Page 105 of Ruthless Grace

I guide her to the center of the gallery. The morning sun catches the emerald silk of her dress, making her skin look like warm porcelain.

I step behind her, wrapping my broad arms around her waist, pulling her back flush against my chest. I bury my face in the curve of her neck, inhaling deep. She smells like jasmine, white lilies, and pure, intoxicating freedom.

“Look at it, principessa,” I whisper against her pulse point, using the sacred endearment that now binds us tighter than any contract. “Look at what you created.”

Gia leans her head back against my shoulder, her hands coming up to cover my forearms. She gazes down at the pristine trauma bay below.

“You built it, Luca,” she whispers back. “You laid the steel. You gave me the land. You honored both our mothers and both our bloodlines.”

I turn her around in my arms.

Her back meets the cool, solid glass of the gallery window. I trap her between my body and the view of her empire, placing my hands on the glass on either side of her head. My possessive gaze locks onto hers, drinking in every fraction of her beauty, every line of her brilliant mind, every beat of her relentless heart.

“I built walls out of fear and dark calculations, Gia,” I rumble, my voice dropping into a harsh, devotional rasp. “I built a cage because I was terrified of losing you. But you took my lie and turned it into a sanctuary. You took my darkness and turned it into light.”

I drop to one knee right there on the gallery floor.

Gia gasps, her hand flying to her chest.

I reach up and take her right wrist, one of the wrists I bound in soft surgical silk in my port office when she came to reclaim me. I bring her inner wrist to my lips, pressing a slow, reverent kiss directly over her steady pulse.

“This hospital isn’t my asset, vita mia,” I swear against her skin, my eyes burning up at hers with absolute devotion. “It’s your sovereign ground. You reign here with absolute authority. And I will stand outside these gates with a rifle in my hands and tear down anyone who ever dares threaten your peace.”

Gia tears slip past her lashes, but she is smiling. A gorgeous, radiant expression of pure joy.

She hooks her fingers under my chin, pulling me up until I stand before her again. She wraps her arms tightly around my neck, pulling my mouth down to hers.

The kiss is deep, slow, and hot—filled with the taste of redeemed trust, stolen years, and an unbroken vow. I press her deeper against the glass, my hands locking onto her waist, holding her like the precious, sacred Queen she is.

Outside these soundproof walls, the underworld still brews with danger, power struggles, and rival factions. But inside this glass cathedral, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Santoro empire, I have surrendered my soul to the only woman who could ever rule me.

45

GIA

The water in my private surgical sink runs scalding hot, turning the stainless steel basin into a bowl of rising steam.

I press the foot pedal, letting the sterile antiseptic wash down my forearms, over my knuckles, and into the drain. My hands are stiff, aching with a dull, thrumming fatigue that settles deep in the bones. It is the familiar price of surgical precision—four continuous hours in Operating Room 1, meticulously repairing a torn femoral artery on a young woman brought in from the border district.

She survived. Her pulse is steady. Casa Lucia Hospital’s very first emergency trauma intake was a success.

I turn off the tap with my elbow and dry my hands on a crisp white towel. Stepping out of my private scrub washroom, I walk into my office on the sixth floor.

The room is vast, quiet, and flooded with the dark indigo hues of midnight. Through the six-foot floor-to-ceiling glass wall, the border city lights twinkle in the distance like scattered embers. Right in the center of the room sits my custom dark walnut desk, heavy, smooth, and smelling faintly of beeswax and hand-rubbed timber.

I let out a long, ragged exhale, leaning my lower back against the edge of the desk, tracing the polished wood grain with my thumb.

Then, behind me, the heavy electronic lock engages.

Thud-click.

I don’t startle. My pulse doesn’t spike in fear. Instead, it does that wild, breathless flutter it has done every single time Luca Valentino enters a room since the first time he looked at me one second too long.

I look up. Luca stands by the heavy oak door. He has already discarded his tie, his top three shirt buttons unfastened to reveal the dark hair at the base of his throat. He takes off his tailored suit jacket, tossing it casually over the arm of the leather sofa, his dark eyes locked onto mine with an intensity so fierce it feels like a physical touch.

“You should be asleep in the compound, husband,” I say softly.

“And miss watching my wife rule her kingdom?” Luca’s voice is a low rumble that vibrates straight down my spine.