Chapter 4 - THE EMPTY GRAVE
The cemetery looked almost exactly as it had on the day Liana believed she buried her son. A low gray sky pressed down over wet grass, and the wind pulled at the black coats of the officers standing beyond the temporary privacy tent. Liana had thought nothing could ever be worse than Daniel’s funeral. She had been wrong. At the funeral, grief had at least been certain. Now hope stood beside her like a blade. Matteo remained close but did not touch her until the small coffin rose from the earth. Only then, when her knees began to weaken, did he put one hand beneath her elbow and hold her upright without a word.
An investigator opened the coffin beneath the tent. Minutes later he emerged wearing an expression Liana would remember forever. “Is he there?” she asked. The man hesitated. “No.” Her legs collapsed. Matteo caught her before she struck the ground. Inside the coffin were weighted medical materials arranged to mimic the mass of an infant. No body. No Daniel. Liana began to laugh, a broken sound that terrified even her. She had mourned an empty grave, kissed a sealed casket, and spent twenty-two days believing the most important person in her life had become earth. Somewhere in that horror was a possibility so bright it hurt: Daniel might still be alive.
Dr. Harlan confessed the rest when confronted with the empty coffin. Daniel had suffered a dangerous reaction to V17, but he had not died. Harlan stabilized him, then received instructions from Mrs. Holloway to use the crisis to stage a medical death before Vittorio’s people learned the child survived. Liana had collapsed after the resuscitation attempt and been sedated. A bundled form was later placed in her arms, but she never saw the face beneath the blanket. A funeral home connected to a shell company handled everything. Harlan claimed he believed the deception would save Daniel. Liana stood across from him with an eerie calm. “You let me wish I had died with him,” she said. “Do not tell me you saved me anything.”
Harlan said Holloway had taken Daniel, but he did not know where. When Matteo insisted Sofia was dead and therefore could not be part of the plan, Harlan looked terrified. Then he said the word that changed the room. “No.” Sofia, he claimed, had survived the crash. The body Matteo saw had been part of Vittorio’s deception. Sofia planned to disappear if Vittorio discovered her investigation because she believed Matteo was being watched from inside his own security network. Harlan had not seen her since shortly after the crash, but Holloway had remained in contact with someone using Sofia’s old emergency codes.
Hope hurt Matteo differently than it hurt Liana. He had spent eight months learning how to be a widower, father, and ruler of an empire at the same time. Now a man he despised was telling him his wife might have chosen to let him believe she was dead. Liana watched rage and longing struggle across his face. “She left me,” he said. Harlan answered that she protected the child. Matteo struck the table so hard a glass of water tipped over. Liana did not defend Sofia. She understood too well that love could cause unbearable harm when fear made all the decisions.
By sunset, police traced Holloway to a farmhouse eighty miles outside the city. Matteo and Liana rode there in the same vehicle, neither speaking. The closer they came, the more Liana’s body remembered Daniel: the weight of him asleep on her chest, the way he slapped bathwater with both hands, the ridiculous concentration on his face whenever he tried banana for the first time each morning. She was terrified memory had made him perfect. She was even more terrified that she would arrive and find another lie.
Holloway stood on the porch when the convoy turned into the gravel drive. Liana was out of the car before it stopped. “Where is he?” Holloway’s eyes filled immediately. “Liana—” “Where is Daniel?” The front door opened behind her. A thin woman with short dark hair stepped into the evening light carrying a baby. A pale scar crossed her forehead. Matteo stopped so abruptly that Gabriel almost walked into him. “Sofia,” he breathed. The woman began crying. Eight months of mourning stood between husband and wife, too large for either to cross.
Liana barely saw them because the baby made a small sound. A yellow rubber duck hung from the stroller beside the door. Daniel had once refused to sleep unless an identical duck sat where he could see it. Liana whispered his name. The baby turned. For one second he stared without recognition, and Liana’s heart shattered all over again. Then his entire face changed. He reached toward her and made a sound he had only been beginning to form when she last held him. “Mama.” Liana ran. Sofia handed him over, and Liana collapsed to her knees in the grass with Daniel pressed against her chest.
He was heavier. His hair was longer. He smelled like unfamiliar soap. None of that mattered when his fingers wrapped around hers in exactly the same way they always had. Liana sobbed into his hair until she could barely breathe. Matteo approached slowly, as if any sudden motion might cause the miracle to disappear. His biological son looked at him with open curiosity. Liana held out one arm. “Come here.” Matteo knelt. Daniel took his finger, and the feared Matteo Varric began crying in the grass without trying to hide it.
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Only after the first shock softened did Liana turn toward Sofia. This was Nico’s other mother, the woman who had kept Daniel alive while Liana mourned, the woman who had allowed two grieving parents to believe the dead were gone because Vittorio’s people watched both families. Sofia whispered, “I’m sorry.” Liana hugged her with Daniel between them. “You kept him alive,” she said, not because that erased the cruelty of the deception, but because it mattered. Matteo did not join the embrace. His pain was too fresh. He asked Sofia why she never contacted him. She answered that Vittorio had threatened to kill Nico in front of him if she did.
A low engine sounded beyond the trees. Holloway’s head snapped toward the road. Three black vehicles appeared at the end of the drive before the police perimeter was fully established. Security moved instantly. Sofia grabbed Liana’s arm and told her to take Daniel inside. Matteo did not move. The center vehicle stopped, and an elderly man stepped out using a cane. His hair was white, his shoulders slightly stooped, but Matteo recognized him before the man lifted his face. “Father.” Vittorio Varric smiled as if arriving late to a family dinner. “Matteo,” he said. Then he looked toward Sofia, Liana, and Daniel. “So. Everyone finally found everyone.”
