Empire of Shadows

Ted was lucky. Although he had been shot twice, he did not die immediately.

He lay on the ground in a daze, looking up at the people who had fallen dead around him. A trace of confusion, hesitation, and some things he didn’t want to understand appeared in his eyes.

A young man, picking his way through the gaps between the corpses, walked over, his feet treading on the blood-soaked ground. He kicked the weapon from Ted’s hand, then grabbed him by the hair and dragged him from the middle of the corpses to the bottom of the steps.

He coughed violently. The collision from being dragged caused him pain, and the pain made him cough.

One shot in the thigh, one in the lower abdomen. It shouldn’t have hit anything vital. At least he was still very clear-headed.

Just as his mind was in a state of chaos, the clear sound of footsteps came from a distance. He realized something and, with an effort, raised his head and looked towards the corridor on the side of the second floor.

After about ten or twenty seconds, Lance, surrounded by a group of people, appeared in front of him.

“An unbelievably young man” was some people’s evaluation of Lance. It wasn’t that he was really young, but that at his age, to be able to achieve such an accomplishment was simply an incredible thing!

Lance stood on the steps, his entire soul not yet fully returned to his body from the ocean of music.

He squinted his eyes and took two deep breaths. The strong smell of blood in the air made him slowly open his eyes.He looked down at Ted, who was looking up at him from the bottom of the steps. There was no hatred, no hostile emotion in his eyes, only an ordinary gaze.

But it was just such an ordinary gaze that at this moment gave Ted some complicated emotions. He thought of the crucifix. God also looked down at the world with such a gaze.

He also thought of the statues of the gods in the temples. They also looked down at the world with such indifference.

He stretched out his hand, wanting to touch the high and mighty Lance, but he couldn’t even climb the first step.

He felt a deep exhaustion. In the end, he could only lie close to the ground, breathing slowly. Although he was not yet dead, he was not considered alive either.

Lance slowly walked down the steps and came to Ted. He lifted Ted’s chin with the tip of his shoe and looked at his already lifeless face. “They all say that the Perez family is remarkable, but why can you only do this much?”

“Are they exaggerating your ability, or is this all you have?”

Ted tried his best to make himself look fierce as he stared at Lance. “Frank will avenge me.”

Lance shook his head slightly. “This is my territory. However many people come, however many people will die.”

“I’m sorry about your son, but this is his fate, and also your fate.”

Lance released his foot, preparing to give him relief. He suddenly said, “One day, you will also be like this!”

“What did you say?” Before Lance could say anything, Elvin, who was next to him, went up and gave him a kick.

Ted’s emotions suddenly erupted. He might have been having a final burst of energy, and his body had regained its strength.

Every cell in his body was making a final effort.

He coughed while laughing. “You, you all, will be like this one day.”

“If you’re not killing, you’re being killed. You will all be killed one day.”

Elvin was about to make another move, but Lance stopped him. He looked at Ted, who could now lift his own head. “You’re right. When we set foot on this path, this is our fate.”

“But some people’s fate is in the hands of others, for example, you.”

“And some people hold their own fate in their own hands, for example, me.”

He drew the handgun from Elvin’s waist, released the safety, and aimed it at Ted’s head. “Do you have any last words you need me to convey to Frank?”

“This can be considered my appreciation for your courage.”

Ted was silent for a moment. “Help me tell him, fuck you!”

Lance nodded seriously. “I will.”

The next second, he pulled the trigger. The bullet entered Ted’s forehead. His propped-up body immediately fell heavily on the floor. Lance walked over and fired a few more shots.

Until he was completely still.

He noticed that some of these people were playing dead. At least he had found one. He pulled the trigger on the guy who was playing dead. Soon, the guy who was playing dead was dead beyond dead.

Lance, after putting the safety on the handgun, inserted it into Elvin’s holster. “Clean up. Pay attention to those who are playing dead.”

Soon, a burst of gunfire sounded from the suburbs, but it was not intense, and it even had a bit of a rhythm, very regular.

There were indeed some who were playing dead, and there were also some who couldn’t stand the pressure and had tried to do something again, maybe to escape, or to do something else, but they were all quickly killed by the ever-vigilant gunmen.

Lance returned to the side hall. He sat on the sofa and looked at the slightly panting people. His gaze quickly fell on Hiram’s shoulder.

“Shot?”

Hiram flicked his hair. “A minor injury.”

He was too easily excited. As soon as he got excited, he would stand up. He had to thank the fact that it was night, and also thank the fact that the other side had no time to aim, so it had only hit his shoulder.

If it had been moved to the side by not even half a meter, but thirty centimeters, he would have had to go and see God.

Fresh blood was seeping out from his shoulder. There was a doctor in the manor who had already taken out the bullet for Hiram and had bandaged him.

Lawn said at the side, “It hit the bone. The doctor said that his hand will have some difficulty with lifting movements in the future.”

“Fuck, shut up!” Hiram rarely, suddenly flew into a rage. He stared at Lawn. “This is my fucking business. Don’t be a busybody!”

Lawn looked directly at him without any fear. The two were actually very good friends. It was Hiram who had brought him and the others to join Lance in the first place.

Lance knew what Lawn meant. Hiram had also been seriously injured tonight, and it was possible that one of his arms would be inconvenient in the future.

He was worried that this bastard would mess around again in the future, so his meaning was probably to let Lance have him take on fewer combat missions in the future.

But for Hiram, in this big family, he believed that his greatest role was to fight!

Compared to the time he had joined Lance, he was definitely not as close as Elvin and the others who had come on the same boat with Lance. Even if Lance was really very close to them, but overall, if you were to give a numerical value to his favorability, Elvin would be a hundred, and he could at most be ninety-nine.

In terms of intelligence, he was no match for Sean. Sean was already in college and would soon be back to work for the family. He might even bring more young people with higher education.

In terms of management ability, he was no match for Mello and the others. As the real chief steward of the family, Lance’s family had developed so stably, and he had an indelible contribution.

Everyone has their own strengths. Hiram felt that besides fighting, he had no other strengths.

If he was not allowed to fight now, what else could he do?

To be a bartender in a bar, and then to muddle through life waiting to die?

Watching the other brothers still fighting and killing in a glorious manner, while he was like an outsider, chatting about how a certain kind of wine should be mixed?

This was not the life he wanted, so he had suddenly become angry.

Lance raised his hand and pressed down. “Alright, alright, there’s no need to argue over these small matters. I will have the best doctor check your wound to ensure that it doesn’t affect your performance as much as possible.”

“If this arm of yours really has a hard time recovering to its previous level of flexibility…”

When Lance said this, Hiram suddenly became nervous. Lance, being very bad, deliberately did not continue, just to make him anxious for a while.

Then he finally said with a laugh, “You will most likely have no fate with a rifle. In the future, you should practice more with a submachine gun.”

A smile visibly appeared on Hiram’s face. He waved his fist, then turned and gave Lawn a punch. The two glared at each other again.

“How many casualties do we have?”

“And how many of them did we kill?”

“Who can tell me these?”

Mello came out from the crowd. “We just counted. There are a total of 179 bodies. They also caught more than twenty who had escaped outside. I hear there are also some others who have already run away in the chaos.”

Hearing this, Lance was not surprised. When they had driven in and had found that this place was full of gunmen, for more than a hundred people to follow Ted and rush forward, it could already be said that these people were indeed elites.

However, this also meant that they would have heavy losses. “And us?”

Mello shook his head. “We have dead and wounded…”

“Separate them,” Lance reminded him.

Sometimes they would confuse this number to have the effect of, not to say deceiving, but to have some effect of soothing Lance’s emotions. A hundred dead and wounded, it was possible that one had died and ninety-nine were injured.

But it was also possible that one was injured and ninety-nine had died. This had a very large and flexible space.

However, Lance did not play this set with him.

Mello could only say with a bitter smile, “Thirty-seven of our men have been shot and have already left. There are also about twenty-something who have been sent to the hospital for emergency treatment. There are still thirty or forty with minor injuries. I haven’t specifically counted this part.”

Elvin explained at the side, “Their large bus directly crashed into the flower bed, which destroyed our original formation. Many of our men were directly exposed to their muzzles.”

Originally, they were in the area in front of the flower bed. There was a fountain, and also some independent small flower beds. They were defending and counterattacking around this area.

But Ted had directly had the driver floor the gas pedal and had directly crashed into the interior of the first line of defense.

Those guys, for a moment, were attacked from both sides. Some of them had stood up in a panic.

They did not have Hiram’s good luck. Many times when he had stuck his body out of the car window, he had not been hit. This time, even in such a chaotic scene, he had only been shot in the shoulder.

Many people’s luck was not so good. They had been shot and had fallen directly to the ground.

Lance’s scalp was a little itchy. “Give them a pension according to the family’s regulations.”

“Now that people’s income is low and prices are high, give them half more. The rest remains unchanged.”

Mello nodded and wrote this matter down.

The pension of the Lance Family was very high. At present, the pension of the federal military was only seven or eight thousand, and you might not even be able to get it all.

Lance’s side already started at ten thousand. Ten thousand, and now with another half, that’s fifteen thousand.

Outside, there were plenty of people who were willing to risk their lives for three or five thousand. This fifteen thousand was indeed not a small amount, but in Lance’s eyes, it was still too little.

Because life is priceless!

Of course, he wasn’t just talking empty words. For him, the lives of his own people were all priceless. The lives of the enemy, of the people outside, were all cheap, worthless, and even despicable!

So he could give so much money, and this money also made many Empire immigrants think that he was a good person.

Sometimes, to handle these people at the bottom of society is really simple. As long as you are not so harsh, not so stingy, they can offer their loyalty!

Lance assigned some more things for them to do, and then went to his study alone. He first made a phone call to Mayor Williams.

The butler had told him that Mayor Williams had called. It was not late now, and Mayor Williams must not have been asleep.

As his best partner in Golden Port City, Lance still felt it was necessary to give him a call.

The call was quickly answered. Before Lance could say anything, Mayor Williams took the initiative to ask, “Did you win?”

Lance was a little astonished, and then he couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes, we won.”

“I heard the gunshots were very fierce.”

“They brought about two hundred people. A portion ran away, and the rest were left behind.”

When Mayor Williams heard this exaggerated number, he couldn’t help but curse. “This isn’t a hundred years ago!”

“These people are really crazy. I’ll report them!”

As a mayor, he still had some status in the Socialist Party. He could complain at the party congress, the state party congress, and the national socialist party congress.

Even if the people on the Golden State side wouldn’t do anything to the Perez family, it could make them have some disgust for this family.

To so brazenly send so many people over to attack a local prestigious family, this Perez family really didn’t take the social rules of the Federation seriously!

Lance chatted with him a few more sentences, and then suddenly, as if he had thought of something, “Are the ancestors of the Perez family the first batch of immigrants to arrive in the Federation?”

This question also stumped Mayor Williams. He couldn’t answer for a long time. Lance didn’t insist on him answering, and after saying “forget it,” he exchanged a few pleasantries with him and then hung up the phone.

Then he made another phone call to Tom, recounted what had happened here when he had quickly dealt with the people sent by the Perez family, and then asked the same question.

For Tom, as long as Lance was fine, he didn’t care about anything else. But for the question Lance had asked, he still knew.

After all, the Five Families were indeed objects that people needed to pay attention to.

“Yes, the first person of the Perez family who can be traced back to his origin was an exiled criminal on the Hope, who later became a sailor.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you have some kind of psychic ability?”

The people of the Federation really fucking believe this!

They really believe that some people can communicate with the souls of the dead!

Lance laughed twice. “I don’t know how to summon his ancestors before me, but I know how to send him to meet his ancestors!”

Tom was stunned for a moment and then couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Has anyone told you that you are very humorous?”

“Everyone says so!”

After laughing for a while, Tom continued, “Someone might want to mediate. Today, some other senators visited Mr. Cleveland. you have to be mentally prepared.”

Lance was a little surprised. Since they were going to mediate, why did they still send people over? This was something he couldn’t figure out.

In the end, he could only think that this might be a small trick of Frank’s, to see if he could get an advantage.

If he did, then he wouldn’t mediate.

If he didn’t, then he would pretend he didn’t know.

“I see. Contact me if there’s anything.”

After hanging up the phone, Lance asked the butler, “How do they deal with the natives?”

This question was a bit out of the blue, but soon the butler came to his senses. What Lance was talking about should be “how did the first immigrants treat the natives.”

He listed some of the excessive works, including using the skin of the natives to make a full set of leather goods.

Sometimes it’s really hard to believe that the people of the Federation are no different from the natives in terms of superstition and ignorance!

The natives called them “white devils,” and the federal people wore leather goods made from the skin of the natives, which was said to be able to resist the curses of the shamans…

In some museums, they still kept the evidence of their cruel treatment of the natives at that time, a full set of leather goods!

Lance nodded slightly. “Go and find some natives. Ask them if they are willing to make a set of leather goods for the Perez family, with the skin of a person from their direct bloodline.”

“As for the others, cut off their ears and mail them to Mr. Frank. Remember to use a refrigerated car, and don’t let them rot on the way.”

He had to leave something for Frank that would make him feel a little different. Otherwise, if he just sent people over to harass him for no reason, Lance would also get impatient.

Of course, he knew that between him and Frank, after the war was over, there would definitely be a full-scale gang war, so there was no need to pretend to be harmonious now, no need.

The butler, although he didn’t quite understand Lance’s “bad taste,” he still did as he was told.

Compared to these things of Lance’s, which could only be called “bad taste,” the nobles were the real perverts!

After dealing with all the matters at hand, Lance finally shook his head with a smile and picked up the phone, and dialed Frank’s number.

Frank was not asleep. For him, who was in his prime, before eleven o’clock at night could be considered daytime.

He had no social engagements today, and was also sitting in his study, smoking, thinking, and waiting.

The phone on the desk suddenly rang. He was first startled, and then took a deep drag on his cigarette to suppress the churning emotions in his heart, and then he answered the phone.

“It’s me, Frank.”

“Mr. Frank, Mr. Ted would like me to pass on a message to you.”

“How is he?” Frank’s emotions began to fluctuate. He realized that Ted had most likely failed and had been arrested.

Because he could still have Lance pass on some information to him, it at least showed that at the previous moment, he was still alive.

He had been arrested. This was Frank’s guess.

Lance laughed a few times. “Why don’t you listen to what he wants to say first.”

After a moment of silence, many thoughts collided in Frank’s mind, and finally they stopped. “What did he say?”

“He said…”

“Fuck you!”

“Beep…”

“Beep…”

(End of a Chapter)