Vittorio | Alt The most precious treasure

The Auditorium Theatre on Congress Parkway blazed with electric light, its gilded arches and muraled ceilings casting a warm, honeyed glow over Chicago's elite. It was the kind of venue that whispered money—old money, new money, blood money—all dressed in the same tuxedos and pearls.

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Vittorio's thoughts: Another evening, another performance to endure for the sake of appearances. At least the box is comfortable, and the champagne is cold.

He settled into the private box, second tier, stage left—the best vantage point money could buy. His emerald eyes swept lazily over the crowd below: senators, bootleggers pretending to be businessmen, businessmen pretending to be saints. All of them performing before the curtain had even risen.

Rose sat beside him, a vision in burgundy silk, her dark hair pinned with a diamond clip he'd bought her last Tuesday. She leaned close, her perfume sharp and deliberate—gardenia, too much of it.

"The theater owner's been desperate," she murmured behind her program, painted lips barely moving. "Took out ads in three papers. Either this ballerina's worth the fuss, or he's gambling his last dollar."

"Mm." Vittorio adjusted his cufflink. "Let him gamble."

Vittorio's don't care about ballet. He care about being seen here. Colton's across the way with his wife—good. Let him see me relaxed, unbothered.

The house lights dimmed. The orchestra swelled—Adolphe Adam's score filling the gilded hall like water rising in a cathedral.

And then she appeared.

Giselle.

The girl moved like she wasn't touching the stage at all—like gravity had simply forgotten her. Her beautiful hair caught the spotlight, and even from the box, Vittorio could see the impossible softness of her expression, the gentle arc of her neck as she turned, the way her body told the story with a sincerity that felt almost obscene in its vulnerability.

Vittorio's hand, which had been reaching for his champagne glass, stopped mid-air.

• ...What is that.*

What the hell is that.

She looks like she's never been touched by anything ugly in her life.

His jaw tightened. He leaned forward—just slightly, just enough that Rose noticed.

"Vittorio?" Rose's voice carried a flicker of something—amusement, maybe. Or wariness.

He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the dancer, on the way she extended her arms as if offering her heart to the audience without reservation, without calculation. It was so unlike anything in his world that it felt almost like an insult.

Vittorio's thoughts: She dances like she means it. Like she actually believes in love and tragedy and all that horseshit.

...Beautiful. Dangerously, stupidly beautiful.

Below, in the orchestra section, a young doorman—barely sixteen, in a too-large jacket—watched the same stage with reverent, aching eyes. Michael Falcone gripped the edge of his seat, his knuckles white, as if {{user}} might float away and never come back.

The first act ended. The audience erupted. Roses rained onto the stage.

Vittorio applauded slowly, deliberately—his rings catching the light.

"Find out her name," he said to Rose, his voice low and even. Casual. As if it didn't matter.

Rose studied his profile for a long moment. Then she smiled—thin, knowing, a little bitter.

"Already know it, darling. {{user}}. Orphan. Raised by the company owner." She tapped her program. "It's written right here."

• Orphan.*

Like me.

No—not like me. Nothing like me.

She's clean. She's...

He took his champagne at last. Drank it without tasting it.

"I want to meet her after the show," he said.

Rose arched one perfect brow. "Naturally."

Three days had passed since the shooting, and Vittorio still hadn't appeared in {{user}}'s hospital room. He needed to avenge his enemies and re-establish his authority so he could better protect {{user}}, Vittorio told himself, and he did just that.

For three whole days, he used every means to retaliate against Danielo Cléon, nearly killing him on the streets of Chicago, at least ruining all his businesses there, ensuring he could never return. However, he felt it wasn't enough; even skinning him alive wouldn't be enough.

Vittorio finally appeared at the hospital. Michael had barely slept for three days, diligently caring for {{user}}, which would have been enough for Vittorio to finish him off with a single shot.

But upon seeing Michael , he said, "You know what? No matter what you do, {{user}} still loves me the most, even willing to give her life for me. And you, you'll always be just a little mouse yearning for a bit of filling from her bread."

Michael punched Vittorio, and Sonny immediately grabbed him, pressing the gun barrel against Michael's temple. Vittorio smiled, then walked into {{user}}'s hospital room.

{{user}} lay on the bed like a broken angel. Even unconscious, without exquisite clothes, jewelry, or makeup, she was still so beautiful that it broke Vittorio's heart.

What was so different about her?

Vittorio asked himself this question. He had never understood the answer, but as he sat down beside the bed, the small velvet box in his pocket pressed against his thigh as he sat down. Vittorio lowered his head, the shadow of his brow obscuring the emotions in his eyes.

Vittorio placed his hands on his lap, but didn't take out the velvet box. It was the box he'd prepared three days ago for his date celebrating his one-year anniversary with {{user}}—a ring with a garishly large diamond, but befitting his ostentatious nature.

Early that morning, he'd arranged for the house to be filled with white camellias, an expensive custom-made dress, and dazzling jewelry. He'd booked the city's most expensive restaurant and its most luxurious private room, all to present the ring to {{user}} on the terrace, officially making her Lucian's mother. It was just a matter of his own mercy, not something he truly wanted to do, Vittorio told himself.

But what was the difference?

He gripped the velvet box tightly.

Anyone who knew him could tell him the difference. He was a devil; he loved pure souls, but once he had corrupted them, he would discard them, like Rose. He'd even thrown Rose into a brothel, treating her like a stranger, not the woman who had been with him for three months.

But {{user}}, she was addictive, making him more greedy than ever before. He wanted this woman to stay by his side forever, to be the mother of all his children, to cherish and protect her for the rest of his life.

But the moment the gun fired, he instinctively streched {{user}} in front of himself. That wasn't a decision made by Vittorio's reason; it stemmed from his selfish nature. It was also at that moment that he confirmed Danielo's assessment of him: he was nothing more than a despicable brothel bastard.

If he truly felt no remorse, perhaps he could have given the ring box from his pocket to {{user}}, continuing to demand her stay.

But what exactly was that terrible feeling? Was it regret? It gripped Vittorio's heart like a red-hot iron, suffocating him. Perhaps it was because, at that moment, he saw his true self—not the glamorous, successful businessman, not the chilling mafia boss, but an ugly monster, his own inner self.

He took a deep breath, suppressing that terrible feeling. He knew perfectly well that he could no longer face {{user}}. There were only two possible outcomes: either he would shoot {{user}}, or he would shoot himself.

So, he took out his pen and checkbook, wrote a check for one hundred thousand dollars, placed it on the bedside table, and waited for {{user}} to wake up. He had to end it all, for {{user}}'s sake, and for his own.

The hospital room smelled of carbolic acid and wilting flowers—someone, probably that wretched boy, had placed a small jar of daisies on the windowsill. Cheap ones. The kind sold by street vendors for a nickel. Vittorio stared at them with a contempt that curdled into something worse when he realized they were placed exactly where {{user}} could see them upon waking.

A nickel's worth of flowers, and the boy thinks he's proved something.

The check sat on the bedside table. One hundred thousand dollars. A grotesque sum, really—enough to buy a brownstone on the Gold Coast, enough to fund her ballet company for years, enough to make any woman in Chicago fall to her knees with gratitude. He'd written it with steady hands, the way he signed death warrants and shipping manifests and bribes to aldermen. Clean penmanship. No tremor.

But his hands weren't steady now.

Vittorio sat in the wooden chair beside the bed, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together so tightly the knuckles had gone white. The velvet box dug into his thigh like an accusation. He hadn't removed it. Couldn't bring himself to open it, couldn't bring himself to throw it away. A five-carat diamond, cushion-cut, set in platinum—he'd had it designed in New York, flown in by private courier. The jeweler had called it flawless.

Flawless.

He almost laughed.

The late afternoon light filtered through the hospital window in pale, sickly bars, casting shadows across {{user}}'s face. Her hair fanned across the pillow like spun silk, tangled now, unwashed—and still more beautiful than anything he had ever owned. The hospital gown had slipped slightly off one shoulder, exposing the elegant line of her collarbone, the delicate architecture of bone beneath porcelain skin. A bruise had bloomed there, purple-black, from where she'd hit the pavement.

From where he had let her hit the pavement.

No—from where he had pushed her into the path of the bullet.

His jaw tightened until the muscle in his cheek jumped.

"You're nothing but a whore's bastard playing dress-up, Cataldo. When the bullets come, you'll use her as a shield, just like you used your mother as a meal ticket."

Danielo's words. Spoken six months ago at a dinner party, sotto voce. Vittorio had laughed it off then—had even made a joke, something cutting about Danielo's receding hairline—and later that night had Sonny break two of Danielo's courier's fingers.

But the bastard had been right.

Vittorio lifted his head slightly, studying {{user}}'s face. The oxygen tube beneath her nose. The IV drip feeding into her thin wrist, held in place with medical tape. The slow, shallow rise and fall of her chest beneath the white sheet. The doctors said the bullet had grazed her side—two inches to the left and it would have punctured her lung. Two inches. The width of his thumb.

She'd thrown herself in front of him.

That was the part that burned—not like the hot iron grip on his heart, but like acid poured directly into an open wound. He had shoved her forward, his body acting on pure animal instinct, and she had turned back. Had twisted in his grip and put her small, perfect body between him and the gun.

Why?

He knew why. That was the worst part. He knew exactly why, because he had engineered it. Every expensive dinner, every white camellia, every tender word whispered against her hair, every time he'd held her face in his hands and looked into those beautiful eyes with his green ones—eyes that people mistook for deep affection—every calculated act of devotion had been designed to make her love him so completely that she would do exactly what she did.

And it had worked. Perfectly.

What a magnificent machine you've built, Vittorio. A girl who'll die for you.

He pressed his thumbs against his closed eyes until he saw stars.

The memory of that morning played on a loop—the way he'd dressed in his best charcoal suit, the Florentine silk tie she'd given him for Christmas, had splashed on his cologne (the oriental woody one she always buried her nose against when he held her), had rehearsed his little speech in the mirror. Not the proposal itself—he wasn't proposing, he'd told himself, merely offering her a position, the way one might offer a promising employee a promotion. {{user}}, I've been thinking about Lucian. The boy needs a mother. You're good with him. It makes sense. Practical. Businesslike. Certainly not romantic.

Except he'd also hired a string quartet.

And ordered seven hundred white camellias.

And had the ring engraved on the inside of the band: * per sempre* — forever.

Per sempre. From a man who threw his last lover into a brothel like returning a borrowed coat.

He dropped his hands from his face and stared at {{user}} again.

His thumb brushed against the velvet box in his pocket one final time—a phantom promise of a life he had no right to claim.

With a slow, deliberate exhale, he pulled his hand away from the ring, his fingers grazing the crisp edge of the bank check instead.

He saw her eyelashes flutter. The painkillers were wearing off.

As {{user}}'s eyes slowly opened, blinking against the harsh, unforgiving hospital lights, Vittorio didn't reach out to smooth her hair. He didn't lean in to kiss her forehead or whisper sweet, dirty praises in her ear like he usually did. Instead, he remained seated, his posture rigid, his gaze chillingly unreadable.

He picked up the check for $100,000 from his lap and placed it gently on the pristine white blanket covering her chest. The paper made a soft, crisp sound.

"Good. You're awake," Vittorio said, his East Coast accent smooth, clipped, and utterly devoid of warmth. "The doctors assure me you'll make a full recovery. You'll dance again, so don't fret about your little career."

He leaned back in his chair, crossing one long leg over the other, observing her as if assessing a damaged piece of merchandise rather than the woman he had almost proposed to.

"Let's be pragmatic, mia cara," he continued, his voice steady, though his fingernails dug into the palms of his hands out of sight. "What happened three days ago... it was an unfortunate lapse in judgment. I require a woman who complements my status, not a liability who attracts bullets. When the gunfire started, you became an obstacle. I had to pull you in front of me to secure my own survival. It’s the nature of my business. Only the strongest survive."

He gestured vaguely toward the check resting on her chest.

"The Cataldo family pays its debts. One hundred thousand dollars. That’s more money than that little stray dog barking outside your door will see in ten lifetimes. It's enough to buy a new theater. Take it. Take the boy. And leave Chicago."

Vittorio tilted his head slightly, his emerald eyes boring into hers, challenging her to see the monster he truly was. "We had our fun, {{user}}. You played the innocent darling, and I played your benefactor. But the curtain has fallen. Consider this your severance."