Page 20 of Ruthless Grace

I engineered the lie. I set the terms. I signed her black-ink contract without reading it. And as the car turns down St. Charles Avenue toward the Garden District, a cold, ruthless dread settles into my gut.

I didn’t capture her.

I handed her the match, stepped inside my own wooden house, and waited to see if she’d burn it down.

8

GIA

The smell of scorched garlic and scalded milk hits me before I even reach the bottom step of the main staircase. Underneath it is the heavy, hissed steam of Maria’s iron pressing black linen in the utility room: a rhythmic, aggressive thwack-hiss that sounds suspiciously like a hammer hitting an anvil.

The house is at war, and the women are currently executing the casualties.

I step into Nonna Rosa’s kitchen, my leather surgical satchel slung over my shoulder. The room is hot, bright, and suffocating with the scent of dark chicory coffee and cold-blooded female retribution.

Dante sits at the head of the long oak prep table. The Don of the Santoro famiglia, dark wool and lethal authority who commands two hundred armed soldiers across four parishes, is currently staring down at his breakfast plate.

It is completely empty.

Not a slice of pancetta. Not a crust of bread. Not even a drop of oil. Just a dry piece of glazed ceramic and a cup of black coffee that looks like it was brewed out of river silt and spite.

Beside the stove, Nonna Rosa stands with a wooden spoon in her hand, her apron tied tight over her hips, stirring a pot of polenta with the methodical, pitiless precision of a surgeon performing an amputation. She is Cajun-Creole to her bones, raised in the bayous before she ever set foot in this compound, and she speaks with a dry, sharp cadence that doesn’t bow to titles.

“You want butter on that plate, Don Dante?” Nonna asks without turning around, her voice dripping with sweet, Louisiana poison. “Or maybe you prefer to eat the paper you signed on your sister’s life?”

Dante doesn’t answer. His jaw is locked so tight the muscle in his cheek looks like a knot of rope. His right hand rests flat on the table, his thumb endlessly turning our father’s signet ring around his knuckle. He looks up as I enter, his dark eyes hollow, bruised with sleep deprivation.

He opens his mouth to say something: maybe my name, maybe an apology I have no intention of accepting.

“Don’t,” I say, my voice level, cool, and flat as a stainless-steel tray. “Save your breath, Dante. You’re going to need it for the altar.”

Maria sweeps past him, slamming a freshly ironed stack of white linen napkins onto the sideboard so hard the silver salt cellars jump. She doesn’t look at Dante. She doesn’t look at his empty plate. She treats the head of this family like a draft coming through a broken window.

Cassia steps through the pantry doors, holding baby Lucia against her shoulder. My sister-in-law is wearing tailored cream silk, her dark hair pinned back, her posture impossibly straight. She looks like the woman who tracks every dollar this family moves: cool and calculating.

“The tribunal has concluded, Giada,” Cassia announces, setting a small bottle of formula on the counter without looking at her husband. She speaks to the room, but the verdict is aimed directly at Dante’s throat. “Dante has been officially evicted from the East Wing master suite. His bags are in the second-floor guest room facing the driveway.”

Dante’s head snaps up. “Cassia⁠—”

“The nursery door stays locked from the inside,” Cassia continues, her voice smooth as marble. “Lucia wakes up every three hours. You will take the 3:00 AM feeding, the 5:00 AM burping, and the 6:00 AM diaper change. Alone. While I sleep.”

Nico, sitting near the far window in his tailored black wedding suit, lets out a low, dark snort into his espresso cup.

Cassia’s gaze pivots to him. “Renzo and Marco have been sentenced to two weeks of complete domestic exile for standing in that study and letting Dante negotiate the trade. They will be served cold soup until the reception is over.”

“And Nico?” I ask, leaning against the doorframe, my thumb tracing the strap of my medical bag.

“Nico is cleared unanimously,” Cassia says, her sharp eyes flicking to my twin. “He gets hot polenta.”

Nonna Rosa immediately sets a bowl of rich, yellow polenta topped with braised short rib in front of Nico. Nico gives Dante a slow, deliberate smirk, picking up his fork.

Dante looks at his empty plate, then up at his wife. “This is ridiculous, Cassia. We have forty capos arriving before the ceremony. The house needs to show a united front.”

“The house is united,” Cassia replies, pouring herself a cup of black coffee. “Against you. Eat your air, Dante.”

It’s gallows humor, sharp and vicious, the only weapon these women have in a world built by men who trade blood for territory. None of them can stop the cars from pulling through the compound gates. None of them can tear up the contract Luca Valentino signed in my father’s study. So they punish the Don at his own breakfast table, using the only currency he can’t command: their warmth.

Nobody asks me how I’m holding up.