Chapter 699: Consequences of Action

Back in his room, Silas sat at the table and tried to work out how much the investigators had already established. He could not see their complete case, and his lawyers had warned him against assuming that a missing document meant the authorities had failed to find it. He knew there were gaps in the records, but he also knew that gaps could be filled through other people’s testimony.

The thought that someone might decide to protect themselves by speaking about him was becoming harder to ignore.

A little later, the door opened and a man entered who was not part of the usual custody staff. Silas had not been told to expect a visitor, and the man did not introduce himself. He closed the door behind him and remained near it, looking at Silas as though he had come to deliver a message rather than begin a conversation.

Silas stood up. "Who are you? You are not supposed to be in here."

The man did not answer the question. Instead, he told Silas that his public statement had created problems for people who did not want their names dragged into the investigation. He said Silas had been in the industry for a long while and should understand when it was time to stop threatening the people who had kept him safe.

Silas stared at him, trying to determine whether he had heard correctly. The man had entered a restricted room without an introduction or an explanation, and now he was speaking as if he represented people who could still reach Silas inside custody even after what had happen. Whatever the visitor intended, the message was clear enough.

"Get out," Silas said. "You have no right to be here."

The man moved closer rather than leaving. He told Silas that he needed to withdraw the threat of cooperation and keep the names he knew to himself. Silas asked who had sent him, but the man refused to answer. When Silas moved toward the door, the visitor grabbed him and shoved him away from it.

The confrontation became physical before Silas could reach the handle. He struck back, trying to create enough space to get free, but the man caught him again and drove him against the table. A chair fell onto its side. Silas struggled to keep his footing, using the edge of the table to push himself upright as the visitor tried to hold him in place.

For several seconds, neither man had control of the situation. Silas was older than the visitor but had no intention of allowing himself to be beaten inside a facility where he was supposed to be protected. He managed to break the man’s grip and struck him hard enough to make him step back. When the visitor came at him again, Silas caught his arm and forced him away from the table.

The man lost his balance. Silas used the opening to move toward the door, shouting for an officer and striking the door with his hand. He called again, loudly enough that someone in the corridor should have heard him, but nobody came immediately.

The visitor had stopped advancing. He stood several feet away, watching Silas with a cold expression. Neither man spoke for a moment. Silas remained close to the door, keeping his attention on the visitor while continuing to call for help.

The wait stretched on. Silas could hear sounds from elsewhere in the facility, including movement in the corridor, but no one entered the room. He called out again, this time demanding that the officer on duty open the door. The visitor finally moved away from him, but he did not leave. Instead, he watched Silas as if he were waiting to see whether the delay would continue.

Nearly five minutes passed before an officer arrived.

The door opened, and the officer immediately ordered both men to keep their hands visible. He called for assistance and moved between them while another member of staff arrived. Silas began speaking at once, telling them that the man had entered without permission and attacked him. The visitor was ordered to step away from the door and follow instructions, but he said nothing that explained how he had gained access.

The officers separated them and began dealing with the immediate situation. Silas was checked for injuries, and the room was examined. The overturned chair was put aside while staff asked him to describe what had happened. He answered the questions, repeatedly returning to the same point: the visitor had not been authorized to enter, and the response to his calls for help had taken far too long.

The officer taking his account told him the incident would be recorded and reviewed. Silas asked why the man had been allowed into the room in the first place, but the officer did not provide an answer. He said the matter would have to be examined through the appropriate procedures.

That response did little to reassure Silas. He had spent years arranging security for himself and controlling who could approach him. Now he was in a facility where he had no authority over the people responsible for his safety. Someone had managed to reach him despite the restrictions, and the staff had taken several minutes to respond after he called for help.

He could not know whether the delay had been deliberate or he didn’t want to admit it. He could not even be sure that the visitor had come on behalf of the people he had threatened. But the possibility was enough to make him reconsider the position he had taken that afternoon.

The visitor was removed for further questioning, and Silas was moved to a separate area while the incident was documented. He asked to have his lawyers contacted through the proper channel. This time, he did not tell them to prepare a statement or make demands on his behalf. He wanted to speak with them as soon as the approved process allowed.

When the consultation took place, Silas told them that someone had gained access to him and tried to force him to withdraw his statement. He did not know who had arranged the encounter, and he did not pretend to have proof of a connection to his associates. His lawyers listened carefully, making it clear that the incident needed to be reported and investigated on its own facts.

After explaining what had happened, Silas returned to the question that mattered most to him. He no longer wanted to use his possible cooperation as a public threat. The statement had made people nervous, but it had also made him a target for pressure that he could not control. He needed to find a way to reduce the danger without giving investigators everything they wanted.

"I will remain silent about the people behind the wider network," he told his lawyers. "I will deal with the evidence they have against me, but I am not going to start naming everyone I know. If people want me to keep their names out of this, they need to make sure I can remain here without someone walking into my room to threaten me also my sentence should be reduced."

His lawyer reminded him that they could not guarantee his safety or bargain away his legal responsibilities. They could report the incident, request a review of the security failure, and make sure the relevant officials knew what had happened. They could also advise him on how any future cooperation might affect his case, but they could not promise that powerful associates would come to his aid.

After all he just threaten them not quite long hell it might even be possible their request might not even be review after it was a very sensitive matter.

Silas accepted those limits because he had no practical alternative. He instructed them to withdraw any suggestion that he was about to provide a complete account of the network. He would not volunteer names, and he would not help investigators connect every person involved. If they asked questions about his own conduct, he would consider his answers with his lawyers before responding.

The decision brought him some relief, although it did not make him feel safe. He had been forced to reconsider his position after an incident he could neither explain nor control. That angered him more than he wanted to admit. He had spent years deciding when people could approach him and what they were allowed to know. Now he had to wait for other people to decide whether he would be protected.

He remained determined to survive the case. If silence could buy him time, he would use it. If his associates needed reassurance that he would not expose them, he could give them that much for now. What he would do if they abandoned him entirely was a question he chose not to answer.

****

Across London, Dayo had no knowledge of the confrontation.

He and Felix were returning from the courthouse after Michael’s hearing, travelling back through the afternoon traffic. The proceedings had taken longer than Dayo expected, and the result had left him with mixed feelings. Michael had been sentenced to life imprisonment, but the verdict did not mean that every person connected to the wider operation had been held accountable.

Felix was reviewing the notes from the hearing on his phone. He had been quiet for much of the journey, allowing Dayo time to process what had happened. Eventually, he put the phone away and asked whether Dayo was satisfied with the outcome.

"I don’t know if satisfied is the right word," Dayo replied. "He is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. That is a serious sentence, and the court made its decision. I am not going to pretend I know what sentence would have been right. But Silas is still there, and Michael was only one part of it."

"That is true. Michael’s case does not settle Silas’s case, and we cannot assume the same evidence will produce the same outcome. The investigators still have to establish what Silas did and what they can prove."

Dayo looked through the window at the traffic moving beside them. He had spent months trying to bring the people responsible for the harm to his family into the open. Michael’s conviction was a result he could recognize, but it had not given him the certainty he had hoped to feel. Silas had used Michael for years, and Dayo wouldn’t feel satisfied if Silas wasn’t behind bar after all he wasn’t like Michael he is a tiger regardless of where he is in he could make a move that Dayo might not see.

"Do you think Silas will change his position now?" he asked.

Felix considered the question before answering. "He might, but I would not build any plan around it. Michael’s sentence could make him more cautious, or it could make him more determined to protect himself. We have no way of knowing which way he will go until he acts."

"Then we wait."

"We continue with what we can do legally and leave the investigators to their work. You have already provided the evidence you had. If there is more to provide, we can deal with it through the proper channels, but we should not start guessing at what is happening inside the facility."

Dayo agreed. He had no intention of forcing an outcome or trying to influence the proceedings through threats. He had chosen to let the evidence speak, and Michael’s sentence had shown that the court was prepared to act on the case before it. Silas would have to face the evidence against him in the same way, even if the process took longer than Dayo wanted.

Even though he had to push a few buttons to make that happen.

When they reached Dayo’s home, Felix stayed long enough to discuss the next steps. They reviewed the outstanding legal matters, confirmed that the evidence already submitted remained with the relevant authorities, and agreed not to interfere with the investigations. Neither of them had received any information about a new incident involving Silas, and they had no reason to believe that the situation inside the IRS facility had changed.

After Felix left, Dayo remained in the sitting room with his phone on the table. He thought about Jennifer and Luna, then about his parents and the visit to their home that still needed to be arranged. There were parts of his life he could begin putting back together, but he could not pretend the legal matter was finished simply because Michael had been sentenced.

Silas remained unresolved, and Dayo knew that the next development would have to come through the process already underway. He would not chase rumours or try to force a confession. For now, he had done what he could.

That did not mean he believed the danger was over.

But soon....