From A Producer To A Global Superstar

Silas sat alone in the holding cell, his back against the wall and his hands resting on his knees.

The room was small, cold, and almost empty. A metal bench ran along one side, while a thick glass panel separated him from the corridor outside. He had been there long enough for the first anger to disappear and leave something more useful behind.

Thought.

He had been arrested for further questioning after the IRS investigators decided that the allegations against him required more than an interview. His lawyer had already been informed, and Silas had been allowed a few calls under supervision.

He had used those calls carefully.

The first had been to his lawyer.

The second had gone to someone he trusted enough to answer without asking too many questions.

"We’ll talk later."

That was what people said when they wanted distance.

Silas picked up the phone again and called another number.

The line rang several times before a voice finally answered.

"Silas."

"Where are you?"

There was a pause. "I’m busy."

"You’ve been busy for three days."

"I know."

Silas leaned back in his chair. "Then make time."

"I can’t right now."

"You can’t or you don’t want to?"

The man stayed silent.

Silas waited, but the answer never came.

"Call me when you can."

The line went dead.

He placed the phone down and looked at the list of numbers on the paper beside him. These were not random people. They were people who had answered him for years. Some had helped move money. Some had handled companies. Others had taken care of problems before those problems reached him.

Now they were suddenly unavailable.

He looked through the glass toward the officer sitting at the desk outside. The man had barely spoken to him since he was brought in. Every movement around the station seemed controlled, from the opening of doors to the brief conversations between investigators.

Silas called another.

This time the person answered immediately.

"I can’t meet you."

"I didn’t ask you to meet me."

"You were going to."

Silas paused.

The man continued, "Whatever this is, leave me out of it for now."

"What have you heard?"

"Nothing I want to discuss over the phone."

"Then tell me where we can talk."

"I’ll contact you."

Silas heard the call end.

He remained still for a few seconds before placing the phone beside the others.

Something had changed.

He knew that much.

What he didn’t know was how far the change had spread.

The room was quiet except for the low sound of people moving around the IRS holding.

Silas reached for another number.

This one belonged to someone he had known for years, someone who had survived enough situations to understand when silence was safer than conversation.

The call was answered on the third ring.

"Silas."

"I need to ask you something."

"I know."

Silas frowned. "You know what?"

"That you are calling people."

"And?"

"And people are scared."

Silas sat forward. "Why?"

The man was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, "Because the IRS is already looking at you."

Silas did not speak as this took his by surprise as he had always been careful not to show himself.

The man continued before Silas could ask another question.

"They weren’t waiting for the scandal. They were already there."

Silas looked toward the closed blinds.

"What do you mean, already there?"

"I mean exactly what I said. They’ve been looking into the network for some time."

Silas’s hand rested on the edge of the desk.

"How long?"

"I don’t know."

"You know more than that."

"I know enough to tell you that the recent situation made things worse."

Silas’s voice became quieter. "The file?"

"Yes."

The answer came quickly.

Silas looked at the documents scattered across the desk. The allegations had seemed to arrive all at once after the evidence became public. The speed had bothered him from the beginning. He had expected attention, but he had not expected the IRS to move so quickly or with such a clear direction.

At first, he had assumed the scandal had forced them to react.

Now he understood that he had been looking at it from the wrong angle.

"The investigation was already open?"

"It wasn’t exactly about you alone. They were following people connected to the network."

"The three bosses." He muttered but I was loud enough for the otherside to hear.

Another pause.

"Yes."

Silas lowered his eyes.

He had known that the three people around had attracted attention before they disappeared from the structure. He had also known that their removal could create problems. What he had not known was how much information had followed them.

His name had been somewhere inside those investigations which was true.

Not public.

Not something anyone could search and find.

But it had been there if someone looked well which was why he was pissed at Michael during that time as it left a trail which he doesn’t do.

The man on the phone continued, "Your name came up during the earlier investigations. They didn’t have enough to move directly against you, or at least they didn’t have enough to make it useful."

"And now they do."

"The file gave them something."

Silas looked at the screen in front of him.

"What exactly?"

"I don’t know."

"Then how do you know it gave them something?"

"Because the response changed."

Silas said nothing because even he was surprised at the response time that the IRS came with.

The man spoke again. "They were trying to get inside the network. They couldn’t reach everything they wanted. They were following companies, accounts and people, but they were missing the connections. The material that appeared online came from inside and gave them more than the missing piece to complete their puzzle."

Silas understood.

The file had not simply exposed him.

It had given them the key to open the door they were looking for.

The people investigating him had already been looking for a way into the structure. They had names, suspicions and pieces of information. What they had lacked was something that connected those pieces.

The released material had given them that.

"How bad is it?" Silas asked.

"I can’t tell you."

"How much do they know?"

"I don’t know."

Silas’s eyes narrowed.

"You’re telling me they are already investigating me, but you don’t know what they have?"

"I am telling you that you should assume they have more than you want them to have."

The words stayed with Silas.

He looked down at the phone in his hand.

The man continued, "Don’t make calls you don’t need to make. Don’t move anything unless you know what you’re doing. And don’t assume the people around you are still safe."

Silas looked toward the office door.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I’ve known you long enough."

There was a pause.

"And because I don’t want to be the next person they come through."

The call ended shortly afterward.

Silas placed the phone down.

For several minutes, he did not move.

The IRS had not suddenly become interested in him because of the scandal.

They had already been looking.

The scandal had simply given them something they had been missing.

That explained everything.

The speed.

The pressure.

The sudden silence from people who had once answered him without hesitation.

Silas reached and dialed a number he had memorized years ago.

No answer.

He tried again.

Still nothing.

A third call went through, but the person refused to speak for more than a few seconds.

Silas put the phone down.

The situation was moving faster than he could control.

His thoughts returned to Michael.

That was the obvious answer.

Michael had the evidence.

Michael had every reason to want him exposed.

Michael had already made moves against the other three bosses, or at least Silas believed he had. There was still no proof strong enough for Silas to say with certainty that Michael was responsible for all three takedowns, but the pattern had been difficult to ignore.

If Michael had wanted Silas damaged, the opportunity had been there.

Yet something about it still bothered him.

Michael had always been careful when his own position was at risk.

Silas knew that better than most.

A man like Michael could be reckless when angry, but he was rarely careless when the consequences could reach him directly. Whatever he had done against the other three, he had done it while protecting himself not giving room to hurt himself in the process.

The evidence that had appeared online had done the opposite.

It had created serious problems for Michael.

The IRS questioning alone was enough to prove that.

Silas leaned back.

"If it was Michael..."

He stopped.

The sentence had nowhere to go.

If Michael had released the material, he had exposed himself to the same investigation that was now closing around Silas. He had taken something that could have been used against Silas and turned it into something that could also hurt himself.

That was possible.

But it was not logical.

Michael would have known that.

Silas rubbed his forehead and looked again at the papers on his desk.

There was another matter he had almost forgotten in the noise.

The missing file.

His people had found the person connected to it. They had cornered that person after tracing the communication and watching the movements around the handoff.

But the file had not been there.

At the time, Silas had assumed Michael had moved it.

That had seemed like the simplest explanation.

Michael had discovered that Silas was looking for the evidence and had taken steps to keep it away from him.

Now Silas wasn’t so sure.

He reached for the report his people had given him.

The details were brief.

The person had been located.

The expected material had not been recovered.

No useful explanation had followed.

Silas read the report again.

Something was wrong with the timing.

If Michael had moved the file, why had the evidence later appeared in a form that damaged both of them?

If Michael had given it to someone else, why had that person altered it?

And if the person they had found had never possessed the real file, who had taken it?

Silas closed the report.

The thought he had been avoiding returned.

Someone had reached the file before him.

Maybe before Michael knew what was happening.

That possibility changed the shape of the problem.

He picked up the phone and called one of his men.

The answer came quickly this time.

"Yes, sir."

"Forget the person you found."

There was a pause. "Sir?"

"You heard me."

"We still have people watching—"

"Stop watching that person."

The man went quiet.

Silas continued, "I want the file."

"Sir, we thought—"

"I don’t care what you thought."

His voice remained controlled, but the patience had gone.

"The person you found didn’t have it. Holding them is wasting time."

"Then what do you want us to do?"

Silas looked at the report in front of him.

"I want to know who collected it."

The man waited.

"Who took possession after the handoff? Who was supposed to receive it? Who knew where it was going? Find every person who touched the chain."

"We’ll start with the original contact."

"No."

Silas stopped him.

"Start before that."

The man said nothing.

"I want the movement of the file from the beginning. I want names, locations and every handoff. If someone collected it before the person we found, I want that person’s identity."

"Understood."

"And don’t call me every hour with nothing use all available resource theres in the network."

"Yes, sir."

Silas ended the call.

He remained at the desk, that felt discomforting to him but he had no choice he tured back now reading the report.

For years, he had survived by knowing where information moved before it reached other people. He knew who owed whom. He knew who was afraid. He knew which doors could be opened and which ones needed to remain closed.

Now there was a piece of information moving through his own structure that he could not see.

That bothered him more than the IRS.

The IRS was following a trail.

At least a trail had a direction.

This was different.

Someone had taken the evidence, changed its course, and stayed invisible while both Michael and Silas dealt with the consequences.

Silas picked up the phone again.

This time, he did not make a call.

He simply looked at the list of names on the desk.

Michael was still somewhere inside the problem.

The IRS was closing around him or more like he was already in custody and was in delusion that he could get out

And somewhere between the original instruction, the missing file and the evidence that had appeared online, another person had moved first.

Silas had no name yet.

But now he had a reason to find it.

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