Page 19 of Ruthless Grace

He’s the only man alive who can walk into my study unannounced.

Moretti reached the river road while the car was still smoking. He was the one who unbuckled this watch off my brother’s dead wrist and pressed it into my hands before the sun went down that same day. “You’re the Don now, Luca. Pick up the gun.”

He looks at me now, his dark eyes heavy with a caution I haven’t seen since the Russo war kicked off.

“You threw a man out of the Santoro compound last night,” Moretti says without a greeting. No preamble. Just flat tactical report.

“He opened his mouth about my bride,” I say, leaning against the edge of the desk.

“He’s a loudmouth associate from the outer parishes,” Moretti counters, stepping closer. “He swirled his wine and said something stupid. You threatened to cut his tongue out in front of twenty capos, two Texas witnesses, and Dante Santoro.”

“And?”

“And the Old Guard is talking, Luca.” Moretti sets the folders down on the wood. “You engineered this alliance to secure the deep-water berths and kill Russo’s Commission claim. That was the play. But last night you didn’t look like a Don securing a border. You looked like a man who lost his fucking head over a Santoro girl.”

My jaw tightens. “Watch your tone, Silvano.”

“I stood next to your father when he buried your mother,” Moretti says. “I put Matteo’s watch on your wrist. I’ve earned the right to tell you the truth when you’re walking into a blind spot. A Santoro Donna in this house is already a bitter pill for our capos to swallow. If she’s an asset, fine. We take her name, we secure the berths, and she gives you an heir to lock the Valentino bloodline down.”

He stops, watching my face closely.

“The Old Guard wants to know when the succession is guaranteed,” Moretti continues, his voice steady, reasonable, and entirely focused on the institution. “They want to know if she’s going to be a real Donna who provides a son, or if you brought an enemy surgeon into our home to rule over you.”

The study goes dead quiet.

The air between us thickens until you could cut it with a blade.

Moretti isn’t trying to provoke me. He’s trying to protect me. He’s protecting the famiglia, the bloodline, the institution that cost my mother her life and drove my father into an early grave. He wants me to reassure him. He wants me to say what any Don in this city would say: She’s a vessel. She’s a transaction. I’ll get an heir out of her and keep her in line.

If I say those words, the Old Guard stays quiet. The capos fall in line. My house stays solid.

I look Moretti straight in the eye.

“My bride’s body isn’t Old Guard business, Silvano,” I say, my voice dropping into a quiet, icy register that stops the old man in his tracks. “And if anyone in this famiglia talks about Giada like she’s a vessel or an instrument, I won’t just throw them out of a room. I’ll bury them under my dock.”

The slippage happens in my own throat before I can check it. Giada.

Moretti’s eyes narrow slightly. He hears it. He knows exactly what I just did. I just burned institutional capital with my most loyal lieutenant for a woman who hasn’t even taken my name yet.

“She hates you, Luca,” Moretti says quietly. “She thinks you bought her.”

“I know what she thinks,” I say, straightening my cuffs. “Get the cars ready.”

Moretti leaves the study, closing the oak doors behind him without another word.

I stand alone in the middle of the room.

Matteo should be standing here today. He should be the one fixing my tie, making some arrogant joke about Santoro women, telling me how we’re going to control the entire riverfront. Alberto should be standing by the window in his tailored wool, giving me the cold, solemn speech about duty and legacy.

Instead, it’s just me. The spare who survived.

I walk out to the courtyard where the car is idling, dark exhaust curling into the cool air. Moretti holds the rear door open. I slide into the leather back seat.

The car pulls out past our iron gates, heading toward the Crescent City Connection bridge. Outside the tinted glass, the Mississippi River stretches out wide and murky, churning under the gray light.

I built you a procedure room, principessa. I threw a man out for looking at your hip. I just told my Consigliere I’d murder him if he treated you like livestock.

I look out at the city skyline rising out of the river fog.