Empire of Shadows

Sixty minutes ago, in a roadside phone booth, a middle-aged man in a trench coat stood inside, clutching a lit cigarette.

He nodded repeatedly into the phone, his expression as if he had eaten shit.

“…I don't care how you do it, I just want to see that son of a bitch named Lance White in the newspapers, understand my meaning?”

“Him lying on the ground or somewhere, with a hole in his head, that's all I want!”

“As for how you do it, I don't care!”

The director slammed down the phone because the gunmen told him it would be difficult to find a suitable opportunity to move against Lance in the short term.

Lance travels with three or four cars, sometimes five, and a large group of people following him.

The place where he lives is heavily guarded, he doesn't have fixed habits or routes when traveling, and his bodyguards clear the area before he gets out of the car…

Intercepting him on the road is basically very difficult, unless they bring in even more people.

Twenty or thirty people, or even more, might make it possible.

Fewer people simply wouldn't work.

But the director contacting them didn't listen to their explanations at all, he just wanted a result now!

The specialist and the specialist's team have been completely “written off.” Not only has the group company lost face, but it also faces huge compensation!

The president, the chairman, now they just want to vent their anger!

If they can take down Lance, even if they have to pay a large sum of money in compensation, it's acceptable!

The company's purpose is simple: to use this kind of thing to tell others that if you want to get money from the company through extortion or similar means, no problem.

As long as you are prepared to die, then come on!

This is a matter of attitude.

But when a wild dog bares its teeth at you, and you don't resolutely fight back, more wild dogs will try to provoke your authority and test your dignity!

This isn't a matter of money, it's a matter of position, a matter of attitude!

Looking at the hung-up phone in his hand, the trench coat man kicked the base of the phone booth, cursed, and then walked out of the phone booth and got into the car by the roadside.

“They want us to act as soon as possible,” he said, pinching his cigarette and taking a big drag, his irritable mood churning.

The person next to him couldn't help but complain, “The success rate of acting now is too low, unless we can find more people, or find a sharpshooter.”

“But we can't mobilize so many people here in a short time, and we can't find any sharpshooters here either.”

Hitting a target with one shot from several hundred meters away?

It sounds reliable, but people who haven't tried it can't understand the difficulty of doing it!

In this era when the accuracy of firearms isn't that great, and you have to consider wind speed, trajectory, distance, and other issues, snipers who can snipe a human-sized target from several hundred meters away only exist in the military, and they are very rare!

In the end, they still have to get close to the target.

But approaching the target without some "additional items" means only one possibility—total annihilation.

“We have to think of a way, if it really doesn't work, we'll go back and tell the Boss that we can't do this job.”

After the people in the car thought for a while, someone suggested, “We can use explosives.”

Everyone's eyes focused on him, and he continued, “Anyway, all they want is Lance dead, they don't require us to kill him in a certain way.”

“We kidnap someone important to Lance, and then let him come and save them himself.”

“Set up some explosives, and as soon as he comes, we'll send him to heaven!” He made an exploding gesture with his hand, and the others actually thought this plan was feasible!

“No need to aim, and no need for many people, just a bait, and then wait for him to come to the door!”

This is indeed a good method, but there are also some problems.

Someone asked, “Who should we kidnap?”

“His sister?”

The person who made this suggestion waved his hand, “No, Lance is an Imperial citizen, but his sister is a Federal citizen. Don't you know that they recently have a way to make foreigners become Federal citizens?”

“Maybe he'll want that nominal sister to be finished off even more than we do, so that no one can expose his identity.”

“Then who should we kidnap?”

“His girlfriend, or his friends?”

Lance's "friends" are basically gang members, and they are all very fierce gang members. They can attack these characters to anger Lance, but it's unlikely that they can kidnap these people to lure Lance out.

They have also observed Patricia, but Patricia is now in the villa, and there is a security team of more than a dozen people outside the villa providing protection.

They only have a few people. It's not that they don't have a chance at all, but even if they have a chance, they will have to pay a heavy price.

Finally, the person who raised the question gave a character he thought was suitable—

“William, William Lawrence, Lance's girlfriend's father, and also his business partner.”

“He just became a city councilor, and now he runs around everywhere every day, and his itinerary can be found out.”

“He is Lance's important business partner and the father of his girlfriend, Lance will definitely come!”

The person in the driver's seat asked, “What if he doesn't come?”

“It's unlikely that he would knowingly step into a trap. He's likely to send his men to save the person.”

The person who came up with this idea could only shrug and say, “Then we detonate the bomb and leave, and let the Boss and those big shots negotiate.”

After a few people thought about it for a while, they agreed with his idea.

It's not difficult to find out what William does in a day. His daily itinerary is almost transparent now. Just call his office.

Soon, they learned that William was still in the office and was about to leave, so they drove to William's office and waited for him to come out of the office.

After lunch, they indeed saw William get into the car, and then they followed closely behind.

William's car was driving very fast, and they had to speed up as well, otherwise they might be left behind at a traffic light!

“I've looked at the map. The further down this street they go, the fewer people there will be. We'll strike when there aren't many people on the road.”

Just as they were discussing when to strike, William in the back seat of the car in front suddenly turned around and looked at them through the rear window.

At that moment, they knew they had been discovered!

“Fuck, ram them!”

The few people grabbed the armrest, and the trench coat man in the passenger seat told the driver to ram them and find a way to intercept the car.

The simplest way is to suddenly turn the steering wheel when the front of their car reaches one-third to one-half of the rear of the other car.

This will force the other car to lose control, and at such a high speed, it will definitely crash into the roadside.

Then they can grab William from the car, take him into their car, and the matter will be resolved.

Of course, they did indeed do this. The driver stepped on the accelerator to the floor, and they were vaguely about to have a chance to intercept the car. He looked at the back seat of that car with a slightly expectant and twisted smile on his face.

The horrified expression he wanted to see didn't appear in his eyes. He only saw a man holding a gun.

“Fuck!”

“They have guns!”

The front of the car, which should have rammed into them, swerved away when the driver slammed on the brakes.

The sound of gunfire turned this kidnapping case into a car chase and shootout.

The trench coat man in the passenger seat kept cursing, and he took out his weapon and kept firing at the opposite car, “Shoot their tires, shoot the tires!”

The two of them fired probably a dozen or twenty shots, and finally hit the tire.

The car William was in shook violently and crashed into a roadside store, and the car stopped.

After the violent impact, he was completely stunned, as if someone had turned off the lights, and the whole world was black.

The violent impact caused him to suffer a concussion, and the constant sound of gunfire in his ears was still telling him that it wasn't safe here.

But he couldn't even stand up now, so he could only cower behind the car door, watching a dark shadow constantly firing in front of him.

Only the occasional flashes of fire from the muzzle could light up some of the colors of the world, but they would soon return to darkness.

He didn't know how long it had been when William suddenly shivered!

A warm and humid substance was poured on his face, and at the same time, a heavy body was pressing on him, and the dim world in his eyes began to gradually brighten again.

He pushed away the guy pressing on him. He had been shot in the face, and one of his eyeballs was about to fall out.

Fresh, hot blood and all sorts of messy things were all over his face, and a strong sense of fear rose from the depths of his heart!

When fear reaches its limit, it gives birth to anger!

He pushed the corpse onto the seat next to him and tried to pry open the corpse's fingers.

When a person dies, the extremities of the body are sometimes in a tense state. He broke several fingers of this guy before he got the pistol in his hand.

He wiped the blood off his face, raised his hand, and fired two shots!

He had used a gun before, and he knew how to use a gun. The Lawrence family boys had their own hunting rifles since they were young.

There were many animals around the farm that would cause them trouble, such as coyotes, rabbits, foxes, and even wild boars.

These animals can cause huge losses to the farm; they kill livestock and wreak havoc on the fields!

So, from a young age, they would have their own shotgun, and in the summer and autumn, led by the older generation, they would go around shooting these small animals.

This was the first time William had ever shot at a person, and the thrill of bullets whizzing past him caused a surge of adrenaline!

He felt incredibly powerful, invincible, in that moment!

The firefight lasted for a minute or two. William searched his bodyguard's body all over, but couldn't find any more magazines. His own pistol only had a few bullets left.

There were three people in the car: a bodyguard and his assistant. All three of them ducked down, trying not to expose themselves to the gunmen's sight.

He ejected the magazine and glanced at it. There weren't many bullets left. Now he could only hope that the other side didn't have many bullets either.

After all, no one goes out expecting trouble with a whole box of ammo. Even if they did, they wouldn't have time to reload.

Most people carry three to five spare magazines, which adds up to about fifty to sixty rounds. If they can't settle things with that many bullets, then it doesn't matter if they have more or less.

At this moment, William's mind was still racing, but suddenly he paused, then shouted, "I'm William, Lance's partner! Can anyone help me?"

A faint cursing sound came from the distance. These people understood William's meaning. They tried to rush over, but after William fired two shots, they retreated again.

No one is afraid of death, not even these gunmen.

Now what William needed to do was stall for time, until Lance's people arrived.

He had heard that there were patrols in Lance's territory!

"Whoever it is, I hope they get here soon!" He made the most earnest prayer of his life!

The phone rang suddenly. Allen glanced at Lance's unlit room and answered it directly.

Then his expression changed drastically, and he immediately shouted, "Get some men and come with me, bring weapons!" He ran outside as he spoke.

William was attacked in the city center, but the place he was going today was the Empire District, because he was going to choose a piece of land there, so this place was already at the border of the city center and the Empire District.

Someone heard William's shout and told Bolton about it. Bolton called here.

"Fack, fack!"

The gunman in the trench coat hid behind cover, watching the car that had obviously lost power and William shouting inside, but he didn't have any other good ideas!

Now he had to make a decision: risk going over and dragging the person out, or leave Goldport City immediately?

He looked at the others, the guys who came here with him, and everyone avoided his gaze.

He knew they didn't want to rush up.

In fact, the result was the same for him. He asked himself, was he willing to risk rushing to the front?

Without any inner struggle, he gave himself an answer.

No, he was not willing to risk rushing to the front, which was why he looked at the others.

Now he knew that everyone had the same idea.

Never had any group been able to maintain such efficient and consistent thinking, except on this matter!

Since everyone was unwilling to take risks, then they could only leave.

Their mission this time was not to shoot some worthless city councilman, but to kidnap him!

When they realized that kidnapping was impossible, there was no need to stay. This operation had failed!

"Go..." Without any hesitation, he gave the order to retreat.

Several people quickly got into the car, finding their positions as quickly as if they had been trained thousands of times. The car started immediately, then turned and floored the accelerator in the other direction.

Just as the vehicle was about to leave, a car crashed into them from the side...

Twenty minutes later, Lance arrived at the hospital.

William leaned back on the hospital bed.

"You're injured?" Lance walked to the chair beside the bed and sat down.

William stretched out his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. "They said I have a concussion and some cuts from the broken glass."

He thought of the young man who had died on top of him, "That... the guy next to me, he..."

Lance pursed his lips. "He's dead. You didn't think someone could survive a shot to the face, did you?"

Although there were similar rumors, such as cases of people who had their chins shot off or took a bullet to the head and survived, those were just exceptions.

The bullet pierced the young man's skull, killing him instantly.

William's mood was a little down. "I'm sorry."

Lance raised his hand. "No, you don't need to apologize. It was his job, you should respect his work, and the courage he was willing to pay with his life for that job."

"You should thank him for not abandoning you at that time."

"If you really want to do something, then give his family some money."

William nodded. "I will!"

The room was quiet for a while. "Can I know who's trying to get to me?"

Lance clapped his hands. He leaned forward slightly. "To be honest, they were trying to use you to make trouble for me."

"You got caught up in it."

William breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this. It was good that they weren't specifically targeting him.

"I remember you guys caught them?"

Lance didn't deny it. "Yes, they are being interrogated. If nothing unexpected happens, I'll be able to resolve this matter soon."

"Emily and Pat are very worried about you. You can call them back later."

"It's best to carry a weapon with you when you go out in the near future. It may not save your life, but it will definitely take the lives of those who want to harm you."

"I still have to deal with those people, I'll go first. I've left you new bodyguards at the door."

"Goodbye!"

William looked at him for a few seconds, as if in a daze, and then said goodbye.

After Lance left, he lay back down, staring at the white ceiling, his mind recalling the scene of the eyeball falling out.

At this moment, he didn't feel much fear, only the luck of surviving a disaster, and some guilt.

There were many policemen outside the door. The policemen took the initiative to greet Lance when they saw him. Police Chief Blue also leaned over. "Those suspects..."

"After I get what I want, I'll hand them over to you, but I can't guarantee that they'll be handed over to you intact."

Police Chief Blue didn't have the slightest objection to this. Even a corpse would be considered a "perfect" conclusion to the case.

He didn't dare to ask for more now, because he could tell that Lance was not in a good mood.

Of course, those captured gunmen were in an even worse mood than him.

Not only were they in a bad mood, but their throats were also not doing so well.