Empire of Shadows

This book is first published on 𝕥 𝕨 𝕜 𝕒 𝕟 . 𝕔 𝕠 𝕞.

Charlie booked a room for two dollars a night, with a bathroom and hot water. In the wilderness, a motel is like an oasis in the desert for many long-distance travelers, including professional truck drivers.

They can not only get a short rest here, but also relax a little with the girls who work here, and solve the physical困顿 and desires caused by long-distance driving.

This small oasis brings hope and stability to everyone traveling on this road.

"Okay, this is my room for tonight!" Charlie said as he pushed open the door.

Maybe he was talking to himself. He hadn't stayed in such a bad hotel for decades, which gave him a very strange feeling.

It's like... a big shot has arrived here, and they don't know that he is a big shot. It's a very subtle emotion.

He put his suitcase on the bed, then checked the room to make sure there was no other way to get in except through the door, and relaxed a little.

The room had a musty smell, and the wallpaper in the corner was starting to peel off, with a layer of mold on the wall behind the wallpaper.

He walked to the only window, pulled the curtains, bolted the door, and propped the handle with a chair.

Then the only way to enter the room without his permission was through the window.

The windows in the hotel are in a vertical sliding mode. There are very few casement windows here, which is very inconvenient and will affect guests passing through the corridor.

To lift this window, in addition to finding a way to open the window latch, they also have to lift the window.

So he made a very simple little mechanism, using the needle and thread bag found in the drawer, connecting two glasses with a rope, and then tying the middle to the handle of the window.

This way, as soon as anyone opens the window, the two cups will collide.

Whether it's a slight collision or a violent collision, at least it can serve as a warning!

After doing all this, Charlie stood by the window, looking at the soft bed, and finally slowly lay down on it.

He lay on the head of the bed, placing his weapon under the pillow, so that he could shoot at any time.

After doing all this, he finally began to fall into a daze and fall asleep.

He had been in a state of anxiety these past few days. Although this place was full of deliciousness, and maybe there were still some gene fragments left in the corner of the room, at least this place made him feel at ease.

He took off his watch and put it on the bedside table, then set the time on the bedside alarm clock. He wanted to leave here in the middle of the night.

His decision was to stay in Licali State as little as possible.

Maybe he was too tired these past few days, physically and mentally, and he soon fell into a deep sleep.

The night was beautiful, and the night scene on the desolate Gobi Desert had a special flavor. Occasionally, there would be low roars and loud shouts from some rooms.

Making money is not easy, especially making money from those truck drivers!

At more than ten o'clock in the evening, the restaurant completely finished its work, and the chef cleaned up and locked the door of the restaurant.

His girlfriend was waiting for him at the door. She had gotten off work early and didn't need to clean the kitchen. She stood outside the door with her back against the wall next to the restaurant door, with her toes on the ground.

Even though she didn't do anything, just standing there so ordinary, it would give people a feeling... that she could go to the room with you as long as you paid.

"The lights in his room have been off for a long time," she said.

She had been staring at Charlie's room. She was engaged in illegal business such as prostitution, and occasionally she would try to get more money from customers through theft and other means.

Even if the customers sometimes found out that she was stealing money, as long as her boyfriend appeared in front of them in time, the matter would be properly resolved.

The illegality of prostitution is two-way. If those customers don't want to wait for the highway police to come and go to the nearby highway police station with them, and may even be locked up for a few days.

Then they had better choose not to call the police.

So this young couple is not honest.

Charlie met all their psychological assumptions for crime—

First of all, he looked old, at least fifty-five years old or older. Old people meant that he didn't have enough physical strength and power, and they could escape in time if something unexpected happened.

Secondly, he was rich. According to their understanding of rich people, this kind of rich people are actually very timid and afraid.

Compared to those fortunes that are not everything to them, they are more concerned about their own safety, so as long as they show some fierce expressions appropriately, the old man will give up.

If the girl wasn't lying, she really saw a stack of twenty-dollar bills in the old man's wallet.

Then just this money is enough for them to squander for a considerable period of time.

When the time comes, driving away from here, whether it's this old man or the police, it won't be easy to find them.

Criminal acts that occur on federal interstates are often difficult to detect. Cooperation between different police forces is not easy, and acting on interstates is indeed a favorite choice for many professional criminals.

The girl saw the kitchen knife in the chef's hand, gleaming coldly in the moonlight. She stared at her boyfriend with wide eyes, as if she was meeting him for the first time.

"Are you crazy?"

"We just want to steal some money, not kill him!"

The chef put the knife in his sleeve, "This is just a precautionary measure. If he argues with us, we have to have a way to shut him up."

"You don't want everyone to know that we tried to put his money in our pockets, do you?"

After the two looked at each other for a moment, the girl compromised. She felt that her boyfriend was right.

The two slowly walked towards that side, and the chef couldn't help but start to fantasize about the future, as if the money had already been in their hands.

"When I get the money, I want to change to a car," he said, "I've had enough of our old car, it's always giving us trouble."

The girl curled her lips, "How much money do you think is in that box?"

The chef thought for a while, "I saw a movie that said that a box this big can hold at least a hundred thousand."

"One hundred thousand?"

"God, that's a lot of money..."

Both of them were filled with a desire to get rich quickly.

"When we have money, I want to buy the dress we saw last time."

The last time they went to Gold Coast City, they saw a dress in the shopping mall in the city center, a beautiful dress with small decorations made of shells and pearls, which looked beautiful.

That dress cost nine hundred dollars, which was suffocatingly expensive. After seeing the price, she found dozens of reasons not to buy it, and then left.

As a poor person, a poor person at the bottom, they always have countless reasons not to buy something, and they have mastered the ability to find dozens of problems in a commodity!

But at this moment, that dress full of problems and shortcomings didn't have so many problems.

And buying it doesn't need too many reasons—I have money!

Both of them came to Charlie's door with beautiful dreams for the future.

Their "dormitory" is also this kind of guest room, and they are very familiar with everything here.

The chef asked the girl to keep watch for him. He took out a piece of iron and inserted it into the door缝, and the door lock opened. He pushed it inward.

The chair leaning against the handle played a very good role. It held the door, and the door couldn't be pushed open at all.

"Fuck!" He pushed it hard, but the door didn't even move. He gave up and walked to the window.

The curtains prevented him from seeing the situation inside. He hoped that the latch of this window was not locked, but unfortunately, Charlie cared about his safety.

He immediately inserted the bolt on the door and the latch on the window. After lifting it twice without being able to lift it, the chef left.

Today's theft activity of this pair of Bonnie and Clyde seemed to have ended before it even started.

The girl looked at him as if asking, "Do you have any other way?"

The chef pulled her away to a distance.

"He's very vigilant. There must be something propping up behind the door. I've already opened the door lock, but the door can't be pushed open."

"The window is also locked. This old man is too careful!"

"I now believe more than ever that his box is full of money. If it wasn't money, he wouldn't need to be so wary!"

In fact, many people don't lock the latches on the windows when they stay in motels, and some people even open a crack in the window.

Whether it's opening the door or opening the window, there's always a way to get into someone else's room, but this old man...

"Then what should we do?" the girl asked, "Go back to sleep?"

The chef was unwilling to let so much money flash before his eyes, but he got nothing. After thinking for a while, he said with his not-so-smart brain, "You go knock on the door."

"I go knock on the door?" the girl repeated, "Then I tell him to hand over all the money?"

She looked at her boyfriend as if she was looking at an idiot!

"You better wake up. I know that's a lot of money for us, but now we don't have any good way. This shows that God wants us to stop here!"

The chef couldn't help but interrupt her, "Shut up!"

"Listen to me!"

He looked at the girl, and the girl also met his gaze. He continued, "You go knock on the door and ask him if he wants service. Didn't you say that he gave you an extra two-dollar tip?"

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"Just tell him you're very grateful, and if he's not willing to do it, give him a blowjob."

"Anyway, just use your judgment, as long as he can open the door!"

The girl was silent for a moment, feeling a strange resistance in her heart, possibly because... the old man had given her an extra two dollars tip?

But soon these resistant thoughts were gently erased by her, she lifted her skirt a little, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her clothes, revealing some of her fair skin.

She tossed her hair with both hands, making it a little fluffier, and then she and the cook came to Charlie's door.

The cook stood close to the door, and the girl took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

The knocking sound quickly woke Charlie from his sleep. His hand almost immediately grabbed the gun and turned off the safety.

A glint of light shone through his open eyes. He didn't move, maintaining the appearance of being asleep.

If you didn't look closely, you wouldn't even notice that he was actually awake.

After observing that there was no one in the room, he slowly sat up.

"Who's there?" he asked.

He turned on the desk lamp and glanced at his watch. It was still an hour before his scheduled time.

He put the gold watch on his wrist. Although it wasn't time yet, he had rested almost enough.

"It's me, the waitress from the restaurant. You should remember me."

The voice from outside the door made Charlie immediately think of the waitress. He rubbed his face and inserted the pistol into its holster. "I told you, I don't need room service."

"Ah... Well, sir, I'm very grateful for your tip. I feel like I should do something for you."

"Or maybe I can give you a blowjob?"

"I just want to repay you."

Charlie smiled after hearing this, "Thank you for your kindness, but I don't need it. You can see, I'm already very old, I don't have that kind of need."

In fact, Charlie still had needs, but not at this time, and not with women of this caliber.

Even if he had now lost his status and everything, as long as he still had money, he could enjoy the best treatment in another city, instead of taking the same road as those truck drivers in this rural place.

Who knows if they have the smell of engine oil?

She looked at her boyfriend somewhat blankly. The cook leaned close to her ear and whispered something. Then the girl's voice came from outside the door again.

"Sir, you are a good person, I'm telling the truth."

"I didn't get any business tonight. If I don't hand over the money, they will beat me. Please, let me do something for you..."

Charlie frowned. He didn't analyze the girl's words too carefully, but just roughly understood.

In this seemingly ordinary motel, there is actually a small force that organizes and runs prostitution?

But then he thought it was not surprising, because these businesses here are "exclusive businesses."

There is only one motel like this for maybe two or three hundred kilometers. Their business is very stable, and the prices are not cheap, even better than some small gangs' businesses in the city.

If they could also run some liquor sales, that would definitely be a big money-making business.

However, he really didn't need this girl to serve him. Considering that he didn't want to cause trouble now, and didn't want to attract attention, he finally decided to help the girl.

Let her into the room, and then do nothing, give her ten dollars, and let her stay in this room until dawn.

And he would take advantage of this time to drive away. Maybe some people who had an impression of him would think that he had left in the morning.

Although it was very likely that he wouldn't need these people, what if?

He removed the chair propped against the door, opened the latch, and pulled the door open.

The girl was right outside the door. She was stunned for a moment, and then quickly thanked him and walked into the room.

Charlie turned around and planned to close the door casually, but there was no sound of the door closing. He looked back in surprise and saw a young man rushing in with a knife in his hand, and the knife was already on his neck.

The girl stared wide-eyed at her boyfriend. "Are you fucking crazy?"

The cook glanced at him sideways, didn't say anything, just pushed Charlie into the room, and then closed the door.

Charlie tilted his head to look at the girl, and then looked at the cook. He pointed to the clothes on the bed, "The wallet is in my coat pocket. You can take the knife away a little, and I will cooperate."

He already understood that because he had revealed those "small change" that he had never cared about, he had been targeted by these two petty thieves.

He really wanted to curse now, but he held back. He had to ensure his own safety.

He had handled many cases, including similar situations. Originally, everything was fine, but because the victim cursed or stimulated the perpetrator through other methods, a tragedy occurred.

People who come to rob with a knife like this are generally impulsive. If they are stimulated, Charlie really thinks he will stab him.

The cook's attention was all on the clothes. He signaled the girl to take out the wallet.

Seeing that things had developed to this point, the girl had no choice but to do as she was told.

Soon, the wallet was taken out by her. When she opened it, the thick stack of cash inside made both of them have fanatical surprise on their faces!

"So much money!" The girl took out the banknotes and was about to count them, but was stopped by the cook.

"Go look at the suitcase."

The girl reacted at this time. She walked towards the suitcase. The suitcase had no password and was opened directly. The stacks of twenty-yuan bills tied with rubber bands made both of them turn their attention away from Charlie.

One stack is two thousand yuan, and there are about fifteen thousand here. Although it is still quite a distance from the cook's "dream", it is already very good for them!

"We have money!"

The girl turned her head to look at her boyfriend in surprise, but the surprise on her face quickly turned into fright. She saw that Charlie was already some distance away from her boyfriend, his face was indifferent, and his hand had been inserted into his chest.

"He has a weapon!" the girl screamed.

The cook suddenly turned his head to look at Charlie, and saw Charlie taking out the weapon from his chest. His scalp went numb, but he advanced instead of retreating.

Although he was just a small character, he also had his own judgment and ferocity. At this moment, he erupted!

At the moment when the gunshots rang out, he didn't even feel any pain. The knife in his hand was swung wildly at Charlie amidst Charlie's continuous "Fucks!"

He felt that he could completely kill Charlie alone. The gun was not as fast as his knife!

But in the next second, he fell to the ground with a thud. All that was left in his ears was his girlfriend's scream, and Charlie's "Bitch" that he cursed out.

Bang, bang, bang, three more shots. Charlie cursed while looking at the cut on his arm. He kept cursing the most unpleasant words in his life, closed the suitcase again, put on his coat and rushed out!

The gunshots alarmed the entire motel. The lights in some rooms suddenly went out, but the lights in some rooms suddenly turned on.

Charlie rushed back to the car, started the engine, and stepped on the accelerator. The car rushed out in an instant and disappeared into the night...