Saving Glory (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club Book 4) (16 page)

Jules dumped Glory on the floor of his room. Then he crossed his arms and stood with his back against the closed door.

And he waited.

Jules waited until Glory got her breathing under control and calmed herself down. After what seemed like forever she finally settled herself. Jules fought to keep his expression stalwart as he watched on as Glory made little hiccup noises and wiped her nose with the hem of her shirt. 

"I know what you’re thinking and I know you’re angry, Jules,” she sniffled. “I know everyone is really furious about what happened, about what we—what I did. And I know that just now I shouldn’t have risen to Hal’s bait. But he just makes me so mad! And if he actually did kill Vincenzo—I don’t know how I’m going to live with that.”

Then Glory rose to her full height and said with purpose. “I know you probably have a million questions, but Prosper’s been grilling us for hours. I really don’t want to discuss this anymore. I agree I could have handled things differently. But I am done talking about it.”

At that, Jules shifted on his feet and a surge of righteous anger cracked through the thin veneer of patience that he had left for bullshit.  "Glory, if you think for a minute that you are going to get out of this one that easily, then not only have you got some crazy death wish, but you are delusional.”

He threw her a look as he circled the room with the pent up violence of a caged animal.  He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again as violent images of what could have happened to Glory filled his mind and just about stopped his heart from beating.

Jules and his brothers had still been hours away from home when Diego’s call came in. And despite D’s assurances that Glory and Claire were safe, he wouldn’t go into detail over the cell. It had been a long ass ride home to say the least. Now to find that Glory had been in dangerous shit up to her ears and had kept it from him?

Yeah, it was going to take a minute before he trusted himself to speak again.

In the end, what softened Jules’s anger was the honest look of deep apology on Glory’s face and the return of the exhausted slump of her shoulders. He watched as a thousand emotions seemed to flash over her—anger, fear, frustration, stubborn pride—then defeat.

“I’m just so tired.” Glory sagged in abject misery. “I know I should have told someone—told you. And I wanted to, but I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” Jules fought to keep his tone even. “I’m trying to understand, Glory. I really am. But what the hell could have been scarier to you than meeting that lunatic all by yourself—what could have been scarier than trying to handle this alone?”

When Glory looked up at him with a quivering lip and eyes bright with unshed tears, Jules forced himself to unclench his fist. Muttering a few choice words underneath his breath, he walked over to the small fridge he kept in his room. He grabbed himself a beer and brought one over to Glory. When he untwisted the top and handed it to her, he felt gratified to see that she had stopped wringing her hands long enough to take it. While she took a long pull on the frosty bottle, Jules dragged a chair over and sat opposite her. He leaned in close with his knees touching hers and his big palms warming her trembling thighs.

At her uncertain pause, his voice gentled. “Glory, talk to me.”

Jules waited as Glory took another gulp of Dutch courage. Then he took the beer from her, placed it on the table and covered her small cold hands with his large warm ones. Jules waited for her to speak as if there was nothing else in the world he would rather do. In turn, Glory surprised him when she reached out and stroked his cheek, hesitantly, as though she were afraid he would disappear.

“My connection with the Abiatti family goes way back. It’s a part of my life that I would give anything to forget, and it’s something that I try not to think about, because when I do—it makes me sick—
I make myself sick
.”

“Glory—” Jules began to reassure her.

“That’s why I didn’t tell you, Jules,” she interrupted him in a halting breath, “I wanted to wait as long as I could before tearing open that wound again. As much as it hurts me to admit it, my brother’s right. The Abiatti family used me in the worst way possible, and because they think—they
know
how easily I can be fooled—they thought they could use me again. And I just wanted to prove them wrong. To show them I am not a dumb doll to be taken off a shelf and played with when it suits them. So I guess I just wanted to stand on my own against Santino, even for a little while. I thought it would make me feel strong, but instead it just made me feel stupid.”

“I get what you’re saying, baby,” Jules said with understanding. “Everybody’s got shit in their past they would rather not talk about, or think about. But in all that time we spent together—I just wish you would have told me.”

Glory cast her eyes down for a long moment, then looked up at Jules from behind wet lashes. “How could I tell you? I was ashamed. And to be honest, I figured that you probably knew most of it anyway. After what happened at Raine’s grandmother’s house—that whole awful thing with Gino—you remember that?” Glory entreated him with eyes bright with tears.

Jules reached out to smooth her hair. “I remember.”

She looked at him mournfully and continued, “I know what it means to be Sergeant at Arms, the one who’s responsible to keep the club safe. And I can’t imagine—no matter what Claire and Raine wanted or said—that you would have let a stranger, not even a little old thing like me—” Here she gave him a tremulous smile “—anywhere near this clubhouse without looking into who I was and where I came from. Especially considering the circumstances that brought me here.”

Jules nodded in agreement. “Yeah. None of us saw that whole Gino Abiatti shit-show coming. When Reno put that call in, the boys went balls to the walls trying to find out anything they could. Looking into you was a big part of that. I found out about your affiliation with the Abiatti family, and I knew you had danced in a mob owned club in Vegas. But that was about it. No drug use, no big money in the bank, nothing that I could see that tied you to any of their criminal activity. Lots of women dance, I didn’t think too much beyond that. But I gotta tell you, after getting to know you better? That shit didn’t add up.”

“You never asked me about it.” Glory’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Jules shook his head. “Only mattered to me, if it mattered to you. You not talking about your past was something I understand. I figured you wanted to move beyond it. I was good with that.”

Glory looked down at Jules’s large hands still encompassing hers.

He hadn’t let go.

He hadn’t let go.

“Have you ever heard of Derek Thomas?” Glory’s voice was strained.

“Name sounds familiar.” Jules paused for a moment, then remembered. “Wasn’t he some Hollywood big shot? Yeah, that’s right. The pictures were plastered all over the news a few years ago. Caught my attention, because his woman was a knock-out—long blond hair, blue eyes, legs that went on forever. A Scandinavian actress or maybe a model? Didn’t the whole family die in a freak car crash? Decapitated or some shit?”

“It was a helicopter crash.” Glory swallowed around the lump in her throat. “They were in Utah. On a ski trip. It was one of those stupid heli-skiing trips. You know the kind where you get on a helicopter and the pilot takes you to some mountain top and drops you off. Then the chopper comes back later and picks you up again. Who skis down a one hundred thousand foot ridge? And why?” Glory’s hand trembled beneath his.

“Did you know them? The family that died?” Jules asked in surprise.

“The whole family didn’t die.” Glory’s eyes clouded with memories. “Just the parents. Derek and Asta Thomas. My—our—parents.”

“Wow. No shit?” Jules shook his head incredulously.

“No shit,” Glory whispered as her eyes clouded with pain. “My dad was in the entertainment business. He owned a small film company that produced a sleeper hit. It won a couple of Academy Awards in the early eighties. He went on after that to produce a few more films, but none of them did too well. What they say about show business is true. It’s a win-big or lose-big kind of business. And my dad was a guy who loved to take chances. Sometimes they paid off—sometimes they didn’t. My mom was Swedish. She was only eighteen years old when they met and my dad launched her modeling career. They fell in love and got married. I guess it was kind of a Svengali thing they had going, but they made it work, for the most part anyway. Like I said, my dad was a risk taker, a gambler. He gambled with his business. He gambled with his marriage—fidelity was never real high on his list. And in the end he gambled with his life by taking that stupid trip. By the time the accident happened, my dad owed money to just about everybody, and my mom was in a huge state of denial for a very long time. When she finally realized what was happening to this perfect life she had created—that they had created together—she started to drink.

“Sounds rough,” Jules offered.

“It wasn’t easy. I can’t tell you how many times Hal and I would escape to the gardens just to get away from all the yelling and fighting. That ski trip was a last ditch effort to pitch a television series to some Hollywood executives and save our family from financial ruin. They all died on that trip. The two executives, the pilot and my parents. The Hollywood guys and the pilot were killed on impact, but my mom and dad were flung from the chopper and—well—what the papers said about how they died—that was true.”

“I’m sorry, baby. That sucks.” Jules squeezed her hands gently.

Glory set her shoulders against a tremor of grief, and continued. “I had just turned eighteen and Hal was just a year older. After the lawyers were done settling all the debts, the money left over from the estate was enough to buy us a small car and rent a furnished apartment. That’s when things started to get real. My brother and I had no idea how to navigate a working class life. So we both decided to capitalize on what we did best. I thought that I could use our family connections to break into the modeling industry. And I did. I got in the door, but honestly I was no good at it. All that posing and smiling for the camera—that just wasn’t me. In the end I settled for a hostess job at a nice restaurant just off the Vegas strip. And Hal—” Glory paused and bit her bottom lip.

“And Hal?” Jules prompted. “What did Hal do?”

“Hal played cards.” She swallowed hard. “With the money I made, Hal bought his way into the private gaming clubs. Growing up in Vegas, there were always plenty of guys hanging around who were a lot like my dad. Hal looked up to all of them. I remember him getting in big trouble once after he got caught hanging around the back door of one of the casinos my dad used to frequent. My mom was furious. But in a weird way I think my dad was proud. Turns out my father’s idea of father-son bonding time was allowing Hal to sit in on the games that dad hosted. At first he was just allowed to do kid stuff like empty the ash trays, or grab a couple of beers out of the fridge for the guys. But my brother was always a smart kid with an amazing memory and intense focus. He paid attention, asked questions and the guys got a kick out of teaching him the tricks of the trade. Then, as Hal got older, he was allowed a place at the tables. And he became pretty good at it. My dad used to brag about his son winning a large bet the way that other dads brag about their son winning sports trophies, or college scholarships.” Glory paused and gave Jules a rueful smile.

Jules nodded, maintaining his intense focus on her.

Glory looked down at their clasped hands and continued, “So that’s what Hal did to help make ends meet. And he did pretty well. Well enough to take my meager pay check and turn it into something we could live on. Hal had a quick mind, a good memory and thrived on the adrenalin rush. But unlike my dad, he was able to keep it all in check for a while. For just a little over a year, it was all good.”

“Until it wasn’t,” Jules guessed.

“Yeah. Exactly. Until it wasn’t.” Glory let out a fractured breath. “Hal started to lose. At first the losses were small and only occasional. But it seemed that in no time at all those small and occasional losses turned into bigger and more frequent losses. By the time it all came crashing down around him, my brother was into serious debt with some very serious individuals. The serious of them all was—” Glory stopped as if loath to say his name.

“Vincenzo Abiatti?” Jules asked, but it really wasn’t a question.

“Vincenzo Abiatti,” Glory confirmed with a frown. “I found out just how deeply my brother had gotten himself into trouble when I woke to find him lying across the threshold of our apartment door beaten and bloodied. I called an ambulance and Hal spent almost a week in the hospital. Two of his ribs had been kicked in and his spleen had to be removed. The story was that he had been mugged. That’s what he reported to the police, but he didn’t even try to lie to me. I knew that he was in serious trouble.”

“Trouble that you thought it was your job to get him out of.” Jules scrubbed a hand over his face trying hard to contain himself. But he knew if he wanted to get the whole story out of Glory, it was important that he remain calm and outwardly unaffected by her words.

“The dancing is how you got him out of it,” Jules surmised with a clenched jaw.

Glory nodded her misery.

“Vincenzo Abiatti had been one of my father’s business acquaintances. He had been out at the house a few times. I remember that one of the biggest arguments that my parents had was because my dad thought that Vincenzo was paying too much attention to my mom. After the accident everyone on the strip knew our story, but no one ever bothered to talk to the two kids who had fallen on hard times. Except Vincenzo, he was kind and solicitous whenever he came to the restaurant. He always took a minute to talk to me and he tipped me big when I showed him to his table. He came in often. At least three times a week,” she went on with difficulty. “He said if I ever needed anything —if there was anything he could do for us to let him know.”