Chapter 295 The Creator
Vanessa suddenly stood up from her chair without a word. Liam watched her, puzzled, as she crossed the room and grabbed a tall whiteboard leaning against the wall. With a determined grunt, she dragged it over in front of him, the bottom wheels squeaking lightly as it rolled across the cracked factory floor.
"What are you doing?" Liam asked, eyebrow raised.
Vanessa didn’t answer right away. She picked up a black marker from the tray at the base of the board, uncapped it, and began scribbling words across the surface.
"Let’s lay it out," she muttered.
She started by writing CRIMSON HAND in large letters on the left side of the board. Then she drew a short line connecting it to another name: GOLDEN BIRD.
Liam’s eyes narrowed.
Vanessa continued, her tone crisp. "We know the Crimson Hand is being backed by the Golden Bird. That much is obvious. Resources. Money. Power. That explains how they’ve expanded so quickly."
She paused, then wrote POLICE FORCE near the top of the board and drew another line connecting it to both previous names.
"Chief Josh Michelle," she said as she circled the words. "Corrupt. Weak. But smart enough to make alliances with people more dangerous than him. He’s letting the Crimson Hand operate right under his nose."
Finally, she stepped back, added a new word at the bottom of the board: THE RAVEN—writing it in bold, dark strokes—and drew lines from it to all three previous groups.
Now the board had four distinct names, all connected like branches of a growing tree.
Vanessa capped the marker and looked at Liam. "Four factions. Four separate entities that should have nothing to do with one another. The Golden Bird runs contracts and wealth. The Crimson Hand are your classic power-hungry thugs. The police are supposed to fight crime. And the Raven... well, they’re in a whole other league."