The remnants of morning dew still clung to the rose leaves as sunlight began to pierce through the Thorne family’s living room curtains. The house, usually noisy with Martha Thorne’s nagging, was suddenly quiet today—yet filled with a tension more suffocating than any shout. On the sofa, Martha sat frozen with a dull expression, staring at a news headline on her digital tablet over and over, as if searching for an answer to an impossible puzzle. Jasper Wang was gone. The arrogant man who had begged for mercy until he fainted last night had been taken away by persons unknown, leaving an emptiness in the chair where he had once huddled in fear. One thing that remained burned into Martha’s mind was how Jasper—the owner of trillions in assets—had turned as pale as a corpse just moments before
