by Lucy Score
52
“Do you think he’d come here?” Harper’s question asked in staccato throbbed in Gloria’s head. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not now.
The hang-up calls. Was it him? Or had his mother been keeping tabs on her for him?
“Gloria’s here with me and Soph and Hannah,” Harper said into the phone. “We were just waiting on pizza, which has no bearing on the situation at all. I’m just nervous, and I’m going to shut up now.”
Gloria’s heart was hammering in her chest. Bile rose in her throat. No. No. No.
Harper hung up and stared at Gloria.
“What the hell is going on?” Sophie demanded.
“Glenn’s out. Ty thinks he might be heading to Gloria’s,” Harper said, worry tight in her voice.
“Oh my God,” Gloria whispered.
“It’s going to be fine,” Harper promised. “Ty is heading to your place now to check things out. The police know he’s missing. They’re looking for him. He’s not going to get to you. No one is going to let that happen.”
He was going to find her, and he was going to hurt her. She was putting her friends in danger just by being here.
“I think I’m going to text Aldo and let him know,” Gloria said, fighting through the panic.
“Good idea,” Sophie said, patting her on the hand.
She took her phone into the dining room and tried not to think about what could be lurking in the dark on the other side of those windows. She debated for a moment. This wasn’t anyone’s battle but her own. Not Harper’s. Not Aldo’s. But she didn’t have to do this alone anymore.
She dialed Aldo before she could change her mind.
“Hey, Glo.” His voice was warm, affectionate. “How’s girl’s night?”
“Glenn’s out, Aldo,” she said, happy that she kept the tremor out of her voice. “Ty called. They don’t know where he is.”
“I’m coming to you,” he said. No hesitation. No questioning her fear. Aldo would be there for her.
Hannah hustled into the dining room and started checking the windows. She could hear Harper on the phone telling Mrs. Agosta to keep the kids inside. They were all on the same page. Glenn was coming after her.
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Gloria whispered.
“Honey, the only one getting hurt is him if he tries to get anywhere near you,” Aldo promised. She could hear his truck engine start.
Lola trotted into the room and leaned up against Gloria’s leg. She wasn’t alone, she realized. She wouldn’t have to face this alone anymore. One way or another, it would end tonight.
“It’s probably nothing. We’re probably overreacting,” Gloria told him. Hoped it would be true. But she felt it coming. Trouble.
“I’m on my way now. Keep the doors locked, okay, Glo? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay. I’m going to go tell the girls you’re coming.”
“I’ll be there in a couple of minutes,” he promised. “I’m going to call Ty, okay? Then I’ll call you right back.”
“Yeah. That sounds good,” she said, taking a breath and then another one.
“I’ll be there soon, sweetheart.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. She hung up and returned to the kitchen.
Lola jogged down the hallway to Harper, and Gloria heard the snick of the deadbolt.
“Sorry to be such a party pooper,” Gloria said lamely. “Aldo’s on his way.”
“Ty, too,” Sophie told her. “He’s checking your place and your mom’s place first.”
“Okay, good.”
“So…who is this Glenn guy?” Hannah asked. “Because he sounds like a dick.”
Sophie smirked, and Gloria let out a nervous titter. “Yeah, pretty much.”
Before anyone could fill Hannah in on how much of a dick Glenn was, there was a crash of glass followed by Harper’s shrill shriek.
Gloria’s demon was here. She could feel him like a stain, a bruise, a dark mark that ruined everything.
“Oh, fuck!” Sophie lunged for the knife block and yanked out a boning knife.
“Everybody out!” Harper screamed from the dining room. “Go to Mrs. Agosta’s!”
Hannah grabbed Gloria’s wrist in a death grip.
“Go!” Sophie hissed at them, clutching the knife in both hands. “Get her out!”
Max’s three legs skittered on the kitchen tile as Lola’s warning growl sounded from the dining room.
“Shit.” Hannah let go of Gloria and dove for the little dog before he could run straight into danger. Sophie opened the basement door, and Hannah set him on the top step before slamming the door.
“Gloria! Go!” Sophie shouted.
“Well, look who’s home,” a familiar voice cackled from the dining room, and Gloria’s blood ran cold. The memory of a hundred beatings washed over her, freezing her to the spot. The inevitability of it broke her heart. It was always going to happen. No amount of laws could protect her. No new boyfriend or new friends or new life could keep her safe.
Glenn was here. He came for her, and Harper was facing him alone…
“Gloria’s gone. She’s safe and calling the cops right now.” Harper’s words reached them in the kitchen. Sophie grabbed her phone.
“Get the fuck here now, Ty. Now!”
Gloria’s phone vibrated against her leg.
“Gloria you need to run,” Hannah told her, pushing her toward the back door. “We’re not going to let him hurt you.”
Gloria watched her hand reach for the handle on the back door as if it belonged to someone else. Her worlds had collided. And she was supposed to run away? She was supposed to let him hurt them?
She heard shouting from the front room. Heard a growl and a scuffle and a sickening thump.
Hannah spotted the baseball bat leaning next to the back door and grabbed it, her fingers wrapping around it in a white-knuckled grip. “Sophie? You with me?”
Sophie, eyes blazing, held up the knife. “Let’s get this fucker.”
“Go,” Hannah told Gloria again. She turned and ran with Sophie into the dining room.
Every cell in her body was screaming “run.” Run out the back door and never stop. Run until she was someone else with no history. But she couldn’t start this new life by running away. This was her mess. Her problem. And he was hurting her friends.
It was her turn to make a stand.
The realization unfroze her. She ran back to the kitchen and grabbed the first thing she saw—the cast iron skillet on the stove.
She didn’t think, just let her feet carry her into the dining room. She took in the scene, not knowing if milliseconds or minutes passed.
Glenn was on top of Harper on the floor, a hunting knife to her throat. Hannah was winding up for another swing with the bat, and Sophie was kicking him in the ribs, screaming, “Drop the knife, you crazy fuck!” And then Gloria was flying in slow motion. Glenn lifted his gaze to hers. Their eyes locked for an eternity frozen in time. Years of history passed between them. Of victim and abuser. Of woman and man. Of all they never had. Gloria saw the sick hatred, the desire for violence in his dead eyes, and swung with all her might.
He wasn’t human anymore. But she was. She deserved a life without a monster.
She didn’t know she’d hit him until she felt the vibrations of cast iron hitting skull rolling up her arms as his body collapsed onto the floor.
Everyone was screaming except for her. She was unearthly calm.
“Holy fuck!” Sophie shouted.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” Hannah chanted.
“Get him off me!” Harper groaned, her voice raspy. “He’s crushing me.”
Still numb, Gloria grabbed Glenn by the collar and, with Hannah’s help, shoved his dead weight onto the dining room rug.
Lola belly crawled up to Harper. “My sweet girl,” Harper whispered, stroking the dog’s fur, causing her rear end to wiggle.
Gloria stared down at his unmoving body. Th
e knife now harmless on the floor. There was a thin line of blood on Harper’s throat. One more second. One more millimeter.
“Tape him up!” Sophie ordered, producing a roll of camo duct tape from God knows where.
Hannah bravely straddled the monster and yanked his arms behind his back.
“Get it up higher into his arm hair,” Gloria suggested. Her breath returned, coming in short ragged gasps. She collapsed against the wall, the skillet still in her hand.
Harper rolled to look at her, and their eyes met. The first giggle slipped out, and there was no stopping it. It was contagious. One by one, they all slid to the floor in a loose pile, shaking with laughter and adrenaline. Lola limped over, pausing to lick each one of them, reassuring herself that they were all okay.
The front door exploded off of its hinges and crashed to the floor, narrowly missing Sophie. Aldo and Ty tumbled through the door. Ty, with his gun drawn, and Aldo, with rage in his eyes.
They all froze. Aldo’s gaze found her, and Gloria felt it like a force field surrounding her. Safe. She was safe.
“You could have come in through the window,” Harper wheezed.
It was deathly silent for two seconds that felt like minutes. And then Sophie and Harper exploded in peals of hysterical laughter. Ty clambered over them to kick the knife away from Glenn’s still body.
Gloria wondered if she’d actually killed him. Was she a murderer? Was she going to go to jail now? Oh, the irony.
Her downward mental spiral was abruptly cut off by strong arms banding around her like steel. She relaxed into the safety of Aldo’s grasp. He was here. He’d showed up when she needed him most. And so had she.
“Are you okay?” his voice was rough with emotion. She could feel his heart racing in his massive chest.
She let the pan slide from her hand and fall to the floor, wrapping her arms around Aldo.
“I’m good. So good.”
53
The big bastard was awake and fighting his restraints with the desperation of a man who knew he’d never again see daylight.
Bellowing like a wounded bear, Glenn lowered his shoulder and lumbered at Ty. Ty let the man hit him like a limping freight train.
Aldo saw the opening and didn’t question it. He threw a roundhouse to Glenn’s jaw, knocking the big man back into the wall, where he slid to the floor. Ty got up, brushed himself off. “That’s all you get, my friend.” He stepped between Aldo and the dazed Glenn.
“It’s not enough,” Aldo rasped.
“No, it’s not. But now we get to add resisting arrest and assaulting an officer to the charges.”
Ty hauled Glenn up to his feet and handed him over to a pair of uniforms. “Get this asshole outta my sight.”
Glenn howled with rage on his way out the front.
Aldo watched from the porch as the man who’d tortured the woman he loved for years was hauled off in the back seat of a cop car, out of their lives forever.
The woman he loved. If he’d had any doubt, tonight had brought things into crystal clear clarity. He loved Gloria Rosemarie Parker.
He flexed his fingers, relishing the pain. Glenn Diller deserved a hell of a lot more than one quick shot to the mouth, and Aldo knew he’d have to live with the regret for the rest of his life. Sometimes karma didn’t let you be the instrument you longed to be. Aldo knew he would also spend the rest of his life reliving the moment he and Ty knocked the door down together. He still wasn’t convinced she was safe.
She was inside, surrounded by first responders, giving a statement to the state police. She was safe. But he couldn’t tell his body that. Not when it was in the midst of a full-blown adrenaline dump. His heart hammered in his chest as if he’d just sprinted a marathon. Blood rushed in and out of his head, his breath coming in short stabs. He felt like he was underwater and fighting for oxygen.
“Little Gloria Parker knocked ‘em out cold with a fry pan,” an EMT was saying to one of the neighbors that had lined up on the sidewalk eager to witness the gruesome spectacle of domestic violence.
Through the sea of adrenaline that separated him from everyone and everything, Aldo thought that Gloria would appreciate the fact that she hadn’t been referred to as “poor little Gloria Parker” this time. One home run swing of a cast iron skillet had banished that adjective forever.
She’d taken the stand she’d needed to. But Aldo couldn’t forgive himself for being late. He hadn’t been here when she needed him most.
And he didn’t care how alpha or selfish it sounded, he’d wanted to be the one to end Glenn Diller’s reign of terror.
But he hadn’t.
Gloria had.
He went to her. Needing to reassure himself that she was okay, that she was still here.
His heart hammered in his chest, an uneven stuttering. His insides were electrified. Blue and red lights flashed hypnotically through the glass. The only thing he could see clearly was her face. She was listening to the detective, nodding earnestly. Calm and collected. But when her gaze caught him, she changed. She was reaching for him, and he was closing the distance.
He could have lost her.
That thought rattled around in his mind wreaking havoc on his system. He knew what this was, had seen it before in soldiers after violent attacks. But even seeing Gloria safe and unharmed, holding her to him, wasn’t enough to reassure him that everything was okay. The clawing panic inside him was raking his guts to shreds.
Ty and Harper were arguing over who was going to call Luke and break the news to him. Harper’s friend Hannah was on the phone with her husband, and Sophie was forking over cash to the pizza delivery guy
“Is he gone?” Gloria asked him.
“Yeah, honey. He’s gone.” Aldo’s own voice sounded like it was miles away.
He pulled her into the kitchen away from the lights, the badges, the questions. Opening the back door, they slipped outside into the night.
He needed a minute, ten minutes, a lifetime with her.
“Aldo,” her voice was steady, soothing.
But nothing short of murder could soothe the beast that raged in him.
Never again, he vowed. Never again would Gloria be left alone to face her demons.
He didn’t realize how tightly he was holding her when he backed her into the wall next to the door. The siding bit into his knuckles. Aldo wanted to be gentle, wanted to stroke and comfort. But he wasn’t in control.
Gloria’s hands came up between them, but instead of pushing him away, her fingers dug into his chest, holding on tight.
“I’m okay, Aldo,” she whispered.
He crowded into her, pressing her against the wall of the house, trying to reassure his body that she was safe. His cock, raging hard, found the juncture of her thighs. He searched out her mouth with his own as he thrust against her.
With a whimper, she wrapped her arms around his neck, locking him to her. Craving the contact as much as he was. She kissed him, lips devouring his with a hunger that matched his own.
He should slow down. Stop. She’d had enough violence in her life. He didn’t need to be man-handling her to calm himself down. She needed sweetness on satin sheets, not a ham-handed mauling in a dark backyard.
But then Gloria was moaning against his mouth. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Aldo.” His name. Her lips. A perfect combination. She was surrendering to him as if she knew instinctively what he needed.
He rocked his hips into hers, and she gave a breathy little moan. He had one hand in her hair, the other roaming the slim curve of her hip. His fingers kneaded the soft skin under the hem of her shirt.
And then she was reaching between them and cupping the painful length of his shaft, and he lost his damn mind. He rutted into her, rocking and thrusting as if they were naked. As if there were no barriers between them.
“Oh my God,” she gasped against his mouth.
He needed to stop. Needed to take care of her. But he couldn’t stop taking.
“Gloria.”
Her slim hand was slipping under the waistband of his shorts. Fingers wrapping around his goddamn aching dick, and his world went black for a minute. She pulled him free, lined the head of his cock up between her legs, just under the hem of her loose shorts. There was one more layer between them, and Aldo tried to hang on to that. He had to stop this.
But his body had other ideas. He thrust himself into her grip.
“God, yes,” she breathed, biting his lower lip.
His fingers decided two could play her game and dove under her shorts into her panties. He growled when he felt the wet.
“Do you want this? Do you want me like this?” He needed the yes. Needed it more than oxygen and water and sunshine. He needed Gloria’s surrender.
“Touch me, Aldo,” she demanded.
He obliged, sliding two fingers through her slit, sinking into her welcoming flesh. He groaned, an unholy sound. Trauma. Violence. Adrenaline. Together they were feeding on it. It couldn’t be healthy. But he couldn’t stop.
"Don’t you fucking stop, Aldo,” she breathed against his neck, using her teeth to drive the message home.
Her fingers tightened on his shaft, skimming over the sensitive head that was already leaking in anticipation of a release so intense it could level him. Not like this. Not like this. He didn’t want it to be like this.
He fucked her with his fingers, wishing it was his tongue, his dick. Wishing he was worshipping her as he’d always planned. Slow and soft and sweet.
She opened her mouth just as he felt her quickening around his fingers, and he clapped a hand over her lips to keep her silent. She rocked her hips against him, eagerly riding his hand. Her eyes wide.
Fuck yes. It was so wrong, what he was doing. But he couldn’t fucking stop. She was a drug, and he was a junkie. She tightened her grip on him, and he felt the electricity in his balls shoot up the base of his spine. He dragged her underwear to the side and lined himself up with that beautiful slit.
In the dark, in the shadows, Aldo dragged the crown of his cock over Gloria’s sweet clit. She bit his palm as those inner walls clamped down on his fingers, exploding around him. He pinned her to the wall with his body and fucked her hand, her slit, coming with her. A saw-toothed release that carved him out with each tremor, each jagged explosion.