Chapter 138 Far Too
Lenient
“Who is he?” Ryder’s voice crackled through the phone with a sharp edge of suspicion.
Renee’s expression tightened, the weight of his simmering rage unmistakable, even over the phone.
It was kind of ridiculous, really.
She and Derek were barely acquaintances. More importantly, she owed Ryder no explanations about her
comings and goings.
Yet, a heavy knot grew in her gut, shadowed by the uneasy guilt of letting down someone significant.
She hesitated, the silence stretching between them, before her voice emerged, softer than intended. “Yes, a
neighbor. He just dropped by.”
The line hummed with a tense pause.
Ryder’s skepticism was almost palpable through the static.
Pressing her fingers against her temples, Renee sighed and called out with a weary gentleness, “Mr. Chadwick?”
“Renee.”
They both spoke at once, their voices overlapping.
“You first,” Renee insisted.
“I noticed the trending topics,” he said, his tone laced with an undercurrent of concern.
A throbbing headache began to press behind her eyes, and Renee felt suddenly like a teenager caught stepping out of line. The sensation of being scrutinized by a watchful guardian washed over her, leaving her awkward
and scrambling for words.
“I… I don’t really know Mr. Doyle well. We have some old, unresolved issues. The stories circulating online- they’re blowing things way out of proportion.”
The silence from Ryder lingered, each second dragging by, thick with tension, as if she were on trial awaiting
judgment.
“I’m referring to the live stream incident where you confronted that influencer,” Ryder remarked, his lips
curling into a knowing half–smile.
There was a playful lilt in his voice, hinting at a lighter mood.
However, Renee was far from amused.
Skepticism clouded her expression; she sensed Ryder’s probing, an attempt to unravel her ties with Marvin.
Torn between confronting him and letting it slide, she hesitated. Reacting too strongly might only exaggerate
the issue.
“Really, Mr. Chadwick? You think I overreacted or what? Considering he was broadcasting the whole scene?” Renee’s voice held a mixture of defiance and inquiry.
“I think you were too lenient,” Ryder countered firmly.
“Too lenient?” Renee echoed, her brow furrowing in confusion.
“Yes, far too lenient,” Ryder reiterated, his tone serious now. “You left him room to continue slandering you
online. Next time you face someone like that, show no mercy. Keep in mind that I’ve always got your back.”
Renee responded with silence, her gaze fixed on something distant, unreadable.
She was indifferent to the online backlash that had ignited after she had knocked the phone from the
influencer’s hand during his broadcast. Unbeknownst to her, this action had sparked a fierce outcry among
some netizens who labeled her as haughty and arrogant, a rich girl believing herself above reproach.
Meanwhile, the influencer seized the narrative, casting himself as the aggrieved party. He invested in a flurry of marketing campaigns, painting Renee as a bully who had not only disrupted his stream but also had him wrongfully penalized and compelled to issue a public apology.
Without knowing the whole truth, some netizens crowned themselves defenders of justice, spewing toxic
remarks about Renee across the Internet.
Yet Renee remained completely unfazed by it all. Those trolls stood no chance of reaching her social circle, and
the people within it barely spared a thought for such minor squabbles. They were more interested in the tangible benefits of their associations, weighing the pros and cons of each relationship meticulously.
Renee’s entanglements with the Mitchell family added layers of complexity to her social dealings. They weren’t idiots, and not a single one of them would side with those netizens–at least not openly, not now.
She brushed it off without a second thought, but for someone else who cared, it was a different story.
Upon noticing the swell of negative attention Renee was receiving online, William acted swiftly. He instructed his company’s PR team to quash the rumors and even dispatched someone to confront that influencer in question who was fanning the flames.
Unfortunately, by the time he acted, it was already too late.
“The Doyle family?” he inquired, grasping at straws.
“Probably not,” responded the head of the PR Department. “I have a contact within the Doyle family’s PR team. Thinking it might be their doing, I reached out. But they confirmed they hadn’t received any such PR directives,
let alone acted on it.”
“Got it. You’re dismissed, but keep me updated on any developments,” William instructed, his frustration palpable.
Once more, he was a step behind, a fact that gnawed at him.
His protection over Renee was enough–there was no need for anyone else to step in. Despite his efforts, there
was always someone guarding her just a little sooner than he could.
Reluctant as he was to accept it, the fact remained–someone out there cared for Renee more fiercely than he
ever could.
