Rise of The Charleston Heir

Chapter 6: Devil Bully

“Wait a minute,” Jason shifted back, his hands running over his face in jerky motions. 

“I can't be your grandson. I was raised by my grandparents. I have my own family.” The disbelief and frustration was rife in Jason's voice. 

The lady smiled for the first time, also moving closer to Jason. “That's because we lost you. Grandpa can explain everything to you later…cousin.”

Jason laughed then, shaking his head. “This can't be true.”

Sensing Jason's frustrated disbelief, the doctor took the files from the desk and crossed to Jason's side, handing them to him a little too reverently. 

Jason's eyes read the words slowly, over and over again.

A 99.9 percent match to Robert Charleston. 

That was the old man. 

Jason rubbed his eyes, but the words were still smack in his face. 

“How?” He whispered, handing back the DNA test results to Robert. 

Anna answered him. “You're Jason Charleston. You're the heir to Charleston group of companies and that includes the $60,000,000,000 your father left you.”

Jason blinked, his hands hanging loosely by his sides. “My father?” His poor grandparents that had raised him had told him his parents had died in a car accident.

Robert nodded, his eyes turning sad for a few seconds, before they brightened up again. “Jason, you will become the CEO and CFO of the Charleston group of companies upon your graduation.”

The man's grin was so wide and genuine that Jason almost joined him to smile. 

But he was still in shock. Everything seemed like a dream where the scenes were being unveiled in slow motion. 

Robert walked to one of the wall cabinets and Anna came to Jason, holding out a slender hand to Jason. “Hello, long lost cousin. I'm Anna.” Her lips pulled into a sexy smile and her teeth practically gleamed. 

Her black hair which hung down her back in long waves contrasted with her pale skin and made the red seem even darker. 

She was strikingly beautiful and not in a silent way. 

Jason looked down at the hand she held out, wondering what it meant if he shook her. Was he accepting to be a part of their family then?

He gripped her slender palm in his much larger one, shaking her firmly. She had a good grip for such a tiny lady. 

“I'm not quite sure what's happening at all. I'm not even sure I've fully processed all that your grandfather has said to me.”

“He's your grandfather now too.” She smiled again, before dropping his hand. 

“We need to celebrate this. How about we open one of the champagnes I've been saving for years?” He pulled out a bottle of wine from the wine cabinet, holding it high in the air and doing a little dance. 

Anna gasped theatrically. “You mean you'll take a bottle out of the sacred cabinet and really let us have a taste of the forbidden?”

Robert laughed, the sound a healthy one from deep in his chest. “Yes, Val. This occasion deserves it. I can't begin to describe how happy I am. I've finally found Jacob's son, my grandson.”

Jason's ears perked up at the mention of his father. He'd never heard anything about him from his grandparents. 

Robert dialed a number from the landline on his desk, speaking into the receiver. “Desmond? Bring it in now.”

Jason sat back on the sofa, his body finally starting to relax. He flexed his shoulders as he watched Anna take her seat opposite him again. 

She put up her hand to cover her mouth, whispering to Jason on the other side of her palm. “I think Grandpa has a surprise for you.” She winked and Jason swallowed. 

There were more surprises? What could be more shocking than what he'd just learnt anyway?

The steel doors opened again, and a man stepped in. This one looked to be in his late twenties and at least, not a goon.

He was dressed in an immaculate gray suit, and his hair was styled to perfection. 

He handed Robert a black slim case. 

Robert came to stand between the two sofas that faced each other, with the pine oak, square coffee table between them. 

He gave Jason the black case. Jason threw him a curious look, but just shrugged and opened the box. 

A black card.

An Amex black card. 

Jason swallowed, his hands holding the card up to the lights before dragging his eyes away from the black beauty to Robert. “Why would you give me this?”

“Jason, it's all yours. Anything you're receiving now is all something you should have had from birth. I'm only sorry we could not find you sooner.”

“It holds over $100,000,000,000 for now, Sir.” The Desmond guy said. 

Woah. 

Jason breathed in and out slowly. The funds called blaring in his head. 

He was rich!

Actually, forget rich, he was one of the ultra wealthy now. 

“I still can't believe this.” He was still looking at the all mighty black card in his hands. 

Anna chuckled. “Why are you so surprised? That's not even all of it yet.”

Jason's eyes widened. “There's more?”

She nodded eagerly, her eyes taking on a mischievous glint. “You have a fiance waiting for you, Jason.”

Robert came bearing the champagne, while Desmond handed everyone champagne flutes. 

“Anna, you should have waited until he was a little used to all this.” Perhaps Robert meant to scold her, but the words came out sounding anything like. 

She cackled, accepting a champagne flute and looking pleased with herself. 

Jason found himself taken with her, immediately. Robert too. 

He felt a vibration in his back pocket. He slipped his phone out. He'd totally forgotten about the thing. 

It looked ancient and forsaken in the grand office. Jason glanced down at himself too. He stuck out like a sore thumb. 

He answered the call showing on his phone screen and put the phone to his ear. 

“Yes, Raymond?” Jason's classmate was breathing urgently into the phone, his tone worrying Jason. 

“You need to get back to the school now, Jason.”

“What, why?” Did Hudson want to punish him some more for standing up to him?

“It's your grandmother, Jason. She's here in school. To meet Hudson.”

Jason was out of the sofa I'm seconds. “What? Who called her there?”

“The school management, Jason. Just get here, now.”

Jason ended the call and slipped the phone inside his pocket. He started for the door and everyone followed him, matching him step for step. 

Robert asked first. “What happened, Jason?”

“You look like something is really wrong. Do you need us with you?” Anna echoed her grandfather's worries. 

Jason didn't want them all in his life when he hadn't had the time to think about everything. “It's urgent. I have to leave now.”

His tone must have told them he was in no mood for negotiations. 

“At least allow my driver to take you back to school, then.” Robert offered. 

Jason pushed open the office door and rushed out, surprised when they all still followed him.

“Okay then. I really need to get back now.”

Jason's grandmother arrived at the school, her eyes sunken with weariness and sadness at the news she'd received. 

The school management couldn't suspend Jason. 

If they did, Jason would miss most of his exams and have to retake a semester. They'd then pay the tuition fee twice. 

Although tired from mopping the hospital corridors where she worked all day, she knew she had to do anything it took to get them to forgive Jason for anything he'd done. 

She saw Jason's beautiful girlfriend before the school gate, holding hands with some boy.

She'd seen Jason and Mia a handful of times and knew they were dating. Jason had eyes only for her. 

She walked up to meet Mia, her hands stretching out to hold Mia's hands in greeting. “My dear girl, have you seen Jason? I need to see him, we should beg the school management not to suspend him.”

Mia shrieked, shuddering and moving away from Jason's grandmother as if she was suffering from leprosy. 

Jason's grandmother dropped her hands, nervous and unsure of herself, and for where she was. 

She looked down at her clothes to check if she had dirt on them, but even though her clothes weren't new, infact she'd owned this dress and the coat she wore over it for a long time, she was neat and tidy. 

Hudson gave a bark of scornful laughter. “Do you know what Jason did, old woman?”

Jason's grandmother took in the bruised face and half shut left eye of the boy. She gasped, a trembling hand lifting to her lips. 

Hudson walked closer to her, staring her down. “Yes, Jason did this to my face. I'm not just going to make sure he's suspended. I'll see this to the very end and have him jailed!”

“I'm the mayor's son, and anything I say is law in this town. Jason messed with the wrong fucking person.”

She clasped both hands together, rubbing them in supplication. “Please forgive Jason. Jason never fights, I'm not sure what got into him. But I know you can forgive him,” She tried to smile at Hudson. “After all, you're all friends.”

Hudson's lips curved in derision. “You reek of the same crusty stench of poverty that Jason always stinks of. I'm sure you came here to beg.”

Jason's grandmother nodded with her head hanging in embarrassment and pain, still looking up at Hudson's dark expressionless eyes. 

Hudson smirked then, rubbing his jaw like he was thinking. “If you want me to forgive Hudson, then you have to beg me.” He said, tongue in cheek. 

Jason's grandmother was lost for a bit. “But I'm already begging you, Sir. Please, please, don't have Jason suspended. We can't afford to pay for another semester.”

Hudson and Mia burst into laughter at the same time and Jason's grandmother was surprised at how Mia was behaving. She hadn't even acknowledged her presence. 

Then Hudson stopped laughing, and a devilish twinkle lit up in his eyes. “If you want me to let Jason get away with assaulting me, then you have to do one thing. A tiny little thing.”

Jason's grandmother smiled tensely, wondering what it was Hudson wanted and what he'd promised the school management to get them to follow his orders. “What do you want me to do?”

“Kneel.”

“What did you say?” She rubbed her clammy hands over the sides of her coat.

“Kneel, and I won't have Jason punished for daring to raise his fist at me.”

Mia sniggered behind Hudson, and then her eyes hardened as she stepped forward to join in on the fun. “Make her really beg, Hudson. I hate her and her wretched flea ridden grandson.”

Jason's grandmother didn't pause to think about it, she slowly sank to her knees disregarding the pain of arthritis in her legs, the cold hard tarred road digging into her knees.

Hudson smirked and Mia regarded her with a disdainful scowl. 

The black Mercedes pulled up before the school gates and Jason stepped out of the car.