Page 16 of Ruthless Grace

Marguerite doesn’t smile. She simply reaches for her shears, snips a stray basting thread from the hem, and nods once: a sharp, economical dip of the head that is higher praise than anything a Santoro has given me since this started.

“Come out, then,” she says, sweeping the curtain back. “Let your friend see what you’ve done to yourself.”

I step out of the dim, beeswax-scented quiet of the fitting room and into the bright, sun-bleached light of the front showroom.

Izzy looks up from her phone.

The words she was about to say, probably something sharp about the time or a reminder of the car waiting outside, die in her throat. Her eyes sweep from the edge of the midnight-black hem up the impossible line of the velvet waist to my face. The hacker’s gaze freezes, calculating an equation that doesn’t balance.

For three seconds, the front of Marguerite’s Boutique is completely silent. Even the Magazine Street traffic outside seems to hold its breath.

“Gia,” Izzy whispers, the color draining slightly from her cheeks. “My god.”

“Is the car outside?” I ask, my voice level, steady, and entirely untouched by the sudden, suffocating realization of what I have just handed the man I marry tomorrow.

Izzy slowly stands, her fingers clutching her phone like a shield. “The car is outside. Dante’s men are on the door.”

“Good,” I say, smoothing the heavy black velvet over my hips with hands that do not shake. “Let’s go meet my husband.”

6

LUCA

The iron gates of the Santoro compound open without a sound, yielding to the front bumper of the Maybach. I roll my shoulders inside my jacket, smelling the humid New Orleans air mixed with cedarwood, hot asphalt, and gun oil.

Behind me, Silvano Moretti and two guys from my detail keep their hands low near their holsters. I’ve crossed this gravel a hundred times for truce meetings: sitting across walnut tables to divide shipping lanes and tally up dead soldiers. But tonight isn’t a border negotiation.

I’m walking into enemy territory as an invited guest.

The house smells like chicory coffee, old wood, and the sharp, vinegar bite of Nonna Rosa’s kitchen. But the second I step into the formal dining room, the temperature drops off a cliff.

Dante sits at the head of the table, his spine stiff enough to snap. Beside him, Cassia’s chair is pulled a full foot away, her napkin folded into a perfect square while she stares right past her husband. Further down, Renzo looks up over a glass of dark red wine, his thumb brushing the pocket where he keeps his mother’s rosary.

He greets me with a nod that is so clean, so calm, it makes my teeth lock together.

I look at Renzo, and my blood runs hot. I have spent years planning to tear these men apart. Renzo pulled the trigger. Dante gave the order.

“Luca,” Dante says. He turns his signet ring on his finger. “You’re early.”

“Traffic on the expressway was light,” I say, taking my seat at the center of the table. “Though I see your house isn’t running on schedule.”

Enemy territory is quiet, but it’s loud as hell. Nonna Rosa comes out of the kitchen with a platter of osso buco, serving every man at the table with soft Cajun-Creole murmurs, except Dante. In front of the Don sits an empty plate. Clean porcelain. One of the kitchen girls, Maria, walks right past him without looking down.

Nico sits across from me, his eyes cold as flint. He’s Gia’s twin, and he didn’t want this trade. He went nuclear in Dante’s study, and right now, he looks like he wants to jump the table and take a chunk out of my throat.

“The gravy smells fucking incredible, Rosa,” I say, keeping my tone smooth as glass.

Rosa stops behind my chair. The serving spoon in her hand freezes. The whole table goes dead silent. A Valentino complimenting a Santoro recipe in the middle of a family war.

“It’s marrow and burnt sugar, Don Valentino,” she says, her voice dry as dust. “It tastes better when nobody had to bargain for it.”

Moretti shifts his weight near the door. Nico’s jaw clenches so tight a knot pops in his cheek.

Then the heavy doors at the end of the hall swing open.

My lungs completely lock up. Cazzo.

I expected scrubs. I expected the boxy, oversized green cotton she uses to hide from every man in this city. I prepared myself for her to walk in wearing something dull, looking at me like an inconvenient line item.