The Wild Wolf Pup (Zoe's Rescue Zoo #9)(5)

The whole time I was making moves on Victor’s daughter, he and his goons were training me to be America’s Next Gangster. Well, not really, I mean they weren’t training me to whack someone. Anthony took me to some shooting range owned by a bunch of bikers and taught me how to fire a gun. The thing was I didn’t need anyone to teach me, I had my father’s blood running through my veins and that shit came as natural as breathing. I was a sure shot, just like my old man. I bet he’d be proud.

Victor wanted me to protect myself, so the piece I started carrying was just a precaution, a weapon I’d only fire if someone tried to fuck with me now that I was working for him.

Along with the loaded gun, they fitted me for the custom designer suits he and my father donned back in the day. I was a reflection of both Victor and Val, and my Timberland boots would not make the cut.

As the transformation continued, Nikki’s relationship crumbled and our friendship changed. She became my girl without becoming my girl if that makes any sense. She didn’t know it at the time, but after the night she and I hit the club scene, I realized who she belonged to.

It was the grand opening of Temptations, Nikki’s twenty-first birthday and my first night as the disco dancing gangster when everything changed.

What’s a grand celebration without a fucking shootout?

Not a Pastore function that’s for sure.

It came to light that Rico was working Nikki the whole time, a ploy to get close to Victor and avenge some fucking shit. It was time to put my training to use and protect Nikki, shooting at anything that got in my way from getting her the fuck out of the war zone my new job had become.

When I got us out of the club, the president of the motorcycle club that owned the gun range was waiting for us. Jack Parrish and Victor Pastore worked together on several occasions, creating an alliance that benefited the streets they both loved.

Victor eventually showed up at the safe house, informing us that his organization was at war and no one was safe. He sent us to Florida, handed me Nikki’s life and told me to keep her safe. He didn’t mention he was sending me to the fucking Golden Girls. I discovered that shit when I pulled into the fucking retirement community and Vic’s sister greeted me wearing a goddamn negligee and his mother tried to shoot me with a rifle.

Even now, well over a year later, I’m standing on top of my roof, nailing down the shingles and I’m still haunted by those lunatics. Lifting my shirt up to wipe the sweat from my forehead, their voices ring in my ears.

“I swear to God, Bert, you drive like a snail on a Percocet. Get me the hell out of this car,” Gina’s voice taunts.

“I floored it on the Belt Parkway,” Bert, Gina’s seventy-year-old boy-toy argues.

“Forty miles per hour is not flooring it,” Gina shouts.

I must’ve been in the sun for too long because I hear a car door slam shut, like they weren’t miles away in the sunshine state.

“Ma, we’re here. Ma! Oh for Christ’s sake, plug in your hearing aid.”

“Grab my gun,” Red shouts. Big Red, Gina and Vic’s four foot eleven mother with fire engine red hair.

“You let her take her gun? What does she need a gun for?” Bert asks incredulously.

“You’re on our soil, boy,” Red argues. “You need to be prepared for a drive-by. Grab the gun! Shit, we forgot the cannoli’s.”

“The house looks different,” Gina comments. “Oh, hot damn! Look who it is!”

No.

No fucking way.

Come on!

I lean over the edge of the roof and I’m pretty sure my eyes fucking explode in their sockets as they land on the fucking circus parked in my driveway.

Gina’s beehive hairdo was extra fucking high, teased two feet in the air as she bats her fake eyelashes and waves up at me. I guess I should be grateful the fucking lady wasn’t wearing a bra and bloomers like the last time I saw her. Red was waving too—waving a gun.

Bert, that poor bastard was unloading the fucking car. Unloading the fucking car!

This must be what having a stroke feels like.

“Nikki,” I shout, pulling at my hair. I move to back away from the edge, desperate to erase the image of ‘Sophia and Dorothy Petrillo’ from my brain but my jeans catch on one of the nails I hadn’t yet hammered down. I tug my leg free, lose my balance and nearly falling off the fucking roof. In a last ditch effort to save my ass, I grab onto the gutter.

“Oh my God! We have a jumper,” Gina shrieks. “Mikey, baby, please! Gina’s here, we’ll get through it.”

“I’m not jumping off the roof you whack job! I saw you and I fucking slipped,” I call down to her.

“That is the sweetest thing I ever heard,” she says, elbowing Bert in the gut. “How come you never did that?”

“Hang off a roof?” Bert asks confused.

“Nikki,” I shout again. Where the hell is she?

“Jump, boy! Big Red’s got you,” Red yells, dropping her straw bag and tucking her gun into whatever cleavage she has left. She spreads her arms wide as if she is going to catch me before Gina pushes her aside and copies her stance.

“I’ve got him!”

“What the hell is going on?” Nikki questions.

I peek down at her, watching as she freezes in her tracks and takes in the fucking festivities.