Journal Entry

It's Day 40, and the people around us have started showing their true colors.

They think they smell blood.

And so they act accordingly.

There are famiglie that have started refusing the calls of our people, and there are those who have been so ill-advised that they believe our city is now theirs for the taking.

They're all acting like they've forgotten how war made us strong in the first place.

War is what forced my grandmother to transform into a queen who avenged the deaths of her husband and son.

War is why we are not and have never been like the sons and daughters of other famiglie.

War is what we've been training for our entire lives.

War is a question of when, not if.

It's something we're ready to die for if need be.

But now that we have also learned how to fight on our knees?

We already know we've won even if a single battle has yet to start.

THE WHOLE OF BOSTON is in black and white.

People from all walks of life have come to pay their respects to their lost prince.

And it's something I appreciate, as do the rest of my famiglia, even if none of us believes that Giancarlo is dead.

The next couple in line comes up to Sarica and me, and it's so very hard not to smile when I see how the older woman's brows shoot up at Sarica's bright red dress.

Photos of it are all over the Internet. The kind ones, who are always the minority, see it as Sarica's badge of courage. Red is the color of love, and it's Sarica wearing her heart and not just on her sleeve.

Others, however, are the fanciful sort, and ever since key contents of Giancarlo's will have been made public, stories about a rift between Sarica and my grandmother have been spreading nonstop.

If rumors are to be believed, Sarica's red dress is a show of defiance and the other girl's way of saying she's won without saying she's won.

If rumors are to be believed, Nonna has apparently been against her eldest grandson's engagement from the start, and that she was absolutely livid when she learned of the vast fortune Sarica stood to gain through Giancarlo's will.

If rumors are to be believed, and none of us has any faith to cling to, we'd all be drowning in our grief.

But because we know the truth—-

Sarica waits for the couple to walk past us before shaking her head at me.

Did you see that?

I nod.

I totally did.

She wrinkles her nose.

Will this ever end?

I lift my shoulders in a shrug.

Who knows?

The other girl's lips tighten.

You're thinking what I'm thinking, right?

I nod again.

And it's true.

I am thinking what Sarica and the rest of our famiglia are thinking.

And it's how each and every one of us wishes we didn't have to go through this farce at all.

But we have to.

So many assets of our famiglia are tied up to Giancarlo's name. Bank accounts that we can't access. Properties that we can't enter. And so many other things that we can't claim or use until we do as the world wants.

Giancarlo is dead.

It's what they've forced us to claim.

For now.

And it's so easy to see which of the people around me are rejoicing.

They think they've won.

Because they smell blood.

Or so they think.

My gaze moves to the massive twenty-foot marble doors of our mausoleum. The line outside stretches as far as my eyes can see. And then some.

Most of the faces are familiar. And they were people who loved Giancarlo as their prince.

But the others?

Since news of Giancarlo going missing first broke out, and details of his helicopter crashing in the untouched forests of Moskra eventually made public, people who once sought our favor now desired our downfall. They've been sniffing about like a starving pack of hyenas—-

(Because they think they smell blood.)

And circling around us like a soulless kettle of vultures.

(Because they think we're weak.)

It's almost as silly and laughable as those rumors about Sarica and Nonna , really.

And if circumstances were different, we would have let them know exactly what we think of them.

Politely, of course.

But we don't.

We can't.

For now.

Because there are things we must do.

And those things we can only do if we act as they wish.

The world wants us to move on, and so we do.

And that's why he's here.

Finally.

The Beast of New York has come.

And, for better or for worse, he's here to claim me as his bride.