Chapter 3 - The Secret Victor Buried
Elena’s fingers went numb around the phone.
Gabriel took it from her.
“Who is this?”
The caller disconnected.
Gabriel immediately handed the phone to Marcus.
“Trace it.”
Marcus was already moving.
Victor sat silently near the wall.
Gabriel looked at him.
“Start talking.”
Victor’s face had lost some of its confidence.
“Mercer was supposed to protect the family.”
“From children?”
“From leverage.”
Elena stared at him.
“You had my sons watched.”
“I made certain they were safe.”
“You made certain they were hidden.”
Victor said nothing.
That distinction mattered.
Gabriel understood.
“You weren’t protecting them from my enemies.”
Victor looked at his son.
“You were protecting me from them.”
Still nothing.
Gabriel’s stomach turned.
He remembered his father’s obsession with succession.
Cross Holdings was legitimate now, or legitimate enough for public scrutiny, but its foundations had been built in a harsher world.
Victor believed family was power.
But he also believed power required control.
An unknown heir could become leverage.
Three unknown heirs could become chaos.
“What did Mercer do?” Gabriel asked.
Victor finally sat.
“He intercepted communications.”
Elena’s eyes widened.
“What communications?”
“Letters. Calls. Medical notices.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You wrote to me?”
“For years.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Twenty? Thirty?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
He had received none.
Elena continued.
“I sent Samuel’s birth certificate. Photographs. I sent you a letter when Noah was born. Another when Leo was born.”
Gabriel turned toward Victor.
“You stole them.”
“I redirected correspondence.”
Gabriel almost laughed at the language.
“You stole my children.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“I gave you an empire.”
“I didn’t ask for one.”
“You enjoyed it.”
That landed.
Because part of it was true.
Gabriel had spent years telling himself he was trapped by responsibility while benefiting from everything responsibility gave him.
The penthouse.
The influence.
The private aircraft.
The ability to make one call and move millions of dollars across continents.
Elena had once asked him to leave it.
Not the company.
The darkness around it.
He had promised someday.
Someday became years.
Then divorce papers.
Gabriel looked at his sons.
Samuel had fallen asleep against Elena.
Noah was drawing on a hotel notepad.
Leo watched Gabriel cautiously.
Five years.
His empire had cost five years.
“What happens now?” Elena asked.
Gabriel turned.
“You and the boys come with me.”
“No.”
“Elena, someone is threatening you.”
“And going into your world is safer?”
“My home has security.”
“Your father had access to that security.”
“Not anymore.”
Victor stood.
“You’re overreacting.”
Gabriel looked at Marcus.
“Remove his access to every Cross property.”
Victor’s eyebrows rose.
“You can’t.”
“I own them.”
“The holding structure—”
“I changed it eighteen months ago.”
For the first time that night, Victor looked genuinely surprised.
Gabriel continued.
“Your board credentials are revoked effective immediately.”
“You need a vote.”
“I have controlling shares.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“Gabriel, maybe everyone should calm down.”
He turned toward her.
Elena noticed something strange.
Vanessa looked frightened.
Not by Gabriel.
By Victor.
“Why did you recognize Mercer?” Elena asked.
Vanessa froze.
Gabriel’s eyes shifted toward her.
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“Elena, don’t start inventing—”
“Answer her,” Gabriel said.
Vanessa stared at him.
“I saw his photograph once.”
“Where?”
“At your father’s office.”
Victor spoke quickly.
“This is irrelevant.”
Gabriel looked between them.
“When were you in my father’s office?”
Vanessa hesitated.
“Before we met.”
The room went silent.
Gabriel’s expression became unreadable.
“Before?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“I modeled for a charity campaign his company sponsored.”
Victor closed his eyes briefly.
Gabriel caught it.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Vanessa’s confidence disappeared.
“It wasn’t important.”
“When did you first meet my father?”
“Six years ago.”
Gabriel stepped back as though she had touched him.
He had met Vanessa three years ago.
Or believed he had.
Elena watched the realization spread across his face.
Victor headed toward the door.
Marcus blocked him.
“Move.”
Marcus didn’t.
Gabriel spoke without looking away from Vanessa.
“Did my father introduce us?”
“No.”
“Did he arrange for you to be at the Monaco benefit?”
Vanessa said nothing.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel’s face emptied.
The engagement.
The magazine covers.
The carefully photographed dinners.
Had any of it been accidental?
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know about the children.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I loved you.”
“Was meeting me arranged?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel looked at Victor.
The old man remained silent.
Elena suddenly understood something larger.
Victor had not merely destroyed a marriage.
He had constructed the life that replaced it.
“Why?” Gabriel asked.
Victor finally answered.
“Because Elena made you weak.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“She made you question decisions. She made you talk about selling divisions. Leaving New York. Changing the company.”
“She made me happy.”
“She made you ordinary.”
Gabriel’s voice became quiet.
“Maybe ordinary was what I wanted.”
Victor shook his head.
“Men like us don’t get ordinary.”
Gabriel looked toward his sons.
“Maybe men like you don’t.”
Marcus returned with information.
“The call bounced through several numbers, but we located Mercer’s vehicle.”
“Where?”
“Queens.”
Elena stiffened.
Her home was in Queens.
Marcus continued.
“He left the hotel twenty minutes ago.”
Gabriel looked at Elena.
“What’s at your apartment?”
“Nothing important.”
“Documents?”
“Some.”
“Anything involving the boys?”
“Birth certificates. School records.”
Victor suddenly looked concerned.
Gabriel noticed.
“What?”
Victor remained silent.
Gabriel crossed the room.
“What is Mercer looking for?”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Elena remembered something.
“The box.”
Gabriel turned.
“What box?”
“After the divorce, an attorney sent me a storage box. He said it contained belongings from the penthouse.”
“Which attorney?”
“I don’t remember.”
Victor looked away.
Elena’s pulse quickened.
“I never opened most of it.”
“Where is it?”
“My apartment.”
Gabriel grabbed his coat.
Marcus stopped him.
“We should send a team.”
“I’m going.”
“So am I,” Elena said.
“No.”
She stared at him.
“You don’t command me anymore. Remember?”
For one second, despite everything, something almost familiar passed between them.
Gabriel nodded.
“Fine.”
They left the boys with Marcus’s most trusted security officer and a foundation staff member Elena knew personally.
Vanessa remained behind.
Victor was ordered to stay.
Twenty-five minutes later, Gabriel and Elena entered her apartment building with four security officers.
The front door to her apartment was open.
Elena stopped.
“I locked it.”
Gabriel moved in front of her.
The apartment had been searched.
Drawers open.
Cushions overturned.
Papers scattered.
Elena rushed toward a hallway closet.
“Here.”
A cardboard storage box sat on the floor.
Untouched.
Gabriel crouched beside it.
The tape was yellow with age.
Elena found scissors.
He cut it open.
Inside were photographs from their marriage.
A silk scarf.
Two books.
An old watch.
Then Gabriel saw an envelope.
His handwriting was on the front.
ELENA.
She stared.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Gabriel picked it up.
“I wrote this.”
“When?”
“The week before you filed for divorce.”
His hands shook as he opened it.
The letter was still inside.
He read the first lines silently.
Then stopped.
Elena took it.
Elena,
I know I have failed you in ways I don’t yet know how to repair. But I’m leaving Cross Holdings. I chose you. Whatever it costs, I chose you.
Her eyes filled.
“You never left.”
“I was going to.”
“What happened?”
“My father told me you’d already filed.”
“I hadn’t.”
They looked at each other.
Five stolen years seemed to stand between them.
A security officer called from the bedroom.
“Mr. Cross.”
Gabriel and Elena hurried inside.
The window was open.
On the bed lay a photograph that had not been there before.
It showed Elena leaving the hospital seven years earlier with newborn Samuel.
On the back was a date.
And beneath it, one sentence.
GABRIEL WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO SEE THIS.
Then footsteps sounded from the hallway outside the apartment.
Someone tried the locked front door.
May you like
And a familiar female voice said, “Gabriel, open the door.”
It was Vanessa.
