Empire of Shadows

Chapter 211: Retaliation [Monthly Ticket 666+1]

In the afternoon, outside the Empire Nightclub, two guests quickly entered through the side door next to the main entrance. They went straight to the third floor and pounded on the door outside the hall.

One of them seemed very familiar with the whole process, and even looked a little impatient.

After a moment, the door opened a crack, and a peculiar smell, only found in casinos, wafted out.

One of the two men's eyes lit up slightly.

The doorman sized them up. One was a familiar face, but the other was a stranger, seemingly a first-timer.

"Your friend?" he asked, standing at the door.

The frequent gambler nodded. "My friend, he also likes to gamble a bit. We both don't like causing trouble, I guarantee it."

The doorman looked them over again, then opened the door wider. "You better not be lying, or you know the consequences."

The two squeezed through the doorway. The newcomer was about to walk in when the doorman stopped him.

"Do you have any knives or guns on you?"

The man shook his head. "I'm here to gamble, why would I bring those?"

The doorman stared at his face for a moment. "Mind if I search you?"

The man hesitated, but agreed.

The doorman searched him and found nothing dangerous, then allowed him to enter, giving them one last warning, "Don't cause trouble, or I'll be very impolite."

The two thanked him repeatedly and walked a short distance before lifting the leather-covered curtain.

Instantly, a wave of heat seemed to wash over them.

Alcohol, cigarettes, sweat, and the hysterical laughter and cursing of gamblers all mingled together, forming an endless sea of desire.

The regular customer glanced at his not-so-familiar friend. If it weren't for the five yuan, he wouldn't have brought him here.

"Don't cause trouble. When you leave, you can either leave on your own or find me and leave with me. I hope you have good luck today!"

After saying that, he didn't wait for the other man to respond, and rubbed his hands together as he took the money out of his pocket and went to his favorite gambling table.

They accept chips here, but also cash. Sometimes cash is more convenient.

It must be said that in Goldport City, besides the Corda family's chips being very "strong" and reputable, other chips were not as well recognized.

The newcomer wandered around, stopping briefly at each gambling table, before finding one and taking out the dozen or so yuan from his pocket.

Soon he was immersed in gambling, just like the other gamblers around him, indulging in desire and greed.

In fact, not only here, but also in several other bars, some unfamiliar guests had arrived.

However, they didn't look like police or special agents, so they entered the bars without any trouble.

The Empire District alone had a population of 200,000, and no one could guarantee that they knew every single person among them.

So it was common for strangers to come to the bars to spend money. Lance's requirement was that as long as they weren't agents from the Dangerous Goods Administration, there was no problem.

After these people came in, they didn't cause any trouble. They bought a beer, or a glass of fruit wine, and found a corner to stay in.

Actually, the business in these bars wasn't particularly good, and had only started to recover slightly in the past few days.

Lance's low-price strategy had made it impossible for the commercial bars in the Empire District to survive. The same wine could earn them over a dozen cents per glass in the Port District, but here they could only earn a few cents.

Anyone knew how to make the choice.

This was actually the inevitable practice of capitalists monopolizing the market. Before monopolizing, they would definitely offer crazy discounts to consumers.

By using price wars to eliminate all competitors, once they monopolized the market share and gained pricing power, they could earn back what they had lost from these consumers many times over.

Although this trick wasn't anything too profound, and capitalists had been using it for many years, sometimes the simplest methods were the most effective.

The Lance family was gradually controlling the pricing power of alcohol in the Empire District, while also cultivating a habitual consumer market.

It wasn't that no one had thought about giving Lance some advice, asking them to raise the prices slightly, like the Red Dog Gang.

But Lance always refused this request, seemingly determined to carry out the low-price strategy to the end. This attitude gradually compressed the living space of the taverns and bars in the Empire District to the extreme.

Except for some taverns and bars that had been in business for many years, and were run by the Empire people themselves and couldn't move away, almost all the others had moved away.

Then, in the past few days, the price of alcohol had started to rise, from a few cents to over a dozen cents. The price increase for the best-selling alcohol was relatively small.

But if calculated as a percentage, it was definitely not small.

A ten-cent beer had risen to fifteen cents, and adding an ounce of potato wine would cost twenty-five cents.

This price was really not cheap, but it was still much better than bars in other districts.

With the recent series of actions by the Dangerous Goods Administration, alcohol prices were still rising.

The rise in prices at Lance's bars allowed the bars under Eric's name to recover slightly, but only a little.

On an ordinary day, when evening came, these people returned to the same place. Fleming wasn't interested in hearing them talk about the bar business.

Bars could indeed make money, but how much money could bars in the Empire District make, and he had also heard that business there wasn't very good.

This also made him a little depressed. Eric also had some industries that were legitimate, but these industries couldn't provide Eric with so much capital in the short term.

In this period, only two types of business could make money quickly.

The first was finance, and the second was criminal trade.

Just as Fleming was wondering if Eric had some other business that hadn't been discovered, one of his men came back from outside with an excited smile.

"Boss, they opened a casino at the Empire Nightclub, eight gambling tables!"

In the next moment, Fleming was like a plant that had been watered, and immediately perked up.

"You saw it with your own eyes?"

The man nodded. "I know a few friends in the Empire District, we used to participate in some gambling games together. I asked them to find out about the situation, and they found someone to take me in."

"It's on the third floor of the Empire Nightclub. There are a lot of people, and it can provide them with at least a few thousand yuan in revenue every day!"

A smile appeared on Fleming's face. He encouraged his subordinate, then picked up the phone.

"I remember we moved the gambling tables from the Empire Nightclub, right?"

On the other end of the phone was his cousin, who was currently responsible for part of the family's casino business.

"Yes, I arranged for people to move them. All the gambling tables and equipment were brought back. What's wrong?"

"My people said that their casino is open again, and they have eight gambling tables!"

The other side seemed shocked by the news, and paused for two seconds. "Let me ask. Don't hang up."

After waiting for more than a minute, the phone was reconnected. "No one has talked to them about putting gambling tables there. They set up this casino themselves. What do you want to do?"

Previously, Mayor Olsen's agent had a rather unpleasant time with them, because the Corda family not only didn't give them a lower "tax rate", but instead demanded that they follow the rules.

This was actually a very difficult thing to do. If the mayor agreed to their request for an equal tax rate, then it would mean that the mayor had bowed his head to the Corda family, to the local forces.

So he couldn't agree.

For the Corda family, if they agreed to the mayor's request to lower the tax rate, then would the councilors who opened casinos also have to lower the tax rate?

Would other people with connections also have to lower the tax rate or even not pay taxes?

Then the entire casino industry in Goldport City would be completely rotten. This was the bottom line, and they couldn't shake it!

Both sides had reasons why they couldn't compromise, and in the end, they broke up unhappily.

Now, they had secretly opened the casino again, which was equivalent to slapping the Corda family in the face. There was a hint of anger in Fleming's cousin's tone.

"There are two ways."

"First, we can go through legal channels and have Charlie take people to shut down the Empire Nightclub."

"They don't have a license and are operating illegally. We have a suitable reason to do so."

"But doing so is not very meaningful. That old dog Charlie is very cunning, and he will at most only arrest some small fries. This will not only fail to deter those who are trying to do something, but may even encourage their ideas."

"The second way is to raid this casino."

"Doing so will not only make those who are always testing us understand that even the mayor must abide by our rules here."

"Besides, it can also let me vent my anger."

Being beaten by that foreign bastard Eric, although Fleming didn't show any manic emotions, he did lose face.

His cousin thought for a while and said, "You decide. If you need to mobilize manpower, I can help you arrange it."

Fleming took a deep breath. "Thank you, I want to mobilize more people and deal with his bars as well."

His cousin laughed. "No problem, I need two days to gather the manpower and arrange things. We'll take action in two days."

Fleming seemed to have thought of something and asked, "I heard that the Lance family is helping them run these places."

His cousin didn't care at all. "A nobody, never heard of him, no need to worry about it!"

Hearing him say that, Fleming didn't continue to investigate. After all, his cousin, not him, was the one truly handling the gang and social affairs of the family.

The things he knew were definitely not as detailed as what his cousin knew.

At this time, his mood improved. There were still two days!

He was now a little impatient to see Eric's face, red and green with anger.