Marriage with my daughter's father: Darling please be gentle - Chapter 156

Chapter 156: Chapter 156: Fake

Winter was still reeling from the voice she’d heard on the recording. She couldn’t mistake it—there was no denying who it belonged to. And the second realization dawned, her blood boiled with rage.

“That witch,” Winter snapped, pushing herself up from the bed, her body rigid with fury. “How dare she try to hurt you!”

Her mind raced as anger surged through her, blinding and unrelenting. Dorothy. Of all people. Winter had always ignored Dorothy and her useless daughter, choosing to steer clear rather than waste her breath. But this? What she had done to Kalix—this crossed every line.

She hadn’t just hurt Kalix. She had put the lives of innocent people in danger—people who worked under him, people who had nothing to do with their feud.

“I won’t let her get away with this,” Winter hissed, seething as she grabbed her car keys. “This time, she’s gone too far.”

She was halfway to the door, ready to storm out, when Kalix’s voice cut through her fury.

“Angel, stop.”

Her footsteps faltered as his hand closed gently around her arm, halting her next move. Frustration twisted inside her as she turned to face him, her jaw clenched.

“I’m not letting her walk away from this, Kalix,” Winter snapped, her voice trembling with restrained emotion. “She risked the lives of so many people just to get back at me—at you. And I won’t let her be—”

“You won’t do anything, Angel,” Kalix interrupted softly but firmly. “Not like this. Not being reckless.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice laced with confusion, sensing the caution in Kalix’s tone.

Kalix watched her, silently studying the frustration flickering behind her eyes, and let out a slow, steady sigh.

“Come here. Sit.”

Winter hesitated, her brows pulling together in puzzlement, but something about his voice left no room for argument. She moved toward him and sat, her gaze fixed on his face, searching for answers.

“This isn’t as simple as it looks, Angel,” Kalix began, his voice low but heavy with meaning. “This conspiracy runs deeper than it appears.”

A chill settled in her chest. The anger that had burned so fiercely only moments ago gave way to unease as she noticed the subtle shift in his demeanor — the calm before a storm. Her stomach knotted, a strange feeling twisting inside her.

Kalix reached out, his hand resting over hers, grounding her in place.

“Do you trust me, Angel?” he asked, his gaze steady and unflinching.

The weight of the question pressed against her chest, but the answer came without hesitation. Every fiber of her being already knew.

“I do,” she whispered.

Kalix nodded, as if he’d expected nothing less. But he wasn’t ready to let her charge into the fire just yet.

“Then follow the plan I’ve laid out,” he said, his voice firm but reassuring. “We’re using Eric as bait. It’s the only way to expose the real players behind this.”

Winter didn’t realize Kalix was a step ahead of her and when she realized what he planned to do, all she did was trust him.

***

Back inside the hospital, Dianna woke to the steady beep of a machine. Her hand was tethered to an IV drip, the dim lighting casting soft shadows around the room while the sharp scent of sanitizer lingered in her nose.

She winced, the ache of both her body and her actions sinking in as full awareness returned. The faint sound of someone shifting beside her snapped her attention toward the chair at her bedside. Startled, her eyes darted to the figure sitting there, clearing the fog from her mind in an instant.

“Mom… how did I—?” Dianna’s voice was hoarse as she tried to feign confusion, but Beatrix knew her daughter too well to fall for the act.

“You know exactly where you are,” Beatrix said coolly, her sharp gaze pinning Dianna in place. “The real question is—how are you going to explain it?”

Dianna swallowed, her throat painfully dry. Her eyes flickered with a mix of hesitation and something deeper—something heavy. She knew the stunt she had pulled wouldn’t go unnoticed by her mother for long. Beatrix had always seen straight through her.

After a long pause, Dianna finally gathered herself and spoke, her voice low but steady.

“I was asked to fake the suicide. The plan was to scare Kalix into dropping his case against me—to set me free,” she confessed.

Beatrix’s expression darkened, her jaw tightening as the pieces began to fall into place. She had suspected from the beginning that Dianna wouldn’t go through with something like this. Her daughter was a national-level swimmer, for God’s sake. Drowning was never an option—not for Dianna. If anything, Beatrix knew her daughter was far more likely to kill someone else in a fit of desperation than to harm herself.

But one question still burned in her mind. Who? Who had convinced her daughter to do something this reckless?

“Tell me, Dianna,” Beatrix pressed, her voice leaving no room for negotiation. “Who was it?”

This time, there was no escape. Beatrix wasn’t just asking as a mother—she was laying down an ultimatum. Whatever Dianna had done, whoever had pulled the strings, Beatrix needed the truth. Only then could she figure out the right moves to protect her daughter.

“Dorothy Greyson,” Dianna finally revealed.

Beatrix’s eyes darkened the moment the name left her daughter’s lips, her expression shifting into something cold and sinister. The grim silence that followed was heavy, almost suffocating.

Fully awake now, Dianna noticed the shift in her mother’s demeanor—the way the air around her seemed to thicken with unspoken dread. But the tension in Beatrix’s aura wasn’t what concerned her. There were bigger things at play.

“And now it’s in your hands,” Dianna added, her voice cutting through the silence. “You’ll have to convince Sylvester to make Kalix retreat the case.”

The words snapped Beatrix from her thoughts. Though skepticism lingered in her eyes, she finally understood the desperate reasoning behind her daughter’s dangerous stunt.

Her expression slowly shifted from grim to resolute, sharp with determination.

“Don’t worry,” Beatrix said, her voice steady and sure. “I’ll handle that old man. He might have refused to help me before—but this time, I won’t let him turn his back on me.”

Beatrix was confident because this time she knew how to handle Sylvester and even if he hesitated, she would make him listen to her.

***

Agnes returned home, kicking off her heels as she headed toward her room — only to freeze in her tracks when she spotted her mother sitting quietly in the dim light.

“Holy shit, Mom! Why are you sitting in my room like a ghost?” Agnes staggered back, clutching her chest as her startled eyes met Dorothy’s brooding glare.

“Because my daughter seems to think ignoring me is perfectly acceptable, and I’d like to know why,” Dorothy shot back sharply, watching her daughter’s surprise morph into guilt as she realized she’d been caught off guard.

“May I ask what’s going on with you?” Dorothy’s voice cut sharper now, laced with irritation. “All I’ve asked is for you to help me clean up the mess your dear friend created by exposing herself to Kalix.”

Agnes blinked, her confusion genuine this time. “What did Dianna do now?” she asked, stepping closer, her expression twisting from shock to curiosity.

In truth, she’d been too preoccupied to notice anything beyond her own scheme — trapping Eric. Her only goal these past few weeks had been to seduce him, to fall pregnant, and to bind him to her life, sealing her future by force if necessary.

But hearing Dianna’s name now — and the sharpness in her mother’s voice — made it clear she’d missed something far bigger than her personal plotting.

Dorothy let out a long, weary sigh. “That’s exactly why David keeps insisting I keep a close eye on you,” she murmured. Then, after a pause, her voice lowered into something even more serious. “You do realize someone is blackmailing him, don’t you? And he’s convinced the person behind it is someone close. Very close.”

Agnes felt the blood drain from her face. Her heart dropped to her stomach. She stared at her mother, mouth slightly open, stunned into silence.

“What should we do now, Mom?” She finally whispered, panic creeping into her voice. She couldn’t afford to be tangled in another scandal — not when Eric was her only chance at the future she’d carefully planned.

But Dorothy, calm and collected as always, leaned back slightly in her chair, her eyes sharp but eerily controlled. That cold, practiced expression instantly settled Agnes’s frayed nerves, if only a little.

“We do what we’ve always done, sweetheart,” Dorothy replied smoothly. “We stay three steps ahead.”

She stood from the chair, brushing down her tailored coat as if the conversation was already settled.

“Dianna has already made her move, and if Kalix catches on, it won’t just be her head on the line. If there’s someone bold enough to blackmail David, then we’re dealing with a bigger enemy than I thought.”

Agnes swallowed hard, the gravity of her mother’s words sinking in. “Who do you think it is?”

Dorothy paused at the door, glancing back at her daughter, her voice dropping to a low, warning tone.

“That’s what I intend to find out. And when I do, I suggest you stay out of the way, unless you want to be collateral damage.”

With that, Dorothy disappeared down the hallway, leaving Agnes rooted to the floor, fear and curiosity twisting inside her like a storm.