All seven men dropped the boxes before Jett, tore them open and took a step backward.
Charlotte’s eyes bulged slightly in disbelief at the familiar sight of the bottle peeking out.
She sauntered towards it, grabbed the first one she saw and sneered without sparing it another glance, "This... do you think we wouldn’t notice these are fake?"
"If you really wanted us to believe you, you could’ve at least waited a few hours before bringing them."
She paused and straightened up, then pointed the bottle at him with a scoff, "How could a bottle which took seven months to arrive be here in just a few minutes? You should take classes to lie better!"
Jett gazed at her blankly.
This wench was clearly looking down on him and his children.
He had to calm his daughter first, so he had no time to explain his identity to her. But even if he did, she would never believe him. So it was no use saying anything.
Thus, he just snickered, "Fake? Tell that to the branch which opened here a month ago and which I just happen to be a partner in."
Ariana’s father hissed, his lips twitching in irritation.
"What a bluff! I tried to be a partner with them a month ago, but they weren’t accepting partners for the time being. So how is it they let you become a partner?"
Jett shifted his gaze to him, the corners of his lips curling up into a mocking smile as he mused, "You have four eyes, but you don’t seem to see you and I are on completely different levels. If your eyes are this useless, just pluck them out already."
Seeing how he carelessly insisted it was the real deal, they really didn’t know what to say.
Furthermore, it really did look like the real deal, but knowing how expensive and rare it was to get, they adamantly refused to believe they really had 36 of such bottles in their midst.
And it had come to them in just a few minutes. In what world was a thing like that possible?
Jett paid no heed to their disbelief, his eyes flickering from one face to the other as he warned them coldly, "My daughter didn’t do it. However, since there’s no other way to prove she didn’t do it, I’ll let you have all these."
"The water bottle you hold so highly is not something my lovely daughter should play with. It’s too cheap."
"What did you just say? Are you calling us poor?" At the sound of ’cheap’, Ariana’s mother gasped.
Taking out his phone, her husband seethed through clenched teeth, "You–! You’re going to regret bluffing right now! I’ll call the headquarters. If they say no branch opened up in Silicone Valley, I will make sure..."
He trailed off when Jett strutted past him, Jesse and Zade hurrying after him along with the men who brought the boxes.
Nevertheless, he dialed the number and hurried to the door to watch them leave.
"Walk away all you want. Once I confirm you’re bluffing, I’ll find and make your darn life a living hell for this insult!"
He looked down at his phone the exact moment the call connected, his brash voice turning polite in an instant, "Hello, is this Aeriela Bottles, I’m Jonathan Devon, founder of a game company in Silicone Valley."
"I’m calling to confirm if your company opened a branch in Silicone Valley and got a new partner."
The next second, he stiffened, stuttering a little as he asked, "Th-this, uh, partner, is he tall, has sharp and prominent features? What, Jett Adler?"
"Jett Adler is your new partner? No one knows yet he’s a partner of your company so it’s basically something only he and a few people knows."
"Which means, the only one who can go around saying he’s the new partner of your company is..."
Jonathan Devon broke out it in cold sweat, his heart throbbing hard in his chest, slamming against his rib cage as if trying to go out.
He threatened and provoked such a scary figure for a mere bottle?
Jett even went as far as bringing 36 bottles because to settle the matter.
For someone of Jett’s status, stepping on Jonathan was considered too filthy for his shoes.
It was paramount to stepping on animal dung. Yet, he had provoked the man so much that he...
His legs grew weak, wobbled and sent him tumbling to the floor weakly.
Startled, his wife hurriedly set down their daughter and worriedly rushed to him.
"Honey, is anything the matter?"
"My political career... I fear it’s over."
As this was going on, Jett was already driving on the highway with the triplets.
Jesse and Zade sat in the back seat, while Keira sat in front, on her father’s thighs.
"I didn’t take the bottle. I really didn’t. I mean, it was pretty and I was going to tell mommy to get one for me, but all I did was look. I never touched it." Her whimpering suddenly broke through the silence.
Zade and Jesse quickly leaned forward, nodding in understanding.
"We know you didn’t do it."
"Kids are sometimes careless, so Zade and I think your classmate must’ve misplaced it and blamed it on you."
Keira instantly sat up, shaking her head in agreement.
"She didn’t. Ariana never leaves the classroom with the bottle and she’s my friend. But Ms. Hastings called her parents the moment she said her bottle was missing and then they... they all blamed me..."
Jett’s grip on the steering tightened, his right hand curling around her protectively as he briefly glanced down at her with a gentle smile.
"Keira shouldn’t let things like that bother her. Daddy, Zade and Jesse knows she didn’t do it. I’m sure mommy will know she didn’t do it too."
She felt at ease almost immediately and snugged into his warm arms again, temporarily forgetting she had vowed never to speak to him again.