Chapter 82: Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Strategy of Driving the Tiger to Eat the Wolf (Part 2)

Of course, it was impossible to expect all of Gotham to unite under the Godfather’s command—Gotham had no shortage of rebellious troublemakers, and now the most prominent among them was Sal Maroni.

Maroni was a man of great ambition, as evidenced by the name he chose for his gang; in Gotham, not every gang could bear a surname—originally, only the Falcone family had that privilege, and now all twelve gangs founded by the Falcones also bore surnames, while all other smaller gangs used codenames instead.

Naming a gang after one’s own surname was a great honor in Gotham, for Falcone had been the first to do so—and had achieved unparalleled success.

Maroni had done the same, which meant that from the very beginning, he had harbored ambitions to challenge the Godfather.

After the Red Crow Gang was destroyed, Maroni swallowed most of its remnants—and also wiped out another gang that had long opposed him; on that street in the East District, few could now stand against him.

He naturally wanted to go further, especially since he knew the Godfather was aging, and the moment of transition within the Falcone family was the perfect opportunity to strike.

Falcone had entrusted many of his enterprises to Wensi, who, though intelligent, lacked the seasoned ruthlessness of the old Godfather; the two bartenders attacked by outsiders from the Metropolis were from two bars Wensi had sought to reform.

Maroni keenly sensed from this incident the Godfather’s weakening grip—Young Falcone was still too green; he wanted reform but lacked the old Godfather’s decisive ruthlessness, sought stability but lacked sufficient experience. Maroni thought this was the perfect moment to deliver a fatal blow to the Falcone family.

In Maroni’s estimation, the Godfather would not launch a massive retaliation against the killers; though losing face might shake his authority, the Godfather was old now, and power transition mattered more than pride—at this critical juncture, any diversion of energy could trigger chaos, and Falcone would not sacrifice the whole for a petty loss.

Originally, Maroni had planned to exploit this incident to further undermine the Godfather’s authority, even considering impersonating Metropolis agents to strike at the Godfather’s other enterprises—but then, out of nowhere, Shiler was hospitalized, and the gangs went mad, hunting down the killers.

This left Maroni utterly baffled.

He had originally thought that even if the Godfather pursued the killers, it didn’t matter—as long as his attention was distracted, Maroni would find opportunities to slowly devour Falcone’s assets.