Chapter 245: ~ 245
Chapter 245
~Franklin~
The red line on the financial terminal in my office continued its steep, aggressive descent. Outside the tinted glass windows, the deafening noise of the media disturbed the whole building . My personal line was blowing up with frantic calls from board members, high-profile investors, and PR executives all demanding a statement, an explanation, or a flat-out denial of the pregnancy scandal currently suffocating the Flemington name.
"Franklin, the media team is losing control of the narrative," Clinton’s voice crackled through the secure speakerphone on my desk. "The public thinks your silence is a confession. We have the certified clinic documents from her secret doctor locked and loaded in our database. We can obliterate this entire circus in five minutes if we release the real DNA profile right now."
"No," I commanded, my deep voice cutting through his panic with an absolute, icy finality. "Instruct the public relations department to issue a strict ’no comment’ to every single inquiry. Let the tabloids run wild. Let the stock dip. Do absolutely nothing to debunk the news."
On the secondary screen, Detective Tate let out a low chuckle. "We are completely embedded in Rodrigo’s servers, Mr. Flemington. The moment Bella thinks she has successfully backed you into a corner, she’s going to initiate the financial transfer from William’s shell accounts to finalize her leverage. We are tracking every single cent."
"Good. Keep watching them," I murmured, disconnecting the call.
A slow, proud smile pulled at the corners of my lips as I leaned back in my chair, looking down at the quiet silver cane resting against my desk. The world thought I was a cornered man, paralyzed by a public scandal, but in reality, I was simply executing the brilliant strategy of the woman who held my heart.
My mind briefly drifted back to our private midnight conversation in the penthouse two nights ago. I had sat Octavia down on the edge of our bed, my chest tight with a heavy anxiety as I bared the entire ugly truth about Bella’s pregnancy claims. I had expected tears, anger, or at least a wave of stress that would harm our unborn child.
Instead, Octavia had listened with a terrifying, beautiful calmness. When I told her I was going to deploy our medical evidence and legally destroy Bella before sunrise, she had reached up, gently placing her hand over my jaw, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous, razor-sharp intellect.
"Don’t debunk it yet, Franklin," she had whispered, a dark, brilliant smile touching her lips. "If you crush her now, she will simply fade into the background and find another way to bleed us from the shadows. Let her play her hand. Let her trigger the media blast. The higher she climbs on her own lies, the more absolute her destruction will be. Let her commit grand extortion on a global stage, Franklin. We won’t just defeat her, we will let her walk straight into a prison cell."
Remembering my wife’s chilling composure brought a surge of profound adoration to my chest. Octavia wasn’t a victim to be shielded; she was a predator waiting patiently in the high grass.
Leaving the corporate chaos of the headquarters behind, I took my private elevator down to the underground garage, bypassing the swarms of paparazzi entirely, and drove straight to the Manhattan private medical facility.
The atmosphere inside the VIP wing of the hospital was starkly different from the noisy streets, but the moment I stepped inside my father-in-law’s private recovery room, the air grew instantly thick with a heavy, suffocating tension.
The older man was sitting upright in his hospital bed, his face pale but his expression hardened into stone. A tablet was resting face-up on his bedside table, the bright screen displaying a flashing, sensationalized headline from a major financial tabloid: FLEMINGTON EMPIRE SHATTERED BY SECRET HEIR CONCEPTION. The green lines of his heart monitor were spiking erratically, the rhythmic beep-beep-beep filling the room with an underlying sense of panic.
When he looked up and saw me walking in, the heavy, protective fury in his eyes was unmistakable. He didn’t see the powerful CEO of the Flemington Group. He saw the man who had promised to cherish his daughter, now allowing her name to be dragged through a public gutter.
"Franklin," he breathed, his voice strained, rough, and trembling with an intense, paternal rage. He pointed a weak, shaking finger toward the tablet on the table. "What is the meaning of this? I wake up, turn on the news, and I see my daughter’s face plastered next to a disgusting, tabloid scandal. I see the world mocking her, questioning her position, and painting her as a discarded wife!"
I walked over to the side of his bed, setting my cane down, and pulled up a chair. "Father, calm down. Your heart cannot handle this level of stress. The situation is completely—"
"Do not tell me to calm down!" he interrupted, his chest heaving as he suddenly reached out, his fingers gripping the fabric of my suit jacket with whatever strength he could muster. He pulled me closer, his eyes burning with a raw, agonizing desperation. "Octavia is my entire world, Franklin. She has already suffered enough in this life. She has fought through the shadows, built herself up. I will not sit in this hospital bed and watch her get humiliated by your past. I will not see her suffer!"
The raw pain in the old man’s voice struck a deep, resonant chord within my own chest. I didn’t pull away from his grip. I stood my ground, looking directly into his fading eyes, letting him see the absolute, terrifying gravity of my own resolve.
Slowly, deliberately, I reached up and placed my hand firmly over his trembling fingers, squeezing them with a reassuring warmth.
"Look at me," I said, my voice dropping into a low, deep baritone that carried the absolute weight of a sacred vow. "I need you to listen to me very carefully. Octavia is not suffering. She is not sitting in her office crying, and she is not a victim in this war."
The older man’s grip loosened slightly, his breathing slowing down as he studied the unyielding calm on my face. "What are you talking about? The news—"
"The news is a trap," I explained smoothly, my eyes narrowing with a cold, predatory certainty. "Bella is running a fraudulent campaign with a falsified pregnancy profile. Octavia knows everything. In fact, keeping the media silent and letting Bella think she is winning was your daughter’s exact strategy. We have the real medical records, we have the forensic data, and we are currently tracking the financial movements of the people funding her from the dark."
I leaned in closer, my voice filled with a quiet, concentrated venom that mirrored the very tone my wife had used only minutes prior in her own office.
"I give you my M promise, right here, right now, I will shield Octavia from every single drop of this fallout. But you need to understand something about your daughter. She is a lioness. She is the executioner in this scenario, and she has already delivered the first blow to Bella’s face today."
I took his hand, placing it gently back down on the white sheets, ensuring his heart monitor began to stabilize into a normal, calm rhythm.
"Trust the woman you raised, and trust the man who loves her. I swear to you on my life, I will personally burn down anyone who attempts to get in her way. By the time this week ends, the people who tried to hurt Octavia will have nothing left but ashes."
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