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“Yeah That’s by design You don’t know his name, and he probably doesn’t know yours, but he affects your life on a daily basis” Marcus straightens, leaning back a little as he holds aze “He’s the ot his hands in every fucking thing The most powerful, wealthiest families, the mafia syndicates, the politicians—they all answer to hio back years, and he’s fair but brutal as fuck No one’s ever been able to unseat him from power, and the last tio”

“He’s the fucking king of Halston,” Theo puts in “What he says goes”

“Okay”

I draw the word out The thought of so, but I still don’t understand what it has to do with the three athered around me—or with Carson Purcell

“Luca was o now None of us remember the woman as his wife, but the way our parents talk about it, he fucking worshipped her He adored her”

So eyes as he speaks, and I feel heat bloom insideabout himself rather than this man, Luca

“You said was married What happened to her?” I murmur

“She died five years after they were married” He catches the look on my face and shakes his head “Not violently I’m not sure the city would’ve survived his wrath if that was the case She wasn’t ressive form of cancer, and not even all of his power and wealth could save her She was gone within six nosis”

“Soht after that,” Ryland interjects, and I glance over at hiot Her loss just about wrecked him”

“He never res “She was it for him All he ever wanted”

My chest squeezes I don’t know this iven how much power he’s consolidated, he has to be hardened and ruthless But my heart aches for hi loyalty that borders on obsession?

I think I knohat it feels like to be on the receiving end of those kinds of e, there’s so about it too

“They never had children,” Theo says, picking up the thread of the conversation as if all threefrom one shared brain “And Luca has never taken a mistress that anyone knows of He has no heir”

“He plans to step down at so on to his words “Since he has no children of his own, he has no one to succeed him No one to leave his empire to”

“So he handpicked twelve of the most powerful families in the city, and each of them volunteered one of their heirs as a possible successor for Luca,” Ryland says, bitterness coating his voice