Empire of Shadows

“Alan, come here for a second!”

Elvin poked his head out of the office door and shouted outside.

Alan, who was chatting with some others, quickly trotted over. “What’s up?”

Since being promoted to captain, Alan had grown to love his work even more.

Of course, this was quite normal. After all, the promotion from member to captain was a huge leap.

Before, he always followed others’ orders to do things. Now, others had to follow his orders.

He could pick people from a large group of family members to work for him, either permanently or just for a single job. This was equivalent to giving him immense power.

It was important to know that the distribution of core benefits in the Lance Family was determined by their actual work performance. Without considering other factors, the only way to earn more money was to do more work.

Whether they genuinely loved the family, Lance, Elvin, and everyone else or not, making money was one of their goals.

To make more money, they had to be on good terms with a captain or a cadre who would frequently pull them out for jobs.Alan had a good relationship with these people. He was lively, had no airs, and everyone liked being friends with him. Now that his stock had risen, he had become even more enthusiastic.

When the people around a person all become good people, he will discover the beauty of the world.

Elvin closed the door and gestured for him to sit in the chair opposite Lance.

“Your performance during this period has been excellent, Alan. You’ve proven that we were right to give you this opportunity to become a captain.”

“Now there is a very special job that needs to be given to you. It’s a bit dangerous, but it will also bring you more glory. You can consider it.”

Alan didn’t even listen to what the job was before directly stating his willingness to take it. He stood up, his face serious. “Boss, I will obey the family’s arrangements. Anything you give me will definitely be done right!”

If one didn’t know he was just a junior captain, his words would make him sound more like a high-level cadre.

Lance smiled and raised his hand, gesturing for him to sit down, then tossed a file to him.

“Someone has planted an undercover agent in our gang. Lukar and his men were led here by this person. We’ve found him.”

“You know, we never show mercy to those who betray the family, no matter what their motive is.”

“Alan, take him out, and make the Bureau of Hazardous Materials lose face. Do you understand what I mean?”

“They probably think that by planting an undercover agent and obtaining our intelligence, they’ve dealt us a heavy blow. So we have to strike back!”

Alan’s expression turned slightly grim. He picked up the file and glanced down at it. He immediately closed his eyes and looked away.

He raised a hand to his forehead. “Fuck!”

He knew this person, and their relationship was quite good. Or rather, the person had a good relationship with most people.

In Alan’s eyes, this peer was very sociable, often handing out cigarettes to everyone and frequently treating them to things to maintain good relations.

Before, he thought this might just be his habit, but thinking back now, this person always seemed to be asking questions, here and there, in a subtle way.

At the time, he even thought the guy was pretty decent.

“Fuck!” he cursed again, his emotions in turmoil.

That’s how these things were. As long as you had enough contact, it was inevitable that you’d develop a good rapport, especially when one party was deliberately trying to curry favor.

Lance smoothed his eyebrows along their contours. “Is it very difficult?”

He came back to his senses and took a deep breath. “I have no problem.”

Lance nodded. “He’s just an undercover agent. He was never one of us from the start.”

“All the traits he displayed were a facade he created to deceive us, so you don’t need to feel any guilt or other emotions. Take him out, let the Bureau of Hazardous Materials know their plan has failed again. It’s not difficult!”

Alan stood up. “I know what to do, Lance.”

He rarely used the name “Lance,” only when he was being serious.

Lance made a “go ahead” gesture, indicating he could leave. “I’ll be waiting for your good news.”

Coming out of the office, Alan immediately saw Beno waiting at the door. Beno looked a little worried about him. Before he could speak, Alan forced a smile. “I’m fine, everything’s fine!”

Beno just looked at him with an expression that said, “You’re lying,” which made Alan sigh. “Come outside.”

The two of them walked out the back door into the alley. In a corner, they lit cigarettes. “We have a new job. We have to deal with a traitor.”

“A traitor?” Before Beno could react, Alan added, or rather, more accurately described the target, “An undercover agent!”

Almost subconsciously, Beno’s scalp tingled, and the cigarette between his fingers fell to the ground.

He quickly reacted. As he bent down, he skillfully prevented Alan from seeing the change in his facial expression. In the few seconds it took to pick up the cigarette, he readjusted his emotions.

However, his face still showed a lot of shock and even a hint of fear, but Alan couldn’t see it, nor did he notice.

“Yes, an undercover agent,” he said a name. The name made Beno breathe a sigh of relief; it wasn’t him.

But he was also a little curious. “How… how did the company find out he was a problem?”

“Remember the day we went to watch the unloading?” Alan seemed a little annoyed. “It was him who sold out the warehouse’s location, that son of a bitch.”

“Lance said it was him who called and notified the Bureau of Hazardous Materials. He probably has contact with Lukar too, otherwise they wouldn’t have come so fast!”

At this moment, Beno wasn’t sure if they had made a mistake, because it was he who had called Lukar that day.

But then he thought again, he might not be the only undercover agent. Maybe there were others.

As long as it wasn’t him who was exposed, it was fine. At the same time, he also felt a trace of fear, because this job was too unsafe, and Lukar… was simply too utilitarian!

He clearly could have waited a few days, but he went that very night. That was tantamount to telling Lance that there was an undercover agent here.

Fortunately, Lance and the others trusted Alan more, and they had also caught another leaker. Otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

Alan had already adjusted his emotions. “Make him regret ever coming into this world!”

He threw the half-smoked cigarette on the ground and stomped on it irritably with his foot. A few sparks flew out before it was completely extinguished. “Find out where he is.”

A dozen minutes later, Alan got the mole’s location. He was on patrol with another person on the street.

The four of them drove over and soon found them on a bench by the road.

“Hey, Alan, look here!”

Seeing Alan appear, the mole waved his arm happily.

Because Alan had no airs, could access the family’s upper echelon, and was willing to spend money on everyone, they all quite liked him.

Alan’s expression looked a bit unnatural. He forced a smile and got out of the car. “Perfect timing, I need you for something.”

He gave Beno a look. Beno walked over to the mole’s partner, put an arm around his shoulder, and seemingly intimately walked to the side, whispering something.

At this moment, the mole didn’t have eyes in the back of his head. Otherwise, he would have definitely seen his good partner looking at him from time to time with eyes full of horror, anger, and disbelief.

He walked over to Alan and proactively offered him a cigarette. “What do you need me to do?”

He looked very cooperative, even patting his pockets and taking out a lighter to light Alan’s cigarette for him.

Alan took a deep drag and exhaled slowly. “There’s something to do later, an order from the company, but we’re short one person. I thought of you.”

The mole had no suspicions at all. “Great, I’ve been bored of patrolling for a long time. When do we leave?”

Alan pursed his lips. “Now.”

A minute later, everyone was in the car. Alan and Beno sat in the back, with the mole between them.

“Where are we going?” The mole was still cheerful, completely unaware of what was happening.

Alan turned his head to look at him. “You’ll know when we get there.”

Perhaps sensing Alan’s bad mood, the mole stopped chattering and just remained quiet.

The car kept heading out of the city. Seeing the suburban scenery, the mole finally became a little uneasy. “Where are we going, Goldstar City?”

“We’ll be there soon,” Alan said perfunctorily, then asked, “What do you think of Lance and the others?”

The mole’s uneasiness grew. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Alan looked straight at him. “I mean, what do you think of Lance, Elvin, Morris, Hiram… how do they treat us?”

The mole was silent for a while. “They treat us pretty well.”

“Yeah, pretty well!” Alan sighed heavily. “He gave us a lot of money, gave us respectability, gave us everything we couldn’t get on the docks or elsewhere.”

“To be honest, I’m honored to know them, to be able to join the Lance Family. It’s like a real family here. We are all family members, like real brothers and sisters!”

“It’s a very new experience. I’ve never had so many brothers and sisters. We are together every day, doing the same things, happy, sad, or whatever.”

The car’s speed slowly decreased. A small wooden cabin appeared in the distance.

The mole was already starting to sweat. He didn’t know where this place was, but the things Alan was saying were too scary!

He swallowed hard, opening his mouth to say something, but didn’t know how or what to say.

The car slowly came to a stop. Alan got out of the car. He turned to look at the mole. “Lance told me we are not on the same side, because you joined the family with a purpose. Why did you do that?”

The expression on the mole’s face began to turn to horror. His voice was off-key. “I didn’t!”

Beno suddenly punched him from behind, grabbed his hair, and dragged him out of the car.

There were four people around. The mole didn’t dare to run, because he knew the family’s rules. Whenever a captain went out on a mission, he would definitely carry a gun.

He couldn’t outrun a bullet, and there were four people here.

While begging bitterly, he shouted, “I really didn’t sell out any of the family’s intelligence! Let me talk to Lance, I’ve been framed!”

Alan rubbed his face and gestured for Beno to take him into the room.

There was a chair in the house. He was tied to it. Alan looked at him, his expression a bit complicated. “Tell us something we’re interested in, and I can give you a quick death.”

“Even though you lied to us!”

Death is always the most feared unknown. People don’t know what happens after death, so they fear the unknown.

He wept and begged, but Alan was unmoved. He did indeed look soft-hearted, but the softer he appeared, the angrier he actually was at this moment.

He walked to the wall, took down a steel spike, turned around, and plunged it into the mole’s thigh.

“Why?!”

“Why did you betray us?!”

He was not like his usual self, especially not like he was just a moment ago.

His expression was somewhat ferocious, his face flushed, and the hand tightly gripping the steel spike twisted it. The wound, pierced and torn, made the mole scream in agony.

He was much more fragile than he had imagined. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Alan, it’s all my fault, please spare me!”

Alan looked at him and let go. He lit a cigarette. “How do you pass messages to the outside?”

The mole could only be honest. He didn’t want to die, and he was afraid of pain.

“I write the intelligence in the newspaper, then pass the information by leaving the newspaper on a designated bench…”

He would record the intelligence he obtained and then, based on the words reported in the newspaper, write a “code.”

For example, if the first word of the first sentence of the first headline on the first page was “we,” then that would be four “1s.”

If someone who didn’t know this decryption method saw the newspaper, they would only see a string of meaningless numbers in the corner.

He had used this method to pass intelligence many times and believed that no one thought he was a problem.

Plus, his main job was patrolling the streets. It was normal to carry a newspaper when he was bored.

Just as Alan was about to ask who he was passing information to, Beno suddenly walked over and punched the mole in the abdomen, as angry as Alan had been. “You son of a bitch, we trusted you so much, and you betrayed us?”

Alan was a bit surprised, but he quickly began to calm Beno down. “I’m as angry as you are, but right now we need to figure out some things first.”

Beno nodded. He preemptively asked, “Did you leak the information about the warehouse unloading?” Before the mole could answer, he shouted, “Don’t argue, we already have the evidence!”

Although he wasn’t asking what Alan had intended to ask, at least it wasn’t wrong, so Alan said nothing and just watched from the side.

The mole nodded. “Yes, I was the one who passed it on…”

“Fuck!” Beno, as if truly enraged, gave him a few more punches before being pulled away by Alan.

He panted slightly. “What good did it do you to lead Lukar and the others from the Bureau of Hazardous Materials here?”

“What did they promise you that made you willing to do this for them?!”

This question, strictly speaking, was tantamount to giving the answer. The mole, in a state of terror and unease, was now subconsciously following his words.

“They promised that after they arrested Lance and the others, they would let me take a position at the Bureau of Hazardous Materials…”

He said a lot of things, but none of it touched on the most crucial question: who was his handler?

Beno used a method of conceptual substitution to make everyone think that his handler was Lukar, and then never mentioned anything related to it again.

He didn’t reveal too much valuable information. He didn’t know enough about the inner workings of the Bureau of Hazardous Materials. He simply believed that after this job was over, he could enter the Bureau.

Although he sometimes felt guilty, he had no way back. Once he embarked on the path of an undercover agent, there was no chance to turn back.

When the last question was over, Alan seemed to have completely calmed down.

“Please, please help me bandage my wound, for the sake of my cooperation… and for the sake of us being brothers before!”

“It’s still bleeding, I’m going to die!” The mole pleaded with them, tears streaming down his face. The wound in his pierced thigh was still bleeding, unable to stop.

Alan looked at him. Although his emotions had calmed, hearing him say the word “brothers” still made him feel angry.

He took two steps closer and pointed a finger at his nose. “Don’t defile the word ‘brothers’. You are not worthy to be brothers with us!”

He paused. “Actually, you know that when we brought you here today, you had no chance of leaving alive.”

“For the sake of your cooperation, the only thing I can give you is a quick end!”

He suddenly looked at Beno. “You hate him so much. The chance to kill him is yours.”

Beno was a little nervous at first, but then came a sense of relief. “Okay, that’s for the best!”

He took out a dagger, walked up to the weeping mole, and his lips moved slightly. He said a sentence of “I’m sorry,” but only he himself could hear it.

Ignoring the mole’s pleas, he plunged the knife into the man’s heart. The blood quickly drained the strength and life from his body.

In less than thirty seconds, he showed no signs of life.

They carved the word “Undercover” on his corpse, then did some more processing—wounds, dismemberment—and handled it according to the family’s practice, and waited.

The smell of blood in the room made Alan a little uncomfortable. He didn’t know if it was the smell of blood in the cabin or some emotional change. He leaned against the car, lit a cigarette, and watched the setting sun.

He looked very melancholic.

Beno washed his hands and came to his side, asking for a cigarette. The two leaned against the car side by side. Neither spoke, just staring at the sunset.

The fiery red sunset glow fell on them, painting them red as well.

As fresh and brilliant as blood.

(End of chapter)

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