The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 38
“You can have your people go to a bank and try applying for loans, study their process, then copy their loan documents and add a few extra clauses of your own.”
He cast a glance at Mr. Fox beside him. “For example, after a fixed period, even if the collateral is forfeited, the borrower is still required to repay the full principal and interest. That way, you can bring down the nominal interest rate on paper.”
This approach was nothing more than a variation on what banks had always done. When a borrower failed to repay a loan on time, the bank would send the pledged asset to auction.
The proceeds from the auction would be used to cover the unpaid debt. On the surface, it looked like a reasonable process. In truth, it was not.
From the very beginning, the bank’s valuation of the collateral was deliberately set low, while the interest rates were high. Most people who needed loans did not have the ability to repay them in the short term.
The logic was simple. If they could gather the money within a month or two, they would not need to borrow from a bank in the first place.
Since they could not raise the money, they naturally could not repay the loan. The bank, in turn, could swallow the collateral in broad daylight.
If, by chance, the borrower did manage to repay the loan in a short period, the bank still lost nothing. It would have earned interest in that short span.
For any single transaction, that interest might seem insignificant, perhaps a few percent on a hundred dollars, at most ten. But when all of the bank’s operations were added together, it was no longer a hundred dollars. It might be ten million, a hundred million, or more.
William’s suggestion differed from the banks only in one respect. After the process concluded, instead of stopping there, it added a clause requiring continued repayment of the principal and interest.
In truth, even banks never simply stopped at that point. They had more than enough ways to strip a borrower down to the bone.
Banks might not carry the same stain of notoriety as financial operators like Mr. Fox, but they were hardly benevolent institutions. It was worth remembering that every legal boundary concerning illicit funds was defined with the banks’ highest standards as the reference. They were not only players in the game, they were also the referees.
When Mr. Fox had mentioned that certain people did not want to see their business legalized, he had been referring to those tied to the banks and the great financial conglomerates, the legislators they kept on their payroll.
Banks and conglomerates fed those men, fed their families, perhaps even their private networks, and sustained their polished lives. It was only natural that they would speak up for the interests of the ones who fed them.
William’s method was not complicated at all. If you could not defeat your opponent, you joined them.
For now, though, in order to avoid risk, one only needed to add a few carefully chosen clauses to the contracts, a little wordplay, leaving matters suspended in a gray zone where they could be handled with flexibility.
Mr. Fox thought it over seriously for a moment, then nodded, though a trace of hesitation remained. “I’ll give it a try. No matter what, thank you for the advice.”
William waved it off with a smile. “Your problem is solved, so now I have something I’d like your help with...”
After sharing a meal at Mr. Fox’s farm, William left with a few local gifts, some decorative pieces made from horns. Without the gold plating and the small, unremarkable gems set into them, they would have been worth very little.
At the same time, the man they had been discussing, Michael, after spending the entire morning pushing through the necessary procedures, finally met his son, Young Michael, at Sabine City Regional Prison.
People often believed that criminal cases required several hearings before a verdict was reached. That belief was mistaken. When a suspect voluntarily confessed, the process could be shortened drastically.
Although the court had not yet issued a final sentence, Young Michael had already begun serving time in advance. One might call it a kind of preferential treatment.
In the room reserved for family visits, father and son sat across from each other at a table. The guard gave Michael a nod and stepped away from the position he was supposed to maintain at all times.
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