Shadow Empire

Chapter 470 Talk face to face

The several directors who were obviously problematic in front of the sheriff said nothing. He knew what these people were waiting for.

Waiting for their lawyers.

Liji Group has its own legal department, and soon a lawyer pushed the door open and revealed his identity.

"I am the director of the legal department of the group company. You can consult me ​​if you have any questions. My client will not answer any of your questions now."

Several lawyers who came in later began to ask to check the police officers' credentials and learned about the evidence collection process from people around them.

This is consistent with what lawyers do. They want to know whether the evidence collection process is reasonable and legal, and they also want to know what evidence the police have obtained.

The larger the group company, the more dirty things it will have. The job of the legal department is to protect the interests of the group company and reduce the leakage of scandals.

The sheriff knew that he couldn't get anything valuable out of him, so he took back his notebook and pen. "Has this Mr. Steven Johnson offended anyone recently?"

Just now he asked "Have you ever offended any ruthless person", but now, the target has become "Steven Johnson".

He was very confident that the relationship behind this murder case was not just Steven.

He died and then it was divided among these directors, which shows that everyone was involved.

Then the matter in which all these people participate together is no longer a private matter, but only a public matter.

The reputation of the Liji Group has always been bad. If we ignore its profitability, then it is a company with corrupt morals.

The sheriff himself had heard many rumors about it, such as... poisoning other people's fish ponds, setting fire to the farmland of farmers who were unwilling to sell their agricultural products to them before the autumn harvest, or releasing poisonous snakes in other people's pastures.

Whether it is the capital at the bottom or the capital at the highest point in this world, the means they use to make profits have always been the same: plundering by trickery.

If you are willing to give, you can give. If you are not willing to give, I will force you to give. This is capital.

Warmth and responsibility are just ways and means for them to disguise themselves and deceive the people.

So the sheriff has most likely confirmed that this is a public matter, not a private matter.

The lawyer and the CEO stood in a corner. After a brief conversation, the lawyer said, "As a listed company, we will definitely have many competitors. It is your responsibility to determine who created all this, not ours!"

"The Liji Group pays huge amounts of taxes every year, and these taxes support a large number of civil servants, including you, the federal police."

"So now it's up to you and your people to tell us what happened."

"Instead of you asking us what happened."

"This is your job, not ours!"

"In addition, the company does not want to hear rumors spreading in society before the case is clarified. If your leaks or omissions lead to the disclosure of the case, we will reserve the right to prosecute you!"

Being a federal police officer is a damn hard thing to do.

You have to be careful when treating prisoners because you don’t know whether there is a powerful gang criminal group behind the prisoner.

We must also be careful when treating victims, because victims may not necessarily play the role of "weak"!
The sheriff took a deep breath and stretched his whole body. He looked at the lawyer for a while, smiled and stood up. "Okay, if you remember anything, remember to contact me in time. Here is my phone number."

"I can guarantee that we will not disclose this case to the outside world. We all hope to solve the case as soon as possible, so no matter what you think of, remember to contact me. This is very important for the investigation!"

He pulled out a business card and placed it on the table, his fingers pressed on it, leaning slightly, and finally saying, "Anything!" with emphasis.

Having said that, he turned and walked outside. He took away all the "evidence" that had been checked. After all the police officers left, the office door was closed again.

"Is that Steven?" The lawyer lit a cigarette. He felt a little pressured by this case, especially since he had seen Steven yesterday when he got off work.

Now, he has become like this.

The president nodded, "It's him, if nothing unexpected happens."

The lawyer curled his lips. He knew that Steven had been helping the company with some dirty work, and sometimes it did need some people to handle such things.

Many times, the legal cases he handled were cases that he absolutely could not win, such as various unilateral tearing up of agreements and contracts, and direct breach of contract. These cases could not be resolved through legal means at all.

Only by relying on people like Steven can the problem be solved well.

You may not win legally, but if you can win physically, it’s still a victory!

"Who did it?"

The directors all shook their heads. They didn't know who did it, but at the same time, it could be anyone.

Steven has done too many bad things, or rather, the Liji Group has done too many bad things. Who knows if there is a farmer who has been forced into bankruptcy by them and suddenly wakes up.

Then they decided to take revenge on them with weapons, and killed Steven, who was mainly responsible for some dirty work, and mailed it to them.

The lawyer could see that these people might have some guesses in their minds, but they were unwilling to say them.

Since they are unwilling to talk, there is no need for the lawyer to get involved in handling the matter.

The more cases I deal with, the safer it is sometimes to “not know” than to “know”.

"I have other work to do. If you remember anything, have it written down."

"Don't accept the police's questioning when I or other lawyers are not here, and don't make any promises. You should act like you know nothing now."

After he finished speaking, he stood up and left, and only a few directors were left in the room.

"Could it be the Lance family who did it?"

The vice president was a little confused because the most ruthless character they had encountered recently might be Lance and his Lance was right there.

They didn't talk to the sheriff about this because they didn't want some information to be exposed for the time being.

Once they say who it might be, the police will definitely investigate these possible suspects.

For example, investigate whether they have a motive for committing the crime and what their motive is.

The media will follow up quickly during this process, and it won't be long before people know that the Liji Group is trying every means to interfere with judicial justice in order to avoid paying the penalty.

There is actually nothing wrong with doing this "under the surface", and almost all group companies are doing this.

They use money, violence and other means to constantly interfere with judicial justice.

But you can't bring it up and put it on the table and say that I am doing this and I am being retaliated against because of this.

Loss of face is a small matter; encountering setbacks in the financial market is a big matter.

The loss of face is nothing more than some people thinking they are shameless.

But if the stock price falls, then each of them will be worth less.

What they lose is not only their wealth and worth, but they may also lose their lives.

Some shareholders are not on the board of directors, but that doesn't mean they are any less special.

You lost the money of those stockholders on Detland Street, and at most they pointed at you and called you an idiot.

But if you lose these big guys' money, they'll just leave you at the bottom of the ocean!

So the best thing now is not to expose the troubles that may cause the stock price to fall, and then solve it, and finally give everyone a result, rather than a beginning or a process.

The CEO nodded and said, "It's not impossible. From what I've learned about his deeds over the past few days, it's not impossible."

"But we have several other suspects, such as..."

He talked about some actions before the Holy Farmer's Day, in which they caused some small farms that were unwilling to cooperate with their strategies to have no harvest and lose a lot of money.

Those farmers in the countryside don't have much education, so it's possible that they did it.

"The most important thing now is to find out who killed Steven, and then we can consider how to solve this matter."

He looked at the chairman of the board, who nodded slightly, agreeing with his opinion, and then he began to assign tasks. The vice president's job was to find out whether this was done by the Lance family, and if so, to talk to Lance.

If not, then keep watching the lawsuit.

He and other directors will deal with other possibilities.

Except for a few directors and guards within the company, not many people actually knew about this matter, and the CEO has already made everyone speak with one voice.

If anyone asked, just say that some dead cats and dogs were mailed over to intimidate the directors and that the police have been called.

This has happened before. Farmers who are dissatisfied with the Liji Group have done this, and some have even mailed cow dung to them.

Steven's work was also temporarily handed over to someone else, on the grounds that the company had asked Steven to go on a long trip and he might not be able to come back for some time.

Except for those who knew the truth, no one inside or outside the company knew that a director had died and returned to the company in a special way to meet with others.

After returning to the office, the vice president asked his secretary to bring him a pot of coffee and a pot of wine. He needed these to calm himself and cheer himself up at the same time.

Then alcohol and coffee are a good combination.

Caffeine and alcohol can help him feel energetic for a while, but at the cost of feeling more tired after the high.

He got the phone number of Wanli Office from the branch office, but Lance was not there. A young man named Alvin answered the phone and said he would convey the call to Lance.

Ten minutes later, Lance hung up the phone.

"Their vice president came to me and wanted to talk to me."

The others looked at him.

The remaining carcasses had been disposed of, and they found a small factory that produced pet sausages and dumped the remaining carcasses together with the raw materials in the middle of the night. Now they have become pet sausages for sale in stores.

In a few days, unless the police officers can find evidence of key human tissue fragments from the feces of countless dogs, the case will be impossible to solve.

This was an era without DNA testing. Even if they suspected that it was Steven, they could not confirm that it was Steven until they obtained more direct evidence.

Historical fracture marks, tooth marks, surgical records, etc., but these are about to be completely destroyed!
If we talk about the point that there must be sufficient evidence to accuse them, as long as they themselves do not admit that they have committed the crime, then the prosecutors in this city or even the entire Golden State cannot do this!

No one else had any other opinions, and Lance also planned to talk to him, but not on the phone.

He dug out some information that Steven had given before his death, and found out where the vice president lived.

Nothing says sincerity like a personal visit, right?
The vice president has not yet realized that it was Lance who did it, although he has some guesses.

He suspected that Lance might have arranged for someone else to do it, but he was not 100% sure of that. There would always be some unexpected things.

Steven's death made him feel truly terrified. No one had expected that a colleague would say goodbye to them in this way!
It was Steven who died today, so who’s next?

Could it be me?

In a sense, Steven was much harder to kill than him, but now that Steven was dead, how long could he hold on, could he stop the attacks of these lunatics?

he does not know!

He has hired four senior security guards from Golden Shield Company to protect him closely. These people will arrive soon, but he still doesn't feel very safe!
He had been expecting Lance to call him, but Lance never called him, which made him very uneasy.

He hopes that Lance can tell him directly that he did all this, but he also hopes that Lance can tell him that he actually knows nothing.

This is a very contradictory mentality. When you offend someone, you will definitely hope that this person is a coward rather than a hero.

When he got off work in the evening, the private security team of Golden Shield Company had already arrived at his office. These people who were obviously bodyguards caused people in the company to talk about it.

Because they knew that it wasn't just the vice president who suddenly had bodyguards, but the president, the chairman of the board, and some other directors also had bodyguards.

So some reliable and unreliable rumors spread in the company, but he was no longer concerned with this.

The bodyguard drove over in a bulletproof car. The rental fee for the bulletproof car was fifty dollars a day, and the total cost for the four of them was one hundred and twenty dollars, an average of thirty dollars per person.

This is not a small expense. If you are not really rich, you may not be able to afford these people.

Sitting in the bulletproof car, surrounded by elites, the vice president calmed down a little.

The car was moving steadily on the road, but what he was thinking about at this moment was how to ensure his own safety and interests, not the company's.

Companies won't fall because of such small setbacks, but people will.

He already had some realizations. Steven's death was meant to shock them.

This group of people used Steven's death to tell them that they were actually no different from ordinary people, and as long as they were killed, they would die!
The car quickly arrived at the villa area. After the car stopped, he got out. Four bodyguards would continue to protect him until the contract expired.

The vice president got out of the car and walked towards the house with a heavy heart. When he was about to open the door, the door suddenly opened.

He looked at the smiling young man standing at the door and was a little confused.

He lives with his family, wife and children.

My child is in college and not here, so usually my wife is the only one at home.

Like ordinary couples, they have almost no communication after middle age. Except for coming back to sleep in different rooms at night, they don't communicate most of the time.

He knew that his wife had found a lover outside, but as long as it didn't come to his attention and he could maintain his dignity, he didn't really care.

Just like he would have affairs and have his own mistresses, this is a problem that all upper-class families have to deal with.

Not everyone can maintain harmonious family relationships.

They gain money, status, prestige, everything, but they also lose something.

However, these losses are insignificant compared to what we gain.

The expression on his face was a little angry at this time, because this young man was his wife's lover and actually came to his house.

He walked in with a bad look on his face and headed towards the living room.

But as he went deeper, he met more young people.

These young men can’t all be his wife’s lovers. His wife can’t handle so many of them!

Just when he was wondering if these were his son's classmates, he suddenly noticed that most of these people were wearing the same clothes.

A feeling of uneasiness surged within him.

He looked back and saw that the four bodyguards following him had silently raised their hands and were looking at him with innocent faces.

He turned around again, looked at the person sitting in the middle of the sofa, reading a newspaper, and swallowed.

The young man who opened the door for him motioned for him to go over, so he had no choice but to walk into the living room.

"I haven't seen you." He said truthfully, "If I or my family have ever offended you, I apologize for it!"

Lance put down the newspaper and looked at him with a half-smile, "Mr. Vice President, my people told me that you wanted to talk to me?"

"Talking over the phone can't solve our problem, so I came here. Face to face may be more helpful to solve the problem, what do you think?"

Lance asked him to sit on another sofa. "You must have a lot to say to me. Now you have the opportunity and honor!"

If the vice president still doesn't know who the person in front of him is after hearing this, then he is completely unqualified to be the vice president of the group company.

What he was most worried about happened.

His body began to tremble slightly, his breathing became rapid, and sweat began to secrete rapidly on his forehead. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face carelessly, "Mr. White..."

There is one chapter to come later, I was late for the game today. .

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(End of this chapter)