Chapter 568

No matter how strong a fortress is, it can be easily breached from within.

Stone was the key that opened the main gate.

Stone’s betrayal plunged the entire Kodak family into a state of panic.

“We need to immediately find out his current status. Did he betray us, or did Lance find out the secret of the safe for other reasons?”

Most of the family members were sitting together. This was a major event that concerned every member of the family. Bandy had summoned them all.

He rested his chin on his hand, watching their intense discussion, also hoping to gain some inspiration from it.

Someone asked, “If he did betray us, what are you going to do?”

The person’s tone became a bit colder, and at the same time, he looked at Gorry. “Then we can only do everything we can to silence him.”

“Sorry, Gorry, I know this will make you uncomfortable, but the trouble he has brought us now is already too great.”

“Even if we have to sacrifice some interests, or something else, we must eliminate him!”

Stone indeed knew too many secrets, and also knew about many of the family’s crimes.

Gorry’s face had been grim ever since he learned that Stone might have betrayed the family.

He glanced at the person, then turned to look at Bandy. “I’ll investigate. I’ll do it.”

Bandy looked at him, their gazes intertwined. He saw the firmness and determination in Gorry’s heart. He hesitated and was just about to nod when someone interjected.

“You should recuse yourself. That’s your son. We don’t know if you will do anything in this that would harm the family’s interests.”

“I think this matter should be handed over to… to be done.”

He mentioned a person 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 put aside by them.

They were still fighting for power and profit!

But this was not surprising. The profits brought by the casino every year were astonishing figures. Whoever had more power in the family, the more dividends and power they would control.

This was all about interests, naked interests.

Bandy looked at the person he mentioned. It was a young man about the same age as Stone. He met Bandy’s gaze and nodded. “I can handle it.”

As long as it wasn’t Gorry himself doing it, Bandy had no objection.

“Alright. Whatever you need, you can go and get it directly: manpower, weapons, explosives, or anything else, including connections.”

“I only have one request: don’t let the situation continue to worsen!”

As he spoke, he clapped his hands. “This matter ends here for now. We have to talk about another matter, about the transfer of property and family members.”

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 backup plan.”

“What if, what if we face a desperate situation? Having a retreat prepared and having no preparation at all are two completely different situations.”

“We have to be prepared for the one in ten thousand chance. If this matter doesn’t turn out as well as we imagined, we need to give ourselves a way out.”

Those people looked at Bandy, as if trying to find some trace on his face.

But unfortunately, they were unable to do so.

Bandy’s expression remained the same. He had already mastered the technique of not letting his emotions show on his face.

Transferring assets would indeed make people think of many bad situations, but now it had to be done.

This was a big matter, and it also involved the interests of everyone. They were constantly arguing about matters related to their own vital interests, and had never stopped.

After the discussion, Gorry and Bandy returned to Bandy’s house. “You should have let me go.”

Bandy shook his head. He knew that Gorry was talking about the matter of silencing someone. “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 so stupid as to not know what to do.”

“Actually, I’m not too worried about this. If Lance plans to use legal means to deal with us.”

Looking at the confusion on Gorry’s and Fleming’s faces, he explained, “If they want to collect evidence of the family’s crimes and then use it to accuse us, it will take a long time and a long judicial process.”

“We are not some minor characters. We have money, power, and influence. We can hire the best lawyers to defend us.”

“By the time they want to deal with us through this method, it might be many years later.”

“What I’m worried about now is that I’m not sure what kind of insidious tricks Lance will use. He can always find some methods and ways we can’t imagine to get around our defenses.”

“Gorry, you have a very important thing to do.”

Gorry nodded. Bandy’s tone was so serious that he also knew that this matter was different from other things.

Bandy looked at him. “You… have to find a way to assassinate Lance.”

“He is the core character of the Lance Family. If he dies, the Lance Family will collapse. We don’t even need to do anything.”

“But Lance’s personal security is very strong. You only have one chance, and I don’t want you to do it yourself,” Bandy looked at Gorry, his eyes very complicated.

If nothing had happened to Stone, then he might not be so complicated.

His son had betrayed him, and now he had to let Gorry do a very dangerous job. No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like he was using this accident to eliminate dissidents.

But in fact, both he and Gorry knew that this was not true.

Gorry nodded. “If I’m not fully prepared, I won’t make a move. You can rest assured.”

Bandy looked at Gorry, who didn’t seem to be very sad. He could only sigh. He didn’t know what to say about this matter, and couldn’t even offer any words of comfort.

He could only nod. “It’s good that you know what you’re doing. Also, it’s best that you don’t do it yourself.”

“We’ve already lost Stone. I don’t want to lose you too.”

Gorry forced a smile. “Don’t worry.”

The room became silent, and it was an awkward silence. Bandy didn’t know what to say to ease the atmosphere.

In the end, Gorry took the initiative to stand up. “I’m going to prepare for these things. If there’s anything, give me a call.”

The Bandy family had raised many gunmen, and some of them were good shots. But this time, Gorry planned to find a retired soldier to do this.

Most of the gunmen in the family were half-baked. They spent their spare time on tobacco, alcohol, and sex. Their proficiency with weapons was only to the extent that they could “not hurt themselves” and “not hurt their own people.”

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

After Gorry left, Bandy shook his head. He also felt sorry and regretful for Gorry, and also angry and dissatisfied with Stone’s betrayal.

After a considerable period of time, he had been dealing with family matters, whether it was the impact caused by Lance’s side, or the sparse customers in the casino. Everything gave people the illusion that they were finished!

If it weren’t for the fact that they didn’t need to borrow money to operate, perhaps those creditors would have already been urging him to pay back the money.

He had just put down the phone and lit a cigarette when the butler knocked on the door. “Sir, is it convenient now?”

“Duke and a few police officers want to see you.”

If it was said that Bruce becoming the police chief would make people feel surprised, but not unexpected, then Duke becoming the deputy chief was clearly a bit of a surprise. He actually hadn’t cooperated much with Lance, and had completely taken advantage of Bruce.

Now, when talking about the police force, about Bruce and Duke, some people would use “Charlie and Hunter” to describe the relationship between them.

He was also a very important character.

“Let them in,” Bandy did not think much and decided to see them.

As the most grassroots law enforcement agency in the Federation, when it was not on your side, the best thing to do was not to give it any leverage, and at the same time, not to openly oppose it.

Soon, a few police officers came to his office. Duke was walking at the front.

He acted as if he knew nothing and even took the initiative to stand up, walk around the desk to the door, and shake hands with them one by one, then invited them into the room to sit down.

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

“My lawyer is on his way.”

The Federal Constitution amendment and related laws gave anyone the right to seek professional legal services from a lawyer. After he had asserted his claim, the police could only express their understanding.

Of course, this was also directly related to Bandy’s prestige, status, and wealth in Golden Port City.

If it were an ordinary person, he might have already been lying on the floor, beating it, and expressing that he was giving up his rights.

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

In fact, he would also do what was not allowed. Who cared?

Soon the lawyer arrived. The Kodak family being in trouble was definitely a good thing for the lawyers. This meant that a large amount of commission was beckoning to them.

After some simple pleasantries, Bandy returned to his chair behind his desk and watched the lawyer negotiate with Duke and his men.

He first checked the badges of these people, registered their names, and then checked the legal documents they brought, confirming that they were all real and correct before asking, “What do you want to ask my client about?”

Duke did not show any impatience. “It’s like this. After Chief Bruce took office, he decided to clean up a batch of old cases that have not been solved for many years. We found that there have been some clues in one of the cases recently, and this case happens to possibly involve Mr. Bandy.”

“So you see, we are here.”

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

This also meant that at least in terms of procedure, there was absolutely no problem. They had indeed grasped evidence that could persuade a judge, which was why the judge had signed these documents.

The lawyer glanced at Bandy. Bandy nodded. Only then did he say, “You can ask your questions, but my client has the right not to answer.”

The police officer next to Duke took out a notebook and pen, and at the same time asked, “Mr. Bandy, do you know a person named Himmler?”

A bubble suddenly appeared in Bandy’s mind. This bubble rose from the deepest part of his memory, bit by bit, up and up, and finally burst at the top of his mind.

A continuous memory of this name appeared in his mind.

Himmler was a manager of a betting company.

The main job of a betting company is to open a market for various content that can be bet on, then adjust the odds in a timely manner, and finally make a large sum of money for the company.

This was actually not a very troublesome job. Himmler’s main tasks were only two.

First, to find content that could be used as a betting market, and that had no moral risk and did not violate the law, take it out, promote it, and then accept bets.

For example, in an election, they would open a market for different candidates and then accept bets.

This kind of behavior had neither moral risk nor violated the law, so it was a good project.

But if a gunman appeared somewhere, and he used “how many people the gunman can ultimately kill” and added “how many men were killed,” “how many women were killed,” “was the last person killed a man or a woman,” and the like as the content of the bet, then these were obviously morally risky, and even possibly illegal.

He could not let the company bear such a great risk and responsibility. This was one of his jobs.

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

A betting company is a betting company, and a casino is a casino. They all need their own separate operating licenses.

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

This requires special people to collect the recent situation of other companies, analyze it, and finally formulate an operating strategy that is in line with the company’s development direction.

In short, Himmler was definitely not an inconspicuous minor character.

He was an important member of the company.

Any company has a “professional ethics.” For example, a doctor’s professional ethics is to save patients, and not to give up on a patient because of some of the patient’s factors.

As a manager of a betting company, his professional ethics was that he himself would not use his position to participate in betting gameplay.

Because he himself was the referee. If he went to buy the company’s products for profit, that would obviously be too bad for the company.

It is not known whether it was because his financial situation had a problem, or simply because he wanted to get some money from the company.

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

At first, his moves were small. In the context of millions or tens of millions of funds changing, a few thousand or tens of thousands of dollars was not conspicuous at all.

It was precisely because his moves were small at first and were not discovered that his courage grew bigger and bigger.

In the end, he would even bet tens of thousands of dollars.

If it weren’t for the fact that his competitor at work had 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 profit for himself, he might still be frantically accumulating wealth now, instead of being sunk in 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. Later he seems to have disappeared?”

The lawyer glanced at Bandy. He knew that Bandy must have lied. In a company with a gangster background like this, once a manager disappears, there is a high probability that they have been dealt with by them.

However, as a qualified lawyer, he always firmly believed that his client was innocent, and his job was also to help his client win the lawsuit.

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

“His 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 evidence to link these two things together?”

The police officer shook his head. “This is just a reasonable guess.”

The lawyer sneered. “The law is based on evidence, not on guesses. You’d better ask some questions with evidence, not this kind of speculative question.”

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

Bandy either said he was not clear, or said he didn’t know. In short, he actually didn’t answer anything.

Seeing that it seemed that they couldn’t get any answers, Duke stood up directly. The police officer next to him also put away his notebook.

“Alright, that’s it for today.”

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

Bandy once again came out from behind the desk. He smiled and walked to Duke’s side and shook his hand. “Of course, if there is a need.”

He had someone see Duke and his group off. The lawyer also took the initiative to leave.

Before he left, he told Bandy not to answer any of their questions in a “yes” or “no” way, and to refuse to admit all statements that were unfavorable to him.

If there was a problem, he must be called over.

Of course, the reason he gave so many instructions was definitely not because he was so responsible, but simply because this could make him money.

After he had the butler see the lawyer off, his face quickly became gloomy. Now he acted as if he was very relaxed, but he knew that these problems were very bad.

Because these people were all dealt with by Stone. In other words, if Stone really betrayed them, no matter what the reason, the entire Kodak family would be in a super passive position!

He couldn’t help but frown and slammed the table. He really shouldn’t have let Stone out that night.

Otherwise, the subsequent series of events would not have happened.

But if he really didn’t let Stone go, who would go?

It seemed that it was not appropriate for anyone to go. And for such a large-scale firefight, if there was no core figure at the scene, he would definitely not be at ease.

He picked up the phone and dialed the number of the person who was going to do this. “Make him shut up as soon as possible. We can’t wait too long.”

(End of a Chapter)