Chapter 10
LUCA
She didn’t tremble once.
Not when Dante surrendered his right at the arbor gate. Not when her twin brother stepped back and left her standing alone on the stone path. And certainly not when she walked herself past her parents’ slate markers, her dark ivory lace dragging over the white gravel like an armored train.
Most people in New Orleans learn to sweat before they ever reach my shadow. Giada Santoro walked into it like she was stepping up to an operating table.
I pull back my left suit cuff and glance down at the worn silver casing of Matteo’s watch.
Beside me in the dark, leather-scented cabin of the armored Maybach, my wife sits with her spine perfectly straight, staring out the tinted glass at the passing streetlights of Uptown.
She hasn’t spoken a word since we cleared the Santoro gates.
Her dark hair, held up by silver pins, catches the amber glow of the gas lanterns as we turn onto the avenue.
Around her throat, cream-white pearls rest against her collarbone, fastened with a gold clasp carved into a rose.
On her left hand, my black diamond ring glitters in the dim interior.
She doesn’t look like a hostage. She looks like an occupying force waiting for her orders.
“You’re quiet, Dr. Santoro,” I say, my voice a low, gravelly rumble against the hum of the V12 engine.
Gia doesn’t turn her head. She rolls her left wrist, that small pre-scrub circle she makes unconsciously whenever her mind is running calculations, and keeps her eyes on the road.
“I’m conserving energy,” she replies, her voice flat, cool, and sharp as a scalpel. “I find that arguing with men who buy human beings is a poor allocation of my time.”
A faint, dark curl of heat flares in my chest. “I didn’t buy a human being. I cleared a debt your brother couldn’t pay. There’s a difference.”
“A distinction without a difference, Valentino.” She finally turns her head, her dark, amber-flecked eyes locking onto mine with absolute hostility. “You wanted leverage over my family’s bloodline. You got it. Now drive the car.”
I stare at her for three long seconds, watching the steady, unhurried rise and fall of her chest.
God help me, it’s driving me insane.
The iron gates of the Valentino estate swing inward without a sound, locking out the New Orleans night behind us.
The estate isn’t warm like the Santoro compound.
There are no copper pots clattering in the kitchen, no scent of Nonna’s marinara drifting through the halls.
It is built of dark slate, granite, and centuries-old live oaks: cold, efficient, and guarded by six armed sentries who bow their heads in absolute silence as the sedan pulls beneath the portico.
I step out first, turning to extend my hand to her.
Gia ignores my palm entirely. She gathers the heavy ivory lace of her skirt in one hand, steps out onto the flagstone driveway on her own power, and reaches back into the rear seat to grab her luggage.
She picks up her small silk weekend bag with her left hand, and with her right, she heaves out her heavy black leather surgical satchel.
I reach down and strip the medical bag from her grip before she can step toward the doors.
“Give it back, Luca,” she snaps, her chin coming up.
“Welcome to our house, principessa. I carry the bags here,” I say, wrapping my calloused fingers around the heavy leather handle.
Her jaw tightens at the weaponized pet name, but she doesn’t fight me for it. She turns and walks up the grand marble steps into the foyer.
Signora Matilde is waiting in the high-ceilinged hall. Head of household, dressed in her immaculate black wool dress, her iron-gray hair pulled into a tight coil at the nape of her neck. She bows slightly to Gia, her expression sharp, observant, and devoid of false pleasantries.
“Welcome to the estate, Donna,” Matilde says, her Cajun-tinted Italian formal and clipped. “The master suite has been prepared according to Don Valentino’s instructions. Late dinner is laid out in the dining room if you require it.”
“I don’t require dinner, Signora,” Gia replies smoothly, stepping past her toward the curving staircase. “I only require a door with a working lock.”
Matilde glances at me with a microscopic lift of her eyebrow. I give her a single, sharp nod of dismissal, then follow my wife up the stairs.
The master suite occupies the entire east wing of the second floor.
High ceilings, dark mahogany floorboards, and a massive king-sized bed framed in black iron, draped in crisp, dark silk sheets.
Across the room, a set of heavy double doors leads to the adjoining private quarter, my private office and bedroom.
Gia walks straight to the center of the room, turning her back to the bed as I set her surgical bag and weekend luggage down on the velvet bench at the foot of the mattress.
She reaches up, unfastening the pearls from her throat, and sets them carefully on the nightstand beside her ring. Then her hands move to the spine of her dress.
A long line of silk-covered buttons runs down the back of her structured ivory gown. She manages the first five before her shoulders stiffen in frustration.
“Need help, principessa?” I ask, stepping up behind her.
“I can manage,” she says, her fingers straining against the tight lace over her shoulder blades.
“You can’t reach the middle twelve,” I say smoothly, stepping into her space.
My shadow falls completely over her. The scent of her, sweet night-blooming jasmine, dark chicory, and the clean, sharp tang of sterile hospital soap, hits my lungs like a physical strike.
I don’t wait for her permission. I reach out, my large, calloused hands coming to rest against her waist.
Gia goes instantly rigid.
“Don’t touch me, Luca,” she whispers, her voice dropping into that quiet, dangerous register she uses when she’s issuing a warning in an OR.
“I don’t bite, principessa,” I murmur against the shell of her ear, my thumb hooking into the top loop of her button line.
“Matilde’s done for the night. I sent the rest of the staff across the river.
So it’s my hands, or you sleep in the gown—unless you’d prefer I call Gianni in to work your buttons. ”
Her jaw locks so tight a muscle spasms beneath her ear.
Principessa. Every time I spit the word at her, it’s a whip: a reminder that under all her surgical steel and haughty Santoro pride, she’s just a spoiled mafia brat whose bloodline ran out of credit. A princess stripped of her crown and handed over to the enemy.
“My buttons. Nothing else,” she says, turning her back to me.
I slide the first silk button free. Then the second. My knuckles brush against the warm, exposed skin of her spine. A shiver ripples through her: tiny, involuntary, and instantly suppressed.
I work my way down the spine of the gown, releasing the heavy ivory lace button by button. With every inch of silk that parts, her skin is laid bare to the cool air of the room.
When the last button pops free, the heavy dress falls open, pooling around her heels on the dark mahogany floorboards.
My breath hitches in my throat. The dark, calculating Don in my head goes completely, terrifyingly silent.
I’ve seen Giada Santoro for years across war tables, church vestibules, and funeral courtyards, always wrapped in boxy, oversized green cotton or structured dark wool suits that conceal her body like armor.
Standing before me now in only a sheer, midnight-silk corset and high-waisted lace, she is a revelation of pure female warmth.
She isn’t thin like the high-society women who parade around the Country Club.
She is lush. A full, breathtaking hourglass: soft, rounded hips that flare from a narrow waist, full breasts spilling over the lace of her cups, and smooth, pale thighs that look like they were carved for a man to sink his hands into.
Her skin is warm under the chandelier light, soft and unmarked.
Dante Santoro traded a goddess to clear a debt I invented, and he has no idea what he threw away.
“Satisfied, Valentino?” Gia asks, stepping out of the pooled lace. She turns around to face me, placing her hands on her hips, completely unbothered by her lack of clothing. Her eyes are bright with pure defiance. “Or do you need to inspect the rest of the merchandise?”
The sheer, uncounterfeit hostility in her face snaps something inside my chest.
I step forward, my frame closing the distance before she can take a backward step. I reach out, my hand wrapping firmly around her waist, and lift her off her feet.
Gia gasps, her hands instinctively coming up to slam against my chest, her fingers clutching the dark lapels of my suit jacket.
I drop her onto the center of the black silk mattress.
Before she can scramble backward, I crawl over her, my knees pinning her hips between mine, my hands coming down on either side of her head. My heavy, dark suit looms over her silk-clad body like a nightmare.
I know who she is. I know what these hands can do. She is a trauma surgeon who knows four separate ways to sever a man’s nerve cluster with two fingers.
She could drive an elbow into my solar plexus or aim a knee at my groin, but as I pin her down, I see the deliberate, tactical calculation in her eyes.
Fighting physically is what an enemy expects.
Gia isn’t choosing a brawl she might lose: she’s choosing psychological warfare, a battle she intends to win without leaving a bruise.
“You think this is a joke, Dr. Santoro?” I ask, my voice dropping into an arctic, dangerous whisper that vibrates against her collarbone. “You think you can walk into my house, refuse your brother’s arm, dismiss me at the altar, and act like you’re in control?”
“I don’t think I’m in control, Luca,” she whispers back, her dark eyes locking onto mine without a single trace of fear. “I know I am. Because no matter what you do to me in this bed, you bought a marriage, not my mind.”
“Let’s see how long your mind stays in control when your flesh betrays you.”
Gia doesn’t flinch. She tilts her chin up, her eyes burning with pure, liquid fire.
“Do your worst, Valentino,” she dares, her voice smooth as silk and cold as steel. “Show me what my brother’s debt buys you.”
I don’t take off my suit jacket. I don’t loosen my tie. I keep every stitch of my control on, maintaining total, ruthless detachment as I reach down and slide my hand beneath the silk edge of her lace.
Gia’s breath hitches sharply. Her thighs flex against my knees, trying to clamp shut.
I press the weight of my thigh between her legs, forcing her knees apart, and slide two calloused fingers straight into her boiling, slick cunt.
She is dripping wet.
Despite her razor-sharp tongue, despite her defiance, her body is already scorching hot, swollen and responsive to the sheer, overwhelming physical proximity between us.
“Look at me,” I command.
Gia snaps her gaze to mine, her jaw clenched so hard the muscles in her neck stand out. She refuses to shut her eyes. She refuses to look away.
I begin fucking her with my fingers, my pace brutal and agonizingly precise.
I don’t rush. I use the same cold, methodical dexterity I use when racking a slide or signing a death warrant. My thumb finds her swollen clit, grinding over it in tight, relentless pressure, while two fingers curl deep inside her, stretching her wet, tight walls over and over again.
Gia’s composure fractures.
A broken, breathless gasp rips from her throat. Her head falls back against the dark silk pillows, her back arching off the mattress as her hips lift involuntarily to meet my hand.
“Luca—” she chokes out, her fingers digging wildly into the fabric of my shoulders.
“Say my name again,” I growl, driving my fingers faster, harder, pushing her deeper into the sensory trap I’ve built for her. “Tell me how in control you are, principessa.”
Her inner walls clamp around my fingers in tight, frantic spasms. Her chest heaves, her plush breasts spilling over her corset with every ragged breath she takes.
She is seconds away. I can feel the seismic tremor building in her, the electric coil of her orgasm winding tighter and tighter until she’s hovering on the absolute precipice of a shattering, body-cleaving release.
Her eyes flutter, heavy-lidded and dark with mindless pleasure.
“Please,” she breathes, a microscopic, helpless whisper that she probably doesn’t even realize she’s spoken.
The word hits me like a bucket of ice water.
Consider this interest on Dante’s debt. Before her crest can break, before the first wave of her orgasm can crash through her body, I abruptly jerk my hand out.
Gia lets out a sharp, agonized cry of denial, her hips bucking upward against empty air, her body left stranded on the absolute edge of the cliff.
She opens her eyes, pupils blown completely black, panting and trembling as she stares up at me in shock.
I sit back on my heels with slow, deliberate precision, keeping my dark gaze locked on her flushed, wrecked face.
“That was your first lesson, Dr. Santoro,” I say, my voice cool, level, and entirely devoid of mercy. “In this house, you don’t get to come until I decide you’ve earned it.”
Gia stares at me, her chest heaving, her lips parted as her mind catches up to what I’ve just done to her. The shock in her eyes rapidly melts away, reappearing as a searing, white-hot fury.
She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t scream.
She pulls her knees together, sitting up on the silk sheets, and looks at me with pure venom.
“You’re a coward, Valentino,” she says, her voice trembling slightly with unspent adrenaline, but held rigid by her surgical spine. “You’re so terrified of losing control that you can’t even finish what you started.”
I don’t answer her.
I stand up from the bed, smooth the front of my tailored suit jacket, and turn toward the heavy double doors leading to my private adjoining room.
“Get some sleep, wife,” I say without looking back. “Your shifts at the hospital start on Monday.”
I step into my adjoining room, gripping the dark brass handle of the connecting door. I mean to slam it shut. I mean to lock her out completely.
Instead, my hand hesitates on the latch.
I pull the heavy mahogany door almost to the frame, leaving it cracked open by a single, tiny inch—unlocked.
I turn into my dark, empty office, tearing off my tie with a brutal yank, my own heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped beast. My skin is burning. My pulse is out of control.
I denied her. I proved my point.
So why do I feel like the man who just lost the war?