Empire of Shadows

Wolf chewed on his chewing tobacco. The number of people who chewed tobacco was gradually decreasing, while the sales of cigarettes were constantly setting new highs.

Both provided nicotine from tobacco, but compared to some of the less pleasant experiences of chewing tobacco, such as getting tobacco scraps in your mouth if you didn’t know how to chew, or accidentally swallowing it.

The method of absorbing nicotine by inhaling the smoke of cigarettes was clearly more popular.

Clean, hygienic, neat, and providing the same experience, they had every reason to choose cigarettes over chewing tobacco.

However, there was still a portion of people who still liked chewing tobacco. This had already become a habit in their lives, and some even regarded it as a tradition.

But this tradition had not actually been passed down for many years. However, for the Federation, a history of several decades was enough to be called “history.”

Wolf also smoked, but most of the time, he still preferred chewing tobacco.

He liked the taste of the juice squeezed out from the tobacco fibers when he bit down on them with his molars, a mixture of saliva and tobacco components, which gave him great satisfaction.

His tobacco was handmade by an old native, and the price was not expensive, $3 a pound.

Many people, after tasting it, even felt that it didn’t taste as good as the chewing tobacco that cost $1 a pound, but Wolf liked this “raw” kick, and its native heritage.One chew was like chewing on a bomb; his whole person was comfortably blown up.

He looked at John slowly, not even taking his feet off the table, with an air of not putting John in his eyes.

“I gave you money, John,” he said after thinking for a moment.

John stared at him, “But I f—king told you, don’t cause trouble at the docks these few days.”

Wolf rubbed his upper and lower gums with a finger, then took a sip of water, rinsed his mouth, and casually spat on the ground, “But I already gave you the money, John.”

He seemed to only have this one sentence to say, and could say, which made John feel a bit stuffy.

“The docks are holding some kind of event these few days, and a lot of people have come. Today, your men not only chased people to the docks but also opened fire on the docks!”

“Do you know how much trouble this will cause?”

Wolf rolled his eyes, “You took my money, John. You have to help me solve the trouble.”

John’s voice also got louder, “I f—king took a lot of people’s money. Does that mean I have to solve everyone’s trouble when they get into it?”

Wolf seemed to agree with his statement, “Otherwise, why would we give you money?”

“Instead of you giving us money?”

The two stared at each other, neither giving way. John also seemed to have a headache because he knew that behind Wolf were the people of the mayor’s faction.

And the mayor had the power to make him get lost. One had already been gotten rid of before. He had spent so much money to climb to this position, he wouldn’t easily get himself down.

This was also the reason why he was willing to take the money given by these people, because they also had people behind them.

He didn’t dare to bet on whether the mayor would make things difficult for a small character like him, because he couldn’t afford the consequences of failure.

Finally, his gaze moved from Wolf’s face to the faces of the other people in the room, “I’ll take a step back. Hand over the people who went today, and this matter ends here.”

Wolf couldn’t help but laugh, “You run to my office, and then ask me to hand over my brothers to you. Is this how you gangs in Golden Port do things?”

The surrounding people all burst into laughter, as if this was a very comical thing. At the same time, they vaguely leaned towards the middle, surrounding John in the very center.

This was a threat, a deterrent.

Wolf picked up something from the table and casually threw it back, “The wolf king will not betray the brothers of his pack, and neither will I!”

He looked at John as if looking at a clown, “You’re quite annoying, John. How do they tolerate you?”

Feeling Wolf’s disrespect for him, John’s eyes became a bit grim, and a bit dazed.

He stared straight at Wolf, as if he wanted to eat someone!

He knew that at this moment he couldn’t show a look of cowardice, otherwise it would be very bad. He leaned his body forward a little, his hands pressed on the desktop, “I just want to solve this problem. You have failed my good intentions, Wolf.”

“The Lance Family is not the Red Dog Gang. They have more people, more guns, and are more ferocious!”

“Don’t think I’m messing with you. I’m helping you!”

Wolf’s expression didn’t change much when he heard the name of the Lance Family. He had a faint look of arrogance on his face, “We are not the same as Snake and the Viper Gang.”

“They are afraid of Lance, we are not!”

John was very angry. He looked around. No one respected him. He slowly stood up, his face pulled long. He placed one hand on his utility belt while bending over and tapping on Wolf’s desk with his hand, like a warning and a reminder, “I hope you don’t regret what you did today.”

As he spoke, he was about to turn and leave. Since he couldn’t handle Wolf, there was no point in staying here.

Wolf sneered, looking at John’s back with some contempt, “Starting next month, we’re not paying our money.”

John was already almost at the door. Hearing this sentence, he stopped again. He turned and walked back to the desk, his hands pressed on the table, his leaning forward posture full of aggression, “Paying money is the rule, Wolf.”

“You can choose not to pay, but I guarantee that every time you have a firefight, we will be at the scene, and we will also arrest your men!”

“This is not Fides, this is Golden Port, not a place for you to mess around.”

Wolf was not threatened, “You can give it a try, let’s see who has bad luck first!”

John straightened up. He didn’t want to stay here anymore, “I’m a cop, you’re a thief.”

“Remember that!”

After speaking, he turned and left. His anger had been completely ignited. One by one, they didn’t respect him at all!

He was a police officer, a precinct chief. He had law enforcement power in this area, yet he felt as if anyone could come and step on him!

And he had just been promoted to precinct chief. If the Wolf Gang stopped paying, and that led other gangs to stop paying, his status in the police system would plummet.

It wasn’t that the old chief didn’t collect money, it was that he didn’t collect money from the Wolf Gang. He believed the Wolf Gang couldn’t last long, and at the same time, he was unwilling to see the Wolf Gang as “one of their own.”

He had collected it, and then he couldn’t collect it anymore. He would become a joke.

He slammed the door shut with a “bang.” The entire wall seemed to vibrate.

The people in the room all showed looks of disgust. Someone even asked Wolf if they should stop John. Wolf shook his head, “Keep him here for dinner?”

“Idiot!”

“Let him get lost. I want to vomit my breakfast just seeing his face. Damn, what a piece of work!”

John returned to the car, slammed the car door shut, and cursed under his breath.

He had never been so angry, but now, he was really angry!

His partner looked at him and asked, “What now?”

Lance and his Lance Family were not easy to mess with. To be able to unify the Empire District, defeat the Viper Gang from Fides, and ambush Snake outside the city, their decisiveness and ferocity were already eye-catching.

Even law enforcers, if not necessary, were actually not very willing to provoke Lance and the Lance Family.

They did not have a history of attacking law enforcers, but you never know, you might become their first target!

John’s breathing was heavy, “What do I care about him?!”

“This is the Port District, not the Empire District. I’m not that weakling Bruce. If he wants to try me, let him come and try!”

“I will let him know who is in charge here!”

Although he said so, in the end, he still took the initiative to call Lance and tell him that it was the Fides Wolf Gang who had made the move.

He had tried to bring back the people who had caused trouble at the docks, but he had failed. On the phone, he bluntly told Lance that the Wolf Gang didn’t give him face.

As for the $3,000, he didn’t mention a single word.

The money that had already been put in his pocket, you still want him to spit it out?

It’s not that there’s no possibility, it’s just that the possibility is not high!

Lance said nothing on the phone. After he finished speaking, he waited for a while and then hung up directly, which made him very dissatisfied.

This was not at all the same as his ideal “life as a chief”!

But then the phone rang again suddenly. He picked it up casually.

Before he could say anything to ask the other party’s identity, the person on the other end spoke first.

“John, want to be the chief of the city police department?”

…

The chaos created at the docks quickly spread out at an astonishing speed. Everyone knew about this matter. President Scott had come to hate those gangs to the core.

But fortunately… everyone knew that this matter indeed had nothing to do with him. This was just an accident and had nothing to do with his ability.

In this era, the problem of gangs was not just a problem for Golden Port.

Even in the capital and the special district, it was the same as here, with gangs running rampant!

Even in Congress, many senators had dealings with gangs.

Sometimes when holding some large-scale events, even during general elections, gangs would be involved, maintaining order, or protecting the president’s safety.

These situations had already penetrated into all aspects of society. It was definitely not something that could be completely described as “organized crime.” It was a part of the composition of the Federation’s society, and an important part at that!

Gangs had even become an important cultural symbol of the Federation, accepted and known by people.

The Federation of Labor and the national union both expressed their understanding and were also willing to continue to participate in the conference on the second and third days, which made President Scott breathe a slight sigh of relief.

At the same time, he was also praying that there would be no more problems!

Lance had just hung up John’s phone and lit a cigarette.

The reason he was angry today was John’s indifferent appearance. He had messed things up, but he looked as if he didn’t care, and even had a smile that was annoying!

This was the reason why Lance was angry.

If he had apologized sincerely, instead of that perfunctory attitude of “I’ll give you some face, it’s my problem, let’s leave it at that,” Lance would not have lost his temper.

He looked at the other partners in the room, “For us, the Port District is a very important place. The port, some of our industries, core industries, are all very dependent on the Port District.”

“Previously, the Port District was under Bill’s control. His relationship with us was okay, and he didn’t dare to touch our interests casually.”

“But now he can’t control the Port District anymore. The growing Wolf Gang and the Viper Gang have the same problem. They are not on the same path as us.”

“So…” he took a deep drag on his cigarette. The spark on the cigarette butt suddenly brightened, and it visibly burned backwards.

As his inhalation ended, the cigarette was removed from his mouth. He tilted his head back slightly, and a thick puff of smoke sprayed out from his mouth and nose, being exhaled upwards.

He said the words that everyone was looking forward to, “…We are going to take the Port District.”

Hiram immediately stood up excitedly, “We should have done this a long time ago, Lance!”

“We should give those bastards some shock from the Empire!”

A positive and active team always needs someone to stand on the opposite side of the decision-maker and pour cold water.

Preventing overheating is very important. Sometimes, fanatical emotions can make people overlook some problems. Elvin played this role.

He also looked very rational, “We haven’t completely digested the Empire District yet. If we want to expand outwards now, we might be a little short on manpower, and it might also have some impact on the Empire District.”

Lance frowned, “How many people do we have now, all together?”

Mello gave Lance a relatively accurate number, “Four hundred and thirty-three.”

A gang of more than 400 people was actually not small in scale, but if these 400 people were to control an area with a population of nearly 200,000, they would be almost diluted to the point of being invisible!

Excluding the bars, warehouses, breweries, factories, and the like, the number of people who could be mobilized at any time was only between 100 and 200.

If these people were mobilized, then the security and order within the Empire District might be affected.

Those neighborhood families are always popping up. A few young people gather together, and with a clap of their heads, they decide to start a family from scratch like Lance, and then trouble comes, right?

The characteristic of organized crime, besides being “organized,” is “crime.” They will make a mess of it. Only by maintaining a visible force on the street can this trend be curbed.

The Camille gang previously controlled half of the Empire District and had more than 300 core members and several hundred peripheral members. This was the true appearance of a gang.

“Recruit people on one hand, and investigate the situation in the Port District on the other. Don’t reveal this matter to the outside for now, but we must be prepared.”

Lance’s will was the highest will of the Lance Family. Soon, Elvin began to continue recruiting men.

There were many young people in the Empire District willing to join the Lance Family, and even more illegal immigrants. They were never worried about not recruiting enough men, only worried about the quality being too poor.

The next day, the activities at the docks were still going on, but there were far fewer people watching today. Some people who didn’t know the truth didn’t know whether those people were at the docks for other reasons, or simply to cause trouble for the event.

They were unwilling to risk coming to watch, so the number of spectators was less than half, and even many of the contestants chose to give up.

This also had an advantage, which was that it made the progress of the competition much earlier than expected.

Everywhere on the docks, you could see gunmen in dark formal suits with red armbands. They stood together in groups of three or five, some even carrying submachine guns!

However, their presence not only did not make the workers on the docks feel afraid, but instead gave them a relatively familiar sense of intimacy.

Most of the workers on the docks lived in the Port District and the Empire District. For those workers living in the Empire District, these people were very familiar.

They introduced the situation of the Lance Family to their workmates who didn’t know them, and even, to prove that they were not lying, took the initiative to greet those gunmen, and even ran over to borrow a light or something!

This was also the first time that the people on the docks knew that Mr. Lance’s Lance Family was really not the same as other gangs!

Those other gangs?

If you walked over when they were gathered together, they would either tell you to get lost, or let you come over—then search every cent in your pocket, and then tell you to get lost.

This is also why people in the Federation would take the initiative to go around when they saw gang members. Who knows if they would have some sudden idea to use on you.

In the evening, a group of people sat together chatting about the issues of the skills competition. Lance, as the main sponsor, also joined in.

As they were chatting, the vice president of the State Federation of Labor brought up the issue of skills.

“Our current evaluation of workers’ skills is very singular, only skilled and unskilled workers. This is actually an inaccurate classification.”

“We discovered this during the dockworkers’ skills competition. For example, tightening screws. Those who can complete it within a standard time are skilled workers, and those who cannot are unskilled.”

“But among the skilled workers, there are also some who are very fast, and some who have just reached the standard line. They are all skilled workers, but their technical abilities are very different.”

“We have discussed this matter internally before, and have never had a good solution. But now, after your skills competition, we seem to have found a good direction.”

“We can give skilled workers a score. Everyone has their own score, which can reflect their performance in professional skills.”

Lance cleared his throat lightly, and the gazes of the others all focused on him, “Why don’t we grade them?”

“If it’s just scoring, maybe their condition is not good, or they perform exceptionally well. This still can’t truly represent their ability.”

“We should use a more appropriate method to grade them, for example, first-level skilled worker, second-level skilled worker…”