Chapter 5: Masks and Monsters

Across the city, Giada was sitting at her new kitchen counter when an email arrived from the laboratory.

She opened the report and read the conclusion twice. The samples had yielded a result, and the analysis supported a biological mother-child relationship between Nadia and Matteo, with a calculated maternity probability above 99.99 percent.

For a moment, she sat without moving. She had known what the report would say, but knowing something because she remembered her own death was different from holding a document that someone else could read.

Nadia had never lost that baby. She had given birth to him, handed him to Enzo, and watched Giada raise him while Dario grieved for a child he thought was gone.

Giada saved the email, backed up the attachment, and called the laboratory to confirm the sample identifiers and ask how the report could be verified if challenged. When the call ended, she printed two copies and placed them in a folder beside her divorce papers.

She hoped she wouldn't need them. But if Enzo tried to make Matteo her responsibility again, she wasn't going to argue about whether she had done enough for his family.

Her phone rang while she was putting the folder away. Enzo's name appeared on the screen, followed a moment later by a message.

We need to talk. You can't just leave Matteo like this.

Giada set the phone to silent and returned to her notes.

She was halfway through a list of questions for the engineer when the doorbell rang. Setting down her pen, she walked across the living room and opened the front door.

Teresa stood outside the gate with Matteo on her hip, her face set in the familiar expression of a woman preparing to demand something. Enzo was beside her, while Dario and Nadia waited a few steps behind.

Her former husband's entire family had come to her door.

Giada looked at them for a moment, then stepped back inside to collect the folder from the kitchen counter. When she came out again, Teresa was already pressing the bell a second time.

She walked down the path and stopped on her side of the gate, leaving it closed.

"How did you get in?"

"Mrs. Chen told the guard we knew you," Teresa answered. "We've been calling you all morning."

"What do you want?"

Teresa shifted Matteo higher on her hip and looked past Giada toward the villa. Up close, the house seemed to offend her even more than it had over the phone. Her eyes moved from the tall windows to the broad front steps, and her mouth tightened.

"You walk out of our house with nothing, and two days later you're living in a mansion? Don't expect us to believe you suddenly found this kind of money."

"The divorce was finalized two days ago. I signed away every cent of marital property. This house was purchased with money I obtained after the marriage ended."

"That's a lie! You must have been hiding money from my son for years. Half of this belongs to him."

"If you believe that, speak to a lawyer."

Teresa's voice had already drawn attention. Mrs. Chen was standing near her driveway, visibly uncertain now that she could see Giada hadn't been expecting visitors. Across the street, Mrs. Warren paused beside her car, and Mrs. Delgado slowed on the sidewalk.

Enzo noticed them too. He stepped closer to the gate and lowered his voice.

"We didn't come here to argue about the house."

Dario gave him a sharp look, but Enzo ignored it.

"We came because of Matteo. You've barely answered your phone, and he's been asking where you are."

"You know where I am," Giada replied. "And you know he's your responsibility."

Teresa made a wounded sound and turned slightly, making sure the neighbors had a clear view of the boy in her arms.

"Listen to yourself. Three years that child called you Mama, and now you talk about him like he's someone else's problem. You walked out on your husband and your son, and you're living in a mansion while this poor baby has no mother. What kind of woman does that?"

Matteo stirred against her shoulder and looked toward Giada. His eyes were heavy with tiredness, and one of his shoes was coming loose.

Giada noticed. She also noticed that none of the four adults who had brought him across the city had bothered to fix it.

"Take him home, Enzo. This isn't a conversation he needs to stand through."

"Then open the gate and let us talk inside."

"No."

Nadia folded her arms.

"You can't just refuse to discuss it. You agreed to raise him, Giada. Children aren't something you throw away because you've decided you want a different life."

Giada looked at her for a long, quiet moment.

"You're right. So why did you give yours to me?"

Nadia's expression changed so quickly that Enzo turned toward her before he could stop himself.

Dario frowned.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't start making things up," Nadia said sharply. "Nobody forced you to take him."

"I agreed to take in a child you told me was an orphan."

"And you're the only mother he knows," Teresa insisted. "Whatever else happened, you can't pretend those three years meant nothing."

"They meant enough for you to use them every time you wanted something from me."

Giada opened the folder slowly.

Nadia's face lost all color.

Dario looked from his wife to the papers in Giada's hand.

"What is that?" he demanded.

"Since all of you came here to discuss who should raise Matteo," Giada said, lifting the report, "perhaps we should begin with the woman who actually gave birth to him."

Dario turned slowly toward Nadia.