“Need their mother,” she replies.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I seethe. “Don’t you think I know this will break their hearts? Why do you think I haven’t told them yet? I don’t even know where to begin, I’m so angry. I’m so mad at him. I feel guilty for being angry because he didn’t ask to be sick but like everything else, I’m the one left here to deal with it. I’m the one who has to tell our daughters their father has a few months to live. I’m the one who has to tell them he’s being transferred to a prison down south so he can follow through with some sick vendetta. I’m so angry that he’s being transferred, robbing us of the visits we can have before he dies.”
“He’s doing it on purpose, Grace. It’s not only about the promise he made that biker and his club but it’s because he doesn’t want you and his girls to see him deteriorate. He wants you to remember him the way he’s always been.”
“What about what I want? What about what the girls want? We never had a say in much but we’re the ones who will suffer when he leaves this world. —We should have a say! I vowed to love him through sickness and health and I thought when the time came that one of us became sick we would be there for one another. I’ve been robbed of my vows. I should be there taking care of him. I should be holding his hand when he takes his final breath! I should be able to say goodbye…”
I take a deep breath, trying to compose myself as I stand, bracing my hands on the counter and bow my head.
“How am I going to live without him?” I sob.
“You already are,” Gina replies.
“It’s not the same,” I argue. “How am I going to live the rest of my life, never being able to hear him call me Gracie, never being able to look him in the eye and see our whole life reflected in those eyes?” I shake my head before glancing over my shoulder and staring at Gina.
“How am I going to tell our girls their father is dying? How am I going to be strong enough for them?”
“I’ll help you, Bert will help too and so will Ma. You’re not alone, Grace. We’re crazy and maybe a little eccentric but we’re family and we all love Adrianna and Nikki…” she pauses, “We love you too, Grace.”
I spin around, dropping my hands to my sides and lean my back against the counter.
“I have to tell the girls,” I say finally.
As a parent we try our best to shelter our children, even when they become adults, we can’t help ourselves and still we try to protect them. I can’t protect, I can’t shield my daughters from losing their father but I will be their rock, their strength when they’re too weak with grief.
And when their hearts start to mend, then and only then will I grieve.
Alone I will mourn my love, my life. My Victor.
Chapter Eight
Dragging the comb through my gray hair, I make sure not a strand is out of place. Smoothing down the front of my jumpsuit, I flash back to a time in my life when I used to fit the most expensive cufflinks to my silk shirt. Some might call me vain, even eccentric, but in my world, appearances are everything. It's that first moment when you meet someone, when they size you up with their eyes and decide your importance to them. You are either someone they want to know or someone they’ll forget.
I was nineteen years old when I sat at a table with the five most lethal men in the mafia. Each of them ruled one of the five most prominent crime families in New York City. I was just a kid, another street thug looking for the easy way out. I wasn’t the first young guy looking to take the oath they were selling and I wouldn’t be the last. But I walked into that warehouse with confidence and a demeanor like they only saw when they stared in the mirror. I was the youth who had an old soul and enough swagger to demand they notice me.
I wasn’t someone you forgot.
I was Victor fucking Pastore, and I would be the man ruling their streets long after they took their final breath.
Me.
I would be the boss.
The man in a designer suit that men feared and civilians gravitated to.
Victor Pastore the mobster—the fucking legend.
And for most of my life that is who I was. I was the man you wanted to know, the guy you wanted in your corner and it didn’t matter that I was a criminal. I lied, robbed, and killed to get to the top, but to the public I could do no wrong—I was a fucking god.
Even here, locked up, I’m somebody. I’m the guy with juice, the man you come to in the yard when someone is trying to shake you down for your commissary.