2025-10-18 18:12:40“Charlie Grant! Are you even listening?”
The lecturer’s voice echoed through the wide, air-conditioned lecture hall of York University. Heads turned, eyes darting at him. Charlie blinked, realizing everyone was staring.
His heart thudded. He muttered a faint apology and tried to look composed, but inside, his mind was a storm.
The professor’s words were flying over his head like dust in the wind. His thoughts were miles away—buried deep in chaos and worry. The first wave of anxiety came crashing through: three assignments.
He had been paid already but hadn’t done any of them. Jacob Brown and his rich friends had hired him to ghostwrite their papers, and those boys were not known for patience. They were cruel when disrespected, and Charlie knew exactly how cruel.
He ran his trembling fingers through his hair, his pen shaking between his fingers. “I can’t screw this up again,” he whispered under his breath.
But that was only the beginning of his torment. The second thought wave hit—harder, sharper. The $3,000 loan he took from Salvatore, the campus’ most notorious loan shark, was due in two hours.
Two hours! And if he didn’t pay… everyone on campus knew what happened to those who didn’t pay Salvatore on time.
Charlie’s throat dried up. His palms began to sweat despite the cool air.
From the back row, a paper ball struck him squarely on the head. He looked up—and froze.
Jacob Brown.
The arrogant smirk on Jacob’s lips was enough to make Charlie’s blood run cold. Jacob’s eyes, filled with disdain, burned into him. “Where’s my assignment, Grant?” he asked, his tone slow and threatening.
Charlie swallowed hard. His lips parted, but no words came.
“Well?” Jacob snapped, leaning forward in his chair. “You took my money, didn’t you?”
Charlie stuttered, “I… I forgot it at home. I’ll bring it right after class.”
Jacob chuckled. “Forgot it? You forgot the one thing keeping your miserable self fed? You’ve got some nerve.”
The students around them laughed quietly, some out of fear, others out of mockery. Jacob’s girlfriend, Brie, who was sitting beside him with a glossy smirk, leaned close and whispered loud enough for everyone to hear, “You should make him pay you a hundred times over if he doesn’t deliver. Let’s see how the poor rat handles that.”
Jacob grinned wickedly. “You hear that, Grant? If I don’t get my work by noon, you owe me ten grand. Each.”
Charlie’s stomach dropped. There were four of them in total—Jacob and his three friends. Ten grand each. Forty thousand dollars.
Forty thousand he didn’t have.
He couldn’t even afford a meal last night.
And yet, life wasn’t done playing its cruel jokes.
Charlie’s phone buzzed twice in quick succession. He glanced down—two messages. One from Angela, his girlfriend of two months, and one from Jacy, his half-sister.
He clicked Angela’s first.
His jaw tightened immediately.
“Babe, I saw this gorgeous necklace trending right now. It’s $4,000, and I have to get it. You’ll send it, right?”
No greeting. No affection. No “How are you?” Just money.
Charlie’s chest burned with frustration. His leg bounced under the desk as he clenched his teeth. ‘Even now?’ he thought. ‘Doesn’t she know I’m drowning in debt because of her endless demands?’
But anger soon gave way to helplessness. He sighed deeply. As much as he wanted to scream, he couldn’t. He loved Angela—pathetically, foolishly—and for her, he had endured humiliation after humiliation.
He exhaled sharply and opened the second message from Jacy.
“Charlie, please come home now! Dad is beating Mom again. He’s forcing her to sign the divorce papers. I’m scared. Please hurry!”
His hands froze. His eyes widened, and the world around him seemed to blur. His pulse raced like thunder in his ears.
He shot up from his seat, knocking his chair backward. The class went silent.
“Mr. Grant!” the lecturer barked. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I—I have an emergency, sir,” Charlie said breathlessly, already halfway to the door.
“Sit down, or I’ll fail you for this course!”
Charlie didn’t even look back. The words meant nothing to him anymore. Ever since two years ago—since everything had changed—he had become a target for disdain. Professors, classmates, even staff who once greeted him with smiles now sneered when he passed.
Because two years ago, Charlie Grant had been someone.
The adored son of Charles Grant, billionaire real estate tycoon. The heir to a billion-dollar fortune. The pride of the Grant family.
Until the day his father destroyed everything.
It was supposed to be a family dinner. But that night, Charles Grant announced he had a “new family.” A new wife—his mother’s best friend—and her three children: Jim, Jey, and Jacy.
That night shattered their world. His mother’s tears, his father’s indifference, the servants’ whispers… since then, he and his mother had been treated as outsiders in their own home.
And now, his father was about to finish the job.
“Let him go,” Jacob’s voice echoed through the room, smirking. “He’s going home to cry anyway.”
Brie’s voice followed like venom. “Oh, and remember, Grant! You owe us forty grand before noon!”
The room erupted with gasps.
Forty thousand dollars. Before noon.
Charlie didn’t respond. He stormed out, his eyes burning with fury and despair.
He hailed a taxi with the little cash he had left. It wasn’t even enough to get him home, so he got off midway and walked the rest—thirty minutes under the sun, his shirt soaked in sweat and humiliation.
When he reached the Grant Mansion, the sight stabbed him like a blade. The grand $20 million estate stood tall, magnificent—and yet it felt like a prison. He was once the prince of this castle, but not anymore. Not since his wicked stepmother came to the house.
The guards at the gate, who once bowed to him as “Young Master Charlie,” now laughed openly.
“Look who’s back. The useless one,” one guard sneered.
“Maybe he’s here to beg for scraps,” another chuckled.
Charlie ignored them. He had long grown numb to mockery.
He pushed through the large doors and stepped inside. Jacy rushed to him immediately, tears in her eyes. “Charlie… it’s over. Dad made her sign. He forced Mom to leave. She’s gone.”
Charlie froze. His chest tightened. Rage flared inside him like fire. He turned sharply and stormed toward his father’s study.
The moment he burst through the door, two sharp slaps struck his face before he could even speak.
Charles Grant stood tall, his expression cold and disdainful. “You dare storm into my office like a wild dog?!”
Charlie’s jaw clenched, blood dripping from his lip. He looked at his father—the man who took everything from him—and for the first time, his eyes didn’t tremble.
They burned.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 479 (The End)
DecemberNew York in December was a different creature entirely.The city didn’t slow down—New York never did—but it acquired a purposeful cold, a sharper register where light bounced off glass and stone with a brittle, crystalline intensity. The energy of the city shifted, becoming simultaneously faster and warmer, a frantic, human-centered hustle against the frost.Charlie was at his desk by 7:00 a.m.The foundation’s building held the cold differently than the glass towers that crowded it. Its Victorian stone, imported and reassembled with the stubbornness of a family that viewed their architecture as a statement of intent, seemed to absorb the December air, making the interior feel deeply inhabited rather than climate-controlled.If he angled his chair, the names above the office door were always visible: George Maxwell & Edmund Maxwell. 1887.He looked at them most mornings. Not out of nostalgia, but as a deliberate practice. He understood that knowing exactly where something ori
CHAPTER 478
The media cycle raged all day. Charlie managed the crisis from his desk, his day a blur of legal conferences regarding server breaches, database extractions, and the mechanics of formal cooperation with Ivorian and Belgian authorities.He didn't think of Emily Torres until 4:00 p.m. It wasn't avoidance; it was the sheer necessity of the machinery. When the last press statement was approved and Joseph had coordinated with Hartwell’s team, the silence finally reclaimed the office.Charlie sat alone, remembering Emily. She had been exactly what the foundation needed four years ago. She had been brilliant—genuinely brilliant. The accountability framework, the annual report restructuring, the way she had championed Amara’s account—all of it was real. She had believed in the mission’s ethics with the same fervor that she had used to dismantle its security.Both things were true simultaneously.At 4:30 p.m., he called Hartwell. "The investigation," he said. "Emily’s cooperation?""She’s talk
CHAPTER 477
Charlie sat on the bench, the city moving rhythmically around them, oblivious to the tectonic shift occurring in the dark.He folded the page and slid it back into the envelope. "The counter-documentation. Everything you wrote over the last two years?""All of it," Marcus said, his voice stripped of pretense. "Every date, contact, and mechanism of the leverage I was forced into. It’s all there, and it’s backed by logs I ensured couldn't be scrubbed."Charlie stood. "Come inside.”Marcus looked up, his face showing a raw, jagged glimpse of humanity before he masked it behind his usual veneer. They walked back to the foundation in silence, Joseph materializing from the shadows to trail them like a sentinel.Inside, Charlie called Hartwell. She answered instantly, her voice sharp and alert."I have it," Charlie said. He photographed Marcus's evidence and sent it through their secure channel. Hartwell read the files in silence for four long minutes before finally exhaling: "God.""Y
CHAPTER 476
The name was Marcus Blackwood.Charlie sat with it for four seconds.: "Are you certain?""The file is explicit," Daniel replied, his voice low and measured. "Seventeen entries over seven years. The 2017 entry summarizes a meeting—location redacted—between Renard’s representative and a Maxwell Empire senior adviser with a thirty-year history with the family.""That isn't enough.""His initials are in the header. MB. There’s a payment structure routed through a Jersey entity that predates our own structure by four years. The beneficial ownership resolves to a trust in Marcus’s name."Charlie stared at his desk, his expression a mask. Beside him, Joseph stood like a statue, listening to every word, his mind already moving from processing to defense."Where is Marcus?" Charlie asked."He left at 6:30," Joseph said. "He was here when the server access started.""He flagged it as a routine IT issue," Charlie said."Yes."Charlie turned to the window. Thirty years in his family. Marcus had b
CHAPTER 475
Joseph laid the security printout on the desk. 7:03 p.m. Two figures caught in the harsh glare of the side entrance: Amara, her expression guileless and open, and beside her, a man Charlie had never seen in the flesh.Renard was sixty-one, dressed in a nondescript grey coat, possessing that calculated, pedestrian unremarkability of a man who had spent decades ensuring he left no imprint on a witness's memory. Even now, his face was angled just enough to frustrate the camera, a masterclass in tactical concealment.Charlie studied the image for a long time. "How long has he been tracking her?""I don’t know yet," Joseph said. "But the Edinburgh program coordinator posted Amara’s name, her scholarship, and her project details to our public newsletter three weeks ago. She was the perfect entry point. Young, trusted, and recently granted key-card access. Renard didn't recruit her; he simply attached himself to her shadow.""She doesn't know what she's done," Charlie said, his voice qui
CHAPTER 474
Adeyemi spoke for four minutes, his voice a study in iron-clad restraint."Renard," he began. "You think you understand him. You don't. He isn't mine. The Mauritius structures, the funding—I didn't direct those. I didn't even know they existed until Rachel Osei published her piece.""Why tell me now?" Charlie asked."The investigation is surfacing things neither of us intended. The surveillance of your students—the family mapping—that is Renard’s methodology, not mine. It predates us both, and your work is pulling it into the light.This is bigger than us. When it surfaces in forty-eight hours, you'll see. I have intelligence on Renard’s operation, and I'm handing it over.”"You're cooperating," Charlie said."I am. I wanted you to hear it first.""The legal filing?""Withdrawn by morning. The threat to your source? Not my instruction. I am tracing the order now; I will give you the name." Adeyemi paused. "The Côte d'Ivoire suspension, however—that was mine. The Ouédraogo paym
You may also like
Return of the Powerful Young Master
AFM3190.4K viewsThe Billionaire Pauper
JOHNSON205.8K viewsThe Almighty Landon
Princez78.0K viewsUnknowingly The Billionaire's Heir
Winner Girl79.5K viewsI Was The School Joke Until I Bought The City
Trendsterchum Chronicles 70 viewsThe Last Minute of Poverty
Dark Sovereign173 viewsThe Hitman's Return
Lady Chids56 viewsRise of Marcus Reid: Betrayal to Dominance
Janefrancis 196 views