Chapter 3: The Secret Even My Father Didn't Expect
Chapter 3: The Secret Even My Father Didn't Expect
Chapter 3: The Secret Even My Father Didn't Expect
Investigators spent the next twelve hours searching the estate.
Hidden safes were opened.
Encrypted servers were copied.
Financial records filled dozens of evidence boxes.
Everything matched the files I had secretly collected over the past year.
Nathan sat in silence as agents catalogued every document.
He knew it was over.
Then one forensic analyst paused.
"Sir..."
He looked toward my father.
"There's another encrypted folder inside the pendant."
Richard frowned.
"I wasn't aware there was one."
The analyst entered the final security code.
A video appeared.
It had been recorded nearly twenty-five years earlier.
A younger Richard Sinclair stood beside another man inside a private office.
The other man's face came into focus.
Nathan's father.
Edward Ashford.
Both men were signing documents.
I looked at my father in confusion.
"You knew his family?"
Richard's expression darkened.
"Only briefly."
The recording continued.
Edward smiled at the camera.
"If anything happens to me..."
Richard interrupted him.
"No one can ever know about Project Orion."
The room fell silent.
I turned toward my father.
"What is Project Orion?"
Richard slowly removed his glasses.
"Twenty-five years ago..."
"We created a global logistics network designed to deliver humanitarian aid during international disasters."
He paused.
"Edward secretly transformed parts of that network into a criminal smuggling operation."
Richard immediately withdrew.
Edward continued alone.
For decades everyone believed Richard had abandoned the project.
Instead...
Edward had hidden behind it.
Nathan stared at the screen in disbelief.
"My father..."
"He used my company..."
"...before I was even born."
The investigators exchanged uneasy glances.
Ashford Global had never been just a corrupt corporation.
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It had been the final piece of a criminal network spanning decades.
