Three days after the meeting with the Don of the Cloreone Family, the meeting was great just as he and Jiang thought. The meeting regards connection purposes, the Sun On Yee and the Cloreone Family working together should do them their favor. Even though Wei has connections here since his reign began, he knew it's best to make more for his purposes. And also places to expand to strengthen his organization and launder jets of his money.
He was busy receiving checks from his businesses and rackets, he counted each of his money from each envelope. That was another 15K in the Golden Koi, 350K in the entertainment industry and drug trafficking ring. 200K from his ice cream factory, which was the original place of Dogeyes' warehouse, it was turned into an ice cream factory as a front for drugs. More should come to his way from his other businesses. Especially the car shops around the city, that it was a front for stolen vehicles and to launder stolen money from the stolen trucks. He used said trucks as his own couriers to carry money made by his rackets and transported to the Wei of Money building. Smart move.
But had enough of counting for the day, so Wei stood up from his chair and walked out of his office. It was already morning and three hours after his breakfast, it's time for him to head out some more.
After going for the bottom floor, Wei exited the elevator and the area is surrounded by his henchmen, carrying automatic shotguns and assault rifles. The doorman spotted him and quickly open the door for him; he bowed in return. He walked over to his two modified, sports cars, the black/red Velocita, its rims has gold HK dollar bills. The style was flashy and good looking. The other one behind him was a yellow Lamborghini with silver dollar rims, the design has a black layout of a dragon. Of course, while not asking for a limo, Wei always picked the Velocita.
So he entered his car and drove away from his penthouse and drove through Central. It's time to pay Tran a visit, he's the uncle of Jackie. Ever since word came around about Jackie, Tran took the hardest of the violent end of his nephew. When Wei was busy taking over the city to help the triad overthrow the 18K, he helped Tran to re-establish his business by stealing him many cars as he can, and many armored vans to launder money. Making his chop shop one of Wei's businesses. He made sure Tran gets his fair share of the profit as one of his ways to make it up to him for what happened to Jackie.
Wei made it to the North Point Chop Shop, he stopped his car in park and exited the vehicle. He walked to the garage door to find the old man taking a swig of a beer. The man was surprised to see Wei approaching him.
"Ah, Wei, good to see you," Tran greeted him with a warm smile. "Want a swig of this?"
Wei shook his head. "No, no thanks."
"Oh, no, no, no," Tran immediately insist. "You're Sun On Yee leader now, of course you need a beer for your hard work." He opened the cooler and tossed him one bottle in which Wei accept.
"So, how are you since we last spoke?" Wei asked, taking a small sip.
Tran drank half of his bottle. "Good, perhaps." He mumbled.
Wei's face turned into concern. "Still thinking about him?"
Tran nodded and grimaced at the memory of the news reached to him. "Yes, I missed him so much."
Wei nodded solemnly. He never stopped thinking about the people he cared, died. Especially Jackie.
"Me too," he replied sadly. "Me too. I can't stop blaming myself for what happened even after I just saved him before that."
Tran lay a hand on his shoulder. "Don't blame yourself for what happened, boss. We never knew what's gonna happen shortly after your rescue mission. But what matters is that you dealt with the people responsible for what happened to Jackie, and everyone you cared. And it's even better that you overthrown the 18K for being the ultimate cause of your late family's demise years ago. You helped us all when you're taking over, I'm positive that Jackie will be proud of you."
Wei smiled at the gratitude, he knew Jackie and the others would be proud of him if they see him now. Despite the triad knowing he was once a cop.
"You're right, Tran," Wei agreed, taking another sip. "They'd be proud of me. Even though all of you knew I was a cop. Well, was."
"We know that," Tran told him. "But that doesn't matter anymore. You did more than good for the Sun On Yee last year, it's no wonder they wanted you as their leader with Jiang."
"I suppose it is," Wei said, smiling. "I used to have good intentions, but now? I don't have that anymore. I guess the only reason why I lost that is because of all the shit that's been happening in my whole life, started from my dad died when I was a newborn. And the last straw was the truth about the 18K ultimately fucked me over throughout the years. I know it sounds it's not enough of an excuse for me to turn to crime but it feels that way, you know? Besides, I got kicked out of the service not long after I killed Big Smile Lee."
Tran nodded. "Oh, that's quite a story you got there," he said. "So tell me, I know that everything that happened to you changed you, but is this what you wanted?"
Wei sighs. He knew someone would ask him that, especially since he was born a good heart, just with a bad past. Ever since his new journey began, he knew there's no going back once he took over Hong Kong.
"To be clear," he explained. "I used to hate everything about this life, and what happened with my sister fueled that hate." He sip again. "But, during my undercover mission to infiltrate this triad, I was slowly getting attached to the life while sticking to my role as a cop. But the more I do things for this triad, and more people I cared about died, fueled that desire of that life. And when after Jiang opened my eyes about the truth of what happened from the day I was born, I was furious and willingly rejoined the triad.
That desire of this life intensified as I killed my way to the top," he continued, "It helps when I got kicked out of the HKPD for life. And after eliminating the 18K and their leader for good, I made my decision to live this way and make money. As much as I knew this was wrong, but I knew I'm living the life with consequences and I am more than ready to face it if that ever happens. And I refuse to back away from my sins."
"Wow," Tran was astonished. "That's pretty noble of you willing to face your punishments. I doubt you want that to happen sooner."
"Yep," Wei agreed. "It's been a peaceful year ever since. There's nothing going on other than avoiding the cops. Jiang and I made connections with the Cloreone Family from America. It's a good start, we still need many connections and places to expand my empire. Making it even more easy to launder more money, I doubt the Wei of Money will be the only place that launders sums of cash, it's bound to attract attention of the IRS soon enough."
"Well, you still have other places to launder that money," Tran pointed out.
"I know but Not Ping's shop is also a front for hacking," Wei said. "When I have time, she and I would hack big targets for big cash. We even hacked the stock markets, it makes us money as much as Wei of Money does."
Now that got Tran impressed. "That must be some big money there!" He exclaimed.
Wei smiled with gratitude. "Yes, it is. Anyway, what else you got going?"
Tran beamed up at that question. "Oh! Earlier, I got an intel of another armored truck around this city, and as usual, I sent your guys to retrieve it. And bring it back to any of the dealerships around the city to launder the money."
"And those trucks we needed to move the illegal cash around," Wei added.
"Exactly," Tran replied. "So anyway, it may not be my place to ask but... what are you going to do with all that money?"
Wei took a moment before he answered, "Well, I thought about that too sometimes. Jiang and I bought everything we needed, private jets, yachts, and also buy out the agents, lawyers, judges. My friend in the police form, Tiang, she understand my decision to live this life but she warned me that the day of my consequences will come."
"How can we know she won't turn on you and catch all of us?" Tran asked him warily.
"Don't worry," Wei told him. "I did some favors for her and in return, she gave us police protection and delayed further investigations. But the condition was to keep quiet and not to make too much noise as we carry on with our business."
"Fair enough."
"I also planned to develop a land in North Point, we made quite a mess last year," Wei continued. "Another way to put my money in good use while I'll ended up profiting from it." He look at his watch. "Shit, listen, it's time for me to scram. But I'm glad that I checked up on you."
"Sure Wei, you can enjoy the rest of your day now."
So Wei drinks his entire beer and breaks it to the ground with style, in which Tran doesn't mind. He returned to his car and drove away to his next desired location.
"So, how's things here?" Wei asked sitting in his office with Conroy and Duke siting by the couch.
Wei had just arrived in the Club Bam Bam. While the place was still close for the next 8 hours, it's still a perfect time to make meetings with one of his friends, the Red Poles.
"It's going good, boss," Conroy confirmed. "The place just made 24K last night, and we're able to launder a few more thousand dollars from the protection rackets into this establishment. Everything's been going well by the second."
Wei nodded in delight. "Good. Everything's been going well for us in about a year." His face turned into one of stern. "But we will have bigger problems to deal with in the future."
Conroy nodded. "You're right, boss. We dealt with the 18K before, and I'm not saying that I'm overconfident that we can take on other criminal organizations, but I believe we can survive as long as we're in it together."
"You're correct," he turned to Duke. "How about you? You're responsible for the bus racket, how did it go?"
Duke explained, "It's going great as usual, but it makes us more money than I ever thought with this racket."
Wei smiled. "In that case," he reached out from underneath his desk and pulled out two envelopes of cash. "Consider this as your paycheck. A good leader pays what he owes."
The two accept the envelope with heart. The money in there is pretty decent.
Wei brightened his smile. Sure, being a criminal was bad enough for society, but society gave him shit when he's just doing his job as a cop back then. He just can't wait for the party here tonight.
