Chapter 5 - The Blood Test
Victor Cross refused to answer.
By morning, the gala scandal had spread across social media.
Photographs of Gabriel, Elena and the boys appeared everywhere.
Headlines speculated.
Some called Elena a secret mistress despite the inconvenient fact that she had been Gabriel’s wife.
Others called the boys hidden heirs.
Gabriel ignored all of it.
He sat across from his father in the library of the Cross estate.
Elena sat beside him.
Three attorneys were present.
So was a federal investigator Mercer had agreed to speak with.
Victor finally understood that his son was no longer protecting him.
“What test?” Gabriel asked.
Victor stared through the windows.
“Your mother had concerns.”
Gabriel stiffened.
“My mother died when I was twenty.”
“Exactly.”
“What does she have to do with Elena?”
Victor rubbed his forehead.
“Nothing.”
“Then answer.”
Victor finally looked at him.
“Cross men have a hereditary cardiac condition.”
Gabriel frowned.
He knew.
His grandfather had died at fifty-two.
An uncle at forty-eight.
Gabriel had been tested repeatedly.
“You’re negative,” Victor said. “But you can carry markers.”
Elena understood first.
“The prenatal testing.”
Victor nodded.
“When I learned Elena was pregnant, I had Mercer obtain a sample from a routine screening.”
“You stole my medical information?” Elena asked.
Victor ignored her.
“The child carried a marker.”
Gabriel stared.
“So?”
“So I became afraid.”
“Of what?”
Victor’s voice dropped.
“Of history repeating itself.”
For the first time, he spoke not like a patriarch but an old man.
Gabriel’s older brother, Michael, had died at six.
Gabriel barely remembered him.
Victor never discussed it.
“Michael had the condition,” Victor said. “Your mother never recovered.”
Gabriel’s anger faltered.
“You separated me from my children because you were afraid they might get sick?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Victor looked away.
“Then I discovered Elena’s pregnancy could expose financial arrangements Mercer had created around your inheritance.”
Gabriel’s sympathy vanished.
There it was.
Money.
Always money.
“If you had legitimate heirs,” Victor continued, “certain trusts transferred automatically.”
“To whom?”
“To them.”
Elena stared.
“How much?”
Victor did not answer.
Gabriel’s attorney did.
“Potentially controlling interest.”
Gabriel slowly turned.
“In Cross Holdings?”
“Yes.”
The attorney had spent the night reviewing old trust documents.
Gabriel’s grandfather had created a clause Victor apparently believed no one would discover.
If Gabriel had biological children, a portion of family voting shares moved into an irrevocable trust for those descendants.
Victor’s personal control would shrink dramatically.
The children had never been merely an emotional inconvenience.
They threatened his power.
Gabriel stood.
“You erased my family for shares.”
Victor slammed his palm against the table.
“I built that company!”
“And you destroyed everything else.”
“I made you who you are.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No. Elena did more of that than you ever understood.”
Elena looked at him.
Victor saw it.
The connection he had spent years destroying was still there.
Maybe wounded.
Maybe fragile.
But alive.
Victor stood.
“You think finding three children makes you a father?”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Good.”
Victor moved toward the door.
“Because blood is the easiest part.”
Gabriel stopped him.
“You’re right.”
Victor looked surprised.
“I missed seven years of Samuel’s life. Six of Noah’s. Five of Leo’s. I don’t get those years back because a test says they’re mine.”
Elena watched him carefully.
Gabriel continued.
“I’ll earn whatever comes next.”
That was the first thing he had said since the gala that made Elena believe something might truly have changed.
Not “They’re mine.”
Not “I have rights.”
Earn.
Victor left under federal supervision.
Mercer’s evidence opened multiple investigations.
Gabriel voluntarily turned over company records.
His lawyers warned him the decision could cost hundreds of millions.
He did it anyway.
For the next several weeks, Gabriel did something much harder.
He learned to become a stranger his sons could trust.
He did not move them into his mansion.
He did not demand weekends.
He did not send extravagant gifts.
He came to Elena’s apartment when invited.
The first visit lasted twenty minutes.
Leo hid behind the sofa.
Noah asked whether Gabriel had ever killed anybody.
Elena nearly dropped a plate.
Gabriel answered carefully.
“I’ve hurt people with decisions I made. I’m trying not to be that man anymore.”
Noah considered this.
“Mom says people can change if they do the work.”
Gabriel looked at Elena.
“She’s right.”
Samuel was hardest.
He wanted answers.
“Why didn’t you find us?”
Gabriel sat across from him at the kitchen table.
“Because I didn’t know you were there.”
“Mom tried to tell you.”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you know?”
“Because I trusted the wrong people.”
Samuel frowned.
“That sounds like an excuse.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
“You’re right.”
The boy surprised him constantly.
“What’s the non-excuse?”
Gabriel thought.
“I should have known your mother well enough to realize something was wrong.”
Samuel nodded.
“That’s better.”
Weeks became months.
Gabriel attended school events.
He learned Noah hated peas.
Leo loved dinosaurs.
Samuel wanted to build airplanes.
He discovered children did not care about quarterly earnings.
They cared whether he remembered promises.
One Saturday, Gabriel arrived seven minutes late for a soccer game.
Samuel noticed.
Gabriel apologized.
The next Saturday, he arrived forty minutes early.
Elena noticed.
Their relationship changed slowly.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Trust first.
Vanessa disappeared from the tabloids after releasing a statement ending her engagement.
She returned the ring.
Gabriel did not blame her publicly.
She had been manipulated too, though she had made choices of her own.
Then one afternoon, Elena received a certified envelope.
Inside was a petition.
Victor Cross was challenging the children’s trust.
His lawyers claimed Gabriel’s paternity had never been independently verified.
Gabriel was furious.
Elena was tired.
“We’ll do the test.”
“You don’t have to prove anything.”
“Yes, we do.”
The results arrived four days later.
99.99 percent.
All three boys were Gabriel’s biological sons.
Victor’s challenge should have ended.
Instead, Gabriel’s attorney called that evening.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“The trust has a secondary clause.”
Gabriel put the phone on speaker.
Elena listened.
“What clause?”
“If the children are confirmed descendants, they inherit voting control immediately.”
Gabriel frowned.
“They’re minors.”
“You would normally act as trustee.”
“Normally?”
The attorney hesitated.
“Your grandfather named an alternate trustee.”
Gabriel felt dread.
“Who?”
A knock sounded at Elena’s apartment door.
She opened it.
A woman stood outside holding a leather briefcase.
May you like
Gabriel had not seen her in twenty-three years.
His mother was supposed to be dead.
