"Then is it an alliance or not?" Adam asked.
Gonda stayed quiet for several seconds.
Merek and Solan exchanged a glance. Their boss had already bent more than usual, yet he was still thinking instead of exploding.
At last, Gonda said, "Fine. I accept your conditions. But if this alliance is real, then I will stand at the top on this district's side."
Adam smiled faintly.
'Top or bottom, I don't care,' Adam thought. 'I only need the name of this alliance to exist.'
If Gonda believed this alliance would protect him, Adam had no problem letting him believe that. In his last life, Gonda had died in the gang war anyway.
"As long as you do your job properly, your position will not be low," Adam said.
"There's one more thing. I'm giving you the names of ten companies."
He read them out one by one: Vesta Vision, Lenor Heatworks, Ardin Home Electric, ...
"I want their imported lines disturbed," Adam said. "Not openly. Not by direct attacks. I want the effect, not the noise."
"What?" he said. "Why these ten companies?"
Adam's tone hardened at once.
"This is the first and last time I forgive that kind of mistake," he said. "Do not ask me questions like that again."
Gonda's mouth tightened, but Adam did not stop there.
"We are not the only ones who know secrets, Gonda. Bruno and your wife were not hidden from us either."
For the first time in the call, Gonda's eyes widened openly.
Merek noticed it and looked up. Even Solan understood the name on the other side had reached somewhere sensitive.
Gonda let out a slow breath.
"My mistake," he said. "Forgive me."
"Much better," he said. "Keep learning and you'll go farther."
Gonda lowered his head a little and listened.
"Don't touch their full import routes," Adam said. "That would be stupid. I only want pressure on the specific outside components they depend on. Delay them, misroute them, or damage small parts of the line, but make sure your gang's name appears nowhere near it."
Those ten companies were not the biggest in the province, but most of them relied on imported chips, control boards, display units, and in one case television screens. If those parts started arriving late or damaged, they would struggle, and the market would start looking elsewhere.
'That is enough,' Adam thought. 'I don't need to crush them. I only need to create demand.'
"Bruno gets full freedom in the work we use him for. He stays under you, but he will act as the bridge. Whatever information you send our way can pass through him. Whatever instructions or supply move from our side can also pass through him. Right now we have no trust in you at all. Bruno stays in the middle until you prove yourself."
Gonda understood that clearly enough. This so-called alliance was still keeping him under observation, and he hated that, but he had already come too far to throw it away over pride.
"Fine," he said. "I'll do it. I'll bring the gangs together, and I'll start putting pressure on those ten companies."
Adam knew he had stretched his lie as far as it could go. Gonda was still standing here only because he had chosen to believe.
"Good. When your first task is done, I'll contact you again."
Gonda spoke quickly this time.
"And what about our physical meeting?"
Adam laughed softly.
"You still have a lot to learn."
Then he cut the call.
The phone in his hand was not his, so he felt no attachment to it. He smashed it against the side wall, broke it into as many pieces as he could, then scattered the pieces before leaving the area.
A little later, inside his own base, Gonda lowered his phone and sat in silence.
Merek spoke first.
"Boss, isn't this too much? This doesn't even sound like an alliance."
Solan nodded once.
"He's ordering us around."
Gonda exhaled and rubbed his forehead.
"If what he said is true, and if what we saw in that meeting was also true, then bending for now is better than breaking early," he said. "We don't need to like it. We need to survive it."
He said nothing more. For now, he would stay with Wil's side and quietly look for the other organization too. If he found them first, Wil's information itself could become a price.
Some time after that, Bruno returned.
The moment he stepped into the base, he noticed that everyone was already there, as if they had been waiting for him.
He looked at Gonda and tried to read his face, wondering what the old man had said.
Before Bruno could ask, Gonda stood up.
"I always knew you were capable," he said.
Bruno blinked.
That was not the tone he had expected.
Gonda drew a deep breath and continued, "Because of you, I got what I wanted again. So for this crime of yours, I'm forgiving you."
A weak smile appeared on Bruno's face before he could stop it.
He had lived, and that alone felt unreal.
Then Gonda reached behind his back, pulled out another gun, and placed it in Bruno's hand.
"This is your proper reward," he said. "You're the main bridge now."
Bruno looked down at the weapon in silence.
He still did not fully understand the tone behind those words.
Then Gonda smiled and pushed Bruno lightly by the shoulder.
"Now go and kill the root of the biggest problem between us."
Bruno's smile vanished.
"Boss... what do you mean?"
Gonda's face hardened.
"Kill my wife."
Bruno's own men were standing behind him, but none of them moved. Merek and Solan said nothing either. All of them were looking at Bruno.
"As long as I keep seeing her in front of me, I won't be able to forgive you," Gonda said. "I loved that woman. She betrayed me. You betrayed me. Someone is standing behind you and keeping you alive, so fine. But no one is standing behind her."
He pushed Bruno forward again.
"If I can't kill you, then I'll kill the thing between us with your own hands. Go. Do it before I change my mind."
Bruno's throat went dry.
Part of him was relieved because he had survived.
The rest of him was terrified because now he understood what survival had cost him.