Chapter 152 Demanding Justice

Mu Xin hung up the phone, looked at Jessica, and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"You see, there's an old Chinese saying: speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao arrives."

Jessica didn't laugh; her face remained pale. "What do you plan to tell him?"

"There's no need to say anything," Mu Xin said as he walked to the door and pulled it open. "You two just sit here and listen."

...

When Ramaswamy walked into the third-floor hallway of the Morris Building, the air pressure in the entire corridor seemed to change.

He had no entourage following him; he came as a man who had been set up.

Mu Xin stood at the doorway and smiled at him. "Mr. Ramaswamy, it's been a long time."

Ramaswamy stared at Mu Xin for three seconds, then walked straight into the room.

He glanced at Jessica and Victoria sitting on the sofa; Jessica nodded at him with an unnaturally polite expression.

He glanced again at John, who was standing by the window. John's expression was completely devoid of emotion.

"Mr. Mu." Ramaswamy didn't sit down. He stood in front of Mu Xin's desk, pressed his hands onto the surface, and leaned forward slightly.

"Can you explain to me why two agents from the Cincinnati FBI field office showed up at the door of my warehouse in Liberty Township this morning?"

Mu Xin adjusted his chair to a comfortable angle, then picked up his water glass and took a sip.

"That just shows the FBI's efficiency is pretty good. You're more familiar with that than I am, aren't you?"

"Mr. Mu." Ramaswamy's voice dropped even lower. "My M915, my warehouse, my..."

"Every investigative lead points to me, and before this morning, I didn't even know that truck wasn't in the warehouse."

"Of course you didn't know," Mu Xin said with a smile.

"...What did you say?!"

"I said, of course you didn't know," Mu Xin repeated, putting down his water glass. "If you had known beforehand, you would have become an accomplice."

"If you tell even a single lie during the FBI's interrogation, they'll dig it up sooner or later."

Ramaswamy was stunned. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

"My people drove off with that M915 at two in the morning," Mu Xin said. "You were at home sleeping then."

"So now, when you face the FBI, you can tell them one hundred percent the truth."

"Your truck was stolen, you had no knowledge of it, you didn't authorize it, you had no involvement whatsoever... all of these statements are facts."

Ramaswamy looked at Mu Xin, his expression shifting from anger to confusion. "You helped me... arrange how I should answer the FBI?!"

"Not helping you arrange it," Mu Xin said, leaning back in his chair with his hands crossed over his stomach. He was smiling happily.

"It's about helping you minimize the risk. We are partners."

"My dear Mr. Ramaswamy, your political career suffering damage does me no good at all."

He emphasized the four words "partners" slightly.

Ramaswamy pulled out a chair and sat down.

Not because the problem was solved, but because he needed to sit down and re-order everything that had happened this morning in his mind.

In his perception, this morning went like this: his truck was stolen somehow, then the truck ran over Derek Warren's entire family, and then the FBI came knocking on his door early in the morning.

He thought Mu Xin was the one who needed to be questioned because that truck had transported power modules, and because he knew Derek and had conflicts with him. He thought Mu Xin was the perpetrator.

But what Mu Xin said told him that the other party had deliberately done it in his name, and had already prepared all the retreats and excuses.

"Mr. Mu!" Ramaswamy's voice changed. "You used my truck to kill a family, four steel coils crushed a villa so badly you couldn't even find the load-bearing walls, and then you tell me this is for my own good?!"

"No." Mu Xin's smile didn't disappear, but his eyes lost all traces of mirth.

"I didn't use your truck for your own good. I used your truck because—"

"Mr. Ramaswamy, do you remember what you said to me when we first met?"

Ramaswamy didn't answer.

"At the time, you said I needed you, and I thought you were right."

"From that day until now, in every transaction between us, the initiative has been in your hands."

"Your attitude from the very beginning was that you were the one with resources, and I was the one with needs, so I had to listen to you."

"So when you made deals with me, you felt you had a way out, while I did not."

"You thought that when I was backed into a corner by Derek, I had to rely on your equipment to survive."

"You thought you could watch from afar as I was besieged, selling me equipment while gloating."

Ramaswamy's lips moved, but he didn't speak.

"But now there is a subtle change between us: your truck just killed Derek's entire family."

"The FBI came to find you, the police came to find you, and your political opponents in the gubernatorial election will make an issue out of this."

"Regardless of whether you are indicted, regardless of whether you are innocent, as long as this matter appears in the news once, that's enough."

"You need to suppress this matter," Mu Xin's voice was full of pleasure. "And I am the only person who can make it go away."

"I have the complete chain of evidence for Derek ordering the attack: eight signed confessions, bank transfer records from middlemen, surveillance recordings, and the case file numbers for three unsolved police investigation reports."

"Taken together, these things can turn Derek's death this morning from a mysterious accident into an ordinary case of a hired hit gone wrong because he didn't pay."

"So," Mu Xin looked into Ramaswamy's eyes, "our transactional relationship becomes a bit more equitable starting today."

Ramaswamy sat in the chair in silence for a long time, then he looked up at Mu Xin and gave a bitter laugh.

"Mr. Mu," he began, the mockery finally returning to his voice.

But it was different from before; the previous mockery had been condescending, while now it carried a kind of awe he couldn't even define himself.

"Do you know what the first thing I did was after the FBI agents left my place this morning?"

"Check the M915's GPS location," Mu Xin could have guessed it without even thinking.

"You even knew what I was going to check?!"

"Because if it were me, I would have checked too," Mu Xin shrugged. "The GPS module was removed, the logs stopped last night, and the last location was within fifty feet of the warehouse's back door."

"I'm not wrong, am I?"

"Right," Ramaswamy answered crisply.

"So the GPS shows that the vehicle hasn't moved since nine last night; the FBI will think the GPS malfunctioned. That's your second truth."

Ramaswamy leaned back against the chair, staring at the ceiling in silence for a long time, and then he let out a long sigh.