While Nova went to the Mazzanti family headquarters, Vicente was still at the Scarlet Syndicate headquarters.
As he stood before the key members of this local underworld faction, he saw a dozen men kneeling before him, swearing their eternal allegiance to him.
After killing Brody dozens of minutes ago, Vicente had remained at this post, ordering the faction members to spread the news of the former leader's death and call for the rise of a new boss for the group.
This public figure was Brody's former right-hand man, who would now act on his behalf.
Vicente was the one who would be the real boss of the Scarlet Syndicate, the one who would actually control the largest group of local "entrepreneurs"!
Yes, the Scarlet Syndicate was a group officially seen as a faction of businessmen and mercenaries acting for the good of Millfall.
They were the controllers of official business in Millfall, providers of necessary services, and taxpayers of the realm who paid their tariffs on time.
From the point of view of the law, they were merely a society of people with similar interests who profited from providing local services.
Because they were a non-military group, a society, they could act together without exceeding the limits of warriors in their strength so as not to attract the army's attention.
Because of this, they could operate and were too valuable for Vicente to just throw them away!
Vicente had previously considered destroying the Scarlet Syndicate. But when he thought about creating a power vacuum in Millfall with opportunities for many people, he realized he wouldn't have the people to support a fast-growing family for these businesses to come to him. As a result, he would likely have future disputes with powers that would take some of that faction's business along with him.
To avoid that and to keep almost everything he could absorb locally, he decided to spare the Scarlet Syndicate and turn his relationship with them 180 degrees.
From being a subordinate, he would become the boss of that faction!
After making his decision and giving his first orders, he finally had the chance to meet his new men, a group that had over 100 people.
When he saw the few levels 3 and 4 Acolytes of the faction, he said. "Perhaps some of you are afraid of the changes that will occur from now on. But do not fear. My main interest is to improve your operations, so don't think I'm going to purge your group.
Not all of you will have access to me or my main interests, but your operations will continue or even develop to new levels.
My interest is to multiply what you are capable of. I hope you're ready for that."
"Yes, boss!"
The group of men said, knowing there was nothing more for them to say.
Vicente continued. "For now, continue your operations as usual. The upper echelon of your group will hand over your operations to my people in the next few days. Only after that will we make any changes to our business."
Vicente tapped a man beside him on the shoulder and said. "Waylon will be acting as a leader on my behalf. So make sure you treat him as your leader."
Everyone there looked at Waylon and saw no problem in doing what Vicente ordered.
Vicente prepared to leave, heading for his basilisk on the estate's roof. But before he left, he looked back and said in a low tone. "Oh, right, don't fuck with me. At my side, you'll have plenty of opportunities. But if you make stupid mistakes, be prepared to pay with your lives."
With that threat, Vicente left, leaving several frightened men in a cold sweat from what had happened.
"What are we going to do?" One of them asked.
"We're going to take advantage. Next to Cesar, we'll be great like never before!" Said a level 3 Acolyte, considering the individual power of their new leader, the weapons of the Mazzanti family, and the basilisk.
With Cesar Mazzanti at their side, they could grow beyond Millfall and become as big as some of the biggest underworld groups in the province!
...
Meanwhile, Rory was meeting with the Mazzanti family's new professionals, using his real identity as he didn't want to alert these young people's relationship with Cesar.
Their meetings would now take place at Zander's tavern, so they were currently in a more secluded area of that establishment, eating and drinking like all the other patrons.
However, no matter how neutral their expressions were, they were all more or less excited inside.
Everyone there already knew about the latest news.
Rory was anxious to return to the Mazzanti estate to talk to Vice about what had happened at The Rocky Gorge. Meanwhile, the four next to him felt good about making a deal and then discovering that their new business would be much better than they had imagined.
"When can we see Vicente?" Lukas asked.
"I don't know. You can always approach him if he acts in public with his real identity." Rory replied.
"What about our missions? I imagine he's got good resources there, right? He'll certainly need us to produce items with his new resources." The group's engineer commented, in the dark about the Mazzanti family's wealth from the robbery of Casa Irwin.
They knew that Vicente was in The Rocky Gorge. Since he had managed to subdue the basilisk, they hoped he had also collected valuables that might be in the beast's nest.
With more resources, from this woman's point of view, Vicente would use their skills!
"I think so. I still need to talk to him to understand our real situation, but you'd better get ready. We'll be sending you ingredients and resources to work with soon." Rory replied according to what they had imagined.
The four didn't know that the resources from the basilisk's nest would include those from the Irwin family.
Until the night before, Vicente's group hadn't been able to show too much buying power, as that would alert the local powers to coins that Cesar Mazzanti wasn't supposed to have.
But now that he's back, everything would be different!
Vicente had collected the equivalent of a few thousand gold coins in that nest. But no one outside his family would have any way of knowing exactly how much had been collected in the basilisk's nest.
That was the Mazzanti family's chance to openly use some of the resources generated by the Irwin family's theft without provoking suspicion!
