Saving Glory (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club Book 4)

by Paula Marinaro

  Glory felt sick as images of Gino’s head being blown off at close range filled her mind.

  Santino continued, “His death, inconvenient as it was, caused us little concern at the time. Actually, all things considered, Reno McCabe did us a favor by getting rid of him.

  They knew? The Abiatti family had known all along that Reno had killed Gino?

  “Gino was always a loose cannon,” Santino shrugged. “The blackest in a family of very dark sheep,” he paused and chuckled nastily at his own joke. “No one was going to go to war with the Saints over a psycho coke addict—family or not. Especially not after we took into account the MC affiliation with Gianni Abruzzi’s family. The Abruzzi’s ties to the Bonzini syndicate complicated things and for the interest of all the parties involved, we decided to let the matter slide.”

  “He was going to kill me.” Glory shivered, remembering all too clearly the night she described. “Gino was holding a knife over me and was going to stab me in the throat when Reno shot him. And then he was going to kill Raine, and her sister, Claire. They are Prosper Worthington’s daughters. Reno had no choice.”

  Santino waved his hand dismissively. “Like I said, that’s of little concern. But this matter of Hal and my father. That is a score that needs to be settled.”

  “I know you believe what you say—but it’s impossible. My brother couldn’t have killed Vincenzo. It’s impossible. He’s been away in the Marines for years, then he got hurt. But you know all that,” Glory cried out.

  She couldn’t stop the sudden flare of memory of Hal’s surprise visit to her at the lake house. The visit where he had learned how Santino’s father, Vincenzo, had duped Glory into believing that Hal had agreed that she dance sans clothing to pay off his debt. A debt that Vincenzo had assured Hal would be settled differently.

  “My brother came out to the lake house once to visit me, but he went back to base right after that,” Glory insisted.

  “Perhaps not right after that,” he said cryptically. While Glory looked on in confusion Santino reached down to retrieve a zippered leather binder from the floor. He placed it squarely on the table in front of him, then slowly opened the weathered pouch to reveal what appeared to be some sort of file folder. When Glory arched a questioning eyebrow, Santino pushed it to her.

  Glory looked at the folder as if it were something lethal. Something that was coiled and hissing and poised to strike.

  She looked up at Santino in much the same way. “What is this?”

  “It’s the proof you need,” he said coldly. “Open it.”

  With shaking hands, Glory reached for the file.

  Inside were several time stamped-photographs taken by the security camera in the lobby of the casino/lounge that Vincenzo owned. Pictures of her brother going into the private elevator that led to Abiatti’s penthouse suite. And pictures of him coming back out of it. Glory’s heart fell in dismay as she recognized the date. It was the day after he had left Crownsmount. The day that she had thought her brother well on his way back to his newest assignment in the Middle East.

  But according to the security photo footage in front of her, Hal had made a detour.

  “I had no idea that Hal went out to Vegas after seeing me at Crownsmount.” Glory kept her tone even, but she felt sick inside. “So he came to visit? So what? We used to live there, for God’s sake. He’s known your father for years. This doesn’t prove anything.”

  Glory bit down on her lip as she fought to keep her voice calm. She could not let Santino see her getting upset. She had this one chance to get him to throw all his cards on the table and she was not going to get him to do that by showing fear or weakness.

  In a purposeful move to create even more tension and fear, Santino stalled. He stabbed at the food on his plate, chewed deliberately, and then slowly wiped his mouth at the corners.

  “Try the prosciutto?”

  Santino leaned over to put several thin pieces of the aromatic meat on her plate. A lady who was seated in a table just out of earshot, smiled at what appeared to be a sweet and solicitous gesture. Santino had also noticed the woman and he smiled gallantly back at her.

  Glory wanted to rip that fork out of his hand and stab him with it. This was a game Santino loved to play.

  Deception, cruelty and perversion disguised in a cloak of old world charm.

  And he played it well.

  Still he couldn’t keep the obvious gleam of malice out of his eyes when he turned back to Glory.

  “My father was found dead in his suite a few hours after those pictures were taken. As you can see the time stamp incriminates your brother.” He thumbed lightly through the photos in the folder. He handed her a small pile of documents that included crime scene forensics.

  Glory skimmed the reports, not really sure of what she was looking at. Then her eyes volleyed back to the security photos of her brother arriving and leaving the elevator that led to Vincenzo’s personal suite of rooms at the top floor of the club.

  “The airport in Vegas is only a ten-minute ride from the club. Hal could have easily been gone long before Vincenzo was killed,” she told him.

  And that’s when Santino played his trump card. He handed her two passenger lists. Two flight manifests that Glory knew to be impossible to obtain without a specific, and hard to get court order.

  But somehow Santino managed to circumvent all those legalities and now had the damning documents in his hand.

  And she saw without a doubt that the timeline fit the crime and could be used as evidence against her brother.

  Oh. My. God.

  “Who found him? Who found your father?” Glory asked with suspicion.

  “I did.” Santino had the look of someone who held all the cards.

  Mother Fucker.

  Glory skimmed the coroner’s report frantically for a moment. There it was: cause and manner were not determined by the autopsy.

  Glory looked up at Santino.

  “The report says that the cause of death is inconclusive.” Glory pointed to the document.

  “Yes, it does. And therefore no arrests could be made. As you can imagine that has always concerned me,” Santino said easily. “Perhaps an exhumation may be in order. In light of any new evidence in the case, that is.”

  “The police don’t have these photos of Hal going up to Vincenzo’s suite?” Glory guessed at his game.

  “Not yet they don’t.” Santino’s lips formed the words, but his reptilian eyes screamed “gotcha.”

  Glory narrowed her eyes at her tormentor as his motives came into sharp focus. So this was blackmail. Plain and simple. If Santino did not get what he wanted, he was going to pin his father’s murder on Glory’s brother. She forced herself to remain calm and think clearly as a million questions flooded her mind. If Santino had these photos, then what else did he have? If he was the one who “found” Vincenzo’s body, what other evidence did he have time to plant that could be used against Hal? It was no secret that Santino’s circle of corrupt influence spread far and wide.

  Or maybe what he said was true. Maybe Hal did kill Vincenzo. It was not out of the realm of possibility. Not considering the rage that had filled her brother when he had found out that Santino’s father had tricked her into subjugating herself in the most demeaning way possible.

  With abject misery Glory realized that she could not discount the very real likelihood that Hal had killed Vincenzo.

  Images of what an arrest, a trial, and a possible life sentence in prison would do to her brother filled and panicked her.

  “Please don’t do anything to hurt him,” she pleaded.

  “I have no interest in making life difficult for Hal, or you for that matter. If it were up to me I might even let the matter drop. My father was not an easy man. And I admit that his untimely death did prove—beneficial to me.” Santino spoke of his father’s death as though it were a conveniently timed business deal. At his words, Glory fought the acid bile of disgust that crept up from her belly.

>   “We have no money, we’re barely making it now.” Her voice filled with desperation. “If it wasn’t for Prosper allowing us to stay at the lake house, we’d be basically homeless. We don’t have the means to make the kind of restitution you must be talking about.” Glory shook her head in confusion. “You’d be a fool not to know that.”

  “Don’t ever mistake me for a fool, Glory. Of course I know that,” Santino snapped at her. His eyes flashed bright with anger before he forced the cool calm back in his voice. “My father’s death has left me head of the family and in that role I have decided to expand the family business to include some new associates. As in any new business arrangement, a level of trust needs to be established. My friends south of the border have entrusted me with a task. A small matter that, upon its completion, will give them the proof they need that the Abiatti family can be a powerful ally. You actually play a very small part in it. Minuscule, really. I just need some small bits of information on your friend Prosper and his boys. Information that I’m certain you can gain access to whenever I should need it.”

  “You want me to spy on the Saints for you?” Glory gasped. “Why? What do they have to do with this? With you?”

  “Just all part of the bigger picture, princess. But if you don’t want to see your brother spend the rest of his life in prison, you’ll help with that.”

  Glory bit down on her lip so hard that she drew blood. A million images flashed through her mind. Memories of all the times that Prosper and his crew had been there for her. To protect and shelter her. Of everything she owed them.

  Then the images of her brother came flooding through. Growing up and depending on him—then him depending on her—then his poor broken body fighting to make its way back to the land of the living. To have survived all he had survived—all they had survived together—just to have him to spend the rest of his life rotting away in a maximum security prison? All because of a bad decision—a mistake in judgment that she, herself, had made?

  Not. Gonna. Happen.

  “Just tell me what you want me to do,” Glory looked Santino in the eye and sighed in miserable resignation. “And I’ll do it.”

  Chapter 21

  The minute Glory got home her stomach emptied itself. She had barely hit the threshold of the bathroom when her knees gave way from under her and her stomach began to cramp in long violent spasms of pain. The wretched heaves continued to assail her body long after the contents of her stomach had been purged. Over and over and over again the waves of nausea washed over her until she lay limp and exhausted on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor.

  Fear, she thought to herself wryly, is a strong and cleansing emotion.

  Not able to trust her feet to hold her up, Glory raised herself carefully to her knees, reached to the sink and rinsed the sour taste in her mouth out with mouthwash. Then, fighting the nausea and dizziness, she gripped the side of the porcelain basin and slowly stood up. After taking a moment to clear her head, she walked over to the tub, and ran a hot, steaming bath filled with a mixture of lavender and rose bath salts. Then with shaking hands she slowly undressed herself, being careful not to aggravate what she feared was a badly sprained or maybe even fractured finger. Later on she would ice it and if necessary use something in the household first aid kit to splint it. But right now all she wanted to do was to sink into the silky healing water, and try her best to calm her shattered nerves and clear her frazzled mind.

  She leaned back and let the hot bath release the tension of the stinging, knotted muscles bunched up between her shoulder blades and ease the dull pain in her temple. A myriad of questions raced through her mind. The first one being, who, if anyone, she could tell about Santino’s blackmail scheme.

  Who could help her?

  Because the decision had been made.

  She would not see Hal spend the rest of his life in prison for offing that bastard Vincenzo.

  That was a no brainer.

  She would do anything she had to do to stop that from happening.

  But—

  The Hells Saints MC was her family too.

  She had arrived at their door step as a stranger, half dead from the trauma and abuse and terror that Gino Abiatti had rained on her.

  And they had healed her, sheltered her and protected her—no questions asked.

  Raine and Claire had become the sisters that she never had. Dolly and Pinky had loved her like she was their own. She would not betray them or their men in order to satisfy a debt that was hers and hers alone.

  So no matter what Glory had told him, Santino could go straight to hell.

  But if she stood a chance of saving them all from his dastardly intentions, then she was going to need help.

  But who?

  She could not handle this alone. She didn’t have the wits or the courage to face this newest threat single handedly. She was emotionally exhausted, depleted and bordering on the edge of hysteria.

  She needed help.

  But not just any help. This situation required a woman’s touch.

  A badass woman’s touch.

  Her thoughts immediately and naturally ran down the list of her girl posse.

  First up were the two mother hens. Pinky and Dolly.

  Pinky was a loyal and loving friend. With no biological children of her own she took on the mother role to all of them. And did it well. There wasn’t much she wouldn’t do for “family.” And Glory knew that Pinky counted her as family. And for all her tiny stature, Glory knew that Pinky could hold her own with the best of them. She had to, being married to a big old bear like Prosper. But Pinky had a hard time keeping things from her husband—she wore her heart on her sleeve and every emotion she ever had showed easily on her face. So even if Glory could somehow convince Pinky to secretly help her, Prosper would be able to read that face like a book.

  So not Pinky.

  Dolly?

  Her relationship with Gianni Abruzzi might prove helpful. The Abruzzis were a powerful name in the Cosa Nostra and reigned supreme in the Northeast. Santino had mentioned them as a name that he did not want to reckon with. But Glory knew that the Abiatti family was not without influence themselves and just about owned the off strip Vegas Casinos. While she couldn’t imagine Gianni aligning himself with the Abiatti family against the Saints, Jules’s warning kept ringing in her ears—the wops stick together. And Glory wasn’t willing to take the chance that he might be right.

  Not Dolly.

  That left Raine and Claire.

  Raine had two little girls who depended on her. And Glory could not/would not risk putting her in even a moment of harm’s way. Besides, her hands were so full with raising Willow and Patience that Glory rarely saw her. Although, Glory smiled slightly in spite of herself, managing Diego with his overbearing and protective tendencies was probably more work for Raine than both children combined.

  No. She couldn’t put this on Raine.

  So that left Claire.

  Brave, smart, loyal Claire.

  Claire was Glory’s best friend. And she certainly was no stranger to the evil that the Abiatti family was capable of. As a matter of fact, Claire and Glory had met when Gino Abiatti was on a kidnapping and killing rampage. Glory owed her life and sanity to Claire’s brave, cool, calm and caring nature. And Claire could be counted on to keep a secret. Also from what Santino had said about the word being out that Reno had killed Gino—Claire had a stake in bringing him down too. But then again Santino had made it clear that he and his associates considered Gino’s death inconsequential.

  So hopefully that put Reno in the clear.

  Although there really was no statute of limitations in the crime of murder.

  But still—she couldn’t involve Claire in this.

  Her friend had already been through so much.

  Reno and Claire had been through so much together.

  And they had finally seemed to have found the happiness they so richly deserved.

  Not Claire.

  Definitel
y not Claire.

  Glory fought back a sob as she realized she was truly alone.

  Again.

  Not five minutes into her pity party, Glory let out a small startled scream when she heard what sounded like a trumpeting herd of elephants stomp through the house. Even through the thick wooden door she could hear the sound of running footsteps and loud shouts. Glory barely had time to jump out of the tub, and wrap a towel around her before the door was flung open.

  “There you are! Oh my God!” A female voice breathlessly scolded her. “I have been texting you for hours. Where have you been? Didn’t you hear the doorbell ring? I had to use the spare key to get in. I have been trudging through every room in the house calling you! Why didn’t you answer me? Ugh! It smells like puke and flowers in here. What the hell happened to your finger?”

  Well—Maybe Claire.

  Chapter 22

  Glory told Claire everything—about Santino accosting her in the courtyard, about the meeting at the restaurant, about the pictures of Hal, the death of Santino’s father, Vincenzo, and lastly the not so veiled threat of blackmail.

  When Glory showed Claire her finger, she cried out in outrage. Then she gauzed and splinted it for her and patted her friend’s back. “That bastard,” Claire whispered. “That no good slimy sonofabitch.”

  “Asshole,” Glory added for good measure.

  “Do you think Hal did it? Do you think your brother killed Santino’s father?” Claire puzzled at her.

  “I honestly don’t know.” Glory’s shoulders sagged and she let out a long suffering sigh. “My brother was definitely mad enough to kill Vincenzo when he found out what had happened. That opportunistic slime-bag led me to believe that I was paying off Hal’s debt, when that wasn’t true at all.”

  “You said there were pictures? Do you think they were real?” Claire asked. Then she added with hope, “They can do tons with photos these days to alter them.”

  “I honestly don’t know. The time stamped photos, maybe those could be altered, but that flight manifest? No. That was real and the time line definitely adds up. So as much as I like to think it’s not true, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Hal went there to kill Vincenzo.”