The Mafia Empire

Even if he didn\'t achieve that, he\'d still have considerable authority within his precinct, and power often had a funny way of turning into wealth. For a man nearing middle age like this old officer, power and money were all that mattered.

Watching the old officer hurry away, Pronto breathed a sigh of relief. He ducked into the records room and kept an eye on the clock, waiting for about ten minutes. After estimating that the old officer had had enough time to contact Gador, Pronto finally stepped out.

He smiled as he pushed open the door to the chief\'s office. "Kept you waiting, didn\'t I? Sorry, work\'s been crazy. Let\'s get going!"

When Delier got out of the car, he rubbed his backside, suspecting that the bumpy ride had split his rear. He had never seen a road in such poor condition. Besides the endless potholes, the ground was littered with stones of all sizes. While the police car might be sturdy, its comfort left much to be desired.

Delier felt as if the car was about to take off, making him feel like he was traveling on a road to hell. He glanced at Pronto, who only smiled without saying much.

They were traveling on a small road, which was longer, bumpier, and harder to navigate, with the clear intention of making Delier uncomfortable. When people feel miserable, the first thing they think of is home, no matter how rundown it might be. The meaning that home holds is entirely different. Comfort, warmth, and coziness seem to define the essence of home.

After such a stark contrast, Delier might have seen those three brutally beaten men and immediately wanted to leave.

The warden was just as Delier had imagined—overweight, with a protruding belly and a bald head. The oily sheen on his face made Delier feel somewhat disgusted. Particularly revolting was the warden\'s nose hair, which was clearly visible, with one strand even poking out of a nostril, bobbing up and down as he breathed and spoke.

Delier felt an overwhelming urge to grab a pair of scissors and trim it for him, as he was a man who liked cleanliness and elegance, someone with a refined, artistic temperament.

The warden was very amiable, speaking with remarkable politeness, quite unlike the unreasonable person Pronto had described earlier. There was even coffee in his office. Delier had thought that aside from drinking, the warden did nothing else, and for that, he mentally apologized to the man.

The wait was long. The warden informed Pronto and Delier that the three prisoners, including Corder, had not yet been transferred. As Delier listened to the vulgar and obscene jokes exchanged between Pronto and the warden, he felt like he was about to go insane. How could these men be so shameless as to make jokes about human anatomy? Did they have no sense of shame?

Just when Delier was on the verge of losing his composure, the clock struck noon, and someone came to report that Corder and his friends were being processed for imprisonment. Delier sighed in relief—finally, he could proceed with his "duties."

Before arriving, Julian had told him that no matter who he saw that resembled Corder, they were absolutely not Corder, because Corder was already "closely acquainted with the earth" in Julian\'s hands. Delier was to insist that the three people he saw were impostors and report this information back to Mrs. Vivian.

For this, Julian would pay him a thousand dollars and promise not to hit him for the next month.

Likewise, if Delier failed, he would lose the thousand-dollar reward and would endure a "friendly" conversation with Julian every weekend for the next month. Whether for the money or to avoid being beaten, Delier resolved that even if the three people before him were the ones who had robbed and beaten him, he would still lie and claim they were not.

However, Delier overlooked one crucial detail: Julian meant for him to report to Mrs. Vivian, not to make the declaration right there and then.

When he saw the three men, barely able to stand and supporting each other as they walked past him, Delier felt no excitement, only fear, trembling, and a bone-chilling cold from the depths of his soul! At that moment, he realized that the consequences of what he said to Mrs. Vivian would affect not only Gador but also Pronto, the head of the local police, and possibly even the warden.

Yet he had no choice but to go through with it, even though he knew full well what the consequences would be.

"They are not the ones who robbed me, absolutely not!" Delier\'s voice was cold and "aloof" as he spoke, like a solitary flower standing against the cold wind and snow.

Pronto and the warden exchanged glances, remaining silent for a long while. No matter how they examined the faces of the three men, they could not find any resemblance to "humans," let alone think of them as actual people. How, then, had this dandy been able to identify them as the wrong men?

A dangerous glint flashed in the warden\'s eyes. As the sovereign ruler within the prison, he knew that once someone entered its walls, their life no longer belonged to them—it belonged to him. If he wanted Delier dead, he wouldn\'t even need to speak.

A mere glance would suffice, and his subordinates would make a "mistake" in their duties, allowing a prisoner to break free and take Delier hostage, resulting in the tragic "death" of both the captor and the captive.

Pronto, momentarily tempted, quickly dismissed the warden\'s idea. Delier might be insignificant, but behind this flea was a lioness. Crushing the flea would be as easy as the lioness crushing them. Killing Delier was not a difficult task—Pronto himself had many ways to make Delier "accidentally" die. But the problem was that Delier had Mrs.

Vivian\'s attention, and if anything happened to him before he returned to her, Pronto would bear the brunt of the responsibility.

Not wanting to jeopardize himself because of the warden\'s rashness, Pronto did not support that decision.