Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 23907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 120(@200wpm)___ 96(@250wpm)___ 80(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 120(@200wpm)___ 96(@250wpm)___ 80(@300wpm)
Cesare?
Ezio?
Massimo?
And even Lorenzo?
Relief thundered through her even as she charged toward them. Individually, the Marchettis were nearly unstoppable in any kind of fight. But when the brothers fought together as one in accordance to His will? They were undefeatable, and—-oomph.
Sarica collided with something solid, but she was already lifting her knee up even as she fought to regain her balance. Fingers gripped her arm while one strong hand pushed her knee back down with firm gentleness before it could do any damage.
"It's me, Sarica."
That voice.
Her head jerked up, her heart in her throat.
Giancarlo.
It really was him, and he looked absolutely terrible.
Oh God.
This was all her fault. Her fault. And it was while Sarica was struggling to come into term with her guilt that Giancarlo suddenly went crashing down, and her lips parted in silent horror.
NOOOOOO!
For one terrifying moment, Sarica could only look around them wildly, wondering who it was that had shot him from behind—-
No, God, please.
—-until she realized Giancarlo was simply down on one knee, and he was holding out his signet ring.
To her.
Was he seriously proposing to her while his brothers were still fighting off the bounty hunters that she had accidentally forgotten to call off?
It wasn't hard at all to understand what he was telling her without words, and it was just so like the Giancarlo she knew, loved, and sometimes wanted to strangle. Just so like him to propose marriage amidst danger, and all so he could prove to Sarica and his famiglia that he finally understood what all of them had prayed he would remember.
He no longer had to be in control.
He never had to.
Because he never was in control.
God was the one who had been keeping them safe all this time, and it was the only reason why - even though they were the first and only famiglia to completely turn their back on crime and embrace a life that upheld righteousness and mercy - the Marchettis remained in power, undefeated and unrivaled.
But even so.
"You—-" Words failed her completely. Sarica was overcome with the urge to simultaneously laugh, cry, and crush a pair of a certain gentleman's balls with the way Giancarlo's eyes were now gleaming up at her in amusement.
"Is that a yes?" How so, so like Giancarlo to ask this like he hadn't done his best to break her heart in the past several weeks.
Everyone thought he was an angel, and she his personal devil, but surely, with the whole of New York watching, they could finally see the truth he had revealed only to her in the past?
Even though he looked as if he had been beaten within an inch of his life, Giancarlo remained the annoyingly gorgeous embodiment of pure unapologetic cockiness, and even though a part of her was childishly tempted to make him pay—-
The other part of her remembered when it was once the other way around, and Giancarlo had never ever given up on her—-
It remembered how his love had anchored her in the years she was lost, and how his disappearance had been the reason she had come to truly understand what it meant to depend on God—-
It was because of this that had Sarica throwing herself in his arms—-
"You had my answer years ago," she choked out, "but you didn't come back to hear it."
—-and she realized that she didn't want to waste another day without him.
Giancarlo swallowed hard as Sarica started to cry in her arms.
Thank You, God.
Thank You.
And because he truly was grateful, he paid no attention to Sarica's newly acquired scent as he cupped her face and took her mouth in a kiss.
He loved her, Eau de Garbage and all.
Epilogue
An invitation had been issued and accepted, and the Marchettis' sprawling manor had thrown its gates open to welcome the people over whom Giancarlo's famiglia had ruled for the past few decades.
Cheers rose from the crowd as Potenziana stepped out into view. "Thank you all for coming." Her cultured voice was a force of power in itself. She was and would always be their first queen, a silver-haired woman whose pearls were as iconic as the way she had defeated all of her enemies with cunning and strength and, later on, with grace and faith.
"The future is near. But we have nothing to fear. If God is with us, who can be against us?"
Wild applause broke out even as the older ones remembered and honored in their hearts all the blood that had been shed for this day to come.
She presented her grandchildren and their other halves the order in which they had obeyed her decree.
First was her beloved Cesare, once the unforgiving executioner of her famiglia, but whose icy heart melted under the innocent warmth of his once-lost bride Penelope.
Next was her charming Massimo, whose wicked smile hid a cruel streak. But in Ysabella, he had met his match, and nearly losing her for good had made this grandson of hers a changed man.