Chapter 78 (2)
"You have two choices," he said. His voice was calm, steady, the kind of calm that came from knowing exactly what he was going to say. "You can step down from the gang business entirely. Walk away from all of this. Go home to your families and never look back. No one will stop you. No one will come after you. You will be free to live whatever life you choose."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"Or you can join us."
Some of the prisoners looked up at that, their eyes widening with surprise. They had not expected this. They had expected death, or worse.
"We won't force you to join," Elijah continued. "We don't care if you join. But if you even think about betraying us—if you even think about hurting the people in my gang—then truly the outcome of that will be far worse than you can imagine."
His voice dropped lower.
"I'm not here to apologize for the dead. I'm not here to confront you. I'm a reasonable man, and I'm a reasonable person. We fought our battles, and we ended up winning. But the families behind the people who are gone will never get the people they love back. I know that. You know that. We all know that, because of the business we are in."
He looked at each of them again, his red eyes holding theirs.
"The only path forward is to keep going. For those of you who choose to stay—who choose to join us—talk to Vice Leader Rena. Tell her about the families of the people who have died. She will handle all the financials on their side. It won't bring anyone back. It won't fix what's broken. But at the very least, the people who are still alive won't suffer."
He stepped back.
"That's all I have to say."
The prisoners stared at him. Some of them were crying now, silent tears streaming down their faces.
Others were looking at the floor, their jaws tight, their hands clenched.
A few were looking at Elijah with something that might have been respect, or gratitude, or simply the relief of men and women who had expected to die and were being given a chance to live.
Kai stepped forward and began directing the prisoners toward the door, where Rena was waiting with her notebook and her pen.
The prisoners walked past her one by one, some of them stopping to speak in low voices, others just nodding and moving on.
Henry appeared at Elijah's side, his green eyes watching the prisoners, his arms crossed over his chest. His jacket was new, the old one torn beyond repair in the fight, and the bandages on his arms were fresh.
"That was a good speech," Henry said.
Elijah shook his head. "It wasn't a speech."
"It was a speech. You're getting better at this."
"I'm not trying to get better at this."
Henry laughed, the sound rough in his throat. "That's what makes you good at it."
A screen flashed in the corner of Elijah's vision.
[The system wants to challenge the little King.]
Elijah's eyes narrowed.
[You see the factory. How about we get the deeds for it and make it into something extremely great in this city? Something that will allow us to enter the construction business. Make this business start generating $10,000 per month.]
[Reward: 5,000 System Points and 5,000 EXP]
[Punishment: None. Being a small-minded person and a man not fit to be a King is punishment enough.]
Elijah stared at the screen. Then he closed it and shook his head.
"You are creating more jokes recently," he thought to himself, though he wasn't sure if he was talking to the system or to Henry or to no one at all.
Kai appeared at his side, his blue eyes following the last of the prisoners as they filed out of the factory. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Elijah said. "Let's go. We need to get back to the bar."
The drive to the bar was short, the streets of the 9th District busy now with morning traffic and people moving to work.
Kai drove with his dark purple aura still flickering around him while his blue eyes scanned the road ahead for any signs of trouble, and Elijah sat in the passenger seat with his red eyes half-closed and his breathing slow and steady.
"The customers who were at the bar last night," Kai said as he guided the car around a slow-moving delivery truck. "We sent them home with five hundred dollars each as compensation for the trouble."
Elijah opened his eyes and turned to look at his friend. "How many were there?"
"Twenty-three," Kai replied, and a hint of dark amusement crept into his voice. "Most of them were already back this morning. They spent the money at the gambling den and the bar within a few hours, and some of them lost it all within the first hour while others are still there trying to win it back."
Elijah nodded slowly because he understood the psychology of gamblers better now than he had a month ago, understood that the house always won in the end no matter how lucky a customer might be in the short term. "That's the business," he said.
Kai nodded as he pulled the car into the parking spot in front of the bar and killed the engine.
The building looked different than it had when they had first bought it, though the changes were subtle enough that someone who hadn't been paying attention might not have noticed them at all.
The wood of the facade had been sanded and resealed so that the grain showed through clearly without any of the old water damage that had marred it before, and the windows had been replaced with double-paned glass that kept the noise of the street out while letting the morning light filter through warmly.
The sign above the door read "Azura" in gold letters that caught the sunlight and threw it back in bright flashes, and the street outside seemed cleaner somehow and less abandoned and more alive than it had been just a few weeks ago.