Chapter 693 Charles Davis
Charles shook his head and, after finishing the banana split, went upstairs to play with Mia in the nursery.
Emmie felt a strong sense of unease and decided to check the news on her phone.
She searched for “the Davis Group” and quickly found several articles reporting that the Davis Group was facing a major crisis.
She skimmed through a few of them, which all pointed to a financial supply chain crisis that had put the Davis Group in a precarious situation.
She gripped her phone tightly and headed upstairs.
Mia, who had napped earlier in the afternoon, was currently wide awake and lively. Charles was playing a game with her—a whack-a-mole style toy where a little squirrel popped up randomly from one of twelve squares.
He held Mia’s hands and used a small hammer to hit the squirrels. “Oops! You missed it! Let’s try again. Hit this one! You got it! You’re the best, Mia!”
Mia was delighted, giggling nonstop. Emmie had anticipated that Charles wouldn’t neglect his child, but she hadn’t expected him to enjoy spending time with her so much.
Emmie didn’t want to interrupt their rare bonding time, so she retreated to their bedroom to take a shower. As she opened the closet to fetch her pajamas, her gaze fell on the storage box at the bottom shelf.
She frowned as she found it strange.
She was a meticulous person, always organizing off-season clothes neatly in storage boxes, sealing them with mothballs to keep out dust and insects. However, it was oddly ajar that day, as if someone had opened it.
She squatted down to open the box and found that the clothes inside were a bit disheveled.
When she rummaged through it, she felt something hard and cold inside. It was like stones.
When she pulled them out, her eyes widened in shock. They weren’t stones. They were gold bars.
Heavy gold bars the size of bricks, each weighing several pounds. Emmie’s mind raced as these weren’t hers. She emptied the box and found five gold bars in total.
Her first thought was that she had been framed. Just as she was about to call the police, she remembered Charles’s earlier comment that the house was already under her name.
Could it be Charles?
At that moment, Charles appeared in the doorway. He was looking at Emmie crouching on the floor with the gold bars in her hands and didn’t seem surprised.
It was then she knew for sure that it was he who placed the gold bars there.
Emmie stood up and looked at him intently. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Charles shrugged. “These are for you and Mia. As long as you don’t spend extravagantly, this house and these gold bars should be enough for your daily needs for the rest of your lives.”
Emmie asked bluntly, “Charles, are you in trouble? Are you preparing for the worst?”
Charles smiled. “I’m not going to die. If something happens, the worst that can happen is prison and confiscation of my assets. Since these things are now in your name, they can’t be seized even if they raid
the place.”
Emmie clenched her fists. “If you know that what you’re doing could lead to your ruin, why are you still insisting on it?”
“Because I’m a member of the Davis family.” Charles continued to smile. “The Davis family and the Davis Group are my responsibility, so I have to keep going. Even if taking this step means a 99% chance of falling into a pit of no return, I’m willing to risk it for that 1% chance of survival.”
Emmie shook her head. “I can’t understand.”
She moved closer to him. “Is it that hard to avoid making mistakes and taking the wrong path? If a family or a career relies on wrongdoings to sustain itself, does it still have any reason to exist?”
Charles only replied, “You wouldn’t understand.”
“But I understand what it feels like to do something wrong-how it torments you, making it hard to sleep at night and eat during the day. Do you think it’s worth it to trade that for a so-called future?” Emmie said. Despite her words, she was also confused.
Why was she saying this to him? She had come to his side to push him further down at the critical moment so that his ruin would arrive sooner.
Yet, she continued, “First and foremost, you are a person, an individual, before being the Davis family’s heir or the president of Davis Group. What’s the point of sacrificing yourself for material possessions?”
Charles sighed with a rueful smile.
Emmie thought he was being stubborn and said bitterly, “At least Mia won’t grow up with your mistakes and misguided beliefs.”
She turned around and squatted down, putting the gold bars away. “Since you gave me these. I’ll accept them and make sure to take good care of Mia. As for you, take care of yourself.”
She walked past him.
Charles grabbed her hand. He swallowed hard and said softly, “It’s too late for me to turn back now.” Emmie’s brow twitched.
He looked at her. “If I still have a future, I’ll try to become the person you’ve described.”
However, it was already too late. The embezzlement scandal came to light faster than Charles had anticipated.