All Chapters of From Trash to Titan: Chapter 311 - Chapter 320

"You're doing it again," he said in an unimpressed voice.Hazel blinked. "Doing what?""That." He waved a hand vaguely in her direction. "Mr. Sterling."Beside them, Maya's lips pressed together so hard they turned white, her cheeks puffing slightly as she tried to swallow a chuckle."It is simply more appropriate for the workplace," Hazel said defensively, reciting the exact same script she had used the last three times he had called her out on it."You have called me Maxwell every single day for the last weeks, Hazel," he countered, taking a step closer. "Now suddenly I'm 'Mr. Sterling.' I haven't aged thirty years overnight."Maya lost the battle. A loud, snorting laugh escaped her throat. Realizing the seriousness of the betrayal, she instantly slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.Hazel shot her a look that disapproved of the betrayal.Maya straightened her spine immediately, cleared her throat with aggressive solemnity, and stared at the digital floor indicator above the

Chez Renard sat at the very top of a glass-fronted building in the heart of the city's most exclusive dining district. It was the kind of place that didn't advertise. It didn't need to. If you didn't already know it existed, you were not its target audience.It was so exclusive that it usually had a four-month waitlist. Tables that held the conversations of senators, tech billionaires, and old-money families who had been dining here since the place opened thirty years ago.Maxwell's car pulled up to the front entrance at exactly eight o'clock.His door opened and he stepped out.At that same precise moment, the car directly across from his on the opposite curb swung open.Sophia Hawthorne stepped out.Their eyes met across the entrance forecourt before either of them had taken a single step.For half a second, neither spoke.Then Sophia smiled at him. Maxwell smiled back, “Hey.” He said. She was wearing a blue dress that managed to look both effortless and deliberately chosen, her ha

"Dorian Zenith." Sophia said his name "The Zenith family is one of the oldest in this city. Old money. Very old. The kind that's been here so long it's started to believe it owns the place.”“Is that so ?” Maxwell processed that information. And now that explained a lot to Maxwell. "Yes, they've never particularly liked the Sterlings. Your father built something bigger than them faster than anyone thought possible, and families like the Zeniths consider that an insult to the natural order.”Maxwell was quiet.He turned the interaction over in his mind. The pleasant tone that wasn't pleasant. The carefully calibrated observations about the Sterling family's relative newness. The way Dorian had arrived at their table uninvited and immediately was passive aggressive. Something about it sat wrong.Not just pride, Maxwell thought. Something elseHe filed it away. He would think about it later, in the quiet of his own apartment, with a clear head and nowhere to be.He picked up his fork.

Maxwell looked at him. "You're certain?""I looked into the Singapore firm the moment I heard about it," Julian said. He met Maxwell's gaze. "I am not stupid. The firm handles other data, not corporate intelligence. Their client list is clean. There is no connection between the Lee Group and Frank Delacroix. Not a single thread." He unfolded his arms. "I already investigated it. It is a dead end."Maxwell studied his cousin for a long moment.Then he nodded once. "Then they are clear.""Yes," Julian said. "They are."Victoria had been watching Maxwell carefully throughout this exchange. Now she leaned forward."How did you know about the Singapore firm?" she asked quietly.Maxwell looked at her. "I looked the Lee Group up myself. I suspected they might be one of the entities doing business with Frank, so I started digging."Victoria closed her eyes briefly, the way a person closes their eyes when they are choosing their next words very carefully."Maxwell," she said, her tone measured

That same day when Maxwell got home, he continued with his investigation.Maxwell had always been the kind of person who did his best thinking at midnight.The penthouse was dark except for the blue-white glow of the laptop screen and the city blinking below the windows. He had been sitting at the kitchen island for four hours straight. His takeout food and coffee were long cold beside him, three notebooks were open, and a browser window with forty-seven tabs packed end to end.He had been looking into the Zenith group. But there was an issue. The Zenith Capital Group was a wall.That was the only way to describe it. Every account was buried under a shell entity. Every shell entity routed through a holding company registered in a different country. Every holding company pointed back to a name that didn't exist. Four layers deep, five, six - it didn't matter. Every thread Maxwell pulled unraveled cleanly, leaving him with nothing in his hands.Wasn't this infuriating?Maxwell was pre