The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 48
Inside the room, Mr. Fox’s face was calm as still water. On the surface, he did not look much different from a moment earlier, but only he himself knew that his scalp had begun to prickle in waves.
People were always making jokes about the IRS, saying that if you offended them, they would leave you without so much as a pair of trousers. Very few people made jokes about the Federation FBI.
It was not because there were no good jokes to make about the Federation FBI, nor because they never made mistakes. Quite the opposite. Every year, the FBI found itself involved in plenty of enforcement disputes, even outright incidents, and yet hardly anyone dared speak of them openly.
Because everyone knew that the IRS might make you wish you were dead, but the FBI would simply kill you, so there were not many people left to cry injustice every day.
The moment the man identified himself, Mr. Fox’s legs nearly stopped working.
He stared at him for a while. His son and his men had already recovered from their shock, and seeing Mr. Fox lock eyes with the FBI Agent seemed to give them a backbone, a spark of courage. They glared in turn.
Only Mr. Fox himself knew that he needed a moment to steady himself, otherwise his legs would go weak enough that the instant he moved, he might drop to his knees.
After a while, he drew a deep breath, nodded, and said, “Fine.” Then he turned and sat down. “I’d like to see why exactly you think I won’t be able to stay on my feet.”
It was a fine performance. Even Mr. Fox’s son felt that this was one of the shining moments of his father’s life. But only Mr. Fox knew that, at this very moment, his heart was pounding at one hundred and eighty.
The FBI Agent kept smiling throughout. It was the smile of a man who knew he held the upper hand. Raising his brows and pursing his lips, he wore a look of regret. “You’re not going to like this...,” he said, pausing briefly. “The Federation FBI has had its eye on you for some time now...”
In the next room, the IRS Agent turned his head and glanced at the FBI Agent beside him. The other man gave him a smile that did not reach his eyes and nodded once.
There was a problem with that statement.
The problem lay in who was taking credit.
Even between ordinary individuals, there were all sorts of conflicts and rivalries. How much more so between two top-tier institutions?
The Federation FBI and the IRS clearly belonged to different domains, yet their authority and functions overlapped in certain places.
Take the Federation FBI’s Financial Crimes Investigation Division. It dealt with crimes related to finance. And those kinds of crimes were often tied to tax evasion.
When criminals wanted to keep certain accounts from being discovered, they hid them. Once they hid them, tax evasion entered the picture. So at their core, the two groups were bound to clash. Their friction would not be too obvious, but neither would it ever be entirely hidden.
With a single sentence, the Agent from the Federation FBI Financial Crimes Investigation Division’s field operations team had seized all the credit for the FBI side. In the end, these recordings would appear in court, perhaps even before the media.
That one line, we’ve been watching you for some time now, was enough to prove the Federation FBI’s foresight before everyone. The implication was clear, they had long since detected the criminal conduct of Fox and the others laundering money, but the evidence had not yet been complete. Then the foolish IRS had startled the prey and nearly ruined everything.
Fortunately, the Federation FBI had turned the tide at the last moment, setting everything right again. Not only did that cast a little glow over the FBI, it also took the opportunity to kick the IRS on the way through.
Under normal circumstances, the IRS would certainly have sent someone in to claw a round back for themselves. But right now their own backside was covered in filth. Their priority was solving the immediate problem. As for reclaiming face, there would be time enough for that later.
Mr. Fox remained silent, as though he had heard nothing at all. But his mind was spinning rapidly, trying to work out how a small and unremarkable finance company like his had ended up under the gaze of the Federation FBI. Had those people nothing better to do?
The Agent, however, had no intention of waiting just because Mr. Fox stayed silent. On the contrary, he began speaking faster.
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