The Wild Wolf Pup (Zoe's Rescue Zoo #9)(2)

For a brief pause after Luca’s birth my Victor came back to us. He took one look at that little boy and his heart grew ten times in size. Luca became Victor’s chance at redemption and I even started to think he’d be able to repair his relationship with Adrianna. A baby is one of life’s most beautiful blessings and Luca’s birth was just what our family needed to mend.

I’ll never forget finding Victor in the corridor of the hospital, staring at Anthony as he watched Luca through the window of the nursery. I looked into my husband’s eyes and saw regret, something he never expressed in all our years together.

Anthony was there when Adrianna went into labor and he never left her side. He watched that boy take his first breath and when we arrived at the hospital we found him in the hallway looking at the boy, wishing he was his. He may not have been Luca’s biological father but God made him his dad.

Things started to look up for our family; Victor was around more, spending quality time with the girls and Luca. He was still on the rise, his empire grew both financially and in power making him the ultimate mob boss and his organization trumped all others.

I foolishly believed he put his quest for revenge behind him.

Like everyone else I believed he was invincible, his empire indestructible. Victor Pastore would reign over the streets he loved forever and I’d be the woman standing in his shadow, perfectly content with him having his glory, knowing he wasn’t the type of man you held back. I watched Victor soar to the top and knew my place was to be the one who grounded him when he needed the reminder that beneath the Teflon he was a husband, a father and now a grandfather.

Then the call came that Val’s wife had tragically died in a car accident, leaving their son, Michael, the sole survivor of their family. Vic harbored guilt that he didn’t step up and take care of Mike and Maryann after Val died and so he thought he could make up for that by bringing Val’s son into the fold.

Victor was opening a new night club called Temptations and his plan was to give Mike a legit opportunity to make something of himself. He wanted to bring him back home, have Michael manage Temptations and hoped to fix another broken relationship. I commended him for trying to do the right thing, even if it took him a while to figure out what that was.

My husband was repairing the relationships he severed bringing hope back to our family.

Life was good.

But it usually is before it turns bad.

The night Temptations opened began the descent of a mob boss. We learned the hard way that even the most powerful men sometimes get knocked off their throne.

I don’t know if I was too na?ve or simply immune to the life we dangerously lived but I never saw the disaster that was heading straight for us—the end of Victor Pastore.

The destruction of an empire.

The death of a man.

The ruination of a family.

The end of Victor and Grace.

The buzzer rang, dragging me away from my thoughts and forcing me back to the reality of what we had become. I spot him immediately, sitting in the far left corner of the packed visitor’s room in the federal penitentiary.

This is our life now.

We’re doing a life sentence.

He’s paying for his crimes behind bars and I’m paying for them in an empty bed.

His head is bowed as he stares down at his hands that are neatly folded on the table. I freeze in my tracks, taking a moment to stare at the man I so deeply love despite his flaws. A sad smile spreads across my lips as I take in his appearance, noticing his hair has grayed even more so than the last time I saw him. He aged well, his features the same as they were when we first met, only now there are faint lines on his face that tell his life story. He’s still the most handsome man I ever laid eyes on.

I was transfixed back to that night when our world crumbled, staring adoringly at my husband, unbeknownst to him, I studied him through the eyes of the rest of the world.

It was opening night and Temptations’ capacity seemed to be at its limit. Everywhere you turned people were smiling, laughing or dancing.

The music blaring from the impressive sound system faded away and was replaced by Vic’s laughter. It was easy to see why people were drawn toward his larger-than-life personality. He owned the room. The people surrounding us hung onto his every word but when he turned around and stared into my eyes as he wrapped his arm around me, he was just Vic, the man beneath the designer suit.

Success.

It was the number one word in Victor’s vocabulary. He did nothing half-assed, always gave one hundred percent, and this club was no exception. From the marble floors to the over-the-top sound system, my husband didn’t skimp on one tiny detail. The extreme flashiness was what people had come to expect from Victor.



He boisterously laughed at a joke Jimmy was telling, turned to me and the laughter died in his eyes, replaced with something foreign yet familiar…love and affection. He bent his head, pressing his lips to mine; I closed my eyes feeling nostalgic as one kiss reminded me of the thirty-five years of kisses we shared.

“I love you, Gracie,” he murmured, pulling back from my lips staring into my eyes as the back of his hand caressed my cheek.



I wish I had of taken a photograph of him, of us, and the last time we were together when everything was just as it was when we were young.

Before the mob.

Before the suit.

Before I lost Victor to a life full of crime.