Chapter 4 - The Viral Poison
The glowing screen of the phone felt like a physical weight pressing down on my chest. My hands began to shake, threatening to drop the blanket holding my sleeping son.
Caleb snatched the phone back, his thumb flying across the glass as he frantically tried to delete the post, but it was already too late. Screenshots had been taken. The poison had been injected into the digital bloodstream of everyone who knew us.
"She's insane," Caleb choked out, his voice shaking with a rage so deep it bordered on terror. "She actually posted that online. She's trying to publicly humiliate us—to humiliate him."
"It's not just humiliation, Caleb," I said, my voice dangerously calm, stripped of all tears. "Look at the sender list. That's not just family. That's your corporate executive board."
Caleb froze. He scrolled up, tapping on the participant list of the group chat.
There, near the top of the administrative tier, sat Marcus Vance—Caleb’s senior vice president and the man who held the final vote on Caleb’s upcoming partnership promotion.
And Marcus had already viewed the message.
"No," Caleb whispered, running a hand frantically through his hair. "No, Marcus is old-school. He hates personal drama in the firm. If he thinks there's a messy scandal—if he thinks my family is wrapped up in this kind of public circus—the partnership is gone. Everything I've worked the last six years for... gone."
"Your mother knew that," I said quietly, looking down at my son's peaceful face. "She didn't just want to prove a point about his skin color. She wanted to break you financially and socially so you'd have no choicey but to crawl back to her estate."
Before Caleb could answer, his own cell phone began to ring loudly, the harsh corporate ringtone echoing sharply off the sterile hospital walls.
The caller ID flashed: Marcus Vance.
Caleb stared at the screen as if it were a venomous snake. The phone continued to vibrate, relentless, demanding an answer.
"Answer it," I said softly.
Caleb swallowed hard, pressed the green button, and raised the phone to his ear. "Marcus... yes, sir. I'm... I'm still at the hospital."
There was a long, agonizing pause. From the receiver, even without the speaker on, I could hear the cold, clipped tone of Marcus’s voice cutting through the static.
"Caleb," Marcus said. "I'm looking at a very disturbing photo circulating among the firm's senior partners. Your mother is claiming your wife gave birth to another man's child, and she's posted photographic 'proof' to back it up."
"Marcus, it's a complete fabrication!" Caleb shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. "It was a setup by my mother! The hospital has medical documentation—policemen were just here—"
"I don't care about the police report right now, Caleb," Marcus interrupted coldly. "The board meeting for the partnership vote is in forty-eight hours. The firm's reputation cannot afford a public tabloid spectacle. Unless this is resolved immediately—and I mean publicly retracted and cleared by noon tomorrow—the board will have no choice but to suspend your candidacy."
May you like
The call clicked dead with a sharp tone.
---
