’s voice hardened.
“Rafe.”
“I’m photographing everything.”
Liana ripped the file from the board.
Inside were medical records.
Ava’s name.
Her date of birth.
Blood results.
Home address.
Liana’s work history.
Everything.
“They watched us.”
She whispered.
She found another page.
A treatment schedule.
Four entries.
The first two were dated before Ava became sick.
The third matched the night she was admitted.
The fourth had one word beside it.
TERMINATED.
Liana’s knees buckled.
Matteo caught her.
She shoved him away.
“Don’t.”
He stepped back.
She stared at the page.
“They killed her.”
Her voice barely existed.
Matteo said nothing.
“They killed my baby.”
The sentence broke something inside her.
For twenty-two days she had blamed herself.
For not noticing the fever sooner.
For going to work that morning.
For trusting the doctors.
For not demanding an autopsy.
For every ordinary thing a grieving parent turns into evidence against themselves.
Now a file in an underground room said Ava’s death had not been random.
Someone had chosen her.
Someone had watched her.
Someone had entered her life and ended it.
Liana pressed one fist to her mouth.
“I want their names.”
Matteo looked at the file.
“You’ll get them.”
“No.”
She stared at him.
“I don’t want you to make them disappear.”
Matteo’s expression tightened.
“I want them exposed.”
She continued.
“I want every parent to know.”
“That could put you in danger.”
“They already killed my daughter.”
Her voice shook.
“What else are they going to take?”
Matteo looked at her.
Neither spoke.
Rafe called from across the room.
“Matteo.”
He stood beside another board.
Matteo approached.
Liana followed.
A larger photograph was pinned in the center.
Nico.
The label beneath it read:
N-01.
PRIMARY LONGITUDINAL SUBJECT.
Matteo ripped the page from the wall.
“Longitudinal?”
Liana asked.
“It means they planned to follow him over time.”
Rafe answered.
“For months.”
“Or years.”
Matteo’s voice had become cold enough to frighten her.
There was another photograph beside Nico’s.
Sofia.
A red X had been drawn across her face.
Below the image:
INTERFERENCE RISK.
Matteo stared at it.
Liana watched something inside him collapse.
Not visibly.
Matteo Varric did not collapse visibly.
But she saw it anyway.
He had believed his wife died because of the life he lived.
Now he was learning she had died because she tried to save children from people carrying his name.
Rafe opened a cabinet.
“Hard drives.”
“Take all of them.”
Matteo said.
A sound came from the corridor.
Footsteps.
Rafe turned.
“Down!”
The first gunshot shattered a light.
Liana dropped behind a metal table.
More shots exploded through the room.
Matteo grabbed her shoulder and pulled her behind a concrete pillar.
Rafe fired toward the doorway.
“Back exit?”
Matteo shouted.
“East wall!”
Liana looked around.
There was no door.
Then she saw a red emergency lever.
She pulled it.
A metal fire door released.
“Here!”
They ran.
Smoke began filling the storage room.
Someone had thrown an incendiary device.
“They’re burning the evidence!”
Liana shouted.
Rafe grabbed two drives.
Matteo carried the Ava and Nico files under his coat.
They entered a narrow maintenance tunnel.
Gunfire echoed behind them.
They ran through darkness.
Liana’s lungs burned.
Then a shadow appeared ahead.
A man.
Matteo raised his weapon.
“Stop.”
The man lifted both hands.
He wore black clerical clothing.
A silver cross hung at his chest.
He slowly stepped into the emergency light.
Older than Matteo.
Gray threaded his beard.
But the eyes were the same.
Matteo stopped.
“Gabriel.”
The man looked at him.
“Hello, little brother.”
Matteo aimed directly at his chest.
“You touched my son.”
Gabriel’s face filled with pain.
“I was trying to save him.”
“You had an injector.”
“It wasn’t Velorin.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“No.”
Gabriel looked toward Liana.
“But she might.”
He reached slowly into his pocket.
Rafe raised his weapon.
Gabriel stopped.
“Easy.”
He removed a tiny glass vial.
Clear liquid.
“I was giving Nico the antidote.”
Liana stared.
Matteo’s hand did not lower.
Gabriel continued.
“Sofia found me eleven months ago.”
Matteo’s face changed.
“She asked me to help her.”
“Why?”
“Because I had already spent six years trying to expose Bellmore.”
Gunfire echoed somewhere behind them.
Gabriel looked toward the smoke.
“We need to move.”
Matteo stayed still.
“Where is Grace?”
“With me.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Take us to her.”
Gabriel nodded.
They hurried through the tunnel.
At the end was an old laundry exit.
A white van waited outside.
Grace lay inside on a mattress.
She was conscious.
“Mr. Varric.”
Matteo looked at his brother.
“You kidnapped her twice?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“The first time was Damian.”
Grace sat up.
“Gabriel pulled me out before they moved me again.”
Liana stared at her.
“Why did you disappear from the house?”
Grace looked ashamed.
“Because Gabriel told me the person watching Nico would kill me if I stayed.”
Matteo’s anger returned.
“You trusted a stranger over me?”
Grace looked directly at him.
“He showed me Sofia’s letters.”
That silenced Matteo.
Gabriel opened the van door.
“We have copies.”
“Copies of what?”
“Everything Sofia discovered.”
Matteo stared at him.
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“Including who ordered her death.”
The world seemed to stop again.
Matteo stepped closer.
“Say the name.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Not here.”
“Say it.”
“Matteo.”
“Say his name.”
Gabriel looked at Liana.
Then at his brother.
“It wasn’t Damian.”
Matteo froze.
Gabriel continued.
“Damian helped cover it up.”
He swallowed.
“But he wasn’t the one who ordered the crash.”
“Then who?”
Gabriel’s eyes filled with something that looked almost like pity.
May you like
“Our father.”
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