Page 71 of Ruthless Grace

I turn around in the circle of his arms, looking up at him. “He won’t take anything from us,” I say, my voice steady, cool, and laced with an unshakeable, sovereign certainty. “Because I don’t stand behind your gates as your collateral anymore, Valentino.”

I lift the master copy of our contract from the nightstand, pages of heavy cream parchment I wrote before our wedding, and pull my surgical marker from the desk drawer.

I place the contract flat on the desk, flipping open the parchment pages until I reach the formal, black-inked terms of our marriage.

Luca leans against the edge of the desk, his arm brushing mine, watching quietly with dark, intense focus. He doesn’t offer advice, and he doesn’t try to dictate my hand. He signed this contract unread in Dante’s study months ago because my rules were the first thing I ever gave him voluntarily. Now, he gives me complete, unencumbered sovereignty over the pages.

My eyes scan the page.

The separate-bedrooms clause was struck out weeks ago during the raw, emotional thaw following my oncology reveal. The slash sits dry and bold across the page, a permanent monument to the night I struck it myself and told him the room was open.

Directly beneath it lies the consent rule: no contact without my explicit consent. The wall I erected to protect my body and my heart from the enemy I married.

I uncap the surgical marker. The sharp, chemical scent of the ink fills the space between us, as clean and familiar as the prep in an operating room.

The felt tip makes a firm, scratching hiss against the paper as I draw a thick, deliberate line straight through the center of the consent rule. I drag the ink from margin to margin, crossing out every word, permanently revoking the rule that kept us apart. The ink bleeds into the parchment, bold, hot, and absolute.

Luca lets out a low intake of breath, his dark eyes tracking the slash with a fierce, unholy satisfaction.

“Zero-contact is dead,” I state, my voice ringing clear against the dark walls of the suite.

I don’t stop there. My fingers hold the pen steady as I look down at the three remaining clauses on the page.

What remains: my professional independence and the unencumbered command of Casa Lucia Hospital. The walkout clause: the key to my own freedom, my own name, and my own choice. And Sunday dinner with my family until the day one of us dies.

Luca steps closer, his hand coming down to rest flat over the margin, his thumb brushing against the side of my hand. A faint, dark smile touches his taped lip.

“You crossed out the wall,” Luca rasps, his voice rich with reverent pride. “What about the rest of your cage, cara?”

“These aren’t a cage, Valentino,” I reply, my chin lifting as I meet his dark, possessive stare head-on. “I am a Santoro daughter who goes home to her mother’s table every week. And I hold the key to my own door.”

I cap the pen with a sharp, decisive click and set it beside the contract.

“I didn’t strike that rule because I am surrendering to your empire,” I continue, my voice dropping into that blade-sharp surgeon’s grit that has governed our marriage since Night One. “I struck it because I am done playing cold-war games in the dark. I don’t stand behind you, Luca. I don’t hide in your shadow. I stand beside you as your Donna. Russo wants a war with the Valentino Don? He gets me too.”

Luca stares at me for a long, suspended second. The cold calculation he wears for the world completely dissolves, leaving behind a raw, feral devotion that takes my breath away.

“Dio, ti amo,” he breathes, his Italian leaking from his chest in a rough, guttural whisper he can no longer contain.

My breath stops. He said it like he couldn’t stop himself.

He doesn’t grab me roughly. He steps forward and frames my face in his scar-seamed hands, his thumbs sweeping gently over my cheekbones. He leans down and presses his mouth against mine in a kiss that is slow, deep, and devastatingly reverent: tasting of salt, coffee, and the fierce, unyielding truth of a man who has surrendered his entire soul to his Queen.

“You own me, Giada,” he mutters against my lips, his forehead resting against mine as we breathe the same air. “The house, the throne, the blood—it’s all yours. You hold the keys to every room.”

He wraps his arms around me, hoisting me up effortlessly against his chest, and carries me away from the desk.

He lowers me onto the center of the king-sized bed, sliding in beside me under the dark silk sheets. He pulls me flush against his side, his large arm wrapping securely around my waist, pulling my back against the hard wall of his chest. His hand rests flat over my lower abdomen, anchoring me to him in the quiet dark.

I rest my head against his shoulder, my fingers tracing the thick, corded muscle of his forearm.

The mechanical sweep of Luca’s watch ticks softly into the night, lagging behind a world that is preparing to erupt into fire. But inside this room, wrapped in my husband’s heat, the ticking sounds like a metronome for an unbreakable future.

I close my eyes and listen to the steady, powerful rhythm of Luca Valentino’s heart beating against my back.

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LUCA