Empire of Shadows

Alberto thought for a moment, then took out twenty dollars and placed it on the counter. The woman inside took the money and then took out a tray containing four rows of coins, placing it on the counter.

Her gaze fell on Lance's face, he was her type.

Her hands gripped the edges of her bra, as if she could lift it up at any moment, "Want to see?"

Lance looked away, "Thanks, but no thanks."

The woman whistled, quickly flashed him a glimpse, then covered herself again, "I'll show you anyway!"

Alberto chuckled, picked up the coin tray, put his arm around Lance's shoulders, and continued forward, "Don't mind her, as long as you don't sleep with her, you won't be in danger."

"But if you do sleep with her, you're in trouble!"

He didn't say what kind of trouble, and Lance didn't ask. Together, they passed through the corridor, and in front of a closed door, the unique atmosphere and sounds of a bar emanated from the crack.

The moment it was pushed open, the dimly lit fluorescent lights and the explosive music instantly injected a surge of energy into people's veins.

The area was large, at least two thousand square meters, with more than a dozen stages and three bars, almost all filled with people!

The girls danced energetically on the stages, performing artistic dances. Occasionally, the spotlights swept across, illuminating their greasy, healthy skin, igniting a primal urge to surge within people.

The alternating light and shadow were like a battlefield of desire and reason. The wealthy patrons by the stages continuously threw money upwards, some even holding handfuls of one-dollar bills to toss!

The girls were all of very high quality, not at all comparable to cheap bars. In terms of appearance, figure, skin, and dance skills, they were completely superior!

Alberto and Lance went to the bar together. Fordis was already standing behind the bar, helping out. Someone saw Alberto approaching, hugged him, and then made room for two.

"Two whiskeys, Gold Label Nabo whiskey!" He also looked at Lance, who rolled his eyes at him.

The bartender didn't know the story behind this and quickly poured them two glasses. Alberto took out five dollars and handed it over.

"Two and a half?"

"What else?" Alberto picked up the glass and took a sip. There were three ice cubes in the glass, quickly reducing the discomfort upon entry.

Even without ice, the taste of Gold Label wasn't that unacceptable, but people in the Federation were used to adding ice.

Lance picked up his glass and took a small sip. He looked at the liquor in his hand.

He sold it to Mr. Pasreto for eleven dollars a bottle, and now it was being sold here for two dollars and fifty cents. How much pure profit was there?

A 750ml bottle of Gold Label whiskey could be sold for about eleven glasses with a little left over. Assuming eleven glasses, that's twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents.

The pure profit was about seventeen dollars, a pure profit of one hundred and fifty percent!

He raised an eyebrow, experiencing firsthand the enormous profits that the Prohibition era brought to the grey market!

"How many bottles of this can you sell in a night?" Lance was a little curious.

The bartender glanced at Alberto, who nodded slightly. The bartender leaned in and said in a low voice, only audible to Lance and Alberto, "It's not certain, maybe fifty or sixty bottles, because it's newly opened, I'm not too sure."

"But even if the popularity decreases slightly later on, we can still sell thirty or forty bottles a day."

Four or five hundred glasses, this is the Bay Area, there's no shortage of rich people.

As long as the bar remains attractive, two dollars and fifty cents a glass is nothing to them!

So, just the Gold Label Nabo whiskey alone brings in a pure profit of over a thousand dollars a day.

Later on, it would still be five or six hundred a day in pure profit, which is more than ten thousand a month!

If you add the dazzling array of other liquors, and the beer outside that costs ten or fifteen cents but sells for fifty cents a glass here, they could probably earn several thousand or even tens of thousands in one night!

This was the first time he had a direct impression of how profitable an underground bar could be.

"Regretting it?" Alberto looked at Lance's thoughtful expression. "Honestly, I'm also shocked by the profits here."

"You know, I'm watching hundreds of thousands of dollars every day, afraid of making a mistake. How much money has that made me recently?"

"But look here..." He turned around, raised his hand, and gestured to the entire venue, his gaze shifting from the faces of those crazy people to Lance's face, "They spend several dollars, even dozens of dollars, here every day!"

"It's too crazy!"

Lance was also a little amazed. It was indeed crazy!

Alberto leaned in closer, "Opening a bar is more profitable than doing other business now."

Lance was thoughtful, "But we can't do it to that extent. Mr. Pasreto has social connections in the Bay Area, people are willing to come here to spend money. If we open a bar like this in the Imperial District or the Port District, how many people do you think can afford a two-dollar-and-fifty-cent drink?"

"Moreover, we can't find such a large place, and we can't make the precinct turn a blind eye to our actions."

"This matter still needs to be considered, but it's profitable, no problem."

Only seeing the thief eating meat but not seeing the thief being beaten is shortsighted.

Just like here at this moment, many people may only notice how much profit this bar brings to Mr. Pasreto every day.

But they ignore how much he has to pay to maintain those relationships in society!

Some people, even if they have money, want to give it to those people, but they won't accept it. After all, when you really reach a certain level, those people don't want just any kind of money.

Many bars now open in basements, narrow, cramped, with poor air circulation and a sense of danger.

How many rich people would go to such a place to get drunk and have fun?

With few alternatives, it's inevitable that this place is popular.

It's like those unappetizing snacks in the alley. They're obviously unappetizing, and the people eating them know it, but the business is still good.

Many people don't understand, it's just that these businesses fill the void in this area and leave no alternatives.

When others also start making similar snacks and the taste is slightly better, this snack stall will have no business. The same goes for bars.

Lance believed that as more bars with deeper backgrounds started operating in the Bay Area, the customer flow here would inevitably be diverted, and business wouldn't be as good as it is now.

How much will be left by then is unknown, maybe good, maybe not.

After thinking for a while, Alberto felt that what Lance said made sense. The two stopped talking about opening a bar and began to focus on the entertainment on site.

From Lance's perspective, there was obviously a lot of room for improvement in the bar, for example, there were too few girls here.

Of course, that was normal, after all... it's very dangerous for girls late at night, especially in a place like a bar.

Most girls would go home before seven o'clock and not come out.

Even streetwalkers wouldn't dare to stand until late at night, at most they would leave around eight o'clock, otherwise they don't know how many beatings they would take at night.

So there were too few women here, either some who came with female companions or those surrounding the stage, which was actually not conducive to consumption in the bar.

You have to create a feeling of encounter for the guests, turning their consumption concept of "I'll just order one for myself" into "I'll order two to drink with the girl," whether they're thinking with their brains or their dicks, it will double the turnover!

But he wouldn't say these things. The cheaper something is, the more worthless it is in people's hearts.

Only what is sought after and obtained through effort will they cherish.

The second floor of the bar was full of private rooms, about four or five square meters in size, with a separate sofa, a round table similar to a stage, and a door.

When the small red light at the door lit up, it meant there was someone inside.

This was a place for those bosses who didn't want to squeeze with others downstairs to have fun, Jason, who was competing to hold his breath at the bottom of Angel Lake, had tried it.

Lance saw that almost all the lights outside the private rooms on the second floor were on. Occasionally someone would come out, but someone would quickly go in, and the light would come on again.

After observing for a while, Alberto pulled Lance to act as a shill. They found a stage with the most people surrounding it and started throwing coins.

If someone tried to divert the dancer's attention, Alberto would throw money on the stage, which led some drunk people to start competing with him!

The impulse to be the top spender was far more intoxicating than the alcohol itself. With the help of alcohol, Lance only watched for a short while and saw several wealthy patrons start throwing paper money.

They would crumple the paper money into a small ball and throw it at the dancers, but only paper money could do that.

Someone once tried to do the same when throwing coins and was beaten up by the bar's security guards.

After successfully provoking the anger of some people, he secretly left. He was really not a good person!

The atmosphere in the bar was very good. Lance also drank two glasses of wine, at least four ounces, which is more than one hundred and twenty milliliters.

Maybe because of the ice cubes, he didn't even feel the alcohol affecting him when he drank it.

It wasn't until about forty or fifty minutes later that he started to feel a little tipsy...

The morning sun shone through the window into the room. Lance stretched lazily in bed, then turned over and wanted to sleep for a while longer.

He came back after eleven o'clock at night. Even at eleven o'clock, there were still people in the bar. Alberto stayed at the bar to rest and asked Lance to stay too, but Lance refused.

It wasn't that he had a bad relationship with Alberto, he just didn't want to get too familiar with his friends. It would make him be labelled as "Mr. Pasreto's man."

He didn't want to become someone else's man. He was himself. He wanted to make himself a flag, not become someone's subordinate.

His last memory of returning home was Ethan helping him upstairs, and then he couldn't remember anything else.

He suddenly opened his eyes and, seeing that he was only wearing a pair of underwear, couldn't help but sit up and rub his head.

Hopefully, it wasn't Ethan who took off his clothes...