Chapter 3 - The Billionaire's Investigation
By midnight, the grand estate was dead silent, save for the hum of high-tech servers in Matteo’s private study.
Matteo sat behind his massive mahogany desk, his laptop open to encrypted medical records and hospital blueprints. Liana sat across from him in a high-backed leather chair, Nico sleeping soundly in a makeshift bassinet beside her. The baby had refused to let Liana put him down in his own nursery, waking up and screaming the moment she tried to step away. Out of desperation and shock, Matteo had allowed her to bring the baby into the study.
"If what you're implying is true," Matteo said, his voice dangerously low as he stared at a digital file, "then someone inside Mercy General played a god-tier game of deception. My family's enemies run deep, Liana. If someone switched my child—or stole my child and replaced him with yours—they did it to send a message, or worse, as part of an inheritance war."
"It wasn't just an enemy," Liana replied, her voice steady despite the exhaustion pulling at her eyelids. "Look at the attending physician on duty that night. Dr. Harrison Vance. He's your cousin's personal physician, isn't he?"
Matteo’s fingers froze over the keyboard. He pulled up Dr. Vance’s financial profile. A series of sudden, massive cash transfers from an offshore account—an account linked directly to his estranged brother, Julian Varric—flashed across the screen.
Julian. The ambitious, ruthless brother who had been publicly passed over for the Varric CEO position. The brother who needed an heir out of the picture to consolidate absolute control over the family trust.
"He targeted us both," Matteo realized, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the desk. "Your baby was taken to cover the tracks of the swap, or perhaps... your baby was supposed to be the disposable one, while mine was hidden away."
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"My baby isn't disposable," Liana whispered fiercely, tears finally spilling over her lashes. "And neither is yours. We need proof, Mr. Varric. Real proof that holds up in a court of law, not just a mother's intuition."
"Then we get it," Matteo said, standing up with a dark, resolute expression. He walked over to the bassinet, looking down at Nico with a mixture of fierce protectiveness and sorrow. "Tomorrow, we tear Mercy General apart from the inside out. And God help anyone who stood between us and our children."
