CHAPTER 199

CHAPTER 199
Three days passed.

Viviana drifted in and out of consciousness, her world reduced to the steady beep of machines, the dull ache in her body, and the fog of medication that pulled her under again and again. Every time her eyes fluttered open, there was someone there - sometimes Vincent, sometimes Amelia, sometimes Matteo or Felipe.

But Samantha never left.

She sat by Viviana’s bedside through the long hours of night and the pale mornings that followed, her hands clasped tightly around a rosary, her lips moving in silent prayer. She slept in the chair, ate little, barely spoke. In the past three days, she seemed to have shrunk into herself, as if the truth now living in her chest was too heavy for her body to carry.

On that third day, all of them were in the room together.

The silence was thick, heavy with everything that had not yet been said.

Mateo stood near the window, watching his mother with eyes that no longer felt like a son’s. He was trying to reconcile the woman he had known all his life with the one sitting before him now. He remembered something his father had once said years ago, drunk and unguarded - that before Samantha, there had been another man. A man she had loved deeply. A man her parents had despised.

At the time, Mateo had laughed it off as drunken nonsense.

Now, he wondered how much of his life had been built on silence.

His mind drifted back to the night he had confronted his parents. To the way his mother’s face had crumpled before she ever spoke. To the way guilt had poured out of her once the truth could no longer be held back.

She had told him everything.

Back then, before she met Phillipe, before the Cruz name carried the weight it did now, there had been a boy she was in love with. The son of her family’s butler. Poor. Kind. Gentle. Someone Samantha’s parents had never considered worthy.

She had gotten pregnant.

Her parents had refused the relationship outright. Worse still, they had paid the boy to disappear. A large sum of money. Enough to erase him and his family completely.

Samantha had been locked away in the house for months. The world told she had gone abroad to study. When the baby came, it happened quietly. At home. No doctors from outside. No records.

It was a girl.

Samantha had held her only once before the baby was taken from her arms, wrapped in a blanket, and driven away by her father.

She never knew where the child went.

She had been warned never to speak of it again.

For years, she had searched quietly, desperately, but without names, without records, without even an orphanage to trace. There were nights she had convinced herself the baby hadn’t been adopted at all—that her father had done something unforgivable.

That fear had never left her.

As Samantha sat there now, watching Viviana sleep, tears slid down her face.

“I’m a terrible mother,” she had whispered earlier, her voice barely audible. “She was right there. All this time. And I never knew.”

No one had known what to say.

The DNA results had come back the day before.

Confirmed.

Viviana Cole was Samantha Cruz’s biological daughter.

Only one person in the room didn’t know that yet.

Vincent sat quietly, his back straight, his hands folded together, his mind reeling. In the span of a week, his life had collapsed and reshaped itself beyond recognition. His company nearly stolen. His vice president revealed as a traitor. One daughter shot. Another accusing him of unforgivable sins. And now - this.

The mother of his adopted daughter was the wealthiest woman in the country.

Nothing made sense anymore.

Amelia sat beside him, her thoughts just as tangled. Viviana had been cruel to her. Calculated. Vindictive. And now they were bound not just by history, but by blood through Mateo. She didn’t know what forgiveness would look like in this new reality. Or if it was even possible.

Eventually, Viviana began to recover.

Her color returned slowly. The fog lifted. She was discharged a few days later, weak but stable.

They all returned to the Cole mansion together.

The drive was silent.

When Viviana stepped into the living room, she barely noticed Samantha, Phillipe, and Mateo following behind. She was too tired. Too numb.

Just as she reached the stairs, Vincent spoke.

“Viviana,” he said gently. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

She turned slowly, her expression guarded. “If this is about the baby,” she said quietly, “I’m already dealing with it. I’ll be fine.”

“It’s not about the baby,” Vincent replied.

She hesitated, then sat down on the couch, clearly bracing herself.

Vincent took a breath. “While you were in surgery, some tests were done. Things came up.”

Her brow furrowed. “What things?”

He chose his words carefully. “We found your family.”

Viviana frowned. “What do you mean, my family?”

“I mean… your biological family. I thought you should meet her – Your mother.”

She looked at him blankly. “Why would I need to meet my mother?”

The room went still.

Vincent’s voice was quiet. “Because she’s here.”

Before Viviana could respond, he continued. “We confirmed it through DNA. Your biological mother is Samantha Cruz.”

For a second, nothing happened.

Then Viviana stood up abruptly.

“I need to rest,” she said flatly.

Samantha stepped forward, her voice trembling. “Viviana…”

Viviana lifted a hand. “Not now.”

She turned to Vincent. “I’m tired.”

And without another word, she walked upstairs, leaving behind a room full of people who didn’t know whether what had just broken could ever be repaired.