Empire of Shadows

Even the most fortified fortress can be easily breached from within.

Stone is the key to opening that door.

Stone's betrayal plunged the entire Corda family into a state of panic.

"We need to figure out his current status immediately. Did he betray us, or did Lance learn the secret of the safe for some other reason?"

Most of the family members gathered together. This was a major event, concerning every family member, so Bandi had summoned them all.

He rested his chin on his hand, watching them discuss fiercely, hoping to gain some inspiration from it.

Someone asked, "If he has betrayed us, what do you plan to do?"

The person's tone became somewhat grim, and they also looked at Gauri, "Then we can only try every possible means to silence him."

"I'm sorry, Gauri, I know this might make you uncomfortable, but the trouble he has brought us is already too great."

"Even if we sacrifice some interests, or something else, we must eliminate him!"

Stone indeed knew too many secrets and quite a few of the family's criminal activities.

Gauri's expression remained unpleasant ever since he learned that Stone might have betrayed the family.

He glanced at that person and turned to look at Bandi, "I'll investigate. I'll do it."

Bandi looked at him, their eyes locked in a mutual gaze. He saw the firmness and determination in Gauri's heart. He hesitated, just about to nod, when someone interjected.

"You should recuse yourself. That's your son. We don't know if you'll do anything here that would harm the family's interests."

"I think this matter should be handed over to..."

He named someone who had a good relationship with him and was also ranked relatively high in the family. Even at this moment, the struggle for power and profit had not been temporarily set aside.

They were still fighting for power and profit!

But this was not surprising. The annual profits from the casino were staggering. The greater one's power in the family, the greater the dividends and authority one wielded.

It was all about benefits, naked benefits.

Bandi looked at the person he had mentioned. It was a young man about the same age as Stone. He nodded at Bandi's gaze, "I can handle it."

As long as Gauri didn't do it himself, Bandi had no objections.

"Alright, you can directly claim whatever you need: manpower, weapons, explosives, or anything else, including connections."

"I have only one request: don't let the situation continue to deteriorate!"

As he spoke, he clapped his hands, "This matter is temporarily closed. We still have another matter to discuss, regarding the transfer of assets and family personnel."

Someone in the crowd asked, "Do you also think we are no match for Lance?"

The voice was familiar, but he couldn't remember who it was for a moment, "I never thought we were no match for the Lance family. This is just a safety net."

"In the event that we face a desperate situation, being prepared with a way out is completely different from not having any preparation at all."

"We need to be prepared for even one in ten thousand possibilities, in case things don't go as well as we imagine. We need to give ourselves a way out."

Those people looked at Bandi, seemingly trying to find some traces on his face.

But unfortunately, they were unable to do so.

Bandi's expression remained unchanged. He had mastered the skill of not letting emotions show on his face.

Asset transfer would indeed lead people to think of many bad situations, but it had to be done now.

This was a major event, and it also involved the interests of everyone. They constantly argued about matters related to their own vital interests, never stopping.

After the discussion ended, Gauri and Bandi returned to Bandi's house, "You should have let me go."

Bandi shook his head. He knew that Gauri was talking about the silencing matter, "Your importance to the family far exceeds this matter."

"So it's better to let someone else do it. We are all family, they won't be stupid enough not to know what to do."

"Actually, I'm not too worried about this. I'm more concerned about whether Lance intends to use legal means to deal with us."

Seeing the confusion on Gauri and Fleming's faces, he explained, "If they want to collect evidence of the family's crimes and then use it to indict us, it will take a long time and judicial process."

"We are not small figures. We have money, power, and influence. We can hire the best lawyers to defend us."

"By the time they want to deal with us in this way, it may be many years later."

"What I'm worried about now is that I'm not sure what insidious tricks Lance will use. He can always find some methods and ways we can't imagine to bypass our defenses."

"Gauri, you have a very important thing to do."

Gauri nodded. Bandi spoke so solemnly, so he also knew that this matter was different from other matters.

Bandi looked at him, "You... need to find a way to assassinate Lance."

"He is the core figure of the Lance family. If he dies, the Lance family will collapse, without us even having to do anything."

"However, Lance's personal security is very strong. You only have one chance, and I don't want you to do it yourself."

Bandi looked at Gauri, his expression very complicated.

If Stone hadn't had an accident, then he wouldn't have been so conflicted.

His son betrayed him, and now he had to ask Gauri to do a very dangerous job. It looked like he was taking advantage of this accident to eliminate dissidents.

But in reality, he and Gauri both knew that this was not true.

Gauri nodded, "I won't act without full preparation. Don't worry."

Bandi looked at Gauri, who didn't seem very sad, and could only sigh. He didn't know what to say about this matter, and couldn't even offer words of comfort.

He could only nod, "It's good that you know what you're doing. Also, it's best if you don't do it yourself."

"We have already lost Stone. I don't want to lose you again."

Gauri forced a smile, "Don't worry."

The room fell silent, and it was an awkward silence. Bandi didn't know what to say to ease the atmosphere.

Finally, Gauri took the initiative to stand up, "I'll go prepare these things. If there's anything, give me a call."

The Bandi family had raised many gunmen, some of whom were good at shooting, but this time Gauri planned to find a retired soldier to do this job.

Most of the gunmen in the family were just amateurs. They spent their spare time on smoking, drinking, and sex. Their proficiency with weapons was only enough to "not hurt themselves" and "not hurt their own people."

With a gunman, he also needed to study Lance's daily schedule and then create a suitable opportunity for sniping. This was indeed not an easy task.

After Gauri left, Bandi shook his head. He also felt sorry and regretful for Gauri, and he also felt angry and dissatisfied with Stone's betrayal.

After quite a while, he was still dealing with family matters, whether it was the impact caused by Lance or the sparse guests in the casino, everything gave people the illusion that they were doomed!

If they didn't need to borrow money to operate, perhaps those creditors would already be urging him to repay the money.

He had just put down the phone and lit a cigarette when the butler knocked on the door outside, "Sir, is this a convenient time?"

"Duke and several police officers want to see you."

If Bruce becoming the police chief was surprising, it wouldn't be unexpected.

Then Duke becoming the deputy chief was obviously somewhat unexpected. His cooperation with Lance was actually not much, completely taking advantage of Bruce's position.

Now, when mentioning the police force, mentioning Bruce and Duke, some people would use "Charlie and Hunt" to describe their relationship.

He was also a very important figure.

"Let them in."

Bandi didn't think much about it and decided to see them.

As the most basic law enforcement agency in the Federation, when it wasn't on your side, the best thing to do was not to give it a handle to grab and not to publicly oppose it.

Soon, several police officers came to his office, with Duke walking in front.

He acted as if he didn't know anything and took the initiative to stand up, walked around the table to the door, shook hands with them separately, and then invited them into the room to sit down.

He also sat down on the sofa with them, "Officers, and Deputy Chief Duke, please wait a moment."

"My lawyer is on his way."

The Federal Constitutional Amendments and related laws grant anyone the right to seek professional legal services from a lawyer. After he asserted his demands, the police could only express their understanding.

Of course, this was also directly related to Bandi's reputation, status, and wealth in King's Landing.

If it were an ordinary person, he might already be lying on the ground, pounding the floor to indicate that he was giving up his rights.

But he was Bandi. He had the right to do anything the law allowed him to do.

Actually, he would also do things that weren't allowed. Who cared?

Soon the lawyer arrived at the scene. The Corda family encountering trouble was definitely a good thing for the lawyers, which meant that a large amount of commission was beckoning to them.

After a brief greeting, Bandi returned to his chair behind his desk and watched the lawyer negotiate with Duke and the others.

He first checked the police badges of these people, registered their names, and then checked the legal documents they brought to make sure they were genuine before asking, "What do you want to ask my client?"

Duke didn't show any impatience. "It's like this, after Chief Blue took office, he decided to clear up a batch of old cases that haven't been solved for many years. We found some clues in one of them recently, and this case may involve Mr. Bandy."

"So you see, we've come here."

The lawyer glanced at the legal documents again. Although there was no arrest warrant, there were summons and the like.

This also means that at least in terms of procedure, there is absolutely no problem. They do have evidence to convince the judge, and the judge signed these documents.

The lawyer glanced at Bandy, who nodded, and then he said, "You can ask questions, but my client has the right not to answer."

The police officer beside Duke took out a notebook and pen, and asked, "Mr. Bandy, do you know a person named Himmler?"

A bubble suddenly appeared in Bandy's mind. This bubble rose from the depths of his memory, little by little, until it finally burst at the top of his mind.

A coherent memory about this name appeared in his mind.

Himmler was a manager at a betting company.

The main job of a betting company is to open bets on various content that can be offered, then adjust the odds in a timely manner, and ultimately earn a lot of money for the company.

This is not a very troublesome job. Himmler mainly did only two things.

First, find content that can be used as a gambling market and does not involve moral risks or violate the law, publicize it, and accept bets.

For example, in elections, they would offer odds for different candidates and accept bets.

This kind of behavior does not involve moral risks or violate the law, so it is a good project.

But if a gunman appears somewhere, and he uses "how many people the gunman will eventually kill" and adds "how many men are killed", "how many women are killed", "the last victim is male or female" as gambling content.

Then these obviously involve moral risks and may even be illegal.

He can't let the company bear such a big risk and responsibility, and that is one of his jobs.

Second, integrate some industry resources, study the gameplay of some betting companies, and then see if there is a chance to surpass them.

Betting companies are betting companies, and casinos are casinos, and they all need their own separate operating licenses.

And the business scope of betting companies may involve the entire world, so the objects they have to compete with are definitely not just companies in Golden Port City, but betting companies throughout the Federation.

This requires someone to collect the current situation of other companies, analyze them, and ultimately formulate a business strategy for the company that is in line with the company's development direction.

In short, Himmler is definitely not an insignificant little character.

He is an important member of the company.

Any company has a concept of "professional ethics". For example, the professional ethics of a doctor is to save patients, and not to abandon a patient because of certain factors.

As the manager of a betting company, his professional ethics is not to use his position to participate in gambling games.

Because he himself is the referee, if he buys company products for profit, that is obviously too bad for the company.

I don't know if it was because his financial situation had problems, or he simply wanted to get some money from the company.

He frequently purchased the company's products, and used his identity and influence to make a lot of money for himself.

At first, his actions were small. In the change of funds of millions or tens of millions, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars were not conspicuous at all.

It was precisely because his actions were small at the beginning and were not discovered that he became more and more courageous.

In the end, he would even buy bets of tens of thousands.

If it wasn't because his work rival discovered that his financial situation had become very unreasonable, and then reported to the company that he might have violated professional ethics and used his position to seek personal gain.

Maybe he would still be frantically accumulating wealth, instead of being sunk into Angel Lake.

In the end, his tearful plea became the last memory Bandy had of this person.

He shook his head, "I know this person, but I'm not familiar with him. He used to be an employee of the company, but he seems to have disappeared later?"

The lawyer glanced at Bandy. He knew Bandy was definitely lying. In this kind of company with a gang background, once a manager disappears, there is a high probability that they were dealt with.

However, as a qualified lawyer, he always firmly believes that his client is innocent, and his job is to help his client win the case.

The police officer continued to ask, "I have some information here, which mentions that he may be suspected of using his work convenience to place bets and influence the final results for his own profit."

"Your behavior was discovered by you, and then he disappeared."

Before Bandy could say anything, the lawyer frowned and stopped him from continuing to ask, "Do you have any evidence to connect these two things together?"

The police officer shook his head, "This is just a reasonable guess."

The lawyer sneered, "The law is about evidence, not about guesses. You'd better ask some questions with evidence, not this kind of guess."

The police officer nodded and asked some more questions, and it involved more than one person.

Bandy either said he didn't know or didn't know. In short, he didn't actually answer anything.

Seeing that it seemed that he couldn't ask any more questions, Duke stood up directly, and the police officer beside him also put away the notebook in his hand.

"Okay, let's stop here today."

"Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Bandy. If there are other questions that need to be verified, I hope you can continue to cooperate with our police."

Bandy came out from behind the table again. He smiled, walked to Duke, and shook his hand. "Of course, if needed."

He asked someone to send Duke and his party away, and the lawyer also took the initiative to leave.

Before leaving, he told Bandy not to answer any of their questions with "yes" or "no", and to refuse to admit any statements that were unfavorable to him.

If there is a problem, be sure to call him over.

Of course, the reason why he ordered so much is definitely not because he is so responsible, but simply because it can make him money.

After he asked the housekeeper to send the lawyer away, his face quickly turned gloomy. Now he seems very relaxed, but he knows that these questions are terrible.

Because these people were all dealt with by Stone. In other words, if Stone really betrayed, no matter why.

The entire Koda family will fall into a super passive situation!

He couldn't help but frowned and hammered the table. He shouldn't have let Stone go out that night.

Otherwise, this series of things wouldn't have happened later.

But really don't let Stone go, who should go?

It doesn't seem appropriate for anyone to go, and he would never be at ease if there was no core figure at the scene of such a big firefight.

He picked up the phone and called the person who was going to do this, "Make him shut up as soon as possible, we can't wait too long."