Chapter 9: The Syndicate
Three days passed. Mary Jane was under the care of a trusted private medical team. Julian, however, was in his study, a wall of monitors illuminating his exhausted face. He had hired the best private intelligence firm in the country to dig into Victoria's past. The results were terrifying.
"Victoria Sterling" didn't exist before three years ago. The woman he almost married was a ghost, an operative for a highly sophisticated, clandestine trafficking syndicate known only as The Red Ribbon. They didn't just target wealth; they targeted bloodlines. They infiltrated the lives of powerful widowers and single fathers, neutralizing the heirs, breaking them mentally and physically, to secure the estates. Mary Jane wasn't just abused for sadistic pleasure; she was being systematically broken down to be institutionalized, leaving Victoria as the sole beneficiary of Julian's empire.
Julian loaded a magazine into a matte-black Glock 19. His past—a classified stint in a tier-one special operations unit before he inherited his father's empire—had been dormant for a decade. The syndicate had no idea who they had just provoked.
