Empire of Shadows

The office door was slammed open with a loud "bang!" A man with injuries, supported by someone else, walked in from outside.

He had bandages wrapped around his waist and abdomen, with bloodstains seeping out, making him look miserable.

He was helped to sit on the sofa, looking utterly listless.

Bill (leader of the Red Dog Gang) stood up abruptly. He strode over to the sofa and sat down next to the injured man, "What happened?"

The person who helped him in said, "He was ambushed when he went out. We fought off the attackers, but he was injured."

"He's lucky and unlucky. The bullet hit a rib, and the rib pierced some of the lung or something. Anyway, he needs to be hospitalized."

Bill looked incredulous, "Then why the hell did you bring him here?"

"I'm not a doctor, and this isn't a hospital!"

The man could only smile wryly and say, "The hospital isn't safe. They're already searching the hospitals, so after thinking about it, I could only come here first."

Actually, he exaggerated the injuries a bit. The bullet did hit a rib, and the rib was indeed fractured, but it didn't pierce the lung.

The doctor said there might be some minor punctures, but there was no bleeding, and no treatment was needed. He just needs to rest.

But he wasn't lying about one thing: when they came out, they ran into the people who came to search them. After a firefight at the hospital entrance, they escaped.

The man lying on the sofa opened his eyes. He was in unbearable pain, but he dared not use painkillers indiscriminately.

Some problems with painkillers have actually begun to be gradually discovered by the public. Feeling comfortable after taking painkillers, but aching all over without them, is obviously not right!

But what if they know?

Painkillers have become a heavily relied-upon substance for some patients who abuse them. Even if they know they shouldn't continue taking painkillers, their bodies will force them to continue.

Not to mention, it's not just physical pain, but also mental pain!

Those medical groups that developed the special painkillers not only didn't think about how to solve this problem, but also launched large bottles, fearing that addicts wouldn't have enough to eat.

This guy was wearing a pink jacket, without an undershirt, completely bare.

He was a relatively profitable senior executive under the Red Dog Gang, running a very good bar in the port area.

Going braless is the specialty of his bar. The waitresses are almost all walking around the bar braless, and as long as you order a drink, you can cop a feel.

However, even just copping a feel is enough to get many people rock hard!

Because copping a feel doesn't cost money.

Anyway, they have to drink alcohol no matter what bar they go to. In other bars, if they dare to harass the beer girls like this, they will be dragged out by security and beaten up.

But here, not only will they not beat you, but the waitresses will instead show sweet smiles.

Even if each drink is five cents, ten cents more expensive, they are still willing to come here.

The special business philosophy has made him one of the most profitable senior executives in the gang, and also a person that Bill values more.

At this time, he opened his eyes and endured the severe pain, looking at Bill, "We have to fight back!"

He reached out and grabbed Bill's wrist. The pain made him unconsciously use all his strength, which also made Bill's eyebrows furrow in pain.

He wanted to say "You're hurting me," but he felt that saying this would make him seem too effeminate, so he could only endure it.

"I know, I will stop it!"

The man shook his head, "It's not just a small fight, Bill. If we don't eliminate them all this time, we'll be finished soon!"

"They are the purest criminal organization, and we are not!"

This sentence made Bill fall into silence, and even the two senior executives who rushed back from outside were stunned when they heard this at the door.

Compared to other criminal groups, the Red Dog Gang is actually not pure at all.

They almost never take the initiative to cause trouble, and they don't kill anyone for no reason. What they like to do most is to make money with the girls!

These kinds of people, or rather, this kind of organization, are actually not suitable to exist in the form of a gang. They should rely on other gangs and exist as a supplement.

Several pairs of eyes looked at Bill, and Bill also knew that this was not the time for him to joke.

He pried open the hand that had turned his wrist blue, "I will seriously consider it."

He took a few steps, "He's in so much pain, why not give him some painkillers?"

"Actually, I think…", he said, and then stopped.

He felt that painkillers would become an even more profitable thing in the future, but he didn't know how to express it, and now the formulas and production qualifications for painkillers are all in the hands of medical groups.

He just instinctively believed that something that can make people more addicted than alcohol will definitely help them make more money!

Those alcoholics can drink or not, and they are already making so much money. What if they have to drink every day, and each drink is not cheap?

After letting his subordinates send the guy away, Bill had people notify the other senior executives to come back for a meeting.

In the evening, when they gathered together, Bill told them what happened during the day.

This resonated with many senior executives. Many of their bars, or themselves, had been harassed or attacked.

"We have been passively taking beatings. Now we can't go on like this. We have to fight back properly once!"

Bill first laid the foundation for his tone, "In addition, we need to unite a group of people to take action against them with us. There are many small gangs in the port area, and they will definitely be willing to get some development for themselves, and the price is to send some gunmen."

"If they don't take action, and we fight them to the end, these people might pick up the advantage."

The others very much agreed with Bill's understanding and views. The port area is too chaotic now!

After Polly was finished, the middle and high-level members of the Brothers Gang were also almost completely finished.

Those who could be caught were caught, and some who were not caught have already escaped. After the Camilla Gang, the entire Brothers Gang became the second gang to disappear.

Without the Brothers Gang suppressing the port area, large and small forces have begun to rise. According to non-official statistics, there are more than twenty large and small gangs in the entire port area.

To some extent, the existence of the Brothers Gang and Big Polly actually had great value. At least when they were around, the port area was never so chaotic!

Currently, on paper, the Red Dog Gang is still the largest gang, but the combined power of these small gangs may not be weaker than the Red Dog Gang!

The other senior executives had no objection to this. Bill proposed to take out 50,000 yuan and a portion of military fire to support these small gangs, so that they could unite together and launch an attack on this foreign gang.

It would cost almost 70,000 yuan, including the military fire and weapons. Bill meant that everyone should divide this expenditure equally, but this caused dissatisfaction among some senior executives.

The first to attack was a guy wearing a leather short-sleeved jacket, also wearing a studded collar, and wearing heavy makeup.

The bar he runs, in addition to those services, mainly sells gay dating, and the income is also very high.

In this day and age, this kind of behavior is still regarded as heresy, but emotional matters break through the boundaries of secular morality. In the eyes of others, this is obviously something that should not happen.

But when emotions are accumulated and paved, they suddenly erupt like a flood and tsunami, and no one can stop them!

This is not anyone's fault, it is just a sincere, heartfelt emotional outburst.

There are many such people in his bar. Only here can they avoid discrimination. They like the atmosphere of this bar very much and are willing to pay for its expensive expenses.

The name of the bar is "What's Wrong", simple, popular, but not easy to understand, but people who have been there once will understand and be deeply impressed by that.

The collar man sucked on a cigarette,翘着兰花指, "Bill, you are the gang leader, you get a share of the money we earn, and what you earn is what you earn."

"So I think you should pay more…"

The others also echoed, saying that it was gang funds, but in the end it actually went into Bill's pocket. Now they didn't say to let others pay for everything, which was actually enough.

Bill glanced at her, but he knew that now was not the time to get angry. In the end, he still made a concession, "I'll take out 40,000, and the remaining 35,000 will be divided among you."

Seeing that they still wanted to bargain, Bill directly didn't give them a chance, "I don't want to discuss it anymore, otherwise, let's just manage our own affairs!"

In the end, they still compromised.

That night, some small gangs in the port area received the news that Bill of the Red Dog Gang was very dissatisfied with the outsiders causing trouble. He knew that the Red Dog Gang might not be able to clear the foreign gangs out like the Lance family.

But he hoped that everyone could band together and at least drive this harmful foreign gang out of the port area.

In order to achieve this goal, he was willing to take out 50,000 yuan and about 20,000 to 30,000 yuan worth of military fire and provide it to the local contact families for free.

All of a sudden, their side became the focus of the entire city!

In fact, it's not just the port area that faces such problems. In other districts, the city center, Creek Valley District, and Xilin District, foreign gangs have already gained a foothold and started fighting with local gangs.

Currently, the quietest places seem to be Little Sumuli, the Bay Area, and the Empire District.

Lance also heard about this, and when everyone was chatting at night, he was not very optimistic about it.

"Bill's brain isn't very good. If it were me, I would rather use this money to recruit gunmen and then give them weapons, instead of sending weapons and money to those who might be competitors."

And he overlooked the biggest problem, which is that the Red Dog Gang is currently the largest gang in the port area!

The others were stunned!

Right now, this place is like a... family classroom. Everyone who can sit here is a senior cadre or backbone of the family. Lance needs them to be able to understand more of the situation.

Even Ethan was sitting in the corner with a bucket of fried chicken, listening obediently.

Lance took a small sip of the coffee they handed him. A year ago, none of them would have imagined they could have a day like this!

Living in luxurious detached rooms, drinking good coffee, and being able to chat about things instead of just wanting to close their eyes as soon as they lay down from exhaustion.

From Bill's perspective, he is dealing with outsiders, but to those rising street families, Bill is stifling their challengers.

These are two completely different concepts. If he can make everyone feel the former, then no problem!

Lance flipped his wrist. "Everyone is from Goldport, they will do that."

But if he can't, his actions will make people think that he is already very weak, so weak that he needs to rely on the power of those street families to fight against challengers.

This is terrible for a gang!

He is exposing his weaknesses, and he really is soft!

This was a double entendre joke. Some people say Bill is also gay, although there is no clear evidence to prove this, but people analyze from his and Sam's (the manager of Red High Heels who is already dead) roughly the same dress that he may also be that kind of person.

He likes to wear red or pink clothes, although he may not make himself so feminine, he still likes to dress himself up and try to look exquisite.

So this 'soft' doesn't just refer to his attitude.

There were only two girls in the room, they were used to this style and were laughing heartily.

After they laughed for a while, Lance continued, "So, they will have big trouble, and this big trouble is caused by themselves."

Seeing that everyone was deep in thought, Lance was very satisfied. He glanced at Elvin, who was also thinking.

The only person who could understand what he meant right away was probably Sean.

It's not that people with good grades are necessarily smart, it's just that he can quickly sort out the logical relationships.

When some of them had already revealed expressions of understanding, Lance handed the finished coffee cup to Corinda, "Pay attention to the area where we border the port area, and arrange for people to patrol at fixed points."

Soon there may be bad news about Bill coming out.

Then, continue with the bar business. The price of alcohol will continue to rise, and we will continue to raise it as well, just a little lower than the market price, and continue to maintain our preferential policies to attract people to the Empire District.

Tomorrow, have Bolton send some more people to keep an eye on the strangers entering the Empire District, and those mad dogs from the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau.

This time, we will open five more bars!

Melo was a little worried, "Do we have that much alcohol?"

Lance had Elvin call Nick, who told them that there were at least a thousand barrels of wine and potato liquor in the warehouse in the suburbs.

The entire farm is producing frantically, and the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau has not yet realized this.

They always thought that all the wineries had stopped production. Most of the alcohol came from the sea, and there were no major wineries around Goldport City. The only ones that existed had been shut down.

Right under their noses, in the pastures of the suburbs, large barrels of wine were piled up like mountains in those warehouses, and you could smell the aroma of wine every day when you walked nearby.

This also made Lance decide to continue to relocate the farm and ranch, preferably to the Great Creek Valley near Creek Valley City, where it would be freer and safer.

Since there is still plenty of alcohol in hand, opening more bars is not a problem.

This time, Lance is providing alcohol with special bottles.

The issue of branding is also worth using in moonshine. When the Prohibition ends one day, those drunks who survived during the Prohibition will be extremely fond of the alcohol that helped them through the dark times.

Lance also personally participated in the design. He referred to the bottle of Napo Whiskey and replaced the logo on the neck of the bottle with a hot-stamped lion head.

And also, referring to Napo Whiskey, he divided the grade of the wine into "Gold Lion", "Silver Lion" and "Bronze Lion".

It's not that he has to plagiarize Napo Whiskey, but this method is too convenient. Anyone can tell at a glance whether it is high-end wine or low-end wine!

And the name of these wines is "Lion Brand Shaojiu".

This will become a well-known brand in the future. The most core selling point is that it has run through the Prohibition. People will love this development history and call it a wine with "legendary color".

Continue to purchase raw materials. Nick needs to continue to expand the scale. We not only have to do our own business, but when we have more storage, we can sell it to the outside.

This makes money too!

Lance settled on the development tone for the next period of time, including recruiting more peripheral members. Then everyone chatted about some fresh things and went back to their rooms to sleep.

For them, the so-called "fresh things" are most likely some interesting stories that happened in the bar.

Those drunks can always come up with some jokes, which is also a routine program every night.

The next morning, Lance got up, had breakfast, and hurried to the pier, because the workers' union conference was about to be held in the next few days, and he definitely had to be on the scene to keep an eye on it.

Almost everyone on the pier knew Lance. When he stopped the car, many people walked over from afar to greet him.

No matter how the price of alcohol rises in other places, the price of the workers' union remains at a very low level.

This also makes many people hope to join the pier to work, just because the alcohol here is cheap!

The pier management company may never have been so generous in recruiting workers. Many people even said that they would accept less money...

Scott and Vaughn and others also came early in the morning. After meeting, Lance shook hands with them respectively. Scott looked very excited.

He and Vaughn walked to the corner together, "I have to thank you, Lance. I heard Vaughn say that you have been very supportive of our work!"

Lance was not modest, "I have indeed done a lot of work, but I believe that if you can enter the General Labor Union, it will be a good thing for me and Vaughn, and even the entire Goldport City."

And my investment is not without return. This is tens of thousands, President Scott.

I hope that one day in the future, when I need you, you will not choose to forget everything I have done today!

Scott smiled very amiably. He also looked at Vaughn, as if to say "Am I that kind of person?"