The city stretched out in glittering lights beyond the penthouse windows, but Raymond barely noticed. His focus was on the stack of old documents he had pulled from a locked drawer in his father’s study earlier that evening. The papers were yellowed with age, but the ink remained clear, the names and numbers meticulously recorded. And among them, one particular name kept appearing—a name he had never seen or heard before, yet it carried the weight of something ominous. The Ashford Syndicate. Raymond frowned, his mind racing as he flipped through page after page of agreements, payments, and encrypted notes. His father, Johnathan Hawthorne, had always kept tight control over the family’s affairs, but he had never once mentioned dealings with a syndicate. Could it be his grandfather who was involved? And if the scattered details in these documents were correct, the Ashford Syndicate hadn’t been just another business partner. They had been something far worse. A criminal empire. A c
Last Updated : 2025-03-27 Read more