Chapter 160 The Storm Breaks
Charlotte: POV
I'd barely settled real David into his new accommodations—a private wing of Bay Area Medical Center with round-the-clock nursing care—when my phone started blowing up.
First text: from a number I didn't recognize. A link to some gossip blog.
Second text: from Uncle Walter. [Charlotte, we need to talk. Now.]
Third: from Olivia. [Turn on your phone's Do Not Disturb. Trust me.]
My stomach dropped. I clicked the link.
CALDWELL SCANDAL: CEO's Mother Had Secret Affairs, Sources Say
The article was vicious. Detailed. It painted my mother as some kind of serial cheater, claimed her marriage to David was a sham from the start.
Every word was designed to cut. And fuck, did it work.
"Ms. Caldwell?" Michael appeared in the doorway, his expression grim. "We need to leave. Now."
"What's happening?"
"Reporters. They're gathering outside Caldwell Group headquarters. And your apartment building."
I stared at my phone as more notifications flooded in. Twitter. Instagram. LinkedIn. Every platform lighting up with the same bullshit story.
David. No, I should call him Cole now. That bastard had actually done it.
My phone rang. Olivia.
"Can you handle this?" she asked without preamble.
I looked at Michael, at the concern in his dark eyes. At David‘s’ room down the hall, where my real father lay broken and confused.
"Yeah," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "I can handle it."
Caldwell Group headquarters looked like a war zone.
Reporters packed the lobby, along with what looked like paid protesters—people holding signs about "corporate corruption" and "family values." The security team was completely overwhelmed.
My phone kept ringing. Board members. Shareholders. Employees. Everyone wanted answers, explanations, damage control.
The scene was absolute chaos. And someone was livestreaming the whole thing.
Most people had the weekend off, but here we were, dealing with this shit on a Saturday morning.
Nobody saw it coming.
The reporters were all internet mouthpieces, asking the most pointed questions imaginable. The "concerned consumers" wouldn't stop making a scene, their voices rising in manufactured outrage.
'If Charlotte was the product of Emily's affairs, did that mean Emily and David's marriage was a complete fraud from the start?'
'Now that Charlotte knew she wasn't David's biological daughter, was she using ruthless tactics to suppress and threaten him just to cover up her mother's manipulative behavior?'
'Some people even questioned whether Charlotte actually had any Caldwell blood running through her veins at all.'
The discussions wouldn't stop. Everyone demanded I come out and explain.
They were obviously spinning a story—that I was too scared to show up because I never thought they'd go nuclear and make such a huge scene out of this.
'Charlotte doesn't dare come because she hadn't expected them to go scorched-earth and blow this whole thing up.'
'Now Emily's being cyberbullied years after her death, the Caldwell family's reputation is in ruins, and it's a fact that Charlotte took action to suppress them. With her plan to protect Emily's posthumous reputation falling apart, how would she have the guts to show up for a face-to-face confrontation?'
As long as they added one final dose of poison, Charlotte would have no chance of recovery.
I watched from the car as Cole suddenly ripped off his baseball cap and burst out of the crowd. "Charlotte! Charlotte, get out here and give me an explanation!"
Michael's hand tightened on the steering wheel. "That son of a bitch."
"Your mother knew I had a lover back then," Cole shouted, his voice carrying across the lobby. "But she still forced me into a contract marriage to be her cover while she messed around outside! She promised me that after the marriage I could freely see my lover!"
The crowd went silent, hanging on every word.
"She promised me that as long as I helped her hide everything—hide her affairs with those older married men—she'd let me and my lover live without worry. She didn't keep her word, and now Charlotte's turning on me! Caldwell family, give me justice!"
I felt Michael's eyes on me, gauging my reaction.
"Those of us who came out of orphanages, with no connections and no background—should we just be trampled by capital?" Cole's voice cracked with manufactured emotion. "I should never have believed Emily's bullshit back then. I should've just killed myself. That way my lover and children wouldn't be suffering now!"
Paul jumped in right on cue. "Everyone judge for yourselves—we're just trying to survive in the cracks, but Charlotte threatened us, saying she'd use her connections and position to come after us, even said she'd pay to have us killed!"
The crowd erupted. Phones came out, recording everything.
"Even if we're wrong in a thousand ways, aren't our lives still lives?" Paul continued, his voice rising. "Besides, it was Charlotte's mother who threatened and coerced my father first, then went back on her word. You want to protect your mother's reputation, so you're going to silence us permanently? What do you think the law is?"
He deliberately emphasized the words "hiring assassins" over and over, playing to the cameras.
The livestream's comment section was exploding:
【Holy shit, this is absolutely explosive!】
【To make it easier to mess around, she actually coerced someone into a marriage as cover? I knew elite circles were messy, but not THIS messy.】
【This is so rotten. These wealthy families really know how to play.】
【So disgusting. Let's all boycott every Caldwell product unless they kick Charlotte out.】
I turned to Michael. "Ready?"
"Always."
We got out of the car. Alice—my new PR director—appeared with a megaphone, her voice cutting through the noise like a knife.
"Move aside. Ms. Caldwell is here."
The crowd turned as one, mouths open, ready to denounce me.
Then they saw what I'd brought with me.
The denunciations died in their throats.
Behind me stood not just Michael, but a full security team. And behind them, rolling through the entrance on a hospital gurney, was real David Grant.
My real father.
The people at the front who could see everything clearly fell silent. Those stuck in the back who couldn't push their way through were still shouting for answers.
Including that imposter and Paul.
One reporter fought her way out of the crowd, microphone ready. Then she stopped dead, staring.
"What...what's going on?" she asked the person next to her, her voice barely a whisper. "Why are there two Davids?"