Page 104 of Ruthless Grace

She reaches into her velvet pouch, pulling out a pair of polished brass shears. But instead of cutting the velvet herself, Nonna Rosa turns and extends the handles directly to Gia.

Gia doesn’t take them alone.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Gia reaches back and grabs Cassia’s hand. Then Izzy’s. Then Mila’s. The four women, the sisterhood that armored my wife when she was trapped in the storm of my secrets, step up to the velvet line together. Eight hands grip the brass handles of the shears.

Gia catches my eye across the crowded room. Her chest rises on a deep, steady breath.

Snip.

The heavy emerald velvet splits and falls to the white marble floor.

The atrium erupts into thunderous applause. Camera flashes ignite like strobe lights against the glass walls. I stand frozen in the shadows, my heart hammering against my ribs with a violent pride so intense it threatens to crack me open.

Gia leads the inner circle away from the media flashbulbs and down the wide, pristine corridor of the north wing.

This wing was built with reinforced steel framing, triple-pane soundproof glass, and an independent off-grid power grid. It is a fortress disguised as a place of healing.

As we reach the double doors of the recovery and shelter suite, I prepare myself to see Lucia Santoro’s name once more. I built this wing specifically for Gia’s mother, knowing how deeply Gia carried her loss.

Gia stops in front of the dark walnut entryway and turns to look at me, her eyes burning with a soft, mysterious intensity.

“Look up, Luca,” she whispers.

I raise my eyes to the threshold. The hand-carved lettering filled with gold leaf does not read Lucia Santoro.

THE ALESSANDRA VALENTINO SURVIVOR WING

My breath hitches violently in my chest. My throat locks. I freeze, staring at my mother’s name etched in permanent, gleaming gold over the gateway to a refuge for battered women.

Beside the doorway, mounted on the dark wood wall, hang two meticulously restored portraits: my brother, Matteo, his youthful, fierce smile preserved in oil, and my father, standing stoic in his full Don’s regalia.

“Gia...” My voice breaks. Luca Valentino, a man who hasn’t trembled in front of loaded guns, feels his knees go weak in the middle of a hallway. “What... what is this?”

Gia steps close, placing her warm palms against my chest, right over my wildly hammering heart.

“You gave my mother the entire hospital when you named it Casa Lucia,” she says. “You built her dream with your own hands out of secret devotion. So I gave the wing where women survive and rebuild to your mother. Alessandra Valentino brought the man into this world who built my freedom. And Matteo and your father belong right here, guarding the entrance alongside mine.”

The breath leaves my lungs in a harsh, ragged exhale. A hot ache burns behind my eyes as I look from my mother’s name to the face of my dead brother, then down at the woman standing in my arms.

I don’t care that Dante is standing three feet away. I don’t care that my capos are in the hallway. I wrap my arms around Gia, pulling her so hard against my chest that there isn’t a whisper of air between us, burying my face in the curve of her neck as I try to pull myself back together.

Izzy steps up, holding her tablet, her eyes softly shining. “The intake network is live, Luca. Under the Alessandra Valentino name, secure housing, medical care, and legal aid are officially open to every woman fleeing violence in this city.”

Dante steps up beside the doorframe. He reaches out, his thumb skimming the gold leaf of my mother’s name, then glancing at the portrait of Matteo.

“The thirty percent annual revenue fine I levied on your berths...” Dante says. “It’s funding a wing that carries your mother’s name and honors your brother. You did well, Valentino. Both our families rest easy today.”

While the crowd moves toward the grand reception on the lawn, I catch Gia by the elbow as she passes the VIP elevator.

“Luca?” she gasps softly as I slip my hand around her waist and pull her into the private glass elevator.

I hit the top button: the soundproof observation deck overlooking Trauma Bay 1. The doors slide shut, locking out the noise of the world, and the glass elevator rockets upward.

“Where are we going?” she asks, a breathless laugh escaping her throat.

“Somewhere I don’t have to share my wife with two hundred people,” I growl against her temple.

The elevator opens directly into the suspended observation gallery. It is a private, glass-encased room floating high above the state-of-the-art trauma bays. Below us, through the floor-to-ceiling soundproof glass, the sterile white surgical theater glimmers with untouched stainless steel and pristine medical monitors.