Chapter 123: Enemies Huddling Together, Justice Walking Alone

"Carmine! Look at what you've done!"

In the Roman's office, Calaveti was shouting questions at him. Calara still had not found the murderer of Johnny Viti, and the anger pent up in her heart was already burning fiercely. Upon learning that Falcone had broken the long-standing rules of the underworld by going to hire the group of super-criminals in Gotham City, she immediately remembered the reason she had originally come to Gotham.

The Viti family was rooted in Chicago, and after Calara Viti arrived in Gotham, she began to target Falcone—from the very beginning, the Viti family had wanted to seize the Roman's control over Gotham City.

And now, she happened to have a reason to make her move.

Even in the eyes of the underworld, that group of super-criminals could be called chaotic and disordered killers, mentally deranged perverts, freaks naturally unacceptable to the world—the underworld always acted for only one thing, which was money; therefore, they laid down rules, established gangs, built networks of relations, and carefully operated a stable money-making network in Gotham City that allowed them to profit continuously over the long term.

But those madmen were different; they acted solely on their whims. The Joker would think of indiscriminate slaughter to find the Holiday Killer; Poison Ivy would turn people who destroyed large areas of plants into flower fertilizer; Scarecrow, when bored, just liked to research new poison gases to carry out terrorist attacks; the Mad Hatter would brainwash young girls to become his Alice in Wonderland, and if he was dissatisfied, he would kill them; the Riddler never minded using human lives as stakes when leaving riddles—they each had their own madness.

Madness, disorder, cruelty, taking their own whims rather than actual interests as the standard for action; no matter which point, it was completely incompatible with the underworld of Gotham City. The Gotham City underworld, which pursued stability and rules, could not provoke those madmen and could only carefully avoid them.

But what did the Roman do?

"You hired Poison Ivy, the Riddler, Scarecrow, and the Mad Hatter! A whole four freaks! A group of perverts!"

The Roman stood in the office, staring coldly at the front-page news in the Gotham Daily about the bank robbery. He had not expected that a combination like Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter would still not withstand Batman, which made the effort and money he had spent beforehand all in vain—and now, his mood was very bad.

"Calara, you are my family, and I love you too."

The Godfather answered Calara's words, turning his body slightly to glance sideways at her. In that instant, the majesty and coldness in his eyes almost completely froze the sister who had come to demand an explanation: "But never command me to explain myself to you."

Calara finally took a step back. She turned away in full indignation and left Falcone's office. Fortunately, she did not slam the door when leaving; otherwise, Falcone's mood might have been even worse.

A few minutes later, Sophia knocked on Falcone's door.

"Dad, did you need something from me?"

"Sophia, you saw the newspaper too, right?"

Falcone handed the newspaper in his hand to his daughter: "The news on the front page, the failure of the bank robbery—if this had succeeded, my previous hiring of Poison Ivy would probably have been wiped out along with it, after all, it could prove that hiring those madmen could yield greater benefits."

"Unfortunately, I failed. Since that is the case, I have no choice but to deal with the second troublesome matter."

"What matter is that?"

"Turn a page of the newspaper."

Sophia then casually turned a page of the newspaper and looked at the next news item following the headline. In that instant, a flicker of doubt appeared on her expression.

"Sal Maroni is about to sue Carmine Falcone in court. What brilliant plan does Harvey Dent have?"

"That is the matter." Falcone shook his head: "I don't know what madness has seized Maroni. I originally thought that since St. Patrick's Day, the war between us should have paused, but he has recently still been relentless, even wanting to personally testify in court against me—there must be something wrong with this matter."

"I originally did not intend to pay attention to this matter and wanted to focus on managing the family business, but now, your Aunt Calara is restless—I do not want to fight on two fronts, dealing with wolves on one side and snakes on the other."

"You go find Maroni and tell him that the shooting of his father and himself was absolutely not ordered by me. The Falcone family will search for that murderer together with the Maroni family. We have no need to become enemies, nor should we fall into someone else's trap—mutual destruction benefits no one; it will only benefit that Harvey Dent, and his suspicion as the Holiday Killer has not yet been cleared."

"And if he really does not listen to advice—Sophia, you should know why I sent you."

"Yes, Dad."

Sophia hesitated for a moment, nodded to her father, put the newspaper back on the edge of the table, turned around, and left the office.

Originally, she still wanted to ask her father about the arrangements for his birthday—August 2nd was the Roman's birthday, and there were still about twenty days left, which was exactly the time to start preparing in advance. The Roman's birthday banquet was naturally extraordinary; besides a small party composed of a few direct relatives of the Falcone family, there was also a large banquet in the evening.

But after learning the news that Sal was about to testify against her father in court, Sophia temporarily lost the desire to ask more questions. She hurriedly walked out of Maroni's apartment, got into a car, and headed towards the prison.

Today was also a calm and peaceful day. Harvey sat in his office, preparing materials for the court session on August 2nd. Everyone in the prosecutor's office knew this was a trial he valued highly; therefore, recently even Vernon rarely ran into the office to find him.

However, it was interesting that the recent Prosecutor Harvey seemed accustomed to working with a pair of headphones. According to him, this was to isolate noise and isolate distracting thoughts.

"Isolate my ass; I think it's isolation from the world."

"Keep your voice down; Prosecutor Harvey hasn't gotten off work yet."

"What are you afraid of? He's wearing headphones, with both ears not hearing anything outside the window—Maroni suing Falcone, he dares to get involved in such a thing. Aren't you afraid? If the Roman deals with Maroni, he will turn around and come to clean him up. I'm really afraid he'll drag me down to die with him."

"Say less. The Roman is a gangster."

"When a person has the ability to control your money bag and your neck, don't say he's a gangster; even if he's one of those perverted madmen inside Arkham, you'd better follow their line of thinking—you are first a person who gets hungry and dies, and only then a prosecutor. Do you understand?"

However, Harvey, wearing headphones, indeed could not hear his colleagues' whispering at this moment. He was listening with focused expression to the conversation voice coming from the headphones.

"Mr. Maroni, you have a visitor—a very important my lord, here to see you."

(End of this chapter)