The scream tore through the marble foyer so sharply that Liana Graves dropped the stack of folded linens in her hands.

The silence in the grand foyer was so complete that the distant hum of the air conditioning sounded like a roar.

Matteo’s dark eyes turned to ice. "What did you just ask me?"

Liana didn't back down. She couldn't. Her heart was pounding like a trapped bird against her ribs as she pulled the soft fabric of Nico’s collar back just a fraction of an inch, revealing the distinct mark again.

"Where was he born?" Liana demanded, her voice shaking with an intense, desperate energy. "Which hospital, Mr. Varric?"

Matteo took a heavy step toward her, his imposing frame casting a shadow over both of them. His guards shifted, their hands moving instinctively toward their waistbands, but Matteo held up a single hand, stopping them in their tracks.

"He was born at Saint Jude’s Memorial Hospital," Matteo said, his voice dangerously low. "Nine months ago. His mother, Clara, died in childbirth during a blackout caused by a storm. Why are you asking about my son's birthmark?"

Liana stared at him, her chest heaving. "Because twenty-two days ago, I gave birth to a baby boy at Saint Jude’s Memorial Hospital. The doctors told me he suffered sudden respiratory failure in the middle of the night. They told me he died before I could even hold him."

Matteo frowned, a crease forming between his dark brows. "I’m sorry for your loss, but what does that have to do with my son?"

"My baby had this exact mark," Liana sobbed, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. "A heart-shaped birthmark with three freckles on the left shoulder. My husband—before he abandoned us—had the same mark. It’s a rare genetic trait. The chances of two unrelated babies at the same hospital having this exact placement are practically impossible!"

Matteo stared at her as if she had lost her mind. "Are you suggesting Nico isn't mine? My wife carried him for nine months! I watched her belly grow! I was in that hospital the night he was born!"

"Did you hold him the second he came out?" Liana shot back, her maternal instincts completely overpowering her fear of the feared mafia kingpin. "Did you see his face before they took him to the neonatal unit during that blackout?"

Matteo froze.

The memory of nine months ago flashed through his mind with terrifying clarity. The storm hitting the city. The emergency generators flickering and failing. The chaos in the maternity ward. The head physician, Dr. Harrison Vance, coming out of the operating room with a blanketed bundle, telling Matteo that his wife Clara had suffered a fatal hemorrhage, but that his son was alive and needed immediate incubation.

Matteo had been consumed by blinding grief over Clara. He hadn't questioned the doctors. He had signed every document placed in front of him.

"You're hysterical," Matteo rasped, though the sudden lack of certainty in his tone was undeniable. "You're a grieving mother projecting your loss onto my child."

"Then do a DNA test," Liana pleaded, holding Nico closer as the baby snuggled deeper into her chest, peacefully drifting off to sleep for the first time in weeks. "Do a swab tonight. If I’m wrong, fire me. Arrest me. Throw me in street. But if I’m right... then where is your real son, Mr. Varric?"

Matteo stared at the young woman holding his sleeping boy. For weeks, Nico had refused food, screamed until he bled from his throat, and rejected every high-priced specialist in the Midwest.

Yet in the arms of an impoverished, grieving maid, the child was completely at peace.

Matteo turned to his chief security officer, a stone-faced man named Frank.

"Call Dr. Miller," Matteo ordered coldly. "Tell him to bring a private swab kit to the estate immediately. Off the record. No hospital servers."

Frank looked surprised. "Boss, you can't be serious. She's just a maid—"

"Do it now!" Matteo barked, his voice echoing through the marble hall.