The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 43
The matter had grown rather large. William had certainly played his part in that. He had thrown himself into the machinery as one of its moving pieces. But the force that truly made it ferment so quickly was not him, nor the media.
They did not possess that kind of strength, not enough to shake the official stance and make the authorities wary. The ones who truly alarmed the authorities were enemies of their own rank.
Not everyone had a friend with a “license.” Not everyone could borrow that friend’s “license” to get things done. In truth, many people were the sort who got things done to them instead. And that left a portion of society, people with wealth and standing but no access to power, deeply uneasy.
Their unease came from the fact that their money and their power had not linked up as neatly as they had once imagined. Even now, they remained two flat, parallel lines. Which meant that if one of their rivals used that force, the kind they themselves did not possess, against them, they would have a very hard time resisting.
Among these people, the most prominent were the newly risen capitalists. Riding the surge of the age, they had amassed in a few short years the wealth that might once have taken two or three generations to accumulate, yet they lacked the depth and roots to match it.
And so they began to fear, fear the very thing called power, which they had fantasized about so many times. People often said that capital ought to be locked in a cage. But to these new capitalists without foundations, it was not they who belonged in the cage. It was power.
So when William’s case began to spread and boil over after he set it in motion, it was not because William himself was so extraordinary. He had merely forged a knife for those people.
That knife might not be enough to rip open the bronze wall and iron barrier the Federation had built over centuries, but it was enough for them to drive another cut into the scars already left upon that wall, to deepen them a little more.
One day, blow by blow, they would carve an opening in that invisible wall.
One day.
The pressure from those people swiftly forced the Federal Tax Bureau Headquarters into compromise, because the very people now pressing their weight into the matter were also the ones who paid the most taxes every year.
Throwing away one utterly insignificant Special Agent from the lower ranks in exchange for calming the storm made it look as though the IRS had suffered a loss, but in truth, only one person was truly losing.
Michael.
So long as the IRS’s enforcement power remained intact, they would always have a chance to win back a round later.
The situation was that clear, but inside Michael, the weather was all rain and darkness. The Director’s words before leaving had pushed him into a state of seething agitation. That man had actually told him to lower his head to his enemy in exchange for genuine forgiveness.
Anyone with even a basic understanding of how the world worked knew that William’s “forgiveness” was an attack disguised as retreat. The weaker he appeared, the more violently the whole society would react.
So what they needed now was to persuade William to truly forgive Michael. Once that happened, the whole matter would become easy to deal with, nothing more than a minor offense.
Mrs. Michael was still in the hospital receiving treatment. The injuries to her face and the outer side of her thigh were not light. She had not fully recovered yet. At the same time, she needed counseling from a psychiatrist, so the hospital simply handled everything together.
That alone was a significant expense. On top of that, Young Michael’s affair required money for defense lawyers, and also required Michael’s present status to smooth over the sort of inconveniences that were not really inconveniences at all for the privileged class.
Which meant that the moment he lost his current job, Michael’s family would collapse in an instant. They would soon find themselves frowning over one bill after another, then selling the house and moving to the lower city, where the cost of living was cheaper. Once that happened, the whole family would be finished for life.
After smashing a great many things, Michael stepped out of the house in formal clothes. His head was buzzing. His eardrums throbbed outward again and again.
When he first stepped outside, he clearly saw the concern on his neighbors’ faces. He also saw that they seemed to be saying something. But he could not hear a thing. Inside his skull there was only the dead hum of tinnitus.
He forced out a thin smile, opened the car door, and got in. Ignition, gear, the car rolled slowly out of the neighborhood.
He was going to see William.
He was going to settle this.
He had never imagined there would be a hurdle in life he could not step over, nor had he believed he would ever encounter one. After all, he was a young and vigorous IRS Investigation Unit Team Leader, a man who might one day climb still higher.
He had misjudged himself.
And he had misjudged others as well.