Chapter 230

~Franklin~

I lifted my head slowly, my chest heaving as I opened the door. Standing right there in the entryway, leaning heavily on his own polished walking stick with a deeply amused, completely unapologetic smirk on his face, was my grandfather.

"Grandpa," I groaned, before slowly pushing myself up to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. "Your timing is truly immaculate. Do you ever knock?"

Octavia scrambled to sit up beside me, her cheeks flushed a brilliant crimson as she hastily smoothed down her tangled green pantsuit and adjusted her collar. "Fredrick! We... we didn’t hear you come into the house."

"Clearly," Grandpa chuckled, a bright, mischievous glint in his old eyes as he strolled casually a few steps into the room, entirely unbothered by our state of disarray. "I came by to drop off those quarterly estate portfolios on your study desk, but it seems I’ve walked right into an intense meeting. At my age, a man appreciates a clear warning label before hearing such... youthful enthusiasm."

"You could have stayed in the lounge," I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck as a reluctant smile tugged at the corner of my lips. It was impossible to stay genuinely angry at the old man, even if he had just completely cockblocked the absolute best moment of my week.

"And miss the look of frustration on your face? Never," Grandpa retorted smoothly, tapping his stick against the hardwood floor with a contented sigh. He leaned against the heavy dresser across from the bed and looked between the two of us, his expression softening into something warmer, more casual. "So, how are my two favorite tech moguls handling the pressure? You both look like you’ve been run over."

Octavia laughed, the lingering awkwardness vanishing instantly into the easy, familiar rhythm we always shared with him. "It’s been an exhausting day, Fredrick. The digital infrastructure migration is taking a lot out of us, and we met the new syndicate representative, Williams, today. He’s... quite a character."

"Arrogant bastard, more like," I interjected, my tone tightening slightly as I remembered Octavia’s description of the encounter. "I’m having Tate run a full background check on him first thing in the morning."

"Good," Grandpa nodded, his businessman persona slipping on flawlessly for a split second. "Never trust a partner who makes your gut twist. But enough about the office for tonight. You two need to decompress." He gestured toward the crystal decanter resting on my bedroom bar setup. "I think a little liquid therapy is in order. I brought a bottle of the twenty-year single malt up from the cellar."

He poured a generous splash into three glasses. He walked back over to the bedside, handing one glass to me, and then offered the second one to Octavia with a courtly little bow. "To family, resilience, and the upcoming triumph of the Flemington Group."

Octavia looked down at the glass, her smile faltering for a split second. She instinctively glanced at me, her eyes wide with a sudden, silent question. We hadn’t planned on telling him just yet; we wanted to wait until the first trimester stabilized a bit more, but looking at the rich, heavy alcohol in front of her, there was no way out of it without raising immediate suspicion.

I caught her eye, giving her a slow, encouraging nod. The timing might not have been what we rehearsed, but there was no one in the world who deserved to share our joy more than the man who had kept our family together through the darkest times.

Octavia gently pushed the glass back toward Grandpa, her hand dropping instinctively to rest flat against her stomach. "I’m going to have to pass on the whiskey, Fredrick. In fact... I think I’m officially off the guest list for any alcohol for the next eight months or so."

Grandpa froze, the glass hovering in mid-air. He looked at Octavia’s hand on her stomach, then slowly snapped his gaze up to meet mine, his breath catching sharply in his throat.

"Franklin?" he whispered, his voice suddenly thick, the sharp, sarcastic old businessman completely vanishing, replaced by a vulnerable, trembling grandfather. "Are you telling me...?"

"You’re going to be a great-grandfather, Grandpa," I said, a profound wave of emotion slamming into my chest as I reached over and tangled my fingers securely with Octavia’s. "We’re having a baby."

A heavy, beautiful silence filled the bedroom. Grandpa slowly set the glasses down on the nightstand, his hands shaking slightly. For a second, I thought he was going to make a joke, but as he looked at us, his eyes welled up with brilliant, unshed tears. He covered his mouth with his hand, a soft, emotional breath escaping him.

"A baby," he breathed, his voice cracking completely. He stepped forward, pulling both of us into a fiercely tight, overlapping embrace right there on the edge of the mattress. "Oh, thank God. After everything... after all the pain, the trials, and the shadows this family has crawled through... a new life. A fresh start. I am so incredibly proud of you both. Your grandmother and parents would have been absolutely over the moon."

By the time Grandpa finally left the house, wishing us a warm, emotional goodnight, the emotional high had left Octavia and me entirely intoxicated by each other’s presence. I locked the heavy wooden bedroom doors behind him, shutting out the rest of the world.

The moment the main lights were turned off, the intense sexual tension that had been so abruptly interrupted earlier flared back to life with double the intensity. I pulled Octavia back against my chest. Our mouths locked together in a deep, burning rhythm, her hands sliding under my shirt, tracking the heat of my skin as we tumbled back onto the rumpled sheets, completely lost in each other.

Ring.

I ignored it, my lips moving down to trace the line of her jaw, my hands gripping her hips.

Ring. Ring.

"Franklin..." she gasped out, her fingers tightening in my hair. "Your phone."

"Let it ring," I growled against her skin, kissing her fiercely, refusing to let the outside world steal this moment from us again.

But the phone immediately began to violently vibrate a second time, the harsh, persistent ring cutting through our heavy breathing like a fire alarm. With a frustrated, dark curse, I reached blindly over to the nightstand, snatching the device up without even looking at the caller ID. I pressed it to my ear, my voice rough and laced with pure irritation.

"What?" I snapped.

"Franklin, turn on the TV or check your phone right now," Clinton’s voice came through the speaker, completely devoid of its usual calm. He sounded breathless, terrified, and entirely panicked. "It’s hitting every major network. Right now."

The raw urgency in his tone instantly shattered the haze of desire in my brain. My blood ran completely cold. "Clinton, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Just look at the news, Franklin. She did it. She actually did it," Clinton choked out before the line went dead.

I dropped the phone onto the sheets, the sudden tension in the room made Octavia sit up instantly. Her eyes were wide, her flushed skin turning pale as she watched the absolute dread plastered across my face.

"Franklin? What is it? What did Clinton say?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"He said to check the news," I whispered, my hands shaking slightly as I grabbed my phone again. Octavia quickly snatched her own device from the nightstand.

I opened the first breaking news application, and the breath was violently punched clean out of my lungs.

Right there, plastered across the top of every single major media outlet, social media feed, and legal blog in the country, was a massive, flashing red headline. A dynamic photograph of a smiling, perfectly styled Bella was front and center, beneath bold, terrifying letters that read:

BREAKING: FORMER LEAD DEVELOPER AT JEFFTECH BELLA Washington ALIVE; NEW EVIDENCE REVEALS SHOCKING CASE OF KIDNAPPING, COERCION, AND A FRAME-UP BY LATE LOVER RUFUS. LEGAL TEAM DEMANDS IMMUNITY AND IMMEDIATE REVIEW OF FALSE CONVICTION.

I stared at the screen, the text blurring before my eyes as a suffocating, icy wave of pure terror crashed over me. Octavia let out a sharp, horrified gasp beside me, her phone slipping from her fingers and clattering onto the blanket.

She was alive. She was one step ahead. And she had just rewritten the entire narrative to make herself the victim.