Page 26 of Ruthless Grace

“Nico isn’t stupid,” I counter, rolling my wrist slightly as I set my glass down. “He’s patient. There’s a difference.”

“A distinction without a difference if he draws steel on my men,” Luca says quietly.

Before I can offer a sharp reply, the crowd at the edge of the terrace shifts.

A tall man in a tailored charcoal suit cuts through the perimeter, a slick, mocking smile plastered across his face. Davide Russo—the heir to the Russo famiglia—steps onto the stone terrace, flanked by two thick-necked enforcers. He doesn’t look at me, the flowers, or the champagne trays. His eyes sweep the high courtyard balconies, calculating guard shifts, checking the gaps between Valentino’s line and my brothers’ detail, the wrong things for a wedding guest to measure.

The entire courtyard goes deathly still.

Across the lawn, I see Renzo’s hand drift smoothly inside his suit jacket toward his shoulder holster. Marco’s jaw sets into a hard, dark line. Silvano Moretti takes one slow, deliberate step forward behind Luca, his hand resting on the button of his jacket.

Davide stops three feet from us, holding up a crystal flute of prosecco in a mock toast.

“Don Valentino,” Davide drawls, his voice dripping with condescending vanity. “And the new Donna Valentino. I must say, the whole Commission was shocked when we heard the news.”

Luca doesn’t move a muscle. His arm stays locked around my waist, his expression turning to pure, arctic stone. “You’re off your territory, Russo.”

“Just paying my respects to the happy couple,” Davide says, his glittering eyes flicking to me for half a second before locking dead-center onto Luca. “Though it’s quite the strategic bargain, isn’t it? Don Dante trades his only sister to clear an old debt, and you... well, you settle for Santoro scrap to secure your shipping berths.”

I catch the micro-movement of Davide’s jaw. He isn’t looking at my dress. He isn’t appraising a traded bride. He watched Luca’s face the entire time he spoke: testing the air, probing for a reaction, measuring how far he could push before Luca’s restraint cracked. The insult was aimed at me. His attention never was.

A dangerous, suffocating silence drops over the terrace.

I feel the sudden, lethal shift in Luca’s posture. The muscle in his jaw twitches. His fingers dig into my waist with a territorial force that tells me he is two seconds away from pulling a weapon and blowing Davide Russo’s head off right here in front of seventy guests.

I don’t let him.

Before Luca can move, I step half an inch in front of his shoulder, turning my face toward Davide with the icy, clinical composure of a surgeon addressing a broken specimen.

“Careful, Davide,” I say, my voice carrying cleanly across the quiet terrace, smooth, flat, and colder than a morgue slab. “You’re speaking to a trauma surgeon. I know exactly how many seconds it takes for a man to bleed out from a severed femoral artery—and I can assure you, nobody in this courtyard will bother to apply the tourniquet.”

Davide’s mocking smile freezes on his face.

Beside me, I hear the faint rumble of Luca’s chest, a sound that is terrifyingly close to a dark, genuine laugh.

Luca steps up, his shoulder brushing mine, his dark eyes locking onto Russo with absolute, lethal authority.

“You heard my wife, Russo,” Luca says, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly rasp that makes the air feel heavy. “You’ve drunk your toast. Now get off my wedding before I decide her medical demonstration starts early.”

Davide’s throat works as he swallows hard. He looks from my razor-sharp gaze to Luca’s immovable, terrifying presence, then glances back at the wall of Valentino enforcers standing behind us with their hands on their pieces.

Davide doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t hurry. He simply tilts his glass in a silent, unhurried salute, sets it down on a passing waiter’s silver tray, and turns on his heel. He walks back toward the compound gates with a slow, leisurely stride, not like a man forced off enemy ground, but like a surgeon stepping out of an OR the second the specimen takes the stain.

The tension on the terrace breaks slightly, but the static in the air remains thick and metallic.

I look up at Luca. His eyes are already down on mine, dark and glowing with that same feral admiration that shocked me at the altar.

“Femoral artery, principessa?” he whispers, his thumb brushing against my hip.

“I like to be precise, Valentino,” I reply, my voice dry. “Now take me to your house before I decide to test my theories on you.”

Luca’s lips curve into a slow, dark, dangerous smile.

He loops his heavy arm securely around my waist, guiding me past my silent, staring brothers, past the Valentino sentries bowing their heads as we pass, and out through the iron gates toward the waiting car.

Nobody gave Gia Santoro away.

I was never anyone’s to give. But as the heavy armored door shuts behind us, locking us into the dark, leather-scented vault of his car, a cold, quiet dread takes root behind my ribs. Davide Russo counted our guards, drank one toast, and left my wedding smiling. I have watched men walk out of my trauma bay smiling like that: the ones so full of shock and quiet internal bleeding they don’t even know they’re dead on their feet.