“Nikki… it’s me,” Matt whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of hope, fear, and desperation, and in that instant the entire world seemed to freeze around them as the words hung in the air like a spark waiting to ignite everything Nikki Newman thought she knew, because she stood there in the dim, echoing hallway of the hospital staring at the young man in front of her, her heartbeat thundering in her ears, her breath catching in her throat as her mind tried to make sense of what she had just heard, and for a moment she simply shook her head in disbelief, her eyes filling with confusion and a terror she couldn’t articulate, because Matt—this grown, wounded, haunted man—couldn’t be the baby she lost so many years ago, the baby she grieved, the piece of her heart she thought had been buried in the past forever, yet his eyes… those eyes were too familiar, too much like the ones she saw in the mirror when she was younger, too much like the father he never knew, and as the realization clawed at her, Nikki’s knees went weak, her hand flying to her mouth as tears sprang violently to her eyes, and she whispered “No… no, that’s not possible,” but Matt stepped closer, slowly, cautiously, as though afraid she might shatter if he moved too quickly, telling her that he had spent years searching for answers, years believing he was unwanted, years feeling the ache of something missing inside him without ever understanding what that ache truly was until recently, when a series of documents, DNA matches, and whispered confessions from a dying woman finally led him to Genoa City and to her, the mother he had spent his entire life imagining but never expected to find, and Nikki felt her entire world tilt as his words broke through the carefully built walls she had constructed around that painful chapter of her past, the chapter she tried to forget but never truly escaped, because long before she ever became Nikki Newman, long before Victor, long before the glamour and the power and the battles that shaped her life, she had been a frightened young woman carrying a secret she wasn’t strong enough to protect, a baby taken from her before she ever had the chance to hold him, and as the memories surged back with brutal clarity, her chest tightened and she sobbed, shaking her head again, whispering “I thought you were gone… I thought you were dead,” her voice cracking under the weight of decades of grief, and Matt’s eyes softened with a heartbreaking mixture of compassion and longing as he told her that he had wondered the same thing about her, that he had grown up with nothing but a name someone once murmured in passing, a name he clung to like a lifeline through years of instability, loneliness, and questions with no answers, and as Nikki listened, her tears spilling freely, she reached out a trembling hand toward him but stopped halfway, terrified that if she touched him he might disappear like a cruel illusion, but Matt gently closed the distance, placing her hand against his cheek with a tenderness that shattered her completely, and Nikki gasped as if struck by lightning, because the warmth of his skin, the shape of his face, the way he leaned into her touch—it was real, achingly, undeniably real—and a sob tore from her throat as she whispered “My son… my baby…,” the words ragged and filled with a lifetime of longing, and she pulled him into a desperate, trembling embrace that Matt sank into immediately, releasing years of pain in a single exhale against her shoulder as Nikki clung to him like she might drown if she let go, tears streaming down her face as she whispered apologies for not finding him, for not fighting hard enough, for not knowing he was alive, while Matt held her tighter, telling her none of it mattered now, because he had found her, he was here, and that was enough, but even as their reunion wrapped around them like a long overdue miracle, shadows lingered in Matt’s expression, shadows Nikki didn’t notice at first until he pulled back slightly, wiping her tears with shaky hands, and told her there was more—much more—that she needed to know, that his arrival in Genoa City wasn’t just about finding her but about escaping someone dangerous, someone who had controlled him for years, someone who wasn’t done with him yet, and Nikki’s heart lurched with fear as he explained that he hadn’t just come searching for family… he had come running from a past that had its claws buried deep in him, a past that might now be coming for her too, and as she tried to process the warning, the door behind them suddenly swung open and Victor stepped into the hallway, stopping dead in his tracks at the sight of Nikki’s tear-streaked face and Matt’s protective stance beside her, his expression tightening with suspicion and concern as he demanded to know what was going on, and Nikki, still shaking, still clinging to Matt’s arm, turned to Victor with eyes full of shock, heartbreak, and something dangerously close to joy as she whispered, “Victor… this is my son,” and Victor’s face went slack, his mouth parting in disbelief as he looked between them, instantly recognizing features he couldn’t deny, and the weight of the revelation hit him like a blow, but before he could respond, Matt’s eyes darted over Nikki’s shoulder toward the end of the hallway, his expression darkening with panic as he whispered, “They found me,” and Nikki’s blood ran cold as she turned to see a shadowy figure emerging from around the corner, moving with unmistakable purpose, and in that terrifying instant, everything shifted—from a miraculous reunion decades in the making to a fight for survival none of them were prepared for, as Nikki clutched her newly found son and realized that reclaiming him meant stepping into a danger she never imagined, and that the story of Matt’s return was only just beginning.