Chapter 4 - MATTEO CROSS
Matteo called Gabriel the next morning.
He did not know we were together.
Rachel had insisted Gabriel take the call on speaker in Michael’s conference room.
Serena had apparently warned Matteo something was wrong but not that she had confessed.
“Brother.”
Matteo always sounded amused.
Gabriel did not.
“What?”
“I heard you had an interesting gala.”
News traveled.
Gabriel looked toward me.
“Yes.”
“Three boys?”
“Yes.”
Matteo laughed softly.
“Claire always was efficient.”
My jaw tightened.
Gabriel’s face changed.
“Do not speak about her that way.”
Matteo paused.
“Touchy.”
“What do you want?”
“To help.”
No one in the room believed that.
Matteo continued.
“The children complicate things.”
“They are not things.”
Another pause.
“Fine. Your sons complicate governance.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Gabriel looked at Michael.
His attorney nodded.
Gabriel said:
“Come to Manhattan.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re angry.”
“I’m always angry.”
“True.”
Matteo laughed.
Then:
“Sign a temporary proxy extension before the boys turn six.”
There.
“For what?”
“To maintain stability.”
“Your stability.”
“Cross stability.”
Gabriel looked toward me.
“What happens if I don’t?”
Matteo’s voice cooled.
“Claire becomes the most powerful person in a world she ran from.”
My stomach tightened.
He knew the codicil.
Gabriel said:
“So you do have it.”
Silence.
“Have what?”
“You’re getting sloppy.”
Matteo hung up.
Michael immediately began preparing court action.
But Matteo moved first.
That afternoon, a petition was filed in Westchester Surrogate’s Court challenging the validity of the codicil Serena described.
How could Matteo challenge a document officially missing?
Because he produced a photocopy.
Conveniently incomplete.
The guardian-control paragraph was absent.
He argued the only valid trust version was the one granting him successor voting authority until Gabriel’s children turned eighteen.
Rachel looked at the filing.
“He’s trying to establish his version before we produce the original.”
“Which we don’t have.”
“Correct.”
Gabriel said:
“I know where my father kept duplicates.”
Michael shook his head.
“We searched the estate archives.”
“Not those.”
Everyone looked at him.
Gabriel continued.
“My mother’s house.”
Jonathan Cross and Gabriel’s mother had divorced when Gabriel was eighteen.
Elise Cross still lived in Connecticut.
Seventy-four.
Elegant.
Dangerous in the way only women who survive powerful men become dangerous.
Gabriel had not spoken to her in two years.
“Why?”
I asked.
He looked uncomfortable.
“Family.”
“That means something awful.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“My mother hates Serena.”
I almost smiled.
“Smart woman.”
Gabriel glared.
Then:
“She also hates me.”
“Why?”
He looked toward the door.
“Because I became my father.”
There was that pattern again.
The drive to Connecticut was strange.
Gabriel wanted security.
I refused an entourage around the boys.
So the boys stayed with my aunt in Philadelphia while Gabriel, Rachel, Michael, and I went.
Elise Cross opened her front door herself.
She looked at me.
Then Gabriel.
Then me again.
“Claire.”
“Hello, Elise.”
She hugged me.
Not Gabriel.
He accepted it.
Progress.
“You look well.”
“So do you.”
Then she looked at her son.
“You look expensive.”
Gabriel sighed.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Why are you here?”
He answered:
“I have children.”
Elise froze.
Every bit of color left her face.
“What?”
“Triplet boys.”
She looked at me.
Then back at him.
“How old?”
“Five.”
Her hand went to her mouth.
I almost cried.
Again this pattern.
People discovering whole human lives in one sentence.
“Where are they?”
“Safe.”
“Why did I not know?”
Gabriel looked at me.
I answered.
“Because I didn't tell him.”
Elise stared.
Then glanced at her son.
“What did you do?”
Reasonable.
Gabriel said:
“I cheated.”
“Of course.”
“Mother.”
“What? You have always mistaken attention for affection.”
I almost liked her too much.
Then we explained Serena.
Matteo.
The codicil.
Elise listened.
When we finished, she walked to an old cabinet.
Removed a locked box.
Inside were letters.
Estate documents.
A sealed envelope.
Jonathan Cross’s handwriting.
TRUST AMENDMENT – EXECUTED ORIGINAL DUPLICATE
Michael actually whispered:
“Oh, thank God.”
Elise looked at him.
“God had nothing to do with it. Jonathan did not trust his own lawyers.”
We opened it.
The guardian clause was there.
But so was another paragraph.
One Serena apparently never knew.
If any designated successor knowingly concealed the existence of Gabriel’s biological child, interfered with paternity disclosure, or attempted to preserve successor control through fraud—
that successor forfeited all trust authority permanently.
Matteo was not fighting for temporary power anymore.
He was fighting to keep from being removed forever.
May you like
And Serena’s testimony could destroy him.
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