Chapter 168 Plummet From Grace

Chapter 168 Plummet From Grace

"Pfft."

With every piece of news Holden delivered, Ethan's face grew darker. By the time it was all out, Ethan couldn't catch his breath. He coughed up a mouthful of blood, his body went limp, and he collapsed.

When he came to, everything was already over.

Every dirty secret the Wood family had ever buried was exposed. Overnight, the entire family became the target of public contempt.

The board immediately voted to remove Ethan as president and froze all his assets to cover the company's losses.

Every car, property, collectible, and luxury item under the Wood family's name was forcibly auctioned off. Even then, it barely covered what they owed.

And it didn't stop there. The flood of details that surfaced online prompted police to reopen old cases from years ago. Every lead, every piece of evidence pointed straight back to Ethan and Saskia.

In the end, both were arrested on multiple charges including unfair business practices and hiring someone to commit murder. Ethan got seven years. Saskia got ten. Not life sentences, but enough to destroy them completely.

Kirk was also put under investigation for academic fraud and campus bullying. The Wood family, once so untouchable, had completely fallen apart.

Even Wood Corporation's emergency damage control couldn't stop the stock from free-falling. The company, which had barely held its place among mid-tier businesses, was pushed out of the mainstream market entirely, shrinking to a tenth of its former size.

And this was only the beginning.

The truth about Ethan hiring someone to stage a car accident and kill Olivia also came out, spreading across every platform and setting off another wave of public outrage.

The Barnett family stepped forward at just the right moment, publicly announcing that Olivia was Barney's adopted daughter.

With Ethan already behind bars, Barney had nowhere to direct his fury. So he turned it all on the already crumbling Wood Corporation.

As the most powerful of the four major families, the Barnetts didn't need to lift a finger. A single signal from them was enough to send countless others rushing in to pile on.

Wood Corporation was on the verge of total collapse. The board members panicked and started dumping their shares at rock-bottom prices.

Just as the company was about to go under, Olivia reappeared in public, completely unharmed.

The official story was that she had been swept away by the river after the crash, rescued by chance, and had been recovering in hiding ever since.

Whether anyone believed it hardly mattered anymore.

Barney played the part of a relieved and guilt-ridden father, personally bringing Olivia back into the family and throwing a lavish party to publicly announce her place in it. The whole upper-class social circle was buzzing.

But Olivia, the person at the center of it all, was sitting in a prison visitation room.

She looked at Ethan through the iron bars. In just a short time, he had aged by decades. She smiled.

"You got lucky. I was going to make you pay with your life. Too bad I'm a law-abiding citizen."

Her tone was calm, but the words hit hard. Ethan shot to his feet.

He had always been sharp. Now it all clicked. From the very beginning, he had been walking straight into a trap Olivia had set.

His eyes went red. He pressed against the bars and screamed at her.

"You bitch! You planned all of this! We lived together for seven years. We have a son. You really feel nothing?"

"Did you think about that when you hired someone to run me down? Did you think about it when you had Jeffrey killed? Ethan, you've done too much evil. Everything that's happening to you now, you brought on yourself."

Her voice was flat, but every word cut deep. Ethan's face went white.

Olivia reached up and lightly brushed a strand of hair from her temple. Her smile was soft. Her words were not.

"Don't be too upset. Your mother and your sister are both in here with you. I'll make sure things are arranged just right, so you're all kept nice and comfortable in there. Every single day will feel worse than the last."

She said the cruelest thing possible in the gentlest voice imaginable.

Ethan's pupils shrank. He hurled curses at her, screaming himself hoarse.

Olivia set down the phone, cutting off every word, and walked away with a small smile.

Simon was waiting outside the prison gates.

Once she was in the car and settled, he started the engine and spoke quietly.

"The police just called me. The Wood family is completely bankrupt. Under the rules, custody of Martin transfers to you. What do you want to do?"

At the mention of Martin's name, Olivia's brow furrowed slightly. The irritation in her eyes was hard to miss.

The boy had never warmed to her, and he never would. But he was too young to go to prison with the rest of his family, and sending him to an orphanage would look bad. After all, she was his biological mother.

"Find someone reliable to look after him. Set him up somewhere else. Send money every month for his living expenses. As long as he stays out of my way, I don't care."

She said it like it was nothing.

Once Simon had noted it down, she moved on.

"The Wood Corporation shares, did we get all of them back?"

"Yes. We bought everything at the bottom. The price was as low as it could go. You haven't even spent a tenth of what you made selling your shares the first time."

With both the Barnett family and the Campbell family applying pressure, nobody had dared touch Wood Corporation. That gave Olivia the perfect opening to swallow it up at a bargain.

Her smile didn't waver.

"Put the word out. Make it official that Wood Corporation has changed hands and belongs to me now. With your abilities and the Barnett family's resources behind you, turning this company around shouldn't be too hard, right?"

She gave him a playful wink, completely unbothered.

The Barnetts had deep pockets. They wouldn't miss a little support. And while Barney still felt guilty toward her, she was going to collect every bit of what she was owed, with interest.

Simon let out a low laugh, his meaning clear.

"You're getting more and more comfortable ordering me around. I just wonder when I'll stop being your assistant and get to stand by your side for real."

Simon had never hidden how he felt about her.

Olivia knew exactly what he meant. But she had just come out of a failed relationship and wasn't ready to walk into another one. She gave him a vague answer.

"That depends on how you do from here."

Simon smiled and let it go.

Before long, the day of the Barnett family's party arrived.

Barney was making Olivia's identity official in front of everyone. The event was top-tier, and nearly every notable name in upper-class society showed up.

Olivia moved through the crowd with a glass of champagne, quietly taking in the conversations around her.

"This Olivia came out of nowhere and shook up the whole city in no time. She's even got Mr. Barnett wrapped around her finger. He threw this whole party just to announce who she is."

"Looks like there's another person none of us can afford to cross. The question is whether she can hold her ground."

"The one I feel sorry for is Ms. Barnett. She had everything. Now some outsider shows up and takes half her spotlight and resources."

The room buzzed with speculation and mixed feelings.

Olivia kept her easy smile, taking in every word without reaction.

When the Barnett family took the stage, she made her way up to join them.

After Barney introduced her, Olivia took the microphone. She looked out at Penelope in the crowd, who was holding her perfect smile in place. There was a glint of challenge in Olivia's eyes.

Before anyone could see it coming, she spoke plainly and turned everything upside down.

"Let me correct something. I'm not the Barnett family's adopted daughter. I'm Barney and Ursula's biological daughter. And the woman you all call the pride of the Barnetts, Penelope, is not my mother's child. She's the illegitimate daughter Barney had with some ordinary woman from the countryside. She has no place here."