Page 35 of Ruthless Grace

“Understood, Don Luca,” Moretti says quietly, bowing his head in surrender. “I will shut down the talk.”

“See that you do,” I say, stepping back. “Dismissed.”

Moretti turns and walks out of the study, shutting the heavy mahogany doors behind him.

I walk over to the high window, looking out through the glass as the iron gates swing open at the end of the driveway. Gia’s black armored sedan rolls out onto the avenue, flanked by two chase cars, disappearing into the humid New Orleans morning.

She thinks she’s in control. She thinks her contract and her emerald silk and her twelve chairs will keep me at a distance.

She doesn’t realize that every rule she writes, every boundary she draws, only winds the coil tighter.

13

GIA

Nonna Rosa’s silver serving spoon hits the heavy porcelain platter with a sharp, resonant clack that sounds like a gavel dropping in a courtroom.

“Eat, Don Valentino,” Nonna says, her raspy Creole voice laced with ice and old-world politeness. She sets a dish of braised beef ragù directly in front of my husband, carving off the leanest, most sparse portion of meat on the platter. “In this house, even enemies are fed before they are judged.”

Luca Valentino doesn’t flinch.

He sits in my late father’s dining room, surrounded by seven Santoros who would like nothing more than to carve his throat open over the linen tablecloth. He wears a dark charcoal suit, his broad shoulders filling out the carved mahogany chair, his obsidian eyes calm and unarmored as he looks up at my grandmother.

“Thank you, Nonna,” Luca says. He doesn’t mock her. He doesn’t pull Don rank. He picks up his silver fork with the steady, effortless composure of a man who knew exactly what room he was stepping into when he agreed to our Sunday dinner rule.

I sit directly across from him, sipping a glass of heavy Tuscan red, watching him through the steam of Nonna’s roasted garlic and fresh pasta.

My husband took my freedom, but my contract dragged him out of his dark, fortified estate and forced him to sit at the table of the family he’s long hated. It’s home-court advantage, and the air in this room is thick enough to choke on.

To my left, my sister-in-law Cassia sits beside Dante. On paper, they are the Don and Donna of the Santoro family. In reality, the distance between their chairs feels like an ocean. Cassia hasn’t looked at her husband once all evening. Beside her plate, glowing faint blue against the white linen, sits the digital baby monitor. Its soft, rhythmic static broadcasting baby Lucia’s quiet breathing in the upstairs nursery.

Dante’s right thumb turns his signet ring on his pinky finger over and over again: a nervous, agonizing tic. Every time the monitor crackles, Dante glances at it, his jaw tightening, and looks away.

Beside me, my twin brother Nico hasn’t touched his food. His thick, calloused hands rest flat on either side of his plate, his knuckles white, his jaw dark with two days of shadow. The aura radiating off Nico is pure, nuclear rage. A silent promise that if Luca makes one wrong move, this dining room will turn into a slaughterhouse.

Beside Nico, Mila sits quietly, her pale gray-green eyes watchful, her hand resting gently over my twin’s knee beneath the table to keep him anchored. Across from them, Renzo and Izzy sit side by side, Renzo’s dark gaze fixed on Luca’s throat like he’s measuring the exact distance for a knife strike, while my younger brother Marco chews his bread in tense, watchful silence.

The entire bloodline is assembled around the Santoro table. And the enemy is eating our bread.

“The reception was quiet on Friday,” Renzo says, his voice flat and low, breaking the silence like a blade scraping stone. “Davide Russo had a lot to say before he left the gates.”

Luca cuts a portion of beef with his knife, entirely unbothered. “Davide Russo speaks when he thinks he has an audience. He quieted down once my wife offered to demonstrate femoral artery anatomy on him.”

Izzy stifles a small, quick sip of her wine, her lips twitching with a sudden flash of amusement. Marco lets out a quiet snort before catching Renzo’s warning glare.

“My sister isn’t a threat to hide behind, Valentino,” Nico rumbles.

“I don’t hide behind her, Santoro,” Luca replies smoothly, setting his fork down. He looks Nico straight in the eyes. “I stand beside her. There’s a difference.”

“A difference none of us asked for,” Dante interjects, his voice tight, the Don register slipping as he looks at Luca. “You got what you wanted, Valentino. You have the shipping truce, and you have my sister in your house.”

“I have a wife who dictates her own terms,” Luca says, his gaze shifting across the table to lock onto mine.

I hold his look, raising my glass slightly in a mock toast.

I watch him like a surgeon reading a chart. I look for the telltale signs of stress. The flared nostrils, the micro-spasms in his jaw, the quick, defensive shift in weight. I expect him to pull back his left suit cuff, check the silver watch on his wrist, and calculate how many minutes he has left in this room.

He doesn’t check his watch once.