The relentless explosion of camera flashes turned the press room into a strobing purgatory. Snap. Snap. Snap. The sound was mechanical, predatory.
In the center of the frantic energy stood Danupong. Fifty years old, bald, and swollen with a fury that seemed to strain the very seams of his bespoke black suit. Behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, his small, sharp eyes vibrated with a raw, unadulterated rage. Each breath he took was shallow, jagged—the sound of a man watching his empire turn to ash.
"I will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law!" Danupong roared, his finger stabbing at the camera lenses. His voice was a gravelly rasp, poisoned by the loss of ten billion baht—all because of a calculated rot sewn into the very foundations of his hotel empire. "Every single one of them will pay in blood!"
"Sir, do you have definitive proof that Adisorn was the architect of this collapse?" a female reporter cut in, thrusting her microphone forward like a lancet intended to widen a fresh wound.
Danupong let out a jagged, mirthless laugh. With a trembling hand, he hoisted his phone into the glare of the flashes. On the screen, a grainy video played: Adisorn Rattanathan, sitting in the velvet shadows of an exclusive restaurant, leaning in toward the executives of Kantralak Holdings.
"There is your proof!" he bellowed, the veins in his neck bulging like whipcords. "A shadow deal. A web of fabricated evidence. He used a wide-eyed intern as a sacrificial pawn just to liquidate me! The man is a puppeteer... a demon who guts lives without blinking."
Following that seismic press conference, the nameAdisorn Rattanathan evaporated from the corporate world. He was erased from the board in a single, surgical strike. His assets—once the envy of the capital—were offloaded like toxic waste. The buyer waiting in the wings was always the same: Yongchang, the shadowy titan operating under the aegis of the CK Group.
Even a predator as apex as Adisorn—the undisputed king of M&A—could not outrun a tidal wave of that magnitude.
"Have you heard anything about Mr. Adisorn?" a woman asked her friend in a hushed tone as they walked across their graduation lawn. To them, he was already a ghost, a cautionary tale whispered in university corridors.
"Total radio silence," her friend replied with a sigh. "Disappeared the day the gavel fell."
"I heard Yongchang's people have already moved into his old offices. They're everywhere now."
"What did you expect?" a third girl interjected, her voice cold behind thin-rimmed glasses. "The man was a sociopath. He viewed people as napkins—use them, then discard them when they're soiled with your mess. Even his partners weren't safe." She paused, looking toward the horizon. "But men like Adisorn don't just die. They go to ground. They sharpen their claws in the dark, waiting for the right moment to burn it all down."
In the ruthless ecosystem of high finance, Adisorn was known as the 'Corporate Wraith.' He didn't just invest; he hunted. Whether it was logistics, real estate, or food empires, he dismantled his prey with a terrifying, clinical precision. His life was fueled by a boundless, hollow ambition, leaving behind a trail of ruined lives and jagged grudges.
His scandals were legendary. He had once courted an A-list actress with the same cold calculation he used for a hostile takeover—using her fame to pivot himself into the spotlight, only to discard her the moment his brand reached its zenith. To Adisorn, the public's outrage was a negligible tax on a very profitable transaction.
He hadn't vanished. He was merely waiting. In the shadows of the boardrooms, the whispers remained: the demon was coming back. And this time, he wouldn't just be looking for a deal. He would be looking for blood.