2026-07-10 19:08:33Valentina stood frozen for a second, her mind refusing to accept what she had just heard. Marco never spoke to her like that. Not once in five years.
"Are you insane?" Her voice cracked between fury and disbelief. "You hit my father and now you want a divorce? Marco, think about what you're saying."
She stepped closer, trying to soften her tone, the way she always did when she needed to pull him back into line.
"You're just stressed. You don't mean any of this. Let's talk calmly, okay? We can fix whatever is bothering you."
Marco said nothing. He simply stared at her, his eyes flat and unreadable, like he was looking at a stranger wearing his wife's face.
Footsteps came from the hallway, light and unhurried. Lorenzo strolled in wearing a smug grin, his hands tucked into his pockets like he owned the place.
"What happened?" Lorenzo strolled over, looking at the chaos in front of him and putting on a fake peacemaker act. "Cousin-in-law, you're in the wrong here. Uncle Sergio is your elder, after all. How could you lay a hand on him?"
His words sounded polite enough, yet his face was plastered with blatant disdain and mockery.Something inside Marco snapped clean in half.
He crossed the room in two strides and slammed his fist into Lorenzo's jaw before the man could even blink. Lorenzo's body hit the floor hard, his head bouncing off the wood with a dull thud.
"You don't get a say in my family." Marco's voice was ice cold, each word landing like a slap. "You're nothing here. Open your mouth again and I'll break more than your jaw."
Lorenzo lay sprawled on the ground, blood trickling from his split lip, his eyes wide with shock and pure hatred.
Valentina's scream tore through the room. She rushed to Lorenzo's side, dropping to her knees, her hands hovering over him like she was afraid to touch broken glass.
"What is wrong with you?" Her eyes filled with tears as she glared up at Marco. "First my father, now my cousin? Have you completely lost your mind?"
Marco watched her cradle Lorenzo like a wounded child, and something bitter rose in his throat.
He walked toward her slowly, his footsteps quiet against the floor, his voice dropping low enough that only she could hear it.
"You know very well whether Lorenzo is really your cousin or not, don't you?"
Valentina's whole body went stiff. Cold sweat broke out across her forehead in an instant, her hands trembling against Lorenzo's shoulder.
"What... what are you talking about?" Her voice wavered, the confidence draining out of it word by word.
Marco leaned in closer, his expression calm, almost gentle, which made his words even more terrifying.
"I know about the baby too." He watched her face drain of color completely. "It's not mine. We both know exactly whose it is."
Valentina's lips parted, but no sound came out. Her eyes darted to Lorenzo, then back to Marco, panic flooding every inch of her face.
"If you want to keep pretending none of this happened, fine." Marco's voice stayed level, almost bored. "But if you refuse to sign the divorce papers, I will make sure everyone in this town knows exactly what kind of woman you really are."
Valentina's jaw clenched so tight it looked painful, her nails digging into her own palm.
She had no idea how Marco had figured any of this out. Yesterday he had been an obedient fool who flinched at her tone. Today he stood in front of her like a man who held all the power in the room.
"Fine." The word came out through gritted teeth, sharp and bitter. "We'll divorce. Are you happy now?"
Marco's lips curled into a faint, humorless smile.
"There's one more thing." He glanced around the living room slowly, like he was already seeing it without their furniture cluttering it. "Your entire family needs to be out of this house by tonight."
Sergio, still nursing his shoulder on the floor nearby, shot upright with a furious snarl.
"Out of the house?" His face turned a deep shade of red. "This is my daughter's house too, you ungrateful mutt! Who do you think you are, throwing us out like garbage?"
Marco's gaze swept over him without a flicker of fear.
"This house belonged to my parents before I ever married Valentina." His tone stayed flat and final. "It's mine. It was always mine. None of you ever had a real claim to it."
Valentina's mother appeared in the doorway just in time to hear this, her face twisting with outrage.
"You can't just throw us out on the street!" she shrieked, clutching the doorframe like it might save her position in the house. "We are your family! Have some decency!"
Valentina wiped her eyes and stood up straighter, her panic shifting quickly into calculation.
"Fine, we'll talk about the house later." Her voice turned sly, testing the waters. "But if we're really getting divorced, you owe me a proper settlement. A real one. Don't think you can just kick us out with nothing."
Marco let out a short, humorless laugh, shaking his head slowly.
"You really don't know when to stop, do you?" His eyes studied her like she was something pitiful and small. "Even with everything falling apart around you, you're still trying to squeeze money out of me."
Valentina lifted her chin, refusing to back down, her eyes hard and demanding.
"You owe me five years of marriage, Marco. I deserve compensation."
Marco's smile faded into something colder.
"You'll regret this." His voice dropped so quiet it almost sounded gentle, which made it worse. "Every single thing you're doing right now, you will regret."
Marco walked into the bedroom, half an hour later, he walked out holding a stack of documents, which he tossed down right in front of Valentina.
"Sign it. As for the division of property, we can each get our own lawyers, but today you must sign this divorce agreement."
Valentina looked at the divorce agreement, her expression shifting. Yet, meeting Marco's resolute gaze, she disdainfully picked up a pen and signed her name anyway.
"Just don't regret this," Valentina sneered viciously. "I hope tomorrow you won't come crawling back like a stray dog who can't find its way home, begging me to take you in again!"
Seeing Valentina sign her name, Marco finally let out a sigh of relief.
There was a crucial clause in the divorce agreement: the cut-off date for the valuation and division of joint marital assets was set as today.
Only with this specific clause signed could Marco move forward with his plans without a single worry.
Because tomorrow, he was going to become a billionaire.
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CHAPTER 217
Wendy opened her eyes and straightened. Her voice came out sharper than anyone expected from someone that tired."Casualties. That is what I keep thinking about." She pushed a strand of hair from her forehead. "Every fight we have had so far, people got hurt in ones and twos. This will be different. If Colton hits us with real force, I could have twenty wounded at once. Maybe more.""What do you need?" Marco asked."A proper triage setup. Three stations, not one. Stretchers, tourniquets, blood clotting packs, and at least six people trained to carry the wounded without dropping them." She looked around the table. "And I need them trained this week, not the day the shooting starts.""Diane, give her whoever she asks for." Marco looked at Diane, who was already writing. "Pull them off scavenging if you have to.""Done." Diane did not hesitate. "I will redo the whole labor schedule tonight."The meeting stretched for three hours. Marco asked questions, Okafor argued, Delgado found holes
CHAPTER 216
Perry arrived at the safe house before sunrise with frost in his beard and a folded report clutched against his chest. He did not sit down. He did not take off his coat. He laid the paper on the kitchen table and stepped back as if it might bite him."Read it." Perry's voice was thin and tight. "Please."Marco picked up the report and read it twice. Tank watched him from the floor, ears forward, sensing the change in the air before anyone spoke."Colton finished his purge." Marco set the paper down slowly. "He found someone to blame for the leaks.""Not Okafor." Perry pushed his taped bifocals up his nose, and his hands were shaking. "A sergeant named Harlan Voss. Caught stealing medical supplies a week ago for a completely unrelated reason. Colton decided he was the traitor, put him in front of the whole mall, and shot him. Case closed.""Closed." Marco repeated the word and tasted how bitter it was. "He found a convenient corpse and declared victory over his own paranoia.""And the
CHAPTER 215
"Yesterday morning, two people in this community were caught stealing from the communal food storage." Marco's voice carried across the garage without effort. "Four cases of canned protein and two bags of rice. Hidden under their floorboards."A ripple of anger moved through the crowd. Someone near the back muttered a word that Marco chose to ignore."I want you to understand why they did it." Marco raised his hand to quiet the murmurs. "Dennis and Patricia Hartley survived six weeks on snow water and scavenged scraps. They watched people die around them. When they arrived here and saw that we have food, their fear told them it wouldn't last. So they took extra and hid it."He looked directly at Dennis, who flinched."That's not greed. That's terror." Marco's voice was firm but not cruel. "And I'd bet every person in this room has felt some version of it."Heads nodded slowly. A woman in the second row wiped her eyes."But here's the rule." Marco's tone sharpened. "Everyone contribute
CHAPTER 214
Marco had spent weeks building a fortress, an intelligence network, and a trained security force. Nothing had prepared him for the problem that landed on his kitchen table at seven in the morning, delivered by a furious Diane Kowalski with her clipboard held against her chest like a shield."Third complaint this week." Diane set the clipboard down and rubbed her temples. "The Hendersons in Building 2 say the Garcias are stealing their water ration. The Garcias say the Hendersons are lying because their kid spilled half the jug. And two of the construction workers are fighting over who gets the bottom bunk in the barracks.""Over a bunk." Marco stared at her. Tank lifted his head from the floor and looked between them as if waiting for someone to explain what was happening."Ninety people who didn't choose each other, living in cramped quarters, surviving on rations." Diane's voice was dry and tired. "Everything becomes a fight eventually. I've handled most of it, but some of these dis
CHAPTER 213
Marco walked back to the garage and stood in front of Delgado. The former sergeant sat on an overturned crate with a thermal blanket around his shoulders, his hands wrapped around a cup of hot water that one of the patrol volunteers had given him without asking permission. His people sat behind him in a loose cluster, some of them already asleep on the cold concrete floor, their bodies giving up the fight against exhaustion the moment they felt even a fraction of safety."Here's the deal." Marco folded his arms. "Same offer I give everyone. You contribute labor, you eat. Scavenging, construction, security patrols, medical work, whatever your skills are. Two meals a day. Warm shelter. Clean water. In exchange, you follow the rules, you take orders from the people I've put in charge, and you don't cause problems.""What kind of problems?" Delgado looked up, and his eyes were sharp despite the exhaustion behind them."The kind that end with bodies in my courtyard." Marco didn't flinch. "
CHAPTER 212
The cameras picked them up at seven in the morning.Eleven figures moving through the grey sleet toward the neighborhood's damaged gate, huddled together like a herd of animals crossing open ground and expecting to be shot at any moment."Contact at the south gate." Okafor's voice came through the walkie talkie from his patrol position on the Building 2 rooftop. "Eleven individuals. Mixed group. Civilian clothing. No visible weapons. They look half dead."Marco walked to the monitor and studied the feed. The group moved slowly, some of them limping, one being supported between two others.Their clothes were torn, their skin was grey with cold, and at least three of them had the blackened fingertips and swollen joints that came from severe frostbite left untreated for weeks."Could be real survivors." Natalie stood behind him, watching the screen. "Could be Colton's people wearing rags.""Could be both." Marco zoomed in on the man at the front of the group.Tall, square shouldered desp
