Accepting a Loving Heart

Chapter 1: Getting Along

Vincent's POV

It's been a week since my marriage to Luc and the disastrous events that unfolded that day. Our marriage remains a secret to almost everyone except two of Luc's lawyers, Father Gregory, my father and two of my father's lawyers. They have all been sworn to silence.

A week ago, me and Luc were supposed to tie the knot in front of his whole gang. But since my father could not attend the wedding and Luc needed his consent for the marriage documents, our wedding was secretly conducted prior to our formal wedding in front of everyone. The formal wedding didn't eventuate later because Luc's mother foiled it successfully. In order to not create discord in the gang, I agreed to Belle's condition of undertaking a military training they conducted in a camp called the "Fighting Dogs". Lisa had told me earlier that it was a dangerous training that resulted in many lost lives. However, on the brighter side, it was still supposed to be a sort of entrance exam kind of thing to be involved in the gang operations. So, technically it is supposed to be a basic military training.

Unfortunately though, people who participated in the training were young people who had been taught fighting from their childhood days but I had to prepare for the training in less than 2 months. Luc had given the job of training me to Jared and so far it had been grueling to say the least.

Jared told me he was just stretching my muscles to first prepare me for the necessary work out. I mean it's not even the workout yet. To me it doesn't look like stretching exercises at all. I wake up at 4am and Jared takes me out to a mountainous area where I have to run straight for 2 hours on rocky terrain. Whenever I stop, he pushes me on.

Sometimes I even behave like a petulant child and roll on the ground in a tantrum. I know it's childish but I couldn't do the running without protesting. To Jared's credit he'd just totally ignore it before pulling me up and shoving my back to keep moving. After the 2 hour run, I come home and then do laps in the swimming pool for 1 hour. By the time I am done, it is past 7am usually. Then, I take a long soak in a hot tub to ease the aches in my body. Still, even after that, every inch of flesh and bone in my body screams in pain. Jared suggested getting a massage from the spa used by the phantoms but I was too shy to let someone massage my body. If it was Luc though..I shook my head at the thought.

I shouldn't be thinking about Luc right now. I need to focus. Jared said, he couldn't start the real drill if I wasn't fit enough and he says I still have a long way to go to complete the required hurdle for entry to the "Fighting Dogs" camp. There was a certain distance that needs to be covered in two hours of running and one hour of swimming.

Usually people had an entrance exam to even get into the camp. The trainee slots from each branch are allocated to their best trainees. In my case, I was given an unneeded free pass by royalty. In gang circles, royalty included the members of the Pietro family, the Ju Long family, the Santini family and the Omasi family. Among them the Pietro family ruled. Technically anyone from the royalty could offer a free pass to the "Fighting Dogs" camp but usually only the Pietro family used that privilege. I sighed. Yes..I did say privilege. Niles told me that gang members train for years to get into the camp and my free pass would have cost someone else their pass to become a trainee this time. Becoming a trainee and passing the fighting dogs camp was a privilege in the gang because that's when they can start earning independently and earn a degree of freedom in conducting their affairs.

I groaned as I slid further down into the tub of hot water in which I was soaking my aching body after another grueling "stretching" session. I was exhausted already and wanted to take a nap. But Luc had left me in charge of the children. All the previous charges have been dismissed and they were held for interrogation. So, I had the task of choosing new charges. Meanwhile since there is no one else to look after the older kids, I was taking help from Sera and the charges in the nursery to look after the older kids. That meant, I cannot laze around as I wanted. I hadn't really thought that there would be many applicants for the position of charges of Luc's children but surprisingly there were hundreds of applicants.