Chapter 10 - The Family He Chose
Celeste Lacombe returned to Vancouver 2 weeks later.
Not with an army.
Not with threats.
With one suitcase.
Victor stood inside a private terminal waiting for her.
Bridget held his hand.
Pippa held the other.
When Celeste appeared, Victor forgot how to move.
She was 38.
Dark hair like Victor’s.
The same eyes.
But where Victor carried his pain like armor, Celeste wore hers openly.
“You got old,” she said.
Victor stared.
“So did you.”
Then she crossed the distance and slapped him.
Bridget’s eyes widened.
Pippa whispered, “Uh-oh.”
Victor did nothing.
Celeste slapped him again.
Then hugged him.
Victor broke.
His arms closed around his sister.
For several minutes they simply stood there.
Celeste had disappeared because their father had threatened her after she discovered the extent of the family’s criminal operations.
Daniel had helped her escape.
Victor had never known.
Their father told him Celeste had been killed by rivals.
Daniel kept the secret because Celeste believed Victor remained loyal to their father.
“I wasn’t,” Victor said.
“I know that now.”
Celeste looked toward Bridget and Pippa.
“I’ve been watching.”
Bridget’s expression hardened.
Celeste immediately raised both hands.
“Bad choice of words.”
“Extremely.”
Celeste smiled.
Victor introduced them.
Pippa stared at Celeste.
“So you’re Victor’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“That makes you my…”
Everyone froze.
Pippa frowned.
“I don’t know.”
Celeste crouched.
“How about friend first?”
Pippa considered.
“Okay.”
It took months to untangle the rest.
Celeste’s evidence connected Victor’s late father to the beginning of Mercer’s operations.
It also cleared Daniel of accusations that had followed him after death.
Victor finally learned the truth.
Daniel’s death had not happened because Victor missed one pickup.
The attack had already been planned.
His guilt had been built around a coincidence.
Understanding did not erase grief.
But it changed its shape.
Victor visited Daniel and Luca’s graves on a cold Sunday in March.
Bridget and Pippa went with him.
Pippa placed a toy car beside Luca’s headstone.
Victor looked at her.
“He would have liked that.”
“Was he funny?”
“Very.”
“Did he like dinosaurs?”
“Everybody likes dinosaurs.”
Bridget smiled.
Pippa nodded approvingly.
Victor remained after they walked toward the car.
He touched Daniel’s headstone.
“I’m trying.”
The wind moved through the trees.
“I think you’d like them.”
His voice broke.
“I wish you were here to meet them.”
He stayed another minute.
Then he walked back to the living.
One year after the night Victor stumbled into the pharmacy, Bridget completed another major portion of her nursing program.
Victor sat in the front row at the ceremony.
Pippa sat beside him.
Gabriel sat beside Pippa because she had personally invited him.
When Bridget’s name was called, Pippa cheered loudly enough to embarrass several respectable families.
Victor stood.
He did not care.
Bridget found them outside afterward.
Pippa ran into her arms.
“You did it!”
“Almost.”
“Victor says almost counts.”
Bridget looked at him.
“Victor says lots of questionable things.”
“I’ve noticed.”
That evening, Victor took them somewhere unexpected.
East Hastings.
The pharmacy had closed months earlier.
The old storefront was empty.
A SOLD sign covered the window.
Bridget frowned.
“Why are we here?”
Victor handed her a key.
She stared at it.
“No.”
“You don’t know what it is.”
“You bought me something.”
“I bought myself something.”
“That somehow involves giving me a key?”
“Yes.”
Bridget narrowed her eyes.
Victor opened the door.
The pharmacy was gone.
The interior had been rebuilt into a small community clinic.
Fresh walls.
Exam rooms.
A children’s corner.
Office space.
Bridget stared.
On one wall was a simple plaque:
THE DANIEL & LUCA COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER
She covered her mouth.
Victor immediately became nervous.
“I know you dislike gifts.”
“This is not a gift.”
“No.”
He looked around.
“It’s a nonprofit. You don’t own it. Neither do I. The foundation does.”
Bridget laughed through tears.
“You found a loophole.”
“I’m learning.”
Pippa ran toward the children’s corner.
“There are dinosaurs!”
“I selected those,” Victor said.
Bridget turned toward him.
“You remembered.”
“I remember everything about you.”
The words landed harder than any elaborate declaration.
Victor reached into his pocket.
Bridget saw the box.
Her heart stopped.
“Victor.”
“I know.”
He looked terrified.
She had never loved him more.
He lowered himself onto one knee.
Pippa screamed from across the clinic.
“I KNEW IT!”
Victor closed his eyes.
Bridget laughed so hard she cried.
“Pippa,” Victor called, “I had a speech.”
“Do it!”
He looked back at Bridget.
“I did have a speech.”
“I believe you.”
“It was good.”
“I’m sure.”
“I practiced.”
That made her stop laughing.
Victor opened the box.
The ring was elegant and simple.
Exactly something Bridget would have chosen.
“I spent most of my life believing the people I loved became targets.”
His voice remained steady, but his hand did not.
“Then a 6-year-old girl asked me if I was scared.”
Pippa had come closer now.
Victor continued.
“I lied to her.”
Bridget’s eyes filled.
“I’m not going to lie anymore.”
He looked at Pippa.
“I’m scared.”
Then back at Bridget.
“Because you and Pippa are the first future I’ve ever wanted more than I wanted control.”
Bridget wiped her cheek.
Victor swallowed.
“I cannot promise you a perfect life. I cannot promise I’ll always know what I’m doing.”
“That part is obvious.”
He smiled.
“But I can promise I will come home. I will tell you the truth. I will choose you when it is difficult, not only when it is easy.”
His eyes held hers.
“Bridget Carone, will you marry me?”
Pippa whispered urgently, “Say yes.”
Bridget laughed.
“Yes.”
Pippa screamed.
Victor stood and Bridget kissed him before he could put the ring on properly.
Gabriel appeared from the hallway.
Pippa stared at him.
“You knew!”
“I know many things.”
“You’re sneaky.”
“It’s literally my job.”
Six months later, Bridget and Victor married in a small ceremony overlooking the water.
No reporters.
No business associates they did not love.
Celeste attended.
Gabriel served as best man.
Pippa carried the rings.
She nearly lost them because she had hidden a cookie inside the same little bag.
Victor pretended not to notice.
Bridget noticed everything.
She noticed Victor’s hands trembling when she approached.
She noticed him looking at Pippa during the vows.
She noticed the empty chairs they had reserved for Daniel and Luca.
And she noticed that Victor no longer looked toward every doorway expecting someone to disappear.
Years later, Pippa would remember very little about the rainy night when Victor Lacombe first entered their lives.
She remembered dinosaur pajamas.
She remembered blood.
She remembered that he looked scary.
But most clearly, she remembered sitting beside him on the pharmacy floor.
“Were you really not scared?” she asked him once when she was older.
Victor smiled.
“I was terrified.”
“You lied to me?”
“Yes.”
Pippa looked scandalized.
Victor laughed.
Then he told her something he had never admitted aloud.
“When I walked into that pharmacy, I thought I was looking for medicine.”
He glanced toward Bridget, who stood in their kitchen helping their younger son with homework.
Victor’s expression softened.
“Turns out I was looking for a home.”
Pippa rolled her eyes.
“That’s cheesy.”
“It’s true.”
Across the room, Bridget looked up.
“What are you two talking about?”
“Nothing,” they answered together.
Bridget narrowed her eyes.
Victor smiled.
Years earlier, a little girl had looked at a bleeding stranger and told him her mother knew how to fix broken things.
She had been right.
Bridget had closed the wound in his side.
But Bridget and Pippa had done something far more difficult afterward.
They had shown Victor that surviving was not the same as living.
That protecting people did not require pushing them away.
That grief could share a room with happiness.
And that family was sometimes not the blood a person inherited.
Sometimes it was the hand that reached for yours while you were bleeding on a pharmacy floor.
Sometimes it was a little girl in dinosaur pajamas who refused to be afraid of you.
Sometimes it was a stubborn woman who returned your money, challenged every order, and loved you without ever surrendering herself.
Victor Lacombe had once built his entire life around making sure he needed nobody.
In the end, his greatest victory was discovering how wrong he had been.
And every night when he came home, Pippa still occasionally shouted the same announcement from somewhere inside the house.
“Mom! Victor’s here!”
Bridget would look toward the doorway.
Victor would meet her eyes.
May you like
And neither of them ever took those simple words for granted again.
He was home.
