All Chapters of The Vitale Brothers Ruined Me, Then Made Me Their Queen: Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

The envelope on the desk is heavy.It sits on the dark mahogany, a rectangular bomb wrapped in yellowed paper and sealed with cracked red wax. It smells of dust and time.I sit in Aureliano’s chair. The leather is still warm from his body, but tonight, I am not borrowing the seat. I am occupying it.My wolves surround me.Aureliano leans against the edge of the desk, his arms crossed, his tuxedo jacket straining across his shoulders. He watches the lawyer with the cold, unblinking stare of a predator assessing a potential meal.Ciro stands directly behind my chair. He is a looming shadow, a wall of heat and muscle. His good hand rests on the back of my neck, his thumb stroking the sensitive cord of muscle there. It is a grounding touch, but also a warning to the stranger in the room: She is mine. Do not bore her. Do not threaten her.Spadino prowls the perimeter of the room, playing with the letter opener, but his eyes dart to the envelope every few seconds. He smells the money. He sm

The boardroom table is a battlefield of scratched mahogany and spilled espresso.Twenty men sit around it. They are the captains of the regime. Some are old, with faces like tanned leather and eyes that have seen three decades of Vitale rule. Some are young, hungry wolves Ciro promoted from the street.They are all looking at me.I sit at the head of the table.Aureliano stands to my right, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. He is not sitting. He has ceded the chair. The visual impact of the King standing while the Queen sits is a sledgehammer to the traditionalists in the room."The numbers," I say.Luca, the accountant, projects a spreadsheet onto the wall."Quarterly profits are up twelve percent," Luca stammers. "Due to the consolidation of the Greco shipping lanes.""Excellent," I say. "Now, look at column D."The captains squint at the screen.Payroll Allocation."Effective immediately," I announce, my voice cutting through the hum of the projector, "base pay for all so

Peace is expensive. It costs vigilance. It costs sleep. And apparently, it costs a significant amount of patience that I no longer have.I am sitting in the sunroom of the mansion. It is a space I reclaimed from the ghosts of Aureliano’s ancestors. I replaced the heavy, dusty drapes with sheer linen that lets the morning light flood in. I filled the corners with ferns and jasmine.It is my nesting ground.I have a laptop open on the glass table, scrolling through the architectural plans for the new community center we are funding in the North Quarter—part of the "legitimacy" initiative.Aureliano is with me.He is sitting on the plush sofa, reading a hardcover book, his long legs stretched out. He isn't working. He is just... existing. It is a rare, beautiful thing to see the King at rest.He reaches out without looking up from his page. His hand finds my ankle, resting on his knee. His fingers curl around the bone, his thumb stroking the arch of my foot through my silk stocking."You

Chaos in this house usually sounds like gunfire. It sounds like shouting, crashing glass, and the heavy thud of boots on marble.This chaos sounds like silence.Terrified, vibrating silence.I am lying on the bed in the medical suite—the room we prepped months ago, the room that smells of antiseptic and fear. My hands are clutching the sheets. My breath comes in short, shallow gasps.The contraction that doubled me over in the office has passed, leaving behind a dull, bruised ache in my abdomen.But the panic in the room is just hitting its peak.Aureliano is pacing.The King of Palermo, the man who stared down the entire Commission without blinking, is walking a hole in the expensive rug. He is on the phone, barking orders into the receiver with a ferocity that suggests he is calling in an airstrike, not a doctor."I don't care if he's in surgery," Aureliano snarls. "Pull him out. If he doesn't get here in ten minutes, I will burn his clinic to the ground."Ciro stands by the door.H

They call it "nesting."The books say it is a hormonal urge to organize. They talk about folding onesies and color-coding socks. They make it sound gentle. Domestic. Cute.They are lying.Nesting is not domestic. It is primal. It is a biological imperative that screams in your blood, demanding that you fortify the perimeter because a vulnerable life is coming and the world is full of teeth.I am supposed to be in bed.I am supposed to be lying on the Egyptian cotton sheets, eating soup and reading about pirates.Instead, I am in the nursery.The room has been transformed. The yellow paint—the same shade we used to cover the blood—is dry and odorless. The white oak crib Ciro carved sits in the corner, away from the window, away from the draft, away from the sightlines of any potential sniper on the cliffs.I run my hand along the railing.It is smooth. Ciro sanded it until it felt like satin. But I check it again. I run my fingers over every inch of wood, searching for a splinter, a ro