Reborn in 1878: America's Number One Bandit

Chapter 107 A Carrot in One Hand, a Stick in the Other

"boom!"

Matteo, annoyed by his noise, swung the butt of his gun and slammed it into his cheek.

Luigi's vision went black as half of his tooth, mixed with blood, flew out.

"Be quiet."

Matteo disgustedly wiped the blood off his hands onto Luigi's expensive silk shirt.

He turned his head and looked again at his three confidants who were now utterly terrified.

“You all heard that. Your king can’t even protect himself, how can he expect to protect you?”

Matteo crouched down, his voice softening slightly: "Brothers, look at ourselves. What are we Latinos in this fucking land of Anglo-Saxon white pigs?"

"In the eyes of those white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, we are filthy Mexicans; in the eyes of those Irish drunks, we are job-stealing thieves; in the eyes of those yellow-skinned monkeys, we are enemies! We're fucking becoming second-class citizens! If we don't unite, we'll be their dogs for life!"

He pointed to Luigi, who was convulsing in excruciating pain.

"But what about this piece of shit? Did he unite you all?"

"Him! Luigi Sforza! Wearing a silk shirt that costs hundreds of patacas, drinking wine imported from France—one bottle of which would last you a month—and sleeping with the freshest, most tender European girls who just disembarked!"

"And you?"

"You! Chico! Pedro! Hector! You brothers who risked your lives for him, took bullets for him, and took the blame for him! What did you get in return?"

"Damn leftovers!"

"He withheld your bounty to buy a pure silver saddle for his Spanish racehorse that has never won a single race! Last month, just because you miscalculated a five-dollar bill, Pedro, he smashed a bottle over your head and made you lick the blood off the ground like a dog!"

"And you, Hector!"

He suddenly turned to the burly man in charge of the thugs: "Last week, he even whipped your sister, who just came to stay with us, in front of everyone, just because she accidentally knocked over a bottle of wine! He treats your sister like one of his new goods, training her like he's some new merchandise! And you, you didn't even dare to fart!"

These words were like red-hot knives, stabbing into the hearts of his three trusted confidants.

Their expressions changed from initial fear to a complex mix of humiliation and anger.

“So, brothers,” Matteo softened his tone again, “Latinos, I’m not lying to Latinos.”

“I, Matteo, am not here to steal your jobs. I am here to lead you all to take back what we deserve and the respect we have long been entitled to.”

“Tell me what I need to know.”

He stood up, opened his arms like a priest forgiving sinners: "You are still the stewards of the Golden Palace, even more so than before! From now on, all the goods on the Barbary coast will pass through our hands!"

"Or, you can choose to be buried with this king who only cares about his own enjoyment, treats you like trash, and doesn't even spare your family."

"Choose for yourself, I'll only count to three."

"three."

Luigi Sforza's heart pounded wildly.

He wanted to shout to stop these three people from betraying him.

But his rotten mouth can't do anything now except bleed.

"two."

Chico, Pedro, and Hector trembled violently and exchanged a complicated look.

They're all bastards who crawled out of the Mexican mud and came to America not for some fucking loyalty.

It's for money! For status! To stop being treated like a dog.

What Luigi couldn't give them, this devil named Matteo promised them.

"one."

"I said!"

Chico was the first to break down, and he kowtowed violently, crying, "Boss! I'll talk, I'll tell you everything!"

"Me too! Boss!"

Pedro scrambled over, grabbed Matteo's boots, and wept bitterly: "We all know about the boss's business! The contact in Europe is One-Eyed Marcel, in the port of Marseille, France! The transactions happen on the 15th of every month, and the code is 'Searching for the Lost Lamb'! The ledger, the ledger is in the secret compartment of the Sultan's suite! I'll take you to get it!"

"Hector is loyal to you too, Boss!"

Hector smiled obsequiously: "Luigi has a secret account at North Beach Bank! I know the password! It's all yours!"

"traitor!"

Luigi Sforza's eyes widened in fury as he mumbled a furious roar: "Sons of bitches! You'll all go to hell! You'll all go..."

"You may go first, Your Majesty."

Matteo sneered, "Look at you, pathetic. You're the kind of scum who only cares about your own enjoyment, skimping on your men's food and not even giving them a sip of soup. Why do you think anyone will be loyal to you?"

He raised his Colt revolver, pointing the muzzle at Luigi's intact eye.

"People like you are just wasting air by living."

"boom!"

The bullet pierced Luigi's skull at close range, and his unfinished curse, along with his dream of becoming the King of Latins, was forever frozen in the basement he had built with his own hands.

……

Chico, Pedro, and Hector were so weak in the knees that they couldn't stand up.

They just spilled everything they knew about Luigi—including the sources of goods, ledgers, secret vaults, the list of officials they curried favor with, and even the addresses of Luigi's mistresses.

But even after they finished speaking, they were still afraid.

Now, is it their turn? Will these traitors be silenced?

"Take them out."

Matteo holstered his still-smoking pistol and gave the order.

"Boss! You promised! You said Latinos wouldn't lie... No, please!"

The three screamed, thinking they were about to suffer the same fate as Luigi, as two silent assassins dragged them out of the dungeon and threw them into the backyard.

When the backyard gate was suddenly pulled open, all three of them were so frightened they wet themselves.

They thought they would see their comrades piled up like mountains of corpses again.

But the scene before them was beyond their expectations.

The backyard of the golden palace, large enough for three carriages to pass side by side, was now filled with kneeling people.

It was densely packed, a dark mass.

They were all Luigi Sforza's men.

Those thugs, pimps, bartenders, and croupiers who usually ran rampant on the Barbary coast, numbering over a hundred, were now all kneeling in the mud, their faces bruised and swollen.

In a corner of the courtyard, there was a pile of more than a dozen corpses.

The blood flowed into a stream, gleaming black in the torchlight.

Those were either rebels or Luigi's die-hard supporters.

Surrounding these hundred-plus prisoners stood fifty large Latino men, just like Matteo, with expressionless faces and holding sticks and loaded guns.

The discipline and imposing presence they exuded were something Chico and his ragtag group had never seen in their entire lives.

Chico and his two companions collapsed to the ground, their legs giving way.

Matteo walked past them and climbed onto a raised platform in the yard used for unloading goods.

“Luigi Sforza, that piece of trash, I’ve already killed him.”

The more than one hundred people trembled violently and knelt even lower, many of them even starting to shiver.

"From this moment on, this gang and this street are under my control!"

Matteo kicked open a wooden crate, and the golden eagles spilled all over the ground like a waterfall.

“My name is Matteo, your new boss.”

“The old rules remain the same,” he said, pointing to the money on the ground, “but here, you get paid for the work you do! Those who were cheated out of their pay by that bastard Luigi can only go to the underworld to ask him for it! From now on, I won’t cheat you out of your pay; I’ll give you three times the amount, settled monthly!”

A suppressed commotion arose from the crowd.

The moment I heard about the triple salary, my fear vanished without a trace.

Who would turn down money? "I don't care what you did before, as long as you're willing to follow me, Matteo, you'll have meat to eat, wine to drink, and women to sleep with! Now, those who are willing to follow me, stand up and pledge your allegiance to me!"

"I don't want to..."

Matteo sneered: "Then get lost! Go back to your godforsaken Mexican homeland and keep eating cacti!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the fifty assassins behind him raised their shotguns in unison.

Everyone stared blankly at Matteo. This guy was basically saying that if he didn't want to follow him, he'd die.

I can't go back to my hometown at all.

But right now, staying alive is the most important thing! If you can stay alive and still get paid, what are you waiting for with such a great opportunity?

"I'm willing to follow you!"

"I do too!"

"Long live Matteo!"

After the silence, everyone scrambled to their feet and rushed toward Matteo, kissing his boots.

They didn't care whether Luigi lived or died.

They are pathetic bastards who came to America because they couldn't survive there; whoever gives them money is their father.

Loyalty? Can loyalty be exchanged for whiskey?

Chico, Pedro, and Hector stared in disbelief at the frenzied scene, then scrambled over, shouting "Long live the boss!" as if afraid of missing out on being the first to grab a share.

Standing on the top floor of Chinatown, Lawson watched the whole farce from the perspective of the assassin and smiled with satisfaction.

The reason they didn't kill all the Mexicans was because they were still useful.

They are the best kind of trash.

Triple pay is great, but you still need to survive a month to even get a month to live.

Next, he's going to do something earth-shattering in San Francisco.

These Latino trash who had just sworn allegiance were the first batch of cannon fodder he sent to the altar.

……

same moment.

This operation to behead and replace the San Francisco underworld is unfolding simultaneously in every corner of North Beach and the Barbary Coast.

Barbary Coast, The Siren's Song Opium House.

This is the territory of the Dutchman Van Coe.

At two in the morning, the opium den was still filled with smoke. The white customers who had been seeking pleasure had long since become delirious, drooling, and limp on the tatami mats, having been given opium.

Dutchman Van Kerk, the last remaining member of the "Sydney Duck" group, is checking the accounts of his "Shanghai trip" in his office.

This month, he sold another thirty sailors, earning nearly a thousand silver dollars.

He was fantasizing that once he annexed Chinatown, he would tie those yellow-skinned monkeys to a ship and sell them to South America to dig guano—the mine owners there really liked these hardworking slaves.

Sudden.

The steel door of the office was hit at close range by three large-caliber shotgun shells.

In less than half a breath, the door lock was blown to pieces.

Before Vanko could even grab his gun, the door was smashed open by a group of blond, blue-eyed burly men.

Fifty Dutch-speaking assassins, led by their leader Giss, stormed in.

"Who the hell..."

"boom!"

Van Kerk’s roar was interrupted by a gunshot.

Giss blew away the smoke from the muzzle of his gun expressionlessly, watching as the underground mayor, now with a bloody hole between his eyebrows, fell backward onto his vault.

"Clean it up."

Twenty minutes later, all the thugs who resisted from Siren's Song were thrown into the back alley.

Meanwhile, the surviving Dutch thugs who specialized in the "Shanghai trip" kissed Giss's boots and renewed their oath of allegiance before him.

……

North Beach, Clover Bar.

The basement reeked of alcohol, sweat, and urine, and the sounds of laughter and cursing almost lifted the ceiling.

Finnegan Quinn O'Malley, the leader of the Celtic Fist, was shirtless, his hairy chest jiggling, arm wrestling with his henchmen.

"Fuck shit!"

Quinn roared, slamming his opponent's arm down on the beer-soaked table: "Next! Who the hell dares to come? Next week, I'm going to sleep with a hundred Qing Dynasty bitches!"

"Cheers!" His men raised their glasses wildly, chugging down cheap whiskey.

"boom!"

While everyone was still cheering, the only thick wooden door in the basement was cleaved open from the outside by two fire axes.

"what the hell?"

Quinn and his drunken buddies had just picked up their weapons.

"Fire!"

Fifty assassins, also of Irish descent, launched a surprise attack under the command of their leader, Declan.

They gave this group of drunkards, who only knew how to fight, absolutely no chance.

Crossfire, three rounds of simultaneous fire.

The basement was turned into a bloody slaughterhouse.

Finnegan Quinn O'Malley, the King of North Beach, was full of vigor one second, and the next he was riddled with bullets.

Declan kicked Quinn's body aside, stepped on the table, grabbed a smudged bottle of whiskey, and took a big gulp.

"Quinn, that piece of trash, is dead!"

He roared at the terrified Irish surviving thugs, "The Celtic Fist now belongs to Declan! Anyone who objects?"

He picked up one of Quinn's henchmen who was still groaning and slit his throat.

"Welcome to take on the challenge."

Declan grinned menacingly and kissed the bottle: "Now, who the hell wants a drink with me?"

……

Overnight.

The San Francisco underworld has undergone a complete overhaul.

Just days ago, the three giants, who were full of vigor and ready to join forces to divide up Chinatown, along with their most trusted confidants and loyal followers, were slaughtered like chickens.

The deaths of these people did not even cause a ripple in their respective territories.

It's like throwing a few stones into a pond; after the ripples, the water remains the same.

With the assistance of Lawson's formidable and trusted gang, the three newly arrived assassin groups perfectly took over their respective communities.

The city's underground order did not collapse; it simply changed hands.

Don't be fooled by the fact that each of their three groups only has fifty people; these assassins are absolutely elite.

They not only possess combat skills several times greater than ordinary people, but they are also absolutely cold-blooded.

These people are natural-born warriors and managers, yet they are all controlled by a unified and terrifying will.

What they were trying to control was just a greedy, cowardly, and undisciplined mob.

This can be described as a dimensional reduction attack.

It's nothing more than a stick stained with blood in one hand and a carrot that's far more powerful than ever before in the other.

(End of this chapter)