Empire of Shadows

The body of Rick’s son was not taken directly to the morgue but was put in a body bag and sent to the Cassia family estate.

They didn’t have this rule, and they didn’t plan to solve this problem through the police.

From receiving the news to the body being transported back, it was only a matter of twenty-something minutes. He looked as if he had aged several years in an instant.

He slowly walked to the side of the body bag, hesitated for a moment, and opened the zipper.

As the body bag was opened, a shattered human face appeared before him.

He looked at the face with many bullet holes. Rick felt a strong wave of anger, and also some disgust.

He had seen many dead people, killed by others, or by himself. Many, so many that he couldn’t even count them.

But never before, after seeing his own son’s body, had he felt such a disgusting urge to vomit.

This was actually a stress reaction. If Will (Kent’s older brother) hadn’t died, the two of them could definitely exchange notes on the reactions they had upon seeing the bodies of their loved ones.

One had lost a younger brother, the other a son.Both wanted to puke, but Rick held it in, while Will puked all over the floor.

His gaze lingered on that shattered face. The bullet holes had been simply cleaned, leaving only dark red small holes. In some places, fat had been squeezed out, yellow and red, like a tumor.

His shattered and sunken eyeballs would become the core of Rick’s nightmare tonight. His hand trembled slightly as he re-zipped the body bag, then turned and signaled for people to quickly take the body bag away.

“Find someone to clean him up. I want him to be clean when he leaves.”

He walked to the side, took out a cigarette and lit it. His emotions were filled with anger.

Anger towards the killers, and also anger towards his own son. He had already warned this bastard. When he was cursed out, he should have insisted a little more.

But he had also been careless. He had never thought that these people would actually make a move on his son, and that they would succeed.

After two puffs of his cigarette, the faint nicotine could not suppress his anger at all. He walked over to the few bodyguards responsible for protecting him and gave them a sound beating.

The bodyguards were beaten to the ground and didn’t dare to get up, “frozen” on the ground in various twisted postures like a group of performance artists.

Their gazes were all locked on Rick, while he, was still kicking a poor bastard who was holding his head.

The iron-plated soles of his shoes hurt a lot when they kicked a person, a piercing pain, but the bodyguard dared not do anything, not even scream.

After venting for a good while, Rick finally took two steps back. He took two deep breaths to even out his breathing, and at the same time, grabbed the hem of his clothes and pulled hard.

The cigarette that had fallen on the ground still had two or three puffs left. He bent down to pick it up, took a drag, “Whose men did it?”

No one spoke. They were just bodyguards. They didn’t know who had arranged for those drinks.

“Go and check, find out clearly!”

After venting, his temper had improved a lot. “I remember one of you just said that there were still people alive?”

“A few girls.”

“He must have liked them very much. Let them go down and accompany him.”

His assistant’s expression was a bit strange. Those girls were now at the police station. Someone had called the police, and they had been taken away by the police.

Rick looked up at him, his eyes bloodshot. “I don’t fucking care what method you use!”

Rick was in a rage now. Don’t try to reason with him. For this kind of person who was used to using violent means to solve problems, it was not a good choice.

After the two looked at each other for a moment, his assistant gave in. “Alright, you call the shots.”

However, he didn’t really plan to go to the police station to kill people. That would be too stupid. He would wait for these girls to be released, and then quietly get rid of them.

After getting the answer he wanted, Rick’s anger seemed to have subsided a little. He looked at his son’s body being carried away and said softly, “It must have been Sarif and his men who did it. It must be. Only they would do something like this.”

“He was still so young, and he didn’t do anything wrong. They shouldn’t have done this to him.”

He lit another cigarette, as if he couldn’t figure it out. But in the underworld, what was there to figure out?

Everyone says not to involve family, but some will wipe out the entire line.

The first gangster to say “don’t involve family” must have been a high-ranking member of a gang. Only they would be afraid of their families being implicated. For those at the bottom of the gang, the bottom of society, they had nothing left, so they didn’t care about these things.

The richer a person is, the more they are afraid of losing, because they really have something to lose.

It’s like the crossword puzzle in The Federal Post. A reporter interviews a passerby and asks him if he would be willing to donate all his winnings to a charity if he won a thousand dollars. He says he would donate it all.

The reporter says now he has a chance to donate five dollars to a charity, but he refuses.

The reporter is very curious, why are you willing to donate a thousand dollars, but not five?

The answer is so obvious, because he doesn’t have a thousand dollars, so he doesn’t care, but he really has five dollars. They don’t care about losing as long as they can go further. They can sacrifice everything.

But when they achieve success and have happiness, only then will they be afraid of losing. Rick had never thought that the people he killed, the people killed by their gang, were they someone else’s son, someone’s husband, or the father of some family.

But when it happened to him, he found it a little hard to accept.

Many senior cadres in the family had gathered. They had all heard about this and were all standing around him.

“When can the new gunmen arrive?” he asked.

The cadre in charge of receiving them glanced at the new-style watch on his wrist, the kind with a calendar. “In these two days.”

He didn’t speak. He planned to wait another two days, just two days.

But he was willing to wait, but someone was not. In the battle between him and the Tita family, both sides had lost a lot of men. But the ones he lost were mainly those cheap gunmen from Yalan.

Gunmen who would sell their lives for a few hundred, one or two thousand.

What Sarif had lost were his friends, brothers, and relatives. That evening, Rick, having drunk some wine, leaned against the headboard. He was a little afraid of sleeping, and also afraid of the darkness now.

He always felt that his son would find him in his dreams. The thought of that shattered face gave him an indescribable fear.

His wife had already been driven away by him, because she had been crying all the time, her sobbing making him irritable.

He needed a little wine to help him fall asleep. Just as he picked up the wine bottle again to pour himself a glass, the phone suddenly rang. The abrupt ringing of the phone was so harsh in this quiet room. The hand holding the wine bottle trembled a little.

In his cursing, he gave up on wiping the wine that was flowing all over the nightstand and instead picked up the phone.

“Boss, our bar has been attacked.”

Now almost all criminal groups in the Federation were engaged in the smuggled liquor business. The price of this liquor smuggled in from other places was as cheap as free, for example, the Yalan region.

Due to the Prohibition in the Federation, the price of liquor in Yalan had also increased, but not by much, with an increase of about twenty to thirty percent.

A bottle of liquor that used to be fifty cents might now be sixty or sixty-five cents.

Yalan had world-class vineyards, and the climate was hot and humid, suitable for growing various crops for brewing wine. If you sold it at a high price, someone would sell it cheap. The competition was very fierce.

This sixty-something-cent liquor, after being smuggled into the Federation, would cost about seventy cents, but in a bar, it could be sold for four dollars or even higher.

Not to mention the better or worse quality liquor, which all had a profit of five to ten times.

A profit of more than five times was enough to make people go crazy.

The Cassia family, besides the human trafficking business, was also in the liquor business. This was now a cash cow. It was not clear if it was because he had drunk too much or because there was too much bad news. Just as he felt the anger start to rage again, a wave of energy rushed to his head, making him a little dizzy.

“What are the… losses?”

“How are the customers?”

Actually, the losses were not important to them. Just some liquor. They had channels and could quickly replenish it.

But if the customers were frightened, it would become very troublesome. After all, the final consumers were those customers, and money could only be earned from them.

The person on the phone spoke very directly. “Not good. They used submachine guns. Some customers were injured.”

“Fuck, how dare they make a move on the customers?” While they were on the phone, the sound of a siren suddenly came from the receiver. Then he heard someone identify themselves, “We are the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol, and Hazardous Materials. Who are you on the phone with?”

His subordinate’s voice came from the receiver, “I’m hanging up first.”

He hung up with a click, leaving Rick’s head buzzing.

He couldn’t sleep now. He got out of bed, put on a coat, and went to the living room. The people on duty in the living room all stood up. They were playing cards.

Actually, this job was quite comfortable, being a bodyguard for the boss.

If you didn’t consider the possibility of encountering danger, then most of the time they were like this, sitting somewhere, smoking, bragging, or playing cards.

“Inform everyone, I’m going out for a bit…”

Soon a convoy was ready. Rick sat in the bulletproof car in the very middle. The convoy left the estate.

The Starlight District, where nightlife was just beginning, was very lively. The news spread quickly. Before long, people knew that a bar had been attacked by a gang, and some customers were injured.

In fact, in most of the past gang battles, the situation of customers being injured was relatively rare.

No one wanted to offend the customers and would also find ways to avoid them. But now that customers were injured, it meant that the conflict was beginning to escalate infinitely, and even the customers were not so safe anymore.

In an instant, in less than an hour, the popularity of the Cassia family’s bars dropped visibly.

Of course, the Tita family’s bars also experienced a drop in popularity. They all guessed that the firefight between the two sides would continue to escalate.

What was even more interesting was that after the bar was attacked, the Bureau of Hazardous Materials also appeared and arrested many of their people.

Two senior cadres, and twenty or thirty core members, some peripheral members, were all arrested.

For a time, all sorts of things were being said, and rumors were rampant.

Rick did not go to the Starlight District, but went directly to see Bandy.

In Bandy’s study, Rick kept pressing his temples to relieve his headache. “I need your help, Bandy.”

“My son is dead, and my bar has been destroyed by them. They are bullying us too much.”

Bandy knew what had happened today and was also amazed at the high efficiency of those people. At the same time, he also realized one thing: he couldn’t mediate.

After the Mayor was finished, he had wanted to restore the Five Families. Of course, he also realized that this was highly unlikely to be achieved.

If before he might have felt there was a possibility of trying, but now, there was not a single possibility.

Rick’s son was dead. This matter alone could not be mediated.

But this also conformed to Bandy’s interests. He hoped that all these people would fight to a mutual exhaustion, and in the end, he would get rid of everyone else.

“How do you want me to help you?”

“Help me set up a meeting with Sarif. Say you want to talk to him. When he comes over, we’ll take him out.”

Bandy looked at Rick as if he were looking at a fool. “You want me to sell my credibility to solve Sarif for you?”

Perhaps he used to be a gang leader, but now, he was not the person he used to be. Their family had almost been laundered clean.

The more laundered a family is, the more important credibility becomes, because this is the only way for them to gain the trust of those upper-class societies that are also white on the outside but black on the inside.

Perhaps sensing the dissatisfaction in Bandy’s tone, Rick lowered his voice a little, his tone also carrying a hint of apology. “I know this will make it very difficult for you, but this is the way for us to solve the current chaotic situation as soon as possible.”

“Once Sarif is taken out by us, they will lose their leader.”

“That useless kid Francisco poses no threat. We can easily clean them up.”

“As for the Lance Family, once we have a free hand, it won’t be a difficult matter to deal with them.”

Listening to his analysis, Bandy was considering more subsequent matters, for example, finding another way to get rid of the Rick in front of him, and then driving away Figal. The entire Golden Port would belong to him.

But… he didn’t really want to rely on selling his credibility to get this kind of business.

Losing it is easy, but wanting to get it back requires much more than what was lost. Seeing his hesitation, Rick continued to lobby, “The number of tourists in Golden Port has been decreasing these past six months. I know your casino is not so easy to operate either. This is a one-time opportunity to solve all the problems, Bandy.”

“If you let me and him continue to have a firefight, whether it’s day or night, as long as the gunfight doesn’t end for a day, it will be very difficult for the public security in Golden Port to return to its previous state.”

“Then there’s Pasoretto, and Lance, and other things. When will this be the end?”

“We must solve these as soon as possible and let everything get back on track.”

“And, we won’t publicize this matter. Who will know what role you played?”

Bandy glanced sideways at Rick, his face expressionless, but the thought of getting rid of this guy in his heart became even stronger.

But he was also right. It was time to let everything get back on track.

He nodded. “I will call Sarif.”

Rick looked at him, said nothing, and made no other movements. Bandy was suddenly a little annoyed. “You want me to call now?”

Rick acted as if he couldn’t feel Bandy’s dissatisfaction and anger. “The sooner the better.”

“You’re a real fucking…, alright, you win.”

The curse was not said, but the meaning was conveyed.

He picked up the phone and dialed Sarif’s number, and used the speakerphone function.

The call was quickly connected. “Hey, good evening, Sarif. I hear you’ve done a few big things today?”

Sarif’s laughter came from the speakerphone. “It’s alright. We can’t always let him steal the show, right?”

Bandy was silent for a moment. “I think we should sit down and talk again. You’ve already killed his son, and he has also paid a heavy price. It’s time to take this as an opportunity to have a good talk.”

“We are all friends. There’s no need to make the situation so ugly. It’s time to stop, before more people leave us.”

Sarif asked, “Whose idea is this?”

Bandy said keenly, “This is my idea. We used to be very good friends. Even if there were some conflicts, they are all over, aren’t they?”

“There’s no need to fight to the death over others.”

Sarif’s tone became less friendly. “Why don’t you say that he killed my friends and relatives?”

Bandy raised his voice a little. “You just killed his son!”

“That wasn’t me. It was either Alberto or Lance. It has nothing to do with me.”

Bandy and Rick looked at each other. The latter’s teeth were about to be crushed.

Bandy continued to persuade, “No matter what, we should have one last talk. There is no hatred that cannot be resolved. Don’t let others take advantage of our conflict.”

They all knew who this “others” referred to.

After a long while, Sarif finally said, “I’ll set the location.”

“No problem!”

“But it can’t be on your turf, otherwise Rick most likely won’t come. I suggest we put it near the city center. Neither of us has any conflict with Figal. He can guarantee our safety.”

After considering for a moment, Sarif agreed…

“Motherfucker, these sons of bitches, I’m going to kill them!” The moment the phone was hung up, Rick exploded.

“Alberto, and Lance, I’ll remember this.”

He had always thought it was Sarif who had killed his son. Now he knew that it was these two guys.

Bandy wanted to remind him that Sarif might not be telling the truth, but in the end, he didn’t. Letting Rick go up against everyone was also a good thing for him. He would even encourage him to continue to do so.

(End of chapter)

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