My Ex-Convict Beggar Husband Is Now a Trillionaire novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Fake Screenshot
The nurses laugh at his eighty-billion-dollar balance and throw his mother onto the sidewalk, until four black cars stop.
The nurses dragged Carolyn to the glass doors, and Caleb ran after them with his phone in his fist.
"Wait. Look at this."
He opened Bernard Gage's email and pushed the screen under the head nurse's nose.
Below the subject line sat a statement from Skyward's trust office.
It listed a holding with his name on it and a total of eighty billion dollars.
The head nurse read it, and her face went still for one breath.
Then she turned to the other nurses and burst out laughing.
The younger nurse laughed so hard she had to hold the wall.
"Eighty billion?" the head nurse said.
"He's got the whole world in his pocket, ladies."
"It's real," Caleb said.
"That's my stock. I bought it before I went away."
"Away." She wiped her eye.
"You mean prison. Of course you do. You walked out of prison this morning and now you own a country."
"Look at the sender. Skyward Technologies. Call them."
"Honey, I've seen the news."
She pointed at the television on the lobby wall.
An anchor was talking about Skyward, the AI company that had passed every other company on earth.
"Everybody in this building watched that story at breakfast," she said.
"You saw it too, and you made yourself a little screenshot to scare us."
"I didn't make anything."
"Did you do it in the cab? In the shower at the prison?"
The younger nurse took out her phone and filmed him.
"Say it again for the camera," she said.
"Say you're a billionaire."
Caleb looked at the lens.
His face burned.
He had spent three years in a cell that taught him to keep still when men laughed at him.
He kept still now, but his hands shook.
"I'll pay you right now," he said.
"Give me one hour with a phone call."
"You have no phone credit, no ID and no shoes worth stealing." The head nurse dropped her clipboard on a chair.
"Mrs. Merrick has had a free bed for a year because the old doctor felt sorry for her."
"The old doctor is retired. So is the charity."
She grabbed Carolyn by the arm and pulled her toward the doors.
Carolyn cried out.
Caleb shoved the nurse's hand away and caught his mother before she hit the floor.
"Don't touch her."
"Or what?"
The head nurse waved at two men from security.
"Put him down."
They grabbed his arms and twisted.
His face hit the tile, and his lip split against his teeth.
He tasted blood.
They hauled him through the glass doors by the collar and threw him onto the sidewalk.
He landed on his knees in the cold.
A security man dumped Carolyn beside him in her gown, and her head knocked on the concrete.
"Mom."
"Caleb."
She tried to smile.
Her lips were blue.
The wind pulled at her gown, and snow started to fall in thin gray flakes.
He took her in his arms and pressed his face against her hair.
"I'm here," he said.
"I'm here. I've got you."
"Is Chantal coming?"
"Don't ask about her."
"She promised." Her eyes drifted shut.
"She said she would take care of everything."
His whole body went tight.
He looked at the doors where the nurses stood behind the glass, still filming and still laughing.
One of them held up a hand and waved goodbye.
Caleb laid his mother's head on his knee and shook her gently.
"Mom. Stay awake. Look at me."
Her eyes opened a crack.
"Cold," she said.
Her breath had gone thin and fast.
He ripped off his shirt and wrapped it around her bare feet and shoulders, and the wind cut through his chest.
"Somebody help," he shouted at the street.
A woman crossing with a stroller hurried faster and did not look back.
A man in a suit stepped around them.
Carolyn's hand went slack in his.
"Mom?"
Nothing.
"Mom!"
He pressed two fingers against her throat.
The pulse was there, but it was slow.
He turned his face up to the sky and shouted her name until his voice broke.
Behind the glass, the nurses stopped laughing.
One of them took a step toward the door and then stopped.
Four black cars came down the street in a line and stopped at the curb with a screech of brakes.
The doors opened together.
Men in dark coats got out and spread across the sidewalk.
The back door of the second car opened last.
A tall man with silver hair stepped out and buttoned his coat against the snow.
He walked straight to Caleb, and in front of the lobby windows and every camera phone behind them, he went down on one knee in the slush.
"Mr. Merrick," he said.
"I have been waiting three years for this morning."
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