The storm rolled over the English countryside like a warning. Clouds twisted in sullen greys, thunder cracked above the trees, and rain lashed down against the sprawling hills of Kent. From the crest of the highest hill stood the once-proud Ashford estate — a towering relic of stone and tradition, wrapped in ivy and secrets. The manor's windows glowed dimly in the stormlight, casting elongated shadows across the marble halls that had housed nobility for generations.
Inside, the air was thick with silence.
Lord Reginald Ashford stood in the drawing room, one hand on the ornate fireplace, the other holding a crystal glass that had remained untouched for the last hour. He wasn't drinking — not yet. He was thinking. Listening. Watching.
Behind him, his wife, Lady Evelyn, stood perfectly still near the window, her eyes tracking the convoy of black vehicles slowly making their way up the estate's private road.
"Time's up," she said softly, almost to herself.
He didn't answer.
Downstairs, the servants had already gone — paid, silenced, scattered across the countryside with generous severance and signed confidentiality agreements. Only the Ashfords remained, along with a single, locked trunk sitting beside the hearth. Inside it were three things: a pouch of unregistered diamonds, a ledger containing coded financial accounts in Zurich and Belize, and a family heirloom — a silver ring with the Ashford crest engraved on its face: a hawk clutching a chain of gold links.
Lord Reginald finally sipped the drink. The scotch burned his throat — a reminder that he was still, somehow, alive.
"I should've killed him when I had the chance," he muttered.
Evelyn didn't respond. She simply reached into her coat and took out a worn envelope — the royal seal pressed faintly into the wax. She held it for a moment before tossing it into the fireplace. The flames licked at it eagerly, devouring secrets they could no longer afford to protect.
That night, the Ashfords vanished.
There was no public scandal, no press release, no grand betrayal in the House of Lords. Just a silent erasure. Their lands were claimed through parliamentary technicalities. Their titles revoked through old clauses buried in forgotten statutes. Their names disappeared from the aristocratic rolls, replaced by those who had aligned themselves with the new order — those who had backed the stronger heir.
The war had not been fought with guns, but with alliances, secrets, and influence.
The Ashfords had chosen loyalty over leverage. And they had lost.
Within days, the estate was emptied. Their vast art collection smuggled out through diplomatic channels. Reginald and Evelyn boarded a private flight under false names, their departure arranged by a sympathetic Swiss banker who still owed the family a favor older than his own career.
By the time their plane landed in New York, the Ashfords were no longer nobility.
They were ghosts.
Queens, New York. 1988.
The brownstone was cramped, aged, and humming with the ceaseless sounds of city life. Outside, taxis honked, street vendors shouted, and kids yelled as they kicked a ball down the alleyway. Inside, it smelled of dust, worn leather, and cheap incense Evelyn had taken a liking to during their first few weeks of adjustment.
Arthur was born in that apartment.
Not in a hospital, not in a clinic — in the second-floor bedroom of a building that groaned in winter and sweltered in summer. A midwife from the community center helped with the delivery, paid in cash and silence.
There were no announcements. No noble bloodline recorded.
But Evelyn cradled him like he was a crown reborn.
From the beginning, Arthur was different.
He was quiet — not mute, but observant. His eyes seemed to track things too fast, too sharply. While other toddlers babbled, he listened. While they played with toys, he played with puzzles. By the time he was four, he could assemble jigsaw puzzles meant for teenagers and recite the names of European capitals.
He was Evelyn's obsession and Reginald's pride.
But Reginald… was fading.
The weight of exile had crushed the once-dominant nobleman. He worked now as a history teacher at a small charter school, blending his knowledge of dynasties and monarchs into American curriculum. But he was hollow. He came home late, drank cheap whiskey, and sat in silence with the news on, his gaze unfocused. Sometimes, after Arthur had gone to bed, Evelyn would shout at him in the kitchen — quiet, seething arguments Arthur wasn't meant to hear but always did.
"He deserves to know who he is," she would hiss.
"He deserves a chance to live," Reginald would whisper.
Arthur's first memory of power came at six years old.
He had been watching a chess match between two men at the corner deli. They were arguing over strategy, gesturing at the board. Arthur walked over, stared at it for a few seconds, then reached forward and moved a piece.
"Mate in three," he said quietly.
The men laughed. Until they looked. Then frowned. Then sat silently as one of them followed the move.
Three turns later, the game was over.
They never laughed at him again.
By ten, he'd read every finance book in the Queens Library. By eleven, he could calculate compound interest in his head faster than a calculator. By twelve, he'd found an online forum for underground investors and created a fake identity named Hawke_.
By thirteen, Hawke_ was managing real money for strangers in Hong Kong, Estonia, and Dubai — small-time crypto gamblers and middlemen who never knew the age of their financial guru.
Arthur hid the earnings in a layered network of shell accounts built from guides he found on the dark web. Most of the money he reinvested in long-term indexes under other false names. What little he took, he spent on books, equipment, and private courses in mathematics, programming, and business analysis.
It was during one of those courses that he saw the name "Morbran" again.
A family hedge fund. Multi-national. Based in Boston, but with roots stretching back through European banking houses. He clicked the link. A familiar crest stared back at him — a broken crown resting atop a sword.
The Morbrans.
They had been one of the five families who had betrayed the Ashfords during the silent war. Arthur had never met them, but his mother had once pointed at a portrait and said, "If you ever meet a Morbran, don't shake their hand. Count your fingers after."
The next week, Arthur ordered a corkboard and began building his first web of influence — pictures, clippings, stock moves, private holdings, personnel rosters, off-shore subsidiaries. One string led to another. Then another.
By fourteen, Arthur Ashford had his first enemy list.
And he wasn't even in high school yet.
But ambition, no matter how sharp, couldn't erase reality.
Their apartment was still small. Their clothes still worn. Their dinners still quiet.
Evelyn gave him her most prized possession on his fifteenth birthday — the Ashford ring. She handed it to him on the rooftop, where they often watched the city skyline together.
"This belonged to your great-grandfather," she said. "He wore it to his knighthood. He once said a real heir doesn't wait for the world to give him a throne."
Arthur slipped the ring onto his middle finger and stared at the city below.
"Then I'll build mine here," he whispered.
She smiled sadly. "Then do it with purpose. Not anger."
But Arthur had already made up his mind.
They had stolen his family's crown.Now he'd take everything else.