Chapter 4 - THE TRUST MY FATHER NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT
I canceled the engagement dinner before leaving the restaurant.
Not postponed.
Canceled.
My uncle called within three minutes.
My mother within five.
Sloane's father within seven.
I answered none of them.
Elena and the boys were staying at a Boston hotel.
I didn't suggest my estate.
Not after learning what my mother had done.
I booked the entire floor instead.
Elena hated that.
“You can't solve everything with money.”
“No. But I can make sure nobody is in the room beside my children.”
The word slipped out.
My children.
She noticed.
“So now they're yours?”
I stopped.
“No.”
That surprised her.
“I believe they're mine. But belief doesn't override six years of you being their parent.”
Her anger softened slightly.
Progress.
The DNA testing happened the next morning.
Not because I doubted Elena.
Because legal claims involving the trust made certainty necessary.
The boys treated cheek swabs like an adventure.
Nico asked whether DNA testing gave him superpowers.
“Probably taxes,” Elena muttered.
I laughed.
She almost did.
Results would take a day.
Meanwhile, Arthur investigated the Moretti Harbor Trust.
My grandfather created it forty years earlier.
It controlled voting shares in shipping, commercial property, and port businesses.
Current trustees:
My father, Anthony Moretti.
My mother, Caterina.
My uncle Victor.
I had beneficial rights.
But a hidden succession clause changed everything.
If I produced direct male descendants before age forty, a block of voting control transferred into a new branch trust for those descendants.
Four sons?
Enough voting power to remove existing trustees from several key entities.
Including my mother and uncle.
“They had a financial reason to keep me childless,” I said.
Arthur didn't disagree.
That hurt.
Elena stared at the documents.
“So your mother didn't send me away because she hated me.”
“Maybe not.”
“She sent me away because my baby threatened her control.”
“Babies.”
We both looked at the boys.
She hadn't known it was quadruplets when she left Boston.
Apparently neither had my mother.
“Who knew you were carrying four?”
“My doctor. My aunt.”
“Anyone else?”
Elena hesitated.
“One person.”
“Who?”
“A man contacted me after my twelve-week ultrasound.”
My body tightened.
“What man?”
“He called himself Mr. Vale.”
No first name.
He said he represented an anonymous benefactor who wanted to help with medical expenses.
Elena refused.
After that, money appeared anyway.
Hospital bills paid.
One premature-birth specialist covered.
She thought her aunt had arranged charity assistance.
“Did you investigate?”
“I was pregnant with four babies and working two jobs, Dominic. I slept sitting up.”
Fair.
Arthur traced the old payments.
They came from a charitable account.
Moretti Family Foundation.
I stared.
Someone in my family knew Elena was pregnant with quadruplets.
And paid to keep them healthy.
That didn't sound like my mother.
“Who authorized the payments?” I asked.
Arthur's answer stunned me.
May you like
“My father.”
Anthony Moretti had known about his grandsons for six years.
