Chapter 7 - The Ledger
Matteo tore the nursery apart looking for something that was no longer there.
A clue.
A camera.
A dropped glove.
Anything.
Liana stood near the empty crib.
She felt physically sick.
Nico had been sleeping there less than an hour earlier.
Now the mattress was cold.
Beatrice was missing too.
Naomi was found unconscious in the kitchen pantry.
When she woke, she remembered a gas canister rolling across the floor.
Nothing else.
Matteo wanted to move immediately.
Gabriel refused.
“If you go wherever Damian tells you with the ledger, he kills you.”
Matteo looked at him.
“If I don’t, he has my son.”
“That is why you think.”
Matteo shoved him against the wall.
“Do not quote my dead wife to me.”
Gabriel did not fight back.
Liana stepped between them.
“Stop.”
Matteo looked at her.
“Nico doesn’t have time for this.”
She said.
“What is the ledger?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Every subject.”
“All the babies?”
“Yes.”
“Every doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Every payment?”
“Yes.”
“Every death?”
Gabriel nodded.
Liana understood.
“It can destroy the entire operation.”
“Yes.”
“Then Damian won’t trade Nico and let us walk away.”
“No.”
Gabriel said.
“He’ll destroy the ledger and kill everyone who has seen it.”
Matteo released him.
“Where is it?”
Gabriel remained silent.
Matteo’s eyes narrowed.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t have it.”
“You said—”
“I said Damian thinks I have it.”
“Who does?”
Gabriel looked toward the empty crib.
“Sofia.”
Matteo stared.
“She’s dead.”
“She hid it before she died.”
“Where?”
“I never found out.”
“Then how do we give Damian something we don’t have?”
Gabriel answered quietly.
“We find it before he realizes we’re bluffing.”
Liana looked around the nursery.
“Sofia’s music box.”
They searched it again.
Nothing.
Her letters.
Nothing.
Old clothing.
Nothing.
Photographs.
Nothing.
Liana stood in the middle of the nursery.
Think.
Sofia had been afraid.
She knew she might die.
She knew Matteo reacted with anger.
She knew people inside the house were compromised.
Where would a mother hide something important?
Somewhere connected to the one person she was trying to protect.
Liana looked at the crib.
“Nico.”
Matteo turned.
“What?”
“She would hide it with Nico.”
“We searched the nursery.”
“Not the nursery.”
Liana looked at the photograph on the wall.
Sofia holding newborn Nico.
“Something belonging to him.”
Matteo stared.
Then his expression changed.
“The baptism.”
Gabriel looked up.
“What?”
“Sofia insisted Nico be baptized privately.”
Matteo said.
“She gave him a silver cross afterward.”
“Where is it?”
“I put it in the vault.”
They went downstairs.
The main vault was hidden behind the library wall.
Matteo entered the code.
Inside were cash drawers.
Jewelry.
Weapons.
Documents.
He opened a small velvet box.
A silver cross lay inside.
Gabriel took it.
“This isn’t hollow.”
Liana looked at the chain.
“What about the clasp?”
Rafe examined it.
Normal.
Then Liana noticed the velvet lining.
One corner sat slightly higher.
She lifted it.
Underneath was a tiny brass key.
Matteo stared.
Gabriel laughed softly.
“Sofia.”
The key opened a safe-deposit box.
But there was no bank name.
Only a number.
117.
Matteo looked at Rafe.
“Search her financial records.”
Twenty minutes later, they found a dormant account at a private bank across the city.
The bank opened at eight.
They didn’t have that long.
Rafe called the branch manager.
Matteo took the phone.
“Open it.”
The manager refused.
Matteo listened.
Then he said something so quietly Liana couldn’t hear.
The manager changed his mind.
Forty minutes later, they stood inside a private vault room.
Box 117 contained a black ledger.
And a letter.
Matteo opened the letter first.
My love,
If you found this, then I failed to tell you in person.
Liana looked away.
The words belonged to a dead woman and her husband.
But Matteo read them aloud.
Maybe because he couldn’t read them alone.
I know what your father built.
I know what Damian continued.
I know what Adrian did.
And I know what you will want to do when you understand.
Please don’t.
Not for them.
For Nico.
Your father built his world by teaching every Varric man that power meant making people afraid.
You believed him because you were a boy who wanted his father to be proud.
But you are not him.
You can still choose what our son learns from you.
The ledger is enough to expose everything.
Do not bury this in blood.
Put it in daylight.
Liana saw Matteo blink.
Then he continued.
There is one more thing.
I did not choose Liana Graves randomly.
Her baby’s blood results were flagged by Bellmore.
If I cannot reach her, someone else must.
Ava is in danger.
Tell her I am sorry I was too late.
Liana covered her mouth.
Matteo stopped reading.
Neither spoke.
Ava had been alive when Sofia wrote the letter.
Sofia had tried.
A woman Liana had never known had tried to save her child.
Matteo closed the letter.
Then Rafe opened the ledger.
The pages were filled with names.
Some handwritten.
Some printed.
Dates.
Dosages.
Signatures.
Eight names marked in red.
Ava Graves was the last.
Liana touched her daughter’s name.
A sob escaped before she could stop it.
Matteo stood beside her.
He did not touch her.
He simply remained there.
After a minute, Liana wiped her face.
“Copy it.”
Rafe nodded.
“Every page.”
Gabriel looked at Matteo.
“We need leverage.”
Matteo stared at the ledger.
Then nodded.
“Scan it.”
“To where?”
“Everywhere.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows rose.
Matteo looked at him.
“If Damian wants the original destroyed, then the original stops mattering.”
They scanned the ledger.
Encrypted copies went to Naomi.
Gabriel.
Two attorneys.
A journalist Sofia had once contacted.
And Detective Helen Shaw, a retired major-crimes investigator Gabriel trusted.
Matteo also created a timed release.
“If we don’t cancel it in twelve hours, the files go public.”
Rafe looked at him.
“That puts the whole Varric organization under scrutiny.”
Matteo met his gaze.
“I know.”
“You could lose everything.”
Matteo looked down at Sofia’s letter.
“I already did.”
His phone rang.
Damian.
Matteo answered.
“We have it.”
“Good.”
“Where’s Nico?”
“Alive.”
“I want proof.”
A video arrived.
Nico lay inside a portable crib.
Beatrice sat beside him.
Her hands were tied.
Nico was awake.
Not crying.
Liana leaned closer.
There were no new marks behind his ear.
“Let me talk to her.”
Matteo said.
The video switched live.
Beatrice looked into the camera.
“Mr. Varric.”
“Is he hurt?”
“No.”
“Did they inject him?”
“No.”
She glanced off-screen.
Then quickly said.
“Blue birds don’t fly at night.”
The feed cut.
Liana frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Matteo stared at the screen.
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel did.
“Saint Lucia.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?”
“There’s an abandoned cannery near Saint Lucia Harbor.”
Gabriel said.
“Sofia used to call the loading cranes blue birds.”
Damian came back on the line.
“Midnight.”
He said.
“Pier seventeen.”
“Let me hear my son.”
Nico made a small sound in the background.
Matteo closed his eyes.
Damian continued.
“Bring the ledger.”
“No police.”
Matteo gave a cold smile.
“Damian.”
“Yes?”
“You kidnapped the son of a man you’ve known since childhood.”
Silence.
Matteo continued.
“You should know me better than to think I’d call the police first.”
Damian laughed.
“There you are.”
The line disconnected.
Liana looked at Matteo.
“He wants the old you.”
Matteo glanced at Sofia’s letter.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t give him what he expects.”
Matteo looked at her.
“What do you suggest?”
Liana stared at the video frame showing Beatrice beside Nico.
“Beatrice gave us a location for a reason.”
She said.
“She wants us there before midnight.”
Gabriel checked his watch.
“It’s nine fifteen.”
Matteo took the ledger.
“We go now.”
Liana grabbed her coat.
Matteo shook his head.
“No.”
She stared.
“We are not doing this again.”
“This is different.”
“My daughter’s name is in that ledger.”
“Nico is my son.”
“And I’m the reason we know why he was screaming.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“You are grieving.”
“Yes.”
“You are angry.”
“Yes.”
“That makes you dangerous to yourself.”
Liana held his gaze.
“So what does grief make you?”
Matteo had no answer.
She took the ledger from his hands.
“You need someone there who remembers what Sofia asked you to do.”
Matteo stared at her.
Finally, he nodded.
“Stay beside me.”
“I’m not your employee tonight.”
“No.”
His expression softened for the first time.
“You’re not.”
They left for Saint Lucia Harbor.
What none of them saw was the small GPS tracker attached beneath their vehicle.
And forty miles away, Damian Varric watched a blinking red dot move across his screen.
Then he smiled.
Because Matteo was doing exactly what he had hoped.
He was bringing the ledger.
May you like
And Liana Graves with it.
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