Pinky gave her a tight squeeze back. “Me too, honey.”
“Glory?” The sable-tressed woman went to her next. “I am so happy to finally meet you. Glory Daze Catering is legendary in the family! The aunts used to send me emails raving about the parties you hosted for them.”
Glory’s first impression of Valentina Abruzzi was that she seemed to have all the grace and refinement of her father, with none of his arrogance. She looked to be in her mid-twenties and had the stereotypical beauty of a Sicilian woman.
But there was something. An edge to her that belied the pampered lifestyle that—as a daughter of privilege—Valentina would have certainly enjoyed.
Glory’s guess was that whatever had happened to her hadn’t touched her physical beauty, but went much deeper than that. Glory was certainly no stranger to the lingering and devastating effects of trauma.
She had watched her brother fighting that battle for over a year.
And now within minutes, she knew that Valentina was facing those same demons.
The hesitation before she entered the room.
The way she glanced over to the shadowed corners as if looking for something that only she could see.
The way Valentina tensed her shoulders and shifted her weight from one foot to the other like she was preparing her body to run at any given moment.
The smile that never quite reached her eyes.
Despite an outward appearance of calm, Valentina moved with the practiced elusiveness of a small jungle cat.
As if she were afraid of being caught.
Or trapped.
Chapter 31
The past forty-eight hours had been filled with such terror and uncertainty that Glory didn’t think it would have been possible for her to relax. Not possible for her to ease up on the crushing weight of fear and give in to the leaded weights that seemed to be sitting on top of her eyelids. But as she sunk into the plump cushions of the smooth suede couch and listened to the low murmur of conversation around her, she must have dozed off. Because suddenly she found herself being shaken awake from a troubled sleep riddled with nightmarish imagery.
“Honey, wake up.”
Despite the haze of slumber, Glory bolted awake and was surprised to find the room empty except for herself and Raine. “What’s wrong, what’s happened?”
“It’s over.” Raine let out a long breath.
“Over? What do you mean over?” Glory fought the momentary dizziness from sitting up too quickly.
“The attack on the compound. It’s over.” Raine gave her a tremulous smile.
“Oh, thank God!” Glory’s voice expressed the relief that she felt down to the tip of her toes. “What happened? Are they here?”
“Everything is okay—everyone is okay,” she assured her.
Those words coming from Raine should have sent surges of relief through Glory’s body. Raine’s nursing degree had come in handy in more than one emergency situation over the years. There was no doubt in Glory’s mind that the girl knew what she was talking about. If Raine told her that everything and everyone was okay then Glory should be able take her at her word. But Glory had heard a distinct hesitation in her friend’s voice. “What’s wrong, Raine?”
Raine didn’t answer Glory’s question directly, but repeated again with emphasis. “Everyone is okay.”
Which of course meant that something was very, very wrong.
Liar, liar pants on fire.
“Tell me,” Glory said in a voice filled with anxiety.
“It’s going to be fine,” Raine continued to hedge.
A sudden certain dread filled Glory and she struggled to find her voice. “Has something happened to Jules?”
Raine nodded in affirmation. “Well—yeah. But really, he’s okay.”
“Why do you keep saying that when the look on your face is telling me something totally different?” Glory asked in sudden exasperation. She steeled her spine and started to the door to meet whatever this newest threat was head on. “Where is he?”
“There’s a room here—it’s like a smaller version of the clinic that we have at the compound. It’s upstairs. ” Raine walked quickly past her and led the way.
Glory followed Raine up a sweeping staircase and along the hallway that extended past the suite of guest bedrooms. The women were already gathered at the door of the very last one. A memory triggered and flashed through Glory’s mind. Images of a blood splattered Dolly and a shot up Reno fighting for his life blazed before her eyes—but this was not that.
This was not that. Perhaps the more she thought it, the truer it might feel. Or not.
Pinky broke out from the small group of women and moved quickly to give Glory a hard hug. “It’s okay, honey. He’s going to be just fine.”
Glory could only choke out a strangled breath; Pinky held her gaze. “Honey, you know I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Last time, with Reno—” Glory shook her head and looked at Pinky helplessly.
“I know, sweetie, I know. But it’s not like that. I promise you.” Pinky gave her hand a hard squeeze. “Now the boys need your help and we’re running out of time.”
Dolly stepped up, chucked Glory under the chin and said, “You are going to put on your best brave smile, sweetheart.”
Then she gave her a little shove through the door.
*****
Glory stood just inside the doorway, unsure of what to do. Reno, Diego, Hal, Gianni, and the man who Glory recognized as the Abruzzi family physician, Doctor Giordani, were all crowded around in a semi-circle. A heated discussion seemed to be taking place with Prosper doing a lot of posturing and huffing. Through Prosper's agitated gestures, Glory was able to see through to the center of the circle where a half-naked Jules lay pale and bleeding on what looked like an elevated hospital bed.
Hal left the group and went quickly to Glory’s side. “You okay, sis?”
She nodded in the affirmative and swallowed around the lump in her throat.
“Good, now come see your man.” Hal wrapped his strong arms around his little sister and brought her over to join the group. All eyes were focused on Prosper, who continued his rant. The tirade seemed to be directed straight at the doctor.
And at Jules.
“We don’t need his permission! Just stick the damn needle in his arm!” Prosper commanded.
Except for a moment when the physician raised one elegantly arched eyebrow, he gave Prosper absolutely no indication that he had heard him.
But Jules had definitely heard him and reacted in accordance.
“Yeah? You and what army, motherfucker.” Jules spat from a mouth that was twisted in pain. His left thigh was wrapped in blood soaked gauze and a sheen of sweat covered his body.
“What happened?” Glory moved closer to the bedside as a searing bolt of fear charged through her body.
“Your man caught a bullet,” Prosper growled.
Glory looked at Jules in alarm. But he just glared back at her, so she turned to Prosper.
“He’s been shot?” She asked through the haze of terror that clouded her vision and weakened her knees.
“Yeah, in the leg. Must have bounced off his hard fucking head.”
“You’ve been shot?” Glory now squeaked to Jules, who gave her a noncommittal grunt.
“Flesh wound, baby. These goddamn pansy-asses are making it out to be worse than it is.” Jules’s attempt at bravado could not hide the pain in his voice. When he moved his leg slightly as if in confirmation, Glory felt sick to see a fresh patch of blood seep through the gauze bandage. She turned to the doctor fearfully.
Dr. Giordani spoke directly to her. “The bullet is lodged in Mr. Bonny’s thigh. From what I can discern from a quick preliminary examination, it appears to be embedded in the soft tissue just opposite the point of entry, but I won’t know how deeply it is lodged until I can irrigate and probe the wound. There is a chance that I may be able to extract the bullet with a scalpel incision. But as I said, I will also have to probe for the ex
act location of the bullet first, and irrigate to guard against infection.”
“Okay. That’s good. That sounds good.” Glory let out a fractured breath. It all sounded very practical and fairly non-invasive to her layman’s ears. “Let’s do that.”
“Yeah, that’s right, babe. Good call. Exactly what I been telling ‘em.” Jules attempted to deliver a hard tone, but only managed to groan out the words.
As collective exasperation filled the room, Glory looked at each of the men. Not one of them met her eyes. Something was wrong. Definitely wrong.
“Will someone please tell me what everyone else seems to already know?” Glory's gaze rested expectantly on her girl. “Raine?”
“Jules is refusing the pain medication.”
Glory gave Jules a puzzled frown. “But the doctor can’t remove the bullet without giving you something, right? I mean the pain would be terrible. Is it even possible to extract a bullet without dulling the pain?”
“’Course it’s fucking possible,” Jules ground out. But he had begun to slur his words and a sheen of sweat now covered his body.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jules!” Raine glared at him in frustration. Then she turned to Glory and said, “It would make the procedure excruciating and unbearable. And the stress it would put on his body could send him into shock. And even if that doesn’t happen, the doctor can’t be expected to perform such delicate work while Jules is in danger of thrashing.” Raine volleyed a grim look back at Jules. “It just can’t happen.”
“I told you to tie me down, goddamn it,” Jules growled out from the bed. “Pour a few shots of whisky down my throat and I’ll be fine.”
“Brother must be closer to death than we thought. He’s channeling John-Fucking-Wayne now.” Prosper snorted out in disgust. But Glory noticed that the big man kept his hand tight on Jules’s shoulder.
Jules seemed to have gone from hot and flushed to shivering and ashen in the course of a couple of minutes. When his eyes met hers, they held such an expression of defiance and misery that Glory felt his pain as deeply as if it were her own.
“Can you give us a minute?” Glory looked directly at Prosper.
“Sure can, sweetheart.” Prosper nodded to the others to clear the room. Prosper muttered to Glory as he walked past her, “Doc says we’re running out of options, we got to get the bullet out soon. If you don’t get him to agree, I’m gonna come back in and knock the fucker out with my fist. End of story.”
Then he closed the door behind him.
Now alone with Jules, Glory sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, getting as close to him as she dared without causing him more pain.
“You did good, babe.” Jules reached out for her. “You must have been scared to shit.”
“Nah. You know me. Nerves of steel.” She squeezed his hand gently.
“You reached the pedals on the truck? Never gonna give you shit about that stretching crap again.” Jules gave her a pain-twisted smile.
“It’s called yoga. And it’s good for a lot of other things besides stretching out my muscles so I can hightail it out from a Colombian-biker shoot-out in a big ramped up truck.” Glory let out a small laugh.
Then she looked at him carefully and asked, “Why won’t you let the doctor give you the medication, Jules? You’re not looking so good, and it’s only going to get worse. The doctor can’t take the bullet out without giving you something to quiet you, and he can’t leave the bullet in.”
When he didn’t give her an immediate answer, she continued. “But you already know all this. You know better than I do what will happen if he doesn’t remove that bullet soon.”
Jules looked at her grimly, his jaw clenched in agony. “Trust me, I know exactly what the doc needs to do, and I’m sure as hell not looking forward to having him do it. But I can’t let them pump that shit into me.”
“I don’t understand.” Glory smoothed the sweat-soaked hair back from Jules’s forehead. His skin was clammy and a shiver went through his body at her touch. When she glanced down at his leg, alarm shot through her as she saw another new large patch of blood.
Shock. He could go into shock. Infection. Blood poisoning…the list went on and on in her mind.
“Help me to understand,” she begged him.
Jules gave her a long measured look before he allowed his head to drop back on the pillow. It took him a moment to speak and when he did, his voice sounded weaker than she thought possible.
“You weren’t the only one who made some stupid mistakes in the past,” Jules rasped.
Glory held on tight to his hand. “Tell me.”
“I fucked up, too. Big time. Except it wasn’t because someone I loved died or owed somebody money. The choices I made had nothing to do with anyone but myself.” His voice was filled with misery. “When you were busy trying to save the world by taking your clothes off, I was busy chasing the dragon.”
Glory’s brow knit in consternation as visions of ancient opium dens, urban crack houses and city parks littered with dirty needles came to mind. “You’re saying you were an addict?”
“Am an addict. I’m saying I am an addict, Glory,” Jules said dejectedly. “Once a junkie. Always a junkie.”
His words left Glory speechless. A million questions sprang to her lips while a thousand dark images tumbled through her mind. She had no idea how to respond to his disturbing admission. Finally she settled on the obvious. “Doesn’t Prosper have a real strict no-tolerance policy on hard drug use?”
“You ever seen me doing hard drugs?” His voice was strained. “I smoke weed once in a while to take the edge off, that’s it. When I joined the MC, I didn’t have much more than my word. But I kept it. Kept my pledge to my country and to my club. And I ain’t gonna let a bullet set me back now. Not after all this time.”
“Tell me what happened,” Glory knew that if she was going to get Jules to agree to the medication he desperately needed then she would have to understand the very deep reasons why he refused it. “Tell me how it all started.”
“We were just kids fucking around.” He lifted his shoulder in an angry shrug. “Experimenting with all kinds of shit—coke, pills—you know the idiotic stuff kids take to get high. Shit, back in the day we even inhaled from helium tanks, if you can fucking believe that one. Big parties with tanks all around us. America’s future—killing brain cells one at a time.”
Jules paused and shook his head, his expression filled with disgust and self-loathing. “Then I found heroin.”
“Why did you call it chasing the dragon?” Glory wanted to know.
“Because the phrase fits, that’s why.” Jules’s gaze burned with intensity. “That first high? It’s like the universe just opens up and wraps you in the purest joy that you have ever felt. Fucking perfection. Euphoria in the truest sense of the word. But then it starts to wear off and you’re pulled out of that perfect world. And you will do anything, anything to get that feeling back. So you go to a dealer and buy that same amount you got the first time, and it feels good. Damn good. But not quite as good as that first perfect time. So you buy more. And it’s heaven again, but still not euphoria, it’s still not the same. So you go get more. Same fucking thing. And that’s when the hell begins, because your body has begun to build up a tolerance but you can’t stop wanting to go back to that ultimate high. You sell what you have and when that runs out, you steal what you can. Your life becomes a living nightmare. One day you’re crossing the street and your own mother doesn’t recognize you. That’s chasing the dragon.”
“It sounds horrible, just awful. I’d be afraid too…” Glory began in a voice laced with understanding and compassion.
“Ain’t afraid of nothing,” Jules managed to growl out between the bouts of pain. “But yeah. I’m fucking concerned that the pain meds will cause all those cravings and all that need to rise up in my body again. Bio-chemical reaction and all that shit. And you have no idea how hard it was to come back from that. I don’t even get Novocain at the damn
dentist and I’m gonna let them put that shit in my veins? No fucking way.”
“What made you stop?” Glory could not imagine the strength of will it must have taken for Jules to rid himself of the destructive and insidious addiction. “How did you ever find the strength to stop?”
Jules looked at her with such misery that she could see the weight of it on his shoulders. His huge countenance seemed to shrink slightly before her.
“I had a friend. A good friend. A best fucking friend. We did everything together. Everything. Shit, we even dated the same girl for a while—until she found out that we were comparing notes and dumped both our asses.” Jules snorted, then his eyes darkened and his lips thinned. “Shit just escalated from the pills and the pot and the coke to smack and when we first shot up, we did it together. Then we did it more and more. Then it was all the fucking time. At the worst of it, we were shooting up over a hundred bucks a day. Me and my buddy.” Jules closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, they were bright with remembered sorrow. “That last time, we got some bad shit. After I injected him, he overdosed and died in my arms. And I had to leave him there.”
“What was his name?” Glory asked in a sad whisper.
“Chase. His name was Chase.” Jules let out a long fractured breath. “He was a good kid, a good friend, and he would have grown up to be a great man. But he never got the chance. He died with a needle in his arm. A needle that I put there. And I left him. I left my best friend’s body on a filthy park bench to be found by strangers. That was my wake up call. Since that day I have never used again. I started NA meetings and got myself a sponsor. I did exactly what they said to do and I got clean. Cold turkey clean. Not an easy thing to do. And I was alone. My parents had divorced by then. I didn’t give two shits about my dad.” Jules voice broke slightly and he paused for another long moment while the blood continued to seep through the cotton gauze.
“What about your mother?” she prodded him to continue.
“My mom?” Jules first looked surprised by the question and then uncomfortable. “I was too ashamed to reach out to her. While I was at the height of using, I broke into her house and stole from her. Her jewelry, whatever cash she had. Everything. She didn’t deserve that. My father left her for some flavor of the month and I screwed her over too. Couldn’t face her after that.”
Saving Glory (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club Book 4) Page 20
