Page 7 of Ruthless Grace

“And start a three-way war while your wife is recovering from popping out your kid?” I ask, staring down into his eyes without flinching. “You want feds in your compound while your daughter is in diapers?”

Dante stands there, his chest heaving, his gun pressed against my heart, completely trapped in the box I built for him.

“You can’t shoot your way out of a Commission paper without burning down the whole Cosa Nostra framework that protects your own family,” I say low, dropping my voice so only he can hear it. “You need a shield. Something so heavy Chicago won’t touch it.”

Dante glares at me, his teeth grinding. “What the fuck are you getting at, Luca?”

I look past his shoulder, toward the dark East Wing windows where I know my doctor is stripping off her scrubs.

“A marriage truce,” I say flatly.

Dante freezes. “Che cazzo dici?”

“A binding, legal marriage of convenience,” I say, laying out the terms like a shipping manifest. “Fuse the Valentino and Santoro berths under one name. The second she takes my ring, she’s Donna Valentino. Commission law says a married woman can’t be claimed for a dead father’s debt. Russo’s paper becomes toilet paper.”

Dante stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You want me to hand my sister over to you?”

“I’m giving you the only move that doesn’t end with your sister in Chicago or your compound in cuffs,” I shoot back, my voice turning to gravel. “My deep-water berths give your family economic immunity. My guns stand between her and Russo. You get to keep your empire intact.”

“She’ll never do it,” Dante rasps, his hand shaking slightly against his gun. “Gia isn’t a bargaining chip. She’s a trauma surgeon. She’d rather shove a scalpel in your throat than take your name.”

I know, I think, a dark, possessive thrill tearing through my chest. I’m counting on it.

“She doesn’t have to like it,” I say coldly. “She just has to sign. Bring her to your study tomorrow. Present the trade. Tell her it’s to keep Russo away from your new daughter. She’s a caretaker, Dante. She’ll swallow her own fire if she thinks it protects this family.”

Dante stands there as the dead hours before dawn press down on us, heavy with humidity and the sweet scent of his mother’s roses. In the distance, a river barge blares its deep horn across the Mississippi.

Slowly, furiously, Dante lowers the gun.

He shoves the gun into his waistband, crushing the forged paper in his fist, looking at me with undiluted hatred. The Don who would kill for his bloodline has just been backed into a corner—by the man who painted the walls.

“If you hurt my sister,” Dante whispers, his voice low, lethal, and trembling with promise, “if you make her bleed, Luca, I don’t give a fuck about the truce or the Commission. I will gut you myself.”

I don’t flinch. I look Dante Santoro straight in the eye, my hands resting in my pockets, letting the dark wool of my sleeve ride up just enough to show her silver suture seam on my forearm.

“I’ll protect her, Dante,” I say softly. “With every gun, every berth, and every drop of blood my name commands.”

Dante turns without another word, strides back through the courtyard doors, and slams the iron door behind him.

Here is what the truce paper doesn’t say.

The road Matteo took that night was internal. Only a handful of men ever knew the route. Some are dead. One is me. One pulled the trigger. And the last just shut that door on me and went back inside to his newborn daughter. Dante Santoro signed the order. Renzo, his enforcer, pulled the trigger and then stood at my elbow at the truce table like a man who’d never held a rifle in his life.

Dante shook my hand with the same hand that signed it.

So I play his game. I open my deep-water berths to his container lines. I let him call me fratello in front of the Commission like we are bound by blood instead of blood money. I eat at his mother’s table every Sunday I am invited, swallow their food, and compliment the fucking gravy while my teeth grind down to dust.

And now he thinks he just bought a shield for the price of a sister. He thinks he’s securing his borders. He is walking into a trap I laid brick by brick, and he is carrying his sister into it with both hands.

I reach up, unroll my dark cuffs, and button them over her suture marks. Then I check Matteo’s watch, the lag on its face a constant, thrumming reminder of the spare’s guilt eating my ribs. Matteo was the golden heir meant for the sun.

I was the dark, ruthless second son fitted for a dead brother’s crown in a single night of blood. Every demand I make tonight, every trap I lay for Dante, is fueled by years of unpunished grief for the brother who should have lived in my place.

Nothing is ever given to a Valentino. I learned young that what I want, I take.

I wanted Giada Santoro the second I saw her standing dry-eyed over her father’s casket.

Let her fight me. Let her draft the contract. Before the week is out, my stubborn doctor will be under my roof. And she’s never walking away.