Page 34 of Ruthless Grace

“You won’t break them,” she says softly. “Because breaking your own word makes you just like my brother Dante. And whatever else you are, Luca, you’re too proud to be a liar.”

She holds my gaze for three agonizing seconds, letting the truth of her words hang in the humid air between us. Then she picks up her tablet, taps the screen, and stands up from the table.

She gathers her espresso cup, sweeps her surgical satchel off the adjacent chair, and steps right past my shoulder.

“My shift at Tulane Trauma starts at six on Monday morning,” she says, stopping at the dining room archway without looking back. “Make sure your driver has the route mapped. I don’t like being late for the OR.”

She turns the corner and her heels click away up the marble staircase, leaving me alone in my own dining room, staring at an empty twelve-foot table.

By ten o’clock, I am in my private study on the ground floor, staring at the quad-split security monitors built into the oak paneling.

On screen four, I watch Gia’s armored sedan idling beneath the portico as two Valentino enforcers check the undercarriage with security mirrors. She’s inside, heading out for a brief stop at her medical office to finalize her schedule.

My chest feels tight. A dark, possessive paranoia has taken root under my skin. Russo’s men know she’s behind my gates now. Davide Russo’s pathetic jabs at the wedding reception were just a probe. The second her car clears my iron gates in the morning, she becomes a target in open waters.

A heavy knock sounds at the double doors of my study.

“Enter,” I say without taking my eyes off the monitors.

Silvano Moretti steps inside. The senior Consigliere of the Valentino Old Guard moves with the slow, deliberate gravity of a man who served my father before me. He wears a heavy wool suit despite the late summer heat, his iron-gray hair parted precisely, his dark eyes carrying decades of underworld intelligence.

He sets a manila folder down on the corner of my mahogany desk.

“The perimeter grids have been updated for Donna Giada’s hospital routes, Don Luca,” Moretti says. “Fausto Carbone is handling the primary motorcade logistics.”

“Add two chase cars,” I order, my voice clipped. “Armored. Full tactical kit. If a single Russo vehicle comes within three blocks of her transport, I want them run off the road.”

Moretti doesn’t write it down. He folds his hands over his stomach, studying my face with quiet, uncomfortable precision. He takes in the dark shadows under my eyes, the tight line of my jaw, and the subtle tension in my shoulders.

“Is there something else, Silvano?” I ask, my tone turning frigid.

“The Old Guard is asking questions, Luca,” Moretti says softly, dropping the formal title for the quiet register of an elder advisor.

I tilt my head back, my gaze locking onto his. “The Old Guard doesn’t get to ask questions in my house.”

“They ask when the Don’s marriage looks like an occupation,” Moretti counters, not flinching from my stare. “The contract you signed with the Santoro girl leaked through the legal clerks before the wedding. A walkout clause? Separate master suites? A no-touching rule enforced by her own paper?”

Moretti takes a slow step closer to the desk, his hands resting on the leather back of the armchair.

“Your father, Don Alberto, would have burned that paper before his ink dried,” Moretti says quietly. “Cosa Nostra respects a Don who claims his bride. They do not respect a man who sleeps behind an unlocked connecting door like a guest in his own estate.”

The air in the study turns instantly to absolute zero.

I don’t raise my voice. I don’t draw a weapon.

I simply stand up.

I rise to my full height behind the massive mahogany desk, my shadow stretching across the oak floorboards, my broad shoulders blocking out the morning light from the window. The sheer, suffocating authority of my presence fills every inch of the room, forcing Moretti to take half a step back.

I place my palms flat on the leather blotter and lean forward, my voice dropping into an arctic whisper that could freeze blood:

“My father is in a tomb in Metairie, Silvano. And I am the Don of this famiglia.”

Moretti’s throat works as he swallows, but he remains silent.

“You tell the Old Guard that my wife’s contract is non-negotiable,” I continue, every word weighed in lead. “You tell them that if anyone in this city—Valentino, Santoro, or Russo—questions my marriage again, I will let Donna Giada explain femoral artery anatomy to them in person.”

Moretti stares at me for two long seconds. He sees the unyielding iron in my eyes. He sees that beneath my cold tactical control lies a dark, feral possessiveness that will shut down every port from here to the Gulf before I let anyone touch her or her rules.