Chapter 3 - 99.9998 PERCENT
Gabriel ordered the driver to change direction.
I grabbed his arm.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“We’re not going after him.”
“I am.”
“The boys are with us.”
“They’re going to the penthouse.”
“And I’m staying with them.”
“Yes.”
“So are you.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That man was inside your home.”
“And he wanted you to chase him.”
Gabriel stopped.
Marco looked at me through the mirror.
I continued.
“He looked into the tablet camera because he knew we could see him.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“He wanted you angry.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you spent half your life winning because people were afraid of what you would do when you got angry.”
His eyes hardened.
“And?”
“And maybe somebody finally learned how to use that.”
The words landed.
Gabriel leaned back.
“Continue to the penthouse.”
Marco nodded.
No one spoke for several minutes.
Owen eventually raised his hand.
Gabriel looked at him.
“What?”
“Do we have to raise our hands?”
“No.”
Owen lowered it.
“Then why did I?”
Gabriel blinked.
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Owen pointed at him.
“Mom laughed.”
“I heard.”
“She doesn’t laugh when she’s scared.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Your mother is scared?”
“No.”
Owen rolled his eyes.
“She does that too.”
“What?”
“Says no when the answer is yes.”
Eli nodded.
“She thinks we can’t tell.”
Noah added quietly.
“We can always tell.”
Gabriel looked at me for several seconds.
It was strange watching him discover them.
Every tiny habit.
Every expression.
Every sarcastic remark.
Things I had watched grow for five years were reaching him all at once.
I hated how much that affected me.
We arrived at Gabriel’s penthouse shortly after midnight.
Nothing about the building had changed.
Private lobby.
Armed security behind smoked glass.
An elevator requiring two biometric scans.
The world Gabriel had once told me was necessary.
The world I had eventually realized felt more like a fortress than a home.
The penthouse doors opened.
Owen whispered.
“Whoa.”
The apartment occupied the entire floor.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Manhattan.
The boys ran toward the glass.
Gabriel immediately said,
“Don’t touch the windows.”
Three small heads turned.
He looked at me.
I raised one eyebrow.
He corrected himself.
“Please.”
They continued.
I almost smiled.
Marco came inside.
“We have two security teams downstairs.”
“I want four.”
Gabriel said.
“No.”
I said.
He looked at me.
“Four armed teams around three five-year-olds is not normal.”
“Neither is a dead man inside your bedroom.”
I hated that he had a point.
“Fine.”
Gabriel turned to Marco.
“Discreet.”
Marco nodded.
Then he looked at me.
“We also need DNA confirmation.”
The room changed.
I knew it was coming.
That did not make hearing it easier.
Gabriel stared at Marco.
“I didn’t ask.”
“You don’t have to.”
Marco was careful.
“Legally, medically, and for security purposes, we need documented confirmation.”
Gabriel looked at the boys.
Noah had found a chessboard.
Eli was staring at the skyline.
Owen had discovered the dessert cart left over from some meeting.
Gabriel lowered his voice.
“I don’t need a test.”
“I do.”
He looked at me.
I continued.
“You want to be in their lives?”
“Yes.”
“Then we do this properly.”
His expression changed.
“You want the test?”
“I want no question hanging over their heads.”
“Claire.”
“No tabloid rumor.”
“No Serena saying I trapped you.”
“No attorney suggesting I invented their father.”
“No family member asking whether the boys truly belong.”
Gabriel stared at me.
“I know they’re mine.”
“Good.”
“Then the test changes nothing.”
“It changes what everyone else can claim.”
He finally nodded.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Independent laboratory.”
“Yes.”
“One I choose.”
“Yes.”
“No Cross employee handles the samples.”
“Yes.”
“And the results go to both attorneys simultaneously.”
His mouth tightened.
“You already have an attorney?”
“I divorced you.”
“Right.”
“I learned.”
That hurt him.
Good.
The boys slept in one of the guest suites.
There were only two beds.
Owen insisted he hated sleeping alone.
Eli insisted Owen kicked.
Noah solved the argument by dragging couch cushions onto the floor and announcing they were camping.
Gabriel watched all of it from the doorway.
“You can go.”
I told him.
He looked at me.
“This is my apartment.”
“The room.”
He stayed.
“They really sleep like this?”
“Whenever we travel.”
“How often do you travel?”
“A few times a year.”
“Where?”
“Gabriel.”
“I missed five years.”
His voice was quiet.
“I’m trying to understand what I missed.”
I looked at him.
“First words.”
He said.
“What?”
“Their first words.”
I exhaled.
“Noah said light.”
Gabriel looked toward him.
“Eli said dog.”
“Do you have a dog?”
“No.”
“Then why dog?”
“He saw one through the window.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
“And Owen?”
I paused.
“Mine.”
Gabriel looked surprised.
“He picked up a banana and screamed mine.”
Gabriel laughed.
A real laugh.
I had forgotten what it sounded like.
It lasted only a moment.
Then his face became serious.
“First steps?”
“Gabriel.”
“Please.”
That word again.
It was almost unsettling.
I told him.
First steps.
First fevers.
The time Noah needed stitches after trying to climb a bookshelf.
The time Eli refused to eat anything except scrambled eggs for nine days.
The time Owen wandered away in a grocery store and I nearly lost my mind for ninety seconds.
Gabriel listened.
He did not interrupt.
Eventually he sat on the floor outside the bedroom.
The most feared man I had ever known sat on hardwood while three little boys slept six feet away and learned about their lives from the woman he had betrayed.
At two in the morning, Noah woke.
He saw Gabriel.
“Why are you sitting there?”
Gabriel looked awkward.
“I don’t know.”
Noah considered that.
Then he crawled onto the couch beside him.
“You can sleep there.”
“Thank you.”
“But you snore.”
“I don’t.”
“Mom said you did.”
Gabriel looked at me.
I smiled.
“I said nothing.”
Noah frowned.
“Then Grandma did.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
“My mother?”
I shook my head.
“My mother.”
He looked away.
His own mother had died before we married.
I had forgotten how sensitive that wound remained.
Noah fell asleep against his arm ten minutes later.
Gabriel did not move for nearly an hour.
The next morning, the laboratory technician arrived.
Samples were taken.
The boys complained more about missing breakfast than the cheek swabs.
Gabriel gave Owen pancakes.
Owen informed him they were inferior to mine.
Gabriel took the criticism seriously.
By noon, we had another problem.
Every entertainment news site in New York had the same headline.
GABRIEL CROSS’S SECRET CHILDREN?
There were photographs from the gala.
Clear photographs.
One showed me standing beside Gabriel.
Another showed all three boys.
Their faces had not been blurred.
I felt physically sick.
“Get those down.”
Gabriel said.
Marco was already calling people.
I grabbed the phone.
“How did they get these?”
“The gala.”
“No.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“The photographer in the ballroom was using a disposable phone.”
“He could’ve transmitted them.”
“Then why leave the phone?”
Gabriel understood.
“It was a distraction.”
Someone else had taken the published pictures.
Someone approved.
Someone inside.
By late afternoon, the online comments had become vicious.
Some accused me of hiding children for money.
Others said the boys were fake.
One headline called them “The Billion-Dollar Triplets.”
I shut my laptop.
“I want them out of Manhattan.”
Gabriel was standing near the window.
“Not yet.”
“You don’t decide.”
“The roads, airports, and train stations are easier to monitor than a move made in panic.”
“I am not panicking.”
“You are.”
I stood.
“Don’t.”
His voice softened.
“Claire.”
“No.”
I pointed toward the room where the boys were watching cartoons.
“They went to bed last night as normal children.”
“I know.”
“They woke up as photographs on the internet.”
“I know.”
“They have spent five years completely outside your world.”
“I know.”
“And within twelve hours of meeting you, somebody broke into my apartment.”
His face tightened.
“You think I don’t understand what that means?”
“I think understanding and changing are different things.”
Before he could answer, my phone rang.
The laboratory.
The results had been expedited.
I put the call on speaker.
“Ms. Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“This is Dr. Lin from Eastbridge Genetic Services.”
Gabriel moved closer.
“The analysis is complete.”
I closed my eyes.
“The probability of paternity for Mr. Gabriel Cross is 99.9998 percent for each of the three children.”
Silence.
Gabriel did not move.
I thanked the doctor.
The call ended.
For several seconds, Gabriel stared at nothing.
Then he walked toward the guest room.
I followed.
The boys looked up from the television.
Gabriel crouched in front of them.
Noah muted the cartoon.
“Did we pass?”
Gabriel laughed once.
“What?”
“The test.”
Noah looked concerned.
“Did we pass it?”
Gabriel’s eyes shone.
“Yes.”
“All of us?”
“Yes.”
Owen raised both hands.
“Yes!”
Eli looked at Gabriel.
“So you’re officially Dad?”
Gabriel swallowed.
“If you want me to be.”
That answer surprised me.
No demand.
No assumption.
Just a choice offered to them.
Eli nodded slowly.
“Maybe.”
Gabriel smiled.
“I’ll take maybe.”
Then Marco appeared at the doorway.
His face was pale.
“Gabriel.”
Something in his voice erased the warmth instantly.
Gabriel stood.
“What happened?”
Marco held out a tablet.
“We found out who approved the photographer credentials.”
Gabriel read the screen.
His expression changed.
I moved beside him.
The authorization had been signed electronically four days earlier.
There was a name underneath.
SERENA VALE.
I stared at Gabriel.
He stared at the screen.
Then Marco spoke again.
“That’s not the worst part.”
He opened another file.
It was a hotel security photograph.
Serena.
Standing in a private corridor.
Talking to the supposedly dead Anthony Bell.
The date was yesterday.
May you like
Three hours before the gala.
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