Chapter 1002:

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Luca’s vision darkened, as though swallowed by a deep, blood-red void. If Carole was gone, then what meaning remained in all the power he had fought so relentlessly to obtain? The strength that had once kept him moving seemed to drain out of him completely, and he collapsed to the floor.

His condition sparked immediate unrest within Valerino. From the very beginning, his rise had never been smooth. It had been built on tension and danger. Leone’s sons had never truly accepted him; they had only restrained themselves out of respect for Leone’s authority. Now that Leone was gone, their ambitions no longer hid behind courtesy. Each of them believed he was the rightful heir. Each wanted Valerino for himself.

In the days following his rise, Luca was consumed by despair. At one point, he even considered surrendering the leadership back to them and ending everything. He no longer cared for power. All he wanted was to return to Zhatwell and see Carole, even if it was only at her cold grave.

But he understood the rules of their world too well. Once someone took the seat of leadership, even if they stepped down willingly, they would not be allowed to leave alive.

He could not die yet. Mike had not yet paid the price.

If not for Mike’s actions years ago, drugging and forcing himself on her, Carole would never have married into the Knight family. Mike had married her but never treated her as he should have. He kept a mistress, fathered an illegitimate child, and even consumed her family’s business piece by piece. And in the end, Carole’s fatal accident had happened while she was caring for Mike’s mother. It was all because of the Knight family. Every thread of cruelty led back to them.

Whа𝘵 𝘦v𝖾𝗿y𝘰n𝖾 іѕ 𝗿е𝘢𝘥iո𝘨 𝗼𝘯 𝗀аln𝗈𝘷𝗲𝗅𝗌.c𝗈𝘮

He must have revenge, for Carole, and for himself. And revenge demanded absolute power.

To protect what he had gained, Luca buried his grief deep within himself. There was no space left for mourning, no time left for Zhatwell. All his strength had to be directed toward crushing the rebellion forming inside Valerino.

Over more than a decade of blood and turmoil, Luca became something unrecognizable, an emotionless force of judgment. At first, most of the Capozzi family rejected him, insisting he was an outsider with no true blood ties to them. But through an unyielding grip and a series of brutal conflicts, he seized control completely. He defeated Leone’s sons and erased their influence without leaving traces behind.

He grew cold, suspicious, and mercilessly decisive. He understood clearly that only such a man could survive as the leader of Valerino.

In the end, Valerino fell entirely under his control. Under his rule, the organization rose from one of the major Mafia families to the most powerful criminal empire in the world. Luca’s name alone became enough to instill fear across the underworld, forcing even the most defiant to submit.

Yet at the peak of power, he found himself utterly alone.

Still, for the first time in years, he finally had the freedom to pursue what he had never let go of, without any obstacle standing in his way.

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