CHAPTER 8: THE ESTATE LAWYER

Elias Voss's estate attorney, a precise, unhurried woman named Vivian Okafor, arrived at Voss Tower within the hour, which Temi was beginning to understand meant something in a world where everyone else seemed to move at the speed of crisis and this woman moved like crisis was simply Tuesday. She wore a plain gray suit that somehow managed to look more expensive than anything else in the room, and she set her briefcase down with none of Marcus Voss's theatrical menace, just the quiet efficiency of someone who had spent decades cleaning up messes wealthy families made for themselves.

"The story is inaccurate," Vivian said, settling into the chair across from Adrian without being offered one, laying a slim folder on the table between them. "Or at minimum, it's premature. There is no formal challenge to the will filed with any court. What exists is speculation, likely sourced from someone with partial access to draft language that predates the will's final execution." She opened the folder without waiting for a response, flipping to a tabbed section like she'd anticipated exactly which questions would come first.

"Partial access," Adrian repeated. "Meaning someone inside the family."

"Meaning someone who saw an early version of the document before Elias finalized it eighteen months ago." Vivian's expression didn't change, but something in her tone sharpened. "I drafted three versions of that will over the course of two years, Adrian. Elias revised his thinking more than once. It's entirely possible an earlier draft included language that, taken out of context and leaked selectively, could be made to look like irregularity."

Temi watched Adrian absorb this, watched the careful, controlled stillness he wore like a second skin settle back over his features even as his hands stayed clenched on the table.

"Could my father have access to an earlier draft," he asked.

Vivian hesitated, which Temi was starting to realize was itself an answer. "Marcus contested the will's structure privately, through counsel, shortly after your grandfather's diagnosis. It's not public record. It should not be public record. But if a copy of his objection letter exists somewhere outside my office, someone could construct a story around it that sounds far more damning than the reality."

"So he's using his own failed objection as ammunition," Naomi said from the doorway, arms crossed, having clearly been listening longer than anyone had noticed. "Leak just enough to make the marriage look desperate and the will look contestable, without ever having to prove either claim in an actual courtroom, where he'd lose." She stepped further into the room, her heels clicking sharply against the marble floor. "It's a coward's strategy, but it's an effective one, and I'd expect nothing less from him at this point."

"It's an effective strategy," Vivian said, with the detached professional admiration of someone who had seen it work before. "Public doubt doesn't require legal merit. It only requires enough noise to make shareholders nervous."

Adrian stood abruptly, crossing to the window the way Temi had noticed he did whenever he needed a moment before responding, the city stretched out below offering him nothing but the illusion of space to think.

"I want to see my grandfather," he said finally, not turning around. "Today."

"He's expecting to hear from you regardless," Vivian said. "This kind of story reaches him whether we want it to or not. Better he hears the truth from you first."

The drive up to the Hudson Valley estate took just under two hours, Adrian silent for most of it, Temi watching the city give way slowly to trees and open sky through the car window, unsure whether she was supposed to be here at all or whether Adrian simply hadn't thought to leave her behind. Neither of them mentioned the second option out loud. Somewhere around the halfway point, Adrian's hand had drifted to rest briefly on the console between their seats, close enough to hers that she wondered if it was deliberate, then decided it probably wasn't, then spent the rest of the drive annoyed at herself for caring either way.

Elias Voss's estate sat at the end of a long gravel drive, a sprawling stone house that looked older than the Manhattan skyline they'd just left behind, ivy climbing one entire wing like the building had been standing there so long nature had simply decided to claim part of it back. A nurse met them at the door, spoke quietly to Adrian about Elias's condition today, better than yesterday but tired, and led them through to a sunroom where an old man sat in a wheelchair by the window, a blanket over his knees despite the warm afternoon, watching birds at a feeder outside. The room smelled faintly of eucalyptus and old books, shelves lining one full wall floor to ceiling, and for a moment Temi understood, without either man saying a word, exactly what kind of man had raised Adrian after his parents were gone. Someone who valued quiet control over noise, patience over panic, and clearly expected the same from everyone who walked through his door.

"Adrian," Elias said without turning, his voice thinner than Temi expected but still carrying an unmistakable authority. "I wondered how long it would take you to come tell me yourself, rather than let me read about my own dying wishes in a tabloid."

"I'm sorry, Grandfather. I should have called the moment it broke."

"You should have," Elias agreed, finally turning his chair to face them both, his gaze settling on Temi with an intensity that made her understand, immediately, where Adrian had learned to look at people the way he did. "And you must be Temperance. My grandson has terrible manners, apparently, bringing you all this way without a proper introduction the first time we met at the rehearsal."

"Temi is fine," she said. "And it's good to meet you properly, sir."

"Sir," Elias repeated, with the ghost of a smile. "I like her, Adrian. She has better instincts than half the board."

"Grandfather, about the article."

"I know what the article says." Elias's expression sobered, the brief warmth fading into something more careful. "I also know what it doesn't say, which is the truth, though I imagine that distinction won't matter much to the shareholders calling my lawyer this morning." He studied his grandson for a long moment. "Your father visited me three weeks ago. Did you know that."

Adrian went very still. "No."

"He asked me to reconsider the succession clause. Wanted more time built in, more flexibility, in his words, for the company to, quote, adjust to circumstances as they evolve, unquote. I told him no. I told him the will stands as written, because I trust you to run this company, and I have never once trusted him to run anything without running it into the ground the way he ran this family." Elias's hands, thin and spotted with age, tightened slightly on the arms of his wheelchair. "I did not expect him to respond to that conversation by trying to burn the whole thing down in the press instead."

"Do you have proof he's behind the leak," Temi asked, surprising herself with how naturally the question came out, like she'd already fully stepped into whatever this family's war actually was.

Elias's gaze swung back to her, sharp and assessing. "Not yet. But I intend to find it." He looked between the two of them, something calculating and almost gentle passing behind his eyes. "In the meantime, I want the wedding moved up. Not delayed by this nonsense, moved up. The sooner the two of you are married and this marriage looks like exactly what it should look like to the outside world, a done thing, not a negotiation, the less room my son has to keep picking at it in public."

"Grandfather, the plan was next week already."

"Then make it three days," Elias said, without hesitation, as though the number had already been decided long before this conversation began. "I'll have my own people handle the guest list and the venue. Small. Fast. Undeniable." He turned his chair back toward the window, the conversation apparently concluding on his terms rather than anyone else's. "And Adrian. Watch your father's next move carefully. A man who leaks a will dispute to the press before he's even filed one in court isn't finished. He's only getting started."

Neither Adrian nor Temi said anything for a long moment after that, the birds at the feeder outside carrying on undisturbed by the fact that somewhere inside that sunroom, a wedding date had just been moved up by four days, and a war neither of them had asked to be part of had just quietly declared its next phase.

On the drive back into the city, the sky had gone the color of a bruise behind them, and Temi found herself thinking less about Marcus Voss and more about the way Elias's eyes had softened, just briefly, when he'd called her Temperance and told his grandson he liked her. It was such a small thing to hold onto in the middle of everything else falling apart around them, and yet she held onto it anyway, all the way back into the city, long after the estate's gravel drive and its ivy covered walls had disappeared behind them in the dark. Somewhere behind them, in that quiet sunroom overlooking the bird feeder, an old man who had already outlived more than he should have to was quietly plotting his next move against his own son, and Temi found herself hoping, with a fierceness that surprised her, that he had more fight left in him than any of them yet realized.