Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset

by Grace McGinty

  Valery climbed back up my body and I snuggled against him, kissing his chest as his arms came around me.

  “Good morning, sweet Arcadia.” He whispered against my hair. I don’t think 'good' was a strong enough word for it.

  A long, delicious shower later, I was sitting in Valery’s apartment at his dining table eating a breakfast that he’d made me during my soak in the shower. Sausages, eggs and biscuits. High calorie foods for when the chemo started. Val said he had a weekend to fatten me up a bit. I suggested he build a house made out of candy. Instead he gave me the world's worst smoothie. It was green and tasted like ass crack, but apparently contained high levels of essential vitamins and nutrients I would need in the coming week.

  “You should try to enjoy the taste. There will be plenty more healing smoothies to come,” he said as I screwed up my nose. When Valery put a second plate of food in front of me, the other guys walked into Oz’s apartment. Everyone looked exhausted and drawn. They each kissed me before heading to get a plate of food and sitting down with me.

  “So what's the plan for today?” Sam asked. “Hashtag Ninja Robin Hood is trending on twitter you know.”

  “I want to drive out to Connecticut. There's a couple there who could use our help, I think.”

  “In Connecticut? Okay. Should I wear the ninja suit?” Sam grinned. I was beginning to think he was enjoying playing Santa. The other day he walked to the grocery store dressed in the gear and gave fifty bucks to every panhandler he could find. He’d gone to the projects, and asked the kids down there if they could think of anyone who needed his help. We’d been prepared for the inevitable me, me, me’s but they had been pretty thoughtful in their responses.

  Several kids had mentioned a mother whose son had been killed gang violence, who was barely scraping by for the rest of her kids. One boy mentioned a girl his age, which couldn’t be more than fifteen, who painted graffiti murals in the hallway of the project buildings. Beautiful, inspiring pieces. She got rejected for a scholarship to an art school because the state had pressed charges, insisting that her graffiti was public damage.

  Twin boys, who were nineteen, who’d gotten custody of their siblings when their mother had OD’d in some filthy back alley, who put aside their own futures to ensure their siblings could stay together.

  That one had made me cry later, after I’d made my way up to their tiny apartment, looked into the faces of the exhausted teens, and everyone with eyes that were too old for their youthful faces.

  Tolliver, who listened into our conversations through my hands free earpiece, told me to tell them he was setting up a trust for the family. Enough for the kids, of which there were four aged between 3 and 15, as well as the twins, could go to any college they wanted. Enough for the guys to hire a housekeeper for during the week, to pay for food and power for the next ten years so the boys didn’t have to work so hard and could go to college part-time if they wanted to, so they could become whatever they wanted to be. Once they got past their general distrust, like we were trying to buy their siblings, I could see the age drain away from their faces. Relief made their faces younger, their eyes more hopeful. Their fifteen year old sister cried uncontrollably.

  Tolliver told his lawyers to take care of it all, including the girl who wanted an art scholarship. We talked to the girl, who’d been painting another mural in the dingy lobby of a broken down building, and asked her what college she’d wanted to go to. We spent twenty minutes more talking about her life, her family were Bosnian and had come as refugees during the war. She talked about how she was always viewed with suspicion, even in the projects.

  By the time we’d finished talking to her, Tolliver had paid for three years of art school at the school of her choice, as well as a trust allowance for the first year.

  We just deposited twenty grand into the bank account of the woman whose son died senselessly by gang violence. She wasn’t a kid who we could start on the right path. She was an adult with the ability to make her own decisions. She would use it how she would.

  It had been a busy day, and I'd been exhausted when we’d gotten home. But word had spread about the ninja who helped the downtrodden, and now he was practically an urban legend.

  I finally saw changes in Sam and Tolliver, ones that told me I had set them on the right path. Sam interacting with those kids, so far from his former life as elite male model, boosting them up, telling them they could be anything. He’d changed. It wasn’t a big change. I wouldn't be able to pull out before and after photos, but something had shifted in his heart. Tolliver was harder to read, but I could tell. It was the small things. He started suggesting causes to give his money too. He talked about setting up charities and trust funds and chairing them himself. We already had a list that Oz had compiled of worthy recipients, and they came from wide and varying backgrounds. The young, the old, families and singles. But each one had an obstacle that couldn't be overcome without the necessary evil of money.

  Oz had tracked them all down through less than legal means, hacking insurance databases, college mainframes, and social media. We couldn't help everyone, so it became a bit of a lottery of the neediest.

  Tolliver had been adamant about setting up some kind of Robin Hood fund for people whose insurance rejected them for life saving medical treatment. Eli would spread the word through the other doctors he knew. He’d also donated quite a sizable chunk of money to both the heart foundation and for cancer research.

  Apparently, there was no end to Tolliver's money. But at least it was funding something worthy now. He’d spent days in meetings with his lawyers, redirecting the vast majority of the profits from his business ventures into different accounts to be spent on his charitable endeavors with Sam. I didn’t think they’d been redeemed yet, I wasn’t naive enough to think you could wipe a lifetime of bad deeds in a week, but they were on the right path. They would go on without me.

  Now, sitting around the breakfast table with them, I was suddenly incredibly grateful that I could experience this small moment with these guys.

  I looked between the two of them, and then the rest of the guys around the table. If there was ever a time to give yourself to emotion with abandon, it was now. I loved them. Whether part of that love had been preordained or not was irrelevant. I felt what I felt.

  “I love you guys. You know that right?”

  Lux kissed my temple. “We know. And we will have a lifetime to show you how much we love you too. Got it?”

  I gave him a small smile. “Got it. Okay, enough morbidness, we've got some cows to tip,” I gave the room my best smile.

  “Seriously?” Tolliver raised his eyebrows.

  “No, not really! Who actually does that?”

  Oz raised his hand. “But only once. And it was a dare. I honestly was petrified the whole time.”

  I gave him my most ‘I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed’ face, but it was hard to hide my smirk.

  Valery packed us a picnic, and left for work with a very hot kiss that made Ri wolf whistle. Not to be outdone, Ri kissed me until I forgot how to breathe.

  Eli held my face and kissed me lightly on the nose. “Take it easy, nothing too strenuous.” He gave me a stern look, and then gave the same look to Sam and Tolliver.

  “Dicks to yourselves,” Lux growled as he kissed me gently on the lips and left.

  That just left Tolliver, Sam and Oz. I walked over to Oz and leaned against his chest. He wrapped his arms around my back and pressed me tight into his chest. This was my favorite place in the whole wide world.

  “Are you coming to Hartford?” I asked him.

  “I'm scared of cows.”

  “You just said you tipped one,” I said, poking him in the ribs.

  “Yeah, but I didn't quite make it and it was pissed. I nearly got stomped into the ground. I'll just stay here in civilization, maybe do some more research. You guys have fune.” He kissed the top of my head and left.

  Both the guys got changed into their disguises. Tol
liver wore thick rimmed glasses and a fedora. He looked like a spy trying to act casual in a cheesy sixties film. Although, to pay him his due, no one ever recognized him, but he did look a little like Clark Kent with bad taste in hats. Not exactly subtle.

  We took the Range Rover, though I’d had to talk Tolliver out of taking the Jag for one last spin. There just wasn’t enough room in it for the three of us. It was essentially a penis with wheels.

  Tolliver drove, still the control freak, and Sam sat in the back with me. He made sure I was strapped in, before strapping himself in.

  “You know I have been belting myself into cars for nearly a decade and a half now. You don’t have to check my work,” I teased.

  “I know. Just makes me feel better to know your safe.”

  “Mini-Oz, play Classic Old School playlist,” Tolliver said.

  “Mini-Oz reaches to the car?” It made sense. If my health tracker worked off my cell phone, I guess Mini-Oz really could go anywhere. I still wore the bright pink wristband everywhere, and I had no doubt that Oz was really at home fine tuning it so that he would know if I so much as sneezed. I was going to have to start taking it off when I got...frisky. Otherwise, we’d have a repeat of the first night with Tolliver and Sam. As much as I adored the guys, I didn’t need an audience every time I got naked and did the horizontal Merengue.

  Mama Cass started crooning quietly about dreaming a little dream, and I relaxed into the plush leather, my head resting against Sam’s chest as he tucked me into his side.

  “Sam?”

  “Mm?”

  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  He kissed my hair. “You can ask me anything.”

  “How did you get sentenced to hell?”

  Wow, Cady. You can’t just ask someone how they got damned. Ace had been quiet the last day or two, and hearing her snark made something unclench inside me.

  How else will I ever find out? Besides, after Oz’s accidental pyro story, pretty sure nothing could surprise me now.

  Ace scoffed. Still so naive.

  “I murdered my family to become Chieftain of my clan.”

  Well, that was one point to Ace. “What?”

  “I was the third son of a war chief of a Viking clan. I was never going to inherit the mantle. I wanted it. I had all the men of my family killed in one night, most of them had their throats slit in their beds. I fought my father fair and square. His last words to me were of pride.”

  I pulled away. “Dude, that is seriously fucked.”

  Sam gave me a sad smile. Pulling away would have stung, but I couldn't make myself cuddle back into his arms right now.

  “You have to remember, Arcadia, this was a different time. A different culture. A culture of barbarity cloaked in the facade of civility. This was how generations of Chieftains had gotten their positions for centuries before me. It is how Chieftains were expected to die. Indeed, my own cousin killed me not too long after I took the mantle. He killed my children, my wife. He murdered my brothers’ wives and children, the ones that I had spared when I took the lives of their fathers. That was nearly unheard of; you don’t spare a future adversary.”

  “Wow.” I was stunned. I looked at Sam, with his clear blue eyes the color of icebergs in the sun, and saw him in a whole new light. Gone was the model. In his place was a Viking. Someone who had once been coated in the blood of his enemies, as well as his family.

  “When was this?”

  “Around the same time as Lux.”

  “What about you?” I asked Tolliver. Surely, his couldn’t be as barbaric.

  He hesitated for a long moment. If anyone would hold back, it was Tolliver.

  But eventually he cleared his threat and began.

  “I was born in Brazil to a rich plantation owner, powerful and a leading proponent of the slavery movement. They would lure the Japanese people to Brazil with promises of a better life, and then trick them into slavery. They had no other options. My mother was one of the Japanese slaves that my father had raped. His own wife was barren, so he took me from my mother at birth and groomed me as heir. After he died, he left the plantation to me, and I could have emancipated them all. Or even paid them for their labor. I was filthy rich. Yet I still subjugated my own people for profit. My own mother, though she was never allowed to raise me, worked my fields until she could no longer stand straight. I worked some of them to death in my fields. They eventually overthrew me, cut off my head with a katana. My mother watched emotionlessly.”

  His jaw was tense. As was Sam’s. They were waiting for my rejection. Every part of my morality rebelled against their stories. The sheer horror of it.

  They were sentenced to hell. Did you think it was because they kicked a puppy?

  Ace had a point, but Oz’s story had kind of lulled me into believing that perhaps they were all semi-innocent bystanders to their sins. Even Valery’s story was a sin of omission. Of selfishness. He didn’t starve his fiefdom out of cruelty, but rather self-absorption. I had even forgiven Lux for his sins, and he’d murdered thousands on the order of his General.

  But Sam had willingly, of his own volition, murdered his kin. Tolliver had knowingly enslaved his own people and worked them to death. There was no escape from the culpability there.

  But they had changed. Hell had changed them. I was changing them. They were not the same people they were in their former lives.

  I repeated this to myself, as I wrapped my fingers in Sam’s, and leaned forward to squeeze Tolliver’s bicep.

  “It's a lot to process. Who you were is not as important to me as who you are now.”

  Sam nodded, but turned to look out the window, and Tolliver’s jaw tensed periodically, but he too was silent. Although, eventually Sam cuddled me back into his side, he didn’t speak, too lost in memories.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We reached farming country after a couple of hours. “Turn up here. At the Turner’s Dairy sign.”

  Tolliver turned down a dirt road.

  “Who lives out here?”

  “Ewan and Ethel Turner. Fourth generation farmers. They had three healthy, strong sons who would take over the farm when they retired. But then 9/11 happened, and all three sons enlisted. Two died in Iraq. One was critically wounded and lost a leg and an arm. Now Ewan and Ethel are in their late seventies, and the farm is about to go under, like so many other farms around the area. Years of profit have been eaten away by medical bills. The house has been re-mortgaged. The dairy employs most of the young people in this town. If it went under, it would be catastrophic to the town and its economy. Lieutenant Austin Turner can’t afford correct fitting prosthetics, so his life is a shadow of its former self. We can do a lot of good here, if we can convince them to accept our help. They are proud people.”

  Tolliver threw his phone over his shoulder to Sam. “Call Eli and get the name of the best prosthetics specialist in the country. Then call that guy and get the son an appointment. Then call the lawyer and see if we can’t buy their debt from the bank.”

  “Say what now?” Sam asked. Tolliver sighed. “Just do the Eli part, I’ll handle the business while I’m waiting for you two.”

  We drove through a gate with a Turner’s Dairy sign on the front, and pulled up in front of a ranch style house.

  Sam and I slid from the back of the car, just as the Turners walked out onto the porch.

  “Can we help you?” Ewan Turner asked, eyeing Sam's ninja mask with something between suspicion and humor.

  “I hope we can help you.”

  “I've heard about these guys. They go around handing out money, hoping to get famous probably.” The younger Turner sounded bitter. A bitterness that can only come from the knowledge that life does not care about you and your feelings. I knew that kind of bitterness. I'd fought it back when I was a teen, and again when my parents died. If it hadn't been for Ace giving me a proverbial ass kicking, I probably would have wallowed in it forever.

  You're welcome, by the way.
/>   I rolled my eyes. Don't expect self-deprecation from a fallen angel.

  Sam slid off the hood of his outfit, revealing his face. All the moment was missing was dramatic keyboard music.

  Ethel patted her sons arm. “I don’t think he's doing it for the fame, Austin dear. Even I know who this man is. Though he is slightly harder to recognize fully clothed.”

  Oh, Ethel is a salty one. I like her already. I had to agree with Ace.

  Ewan shook his head at his wife bemusedly. “What can we do for you folks today?”

  “We are, uh, looking to invest in the Connecticut dairy industry, and we were hoping that you might be open to a little cash injection for a small stake in the company.”

  “How small of a stake?”

  “Uh, like one cow worth? But I get to name it.” I was totally going to name the cow ‘The Ozinator’. Ace groaned.

  “They want to give us charity, Pa,” Austin said, still eyeing us suspiciously. He subconsciously rubbed his thigh where his prosthesis was strapped to his leg.

  “Oh, now there are people much more hard done by than us. You should use your money to help some of them.”

  Tolliver slid out of the car and walked over.

  “Oh my, it's the Armani model too. I need to call Cathy and Sue. They will never believe I had two boys from those billboards in Hartford on my farm.” I was surprised that Hartford had Armani billboards.

  Sam gave her his most winning smile. He should probably turn it down a notch or he was going to give Ethel a heart attack. “We’d prefer you didn’t, Ma’am. Our identities are meant to be a secret. We don’t want the press. We just want to help people and be on our way.”

  “Good afternoon, Gentlemen. Ma’am.” Tolliver gave a half bow. Sometimes his old world manners reared their head. “I’ve been discussing with my lawyers, and we believe it would be best if perhaps we entered into a co-operative arrangement. You would be in charge, and the company would remain in your name. You would continue to have full ownership of your farm. We would just like first rights to part of your product and the option to add more companies to the co-operative.”