“You can’t do this!” Paul Ryan shouted again, as a bright light shone in his face. “Where are we? What do you want from me?”
This wasn’t the first time Paul had had government men leaning on him about his brother’s work, but like the previous encounters, he would endure anything as long as it meant they stayed away from Jenny.
He heard someone strike a match and then pull on a cigarette in the darkness behind him. A spent match tumbled past his shoulder and onto the table before him. “Relax, Mr. Ryan. We just want you to answer a few questions.” A pack of cigarettes breached the cone of light. “Do you want a smoke?”
“I want a lawyer!”
“Do you need a lawyer, Mr. Ryan?” another man asked calmly from the shadows in front of him.
Paul recognized the voice immediately. It belonged to FBI Agent Jake Russo, who commanded the muscle of the government men previously sent to make him talk. He seemed more rogue agent than upstanding citizen, with his gruff demeanor and strongarm tactics, but Paul was ready for him.
“You!” He tried to rise from his seat but was instantly restrained by men to his left and right.
“Take it easy, buddy,” the smoking man said, cigarette dangling from his mouth.
“Get off me!” Paul shouted as he struggled.
Jake Russo leaned into the beam of light as he settled into the seat across the table. He was a large man, with an attitude to match. His presence alone was enough to intimidate most, but not Paul. He would die before giving in to Russo and his thugs.
Russo nodded to the two men restraining him and they let him go.
Paul straightened his shirt and glared at the men before turning back to Russo.
“I told you before … I don’t have the information you’re looking for.”
“Blackmail, murder, killers for hire … it’s a dirty business, isn’t it, Mr. Ryan?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come now,” Russo said with a smile. “We now know you hired Vincent LaPaglia to kill your brother.”
Paul laughed and sat back in his chair. “That’s absurd.”
The man to his left shoved him back to the table and into the light.
“We know you hired him. We have the records.” Russo held out his hand, and the smoking man retrieved a file from a briefcase. “We just don’t know why.”
“There are no records.”
Russo pinned him with a sneer that disagreed.
“You’ve got nothing. You can’t hold me.”
Russo ignored him. “Records are a funny thing, Mr. Ryan.” He flipped through the file now spread before him. “You can tell a lot about a man from the records he keeps.” He looked up. “Or doesn’t keep.”
Paul narrowed his eyes, wondering where this was headed.
“These records are from the IRS.”
Paul froze for a moment before shifting his worried gaze to the pages on the table.
“It seems you came into a large sum of money once upon a time. You bought the Daily Chronicle with it.”
“My father gave me that money.”
“Your father did no such thing. In fact, you were estranged from your father for most of your life, and he left you nothing when he died.” He closed the file and clasped his hands across it. “Business hasn’t been very good these past few years, has it? Profits steadily declining, some gambling debt … you’re in quite a bind financially, aren’t you?”
Paul was silent.
“We know you owe Marcus Forrester money. You made a gentleman’s agreement with deadly consequences should you default.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“We don’t need to prove anything, Mr. Ryan. We merely want you to know that we understand the difficult position this puts you in, and we understand why you would be forced to do things you may find unconscionable.”
Paul slammed his fist on the table. “I didn’t kill my brother!”
“And I suppose you didn’t try to have your niece killed for her inheritance.”
“What?”
“So you could pay off Mr. Forrester and get out from under his thumb.”
“You’re insane. I love my niece more than my own life. I’d do anything—”
“Even kill to protect her?”
“I didn’t kill my brother!”
“Are you saying she needed protection from her father?”
“No!”
“Did you kill Vincent LaPaglia?”
Paul looked around in disbelief. “This is getting ridiculous. Is there anyone you think I didn’t kill?”
“Tell us about Calvin Richards.”
“I didn’t kill him either,” Paul said sarcastically.
Russo ominously drummed his fingers on the IRS file. “You would do well to cooperate at this point, Mr. Ryan. Tell us about Calvin Richards.”
Paul wiped the sweat from his brow while he considered his answer.
“The kid came back to the Chronicle and started hanging around. I asked him to keep an eye on Jenny. That’s it. I don’t know anything about anything else.”
“Keep an eye on her because Forrester was threatening to harm her?”
“Because she’s an inquisitive girl with a knack for trouble. I just didn’t want her near him.”
“Because you owe him money?”
“Because he’s dangerous.”
“Did he kill your brother?”
“For the last time, no! My brother’s death was an accident!”
“So, LaPaglia was only meant to scare him?”
“An accident!” Paul insisted with another fist to the table. “A horrible, tragic twist of fate!”
“It seems like an awfully cozy coincidence that you would owe Mr. Forrester a large sum of money that you can’t repay and a known henchman in his employ runs off the road and accidentally kills your brother.”
“I don’t really care what you think. You can’t prove anything, and you can’t hold me here. This is harassment.”
Russo shook his head. “Mr. Ryan …” He softened his approach. “Paul. We could make these murder charges disappear. This IRS file too. All you need to do is cooperate.”
Paul leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Are we through?”
Russo raised his brow at his defiance and passed the folder to his cohort. He rose from the table and disappeared into the darkness of the room. “You’re making a mistake.”
“I’ve heard all this bef—”
Before he could finish, Paul found his face smashed into the table by a forearm pressed to the back of his neck. His arms were trapped under his chest, and he was helpless to escape.
Russo stooped to eye level and rested his arm on the table. “It doesn’t have to be this way. Would you like to reconsider?”
“Go to hell,” Paul ground out through a distorted mouth. “I haven’t done anything.”
Russo nodded, accepting his choice, and stood. “Your niece is a very lovely girl. I’d hate to see something happen to her.”
“You keep her out of this!” Paul shouted, as he moved the large man from his neck with newfound strength. Two men on each arm struggled to hold him back as he lunged for Russo. “Touch her and I’ll kill you!”
“Like you killed Vincent LaPaglia for killing your brother?”
“I wasn’t anywhere near that bar!”
“No, but Calvin Richards was. You hired him to avenge your brother’s death, isn’t that so?”
“I hired him to protect Jenny.”
“You hired a detective for that, Paul—John Smith—that’s no secret. I think, however, that your niece would be very interested in your part in her father’s death.”
“You stay away from her!”
“That’s up to you.”
“Stay away from her!”
Russo was unmoved by the demand, and soon Paul’s anger turned into pleading.
“Please. She’s been through enough. This has nothing to do with her. Please.”
“I have no desire to harm your family or your relationship with them, Mr. Ryan.” He paused. “You seem to do enough damage on your own. But I’m afraid you leave me no choice.” He picked up his briefcase and began to leave.
“Wait!” Paul struggled against the men still restraining him. “What do you want to know?”
Russo returned to the table and nodded to his men. They let him go.
They both sat down, and Russo offered him a cigarette, which he took with a shaky hand.
“I don’t care about your finances,” Russo began conversationally, as he held his lighter aloft. “I don’t care who killed whom or why. I have one singular interest. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make sure the rest goes away.”
“Okay,” Paul drew out skeptically.
“What are you giving Marcus Forrester in place of the money you can’t pay him?”
Paul clenched his jaw and looked away. “I’ve told you everything I know.”
Russo slid his briefcase off the table. “Wrong answer.”
Paul grabbed his wrist. “It’s as useless to him as it is to you.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Paul considered his options.
“You promise my family will be safe?”
“You have my word.”
Paul doubted Russo’s sincerity, but he had no choice. “Information.”
“What kind of information?”
“It’s random numbers and letters. I don’t know. It’s encoded, and I don’t have the key.”
Russo eyed him warily.
“I don’t. Neither does Forrester. Only Danny knew. That’s why the information is worthless.”
“Where is this information?”
“If I tell you where it is, you no longer need me, and I’m sorry, but I won’t take your word for my safety once I’m of no use to you. Besides, I can’t stop giving it to Forrester, for obvious reasons.” He stopped and changed his tact when Russo leaned in menacingly. “But I’ll give it to you first, and then I need it back … quickly. Deal?”
Russo smiled and held out his hand. “Deal.”
Paul refused to shake hands. Russo laughed and then stood to leave. “You’re going to do this again in a few hours.” He buttoned the top button of his shirt and tightened his tie.
Paul looked up in confusion.
“There will be more men, more questions, and more threats. My threats are the only ones you need fear. I promise you that.”
“Say, what is this? I told you what you wanted to know.”
“Yes, and now your family will be safe. Rejoice, Mr. Ryan, you’re a free man. Admit to nothing in your next interrogation, and cooperate only with me, and you’ll stay that way. This conversation never happened.” He turned to the thugs. “Make sure he gets to his car.”
Agent Jake Russo watched his men lead Paul Ryan from the room. He took a seat and leaned back, propping his feet on the table.
“Well, it looks like we broke him,” he called out.
Colonel Holmes stepped out from behind a windowed door in the darkened adjacent room and lit a cigarette. “That’s one thing you can say about the Ryans … if you can’t buy them, you can break them.”
Russo chuckled in agreement. “Now what?”
Holmes took a smug drag on his cigarette and tossed an envelope of money on the table. “Start on the girl.”