Carl had come to meet his grandfather earlier. He was tired of his mother’s games and how she kept trying to put him in the middle of it all. He knew he was incapable of being the good chairman the company needed, and amongst all the grandchildren, only Cade had been preparing for this moment his whole life.
The rest of them sat with their hands folded because they believed that since they were affiliated with the Vale family, a responsibility was going to drop on their laps soon, and they could get on with their lives. Even without the jobs in the company, they could live good lives on the return on the shares they owned because they all owned a lot, and the company was always doing well.
“But Grandpa, if we do that, the prices of the shares?”
“See this,” Charles said, showing an electronic tablet that had been resting on his lap since he came in. “This is supposed to go up tomorrow, so are you saying we should do nothing about it?”
Cade took it up and read through it. His face changed into shock as he read through the short article that was obviously prepared by his stepmother; they all knew that she had insiders who worked for her, helping her create a paper company and even move funds there. Cade had never been able to do anything about it because he had not been able to get his hands on real evidence, but now she was trying to blame him for her actions.
“Grandpa, what is this?” Cade finally asked.
Ophelia took out the document from his hand and read through, “What is this? This is impossible; there is no way that this can be true.”
“Of course, it is not true; the company belongs to my mom, but she plans to get this on the news out there so she can take him out of the successor race,” Cael said.
Ophelia raised her eyes at him with a judgy expression; she did not know how she was supposed to begin to trust him just like that. Was it possible? After all he had done to his brother? Of course, she knew that Carl did not have the mind to think of and process everything he had been doing considering how simple-minded he was, but she still had a beef with him; he had done those things anyway.
“Why do you suddenly want to help us? Does it make sense that you just want to help us out of the blue?” Ophelia asked. She had to know she could not help herself.
“I have never wanted to get caught in this mess.”
“Yes, but like a puppet, you did your mom’s every wish, so what’s different now?” she asked.
Cade and Charles leaned into their chairs. They knew not to interrupt Ophelia’s questioning. Maybe it’s a good thing that she is deciding to question him; he was never okay with any of it, but he still went with it anyway, so what changed?
“I do not want to be an upper again.”
“Or Abigail sent you here to spy on us and feed her back with information that could be more deadly to us?” Ophelia chipped in.
“You have some trust issues,” Cael said, and she shrugged as if it was no big deal.
“I have seen enough to know that things like this do happen.”
“I do not think you are going to believe me no matter what I say,” Cael said. “If I bring to you the original copies of the evidence that shows the Cade is not the culprit, would you believe me then?” he added.
“So you are saying that you are going to get your hands on the documents and hand them over to us?” Ophelia asked.
“Honey, that is what he said,” Cade said, whispering into his ears.
“I just wanted to be sure,” she said, raising her hand in the air as if she were surrendering. “Okay then,” she turned to Grandpa. “Do you think you can stop the news from going out?”
“I already did,” Charles said.
“How long can we stop it for?”
“At most forty-eighty hours,” Charles said. Abigail had built solid connections while they were sitting on their hands. If she was going to take down a small business, she would have been able to do it without even lifting too much.
“Cael, that means you have forty-eight hours to get all of the evidence,” Ophelia announced, and he nodded.
“I will be sure to get it,” he replied.
“Just in case Cael is unable to get the documents, then I will have the reporters prepare another article,” Charles said.
“What is the article going to be about?” Cael asked.
Charles did not know if it was a good idea for him to tell Cael all of his mother’s atrocities. He may have come to rebel against her because of the pressure she was putting on him; he did not know how well he was going to take it or if he would go into panic mode, and all he could think of was to protect his mother.
“You will get to know just before the article goes up,” Charles replied. If all went well and Cael was able to get his hands on the document, then they were going to have two articles circulating that spoke against Abigail. He knew that there was no way she would be able to survive it.
“Are you hiding something from us?” Cade asked, blinking rapidly.
“I won’t call it hiding from you; just calm down and you will see.”