Chapter 153. Warehouse with the Media

Chapter 153. Warehouse with the Media


Vittorio POV

“What did you say?” My voice cut so low it barely reached the reporters five rooms away.

Katarina’s eyes were glassy from the flashes, the sunlight, the lies. She didn’t flinch. She whispered it again, like a confession or a prayer: “I think I’m pregnant.”

For a second the world didn’t exist. The microphones hummed. A camera clicked. The taste of metal filled my mouth — the taste of my own blood, sudden and bright. Something small and traitorous beat in my chest. I felt light there, and sick, and more alive than I had in years.

I had never wanted an heir. I had never let myself think about a child. Children meant futures, and futures were soft things where bullets did not belong. I was a man who built walls out of men; a child would be paper in that storm. But when Katarina said the word, something like butterflies leaked into my ribs.

“Are you… sure?” My words came out rough. I pointed at her, not sure what else to do with the shape of the news.

She pressed a hand to her stomach as if to hide the secret from everyone else. “I don’t know yet. I just— I felt it. I thought—” Her voice folded into the noise of the crew. “I thought you should know.”

My head filled with a dozen images — nurseries with steel shutters, lullabies sung over the click of guns, a child’s laugh cut short by a phone call. I felt anger first, at the unlucky timing. Fiorella was back. There was a daughter in the house. The villa was crowded with mirrors and traps.

Then, guilty and strange, there was a warmth that made my fingers numb. I had not felt this soft for anything since my mother’s grave. I was stunned at the betrayal of it: wanting something that did not belong to monsters like me.

Before I could say anything else, Salvatore was at my shoulder, tugging my sleeve. “Boss. We need to move. Ministers are on the line. The mayor—”

I did not turn away from Katarina. I let Salvatore speak, like a man letting rain hit him while he stood in the sun. “They want to be seen. They want a statement. The paper outside already spun this to score points.”

I heard it, the urgency in Salvatore’s voice, all the way in the bones. But there was a smaller, sharper voice inside me that wasn’t ready to hand this moment over to the world.

“Tell them to wait,” I said finally. My voice was small, and raw. “They will wait.”

Salvatore swallowed. “They won’t wait long. They’re calling the minister now. They want answers.”

My jaw moved. I felt the old machine waking — the part of me that moved seconds like chess pieces. I had to protect whatever this was. I had to keep Katarina from being humiliated on front pages, from being spun into a scandal. I was not a man of soft public sentiment, but I would not let her be put in the mud.

“Get her to safety,” I said. “Now. Valentino — keep her with you. Do not let anyone near her. Not the press. Not a camera.”

Salvatore blinked. “Boss—”

“I said do it.” My hand closed around the edge of the marble table until my knuckles went white. I let the command land like a stone.

Salvatore moved, brisk, professional. I watched him leave and, for a beat, I saw only Katarina’s throat working with the small, new worry of a woman who had just walked into another life without asking for it.

As Salvatore reached the doorway, I did something I rarely did: I let myself tremble. The tremor was not weakness; it was recognition. This matter — this seed, if seed it was — changed the map.

I reached for my phone with a single hand. The leather felt cold under my palm. I dialed Ghost.

The line clicked. “Ghost.”

“Listen.” My voice was low, a slow blade. “I want the heads of those media companies rounded up. Bring them to Warehouse Nine. No one dead in public. No tapes online. We handle it quiet.”

There was a pause. Ghost’s voice was always even. “That’s risky, boss. Word gets teeth. People talk.”

I let my breath fog a little in the morning air. I thought of Katarina’s face, the way she had said the word, the way the world might gnaw at it. “Do you want my woman in the gutter?” My voice went colder. “Then get it done. Quiet. Fast. Make sure the footage disappears.”

“Understood,” Ghost said. “We’ll—”

“Not discussed,” I snapped. “Done.”

I hung up and felt the old familiar solidity come back, like armor sliding on. Orders wrapped around me and made me whole.

She looked at me, then away. “I don’t know,” she said. “I… I’m not sure. I didn’t want to say it out loud. But I thought you should know first. I thought—” She swallowed. “I thought if it’s yours, you should know.”

I wanted to be fierce for her. I wanted to promise protection and give her everything. Instead, I said, “We’ll test. We’ll find out. If it’s mine — we protect it. If not—”

I did not finish. I didn’t need to. The implication was clear: I would protect the child I could claim, and I would burn what needed burning.

Valentino stepped forward, voice low. “I’ll take her. I’ll get her to privacy.”

I caught a flicker in my brother’s eyes — protectiveness, sharp and raw. For a beat I wondered if it was for me… or for her. The thought sat heavy, unspoken.

My jaw moved. I watched my brother as if seeing him for the first time: the tight set of his mouth, the hands that could be tenderness or violence depending on the moment. “Fine. Keep her close.”

As Valentino led Katarina away, I turned to Salvatore. “Prepare the car. We go to the warehouse.”

Salvatore’s eyes widened. “Warehouse? For—”

“For cleaning,” I said. I tried to keep the tone flat and professional. “Prepare men. Nothing loud. No bodies in the street. I don’t want shame on her name.”

Salvatore nodded, but his face did not understand the soft line of the order. “You sure that’s—”

“I’m sure,” I said simply. I had a weight in my hands now, a decision like a burning brand. “Do it.”

I made a second call, to a man whose name was more rumor than known. The man answered breathless and quick, the kind of man who moved in quiet corridors and knew how to make things disappear.

I whispered into the receiver with assurance.

By the time the car doors clicked and the engine muffled into a low growl, Ghost had his instructions and Salvatore had a line of men ready to pull the evidence offline. I tucked my phone into my pocket and closed my hands into fists.

I could picture the warehouse: concrete, cold light, the smell of oil and dust. I pictured the cameras’ lenses taken offline one by one until the world would not have footage to feed the rumor mills.

I wasn’t proud. I felt a cold, clean clarity. No one would shame Katarina. Not tonight. Not on my watch.

In the back of the car, the leather smelled of smoke and old cologne. I stared at my reflection in the dark glass and saw a man I barely recognized — a king who loved a woman enough to move mountains and men for her. I had built an empire on fear; now I would use that same fear like a shield.

Salvatore tapped his wrist, checking the time. “The minister is on line three, boss. They’re impatient.”

I breathed in. I thought of the child — a tiny, impossible thing that might grow under Katarina’s ribs. The thought softened me and made me dangerous all at once.

“Tell them to wait,” I said again. “They will have to wait.”

I called Valentino on speaker as the car slid into the street. “Watch My Little Fox. Keep her safe.”

Valentino’s voice came through, steady and rough. “I’ll keep her. I’ll keep her safe.”

“Good.” My hand brushed the gold on my ring, feeling the cold metal like a compass. I watched the city blur by — cafes, shutters, people who walked with their small soft lives unaware. I tasted the city’s dust and the sweet tang of my own decision.

The car turned toward the warehouse district. On the dash the radio droned about the morning’s scandals like a distant ghost; I barely heard it. My mouth was a thin line.

When the car slowed and the warehouse rose out of the grey like a promise carved in concrete, I looked at Salvatore and said, quietly, “If anyone shames her, they will regret it.”

Salvatore’s face was unreadable, but the men behind him were ready. I stepped out into the cold and felt the night settle, heavy and obedient, like a held breath.

I walked toward the warehouse door, toward the men who would do what I asked, toward a night that would try to clean her name.

I liked to think I could wipe the stain clean. I liked to think I could keep what was starting inside Katarina safe from the world I had built.

I liked the lie I told myself — that monsters like me could protect children.