Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset

by Grace McGinty

  I stared at the cheesy rom-com for what seemed like an eternity, not absorbing any of it, when the door opened again. Blue strode back in, a paper bag under his arm.

  He put it on the tray table at the bottom of my bed and sat back in his chair in the corner. “What is this?” I asked quietly, staring at the brown paper bag like it might contain a bomb. I mean, it was a possibility, right?

  He just grunted. “Open it and see, Princess.”

  I kind of wanted to tell the tightly wound bastard to take it back, but my curiosity won out. Dammit. Opening up the brown paper bag, I pulled out a magnetic travel chess set. It was actually kind of pretty. One side was glittery gold, and the other a polished black.

  “You play?” I asked, and he raised a single eyebrow at me.

  “I have hobbies that don't involve cracking skulls.”

  My cheeks flushed. “I didn’t mean to imply-”

  He cut me off with a wave of his hand. “Just set up the board and save the apology.” He pulled the chair toward the bed. “You play right, Princess? I’m pretty sure chess is a part of your private education.”

  I guess I’d started with the gross generalisations, but I still scowled at him. However, I was so bored, I resisted the urge to tell him to take the Queen and stick it. Instead, I set up the board.

  “They didn’t teach chess. They taught polo. My father taught me chess.”

  Not even asking, he twirled the board so he was black. “Which one?” he asked, but it wasn’t snide like most other people. He seemed genuinely curious.

  “Tolliver. He said mastering chess would teach me how to do business. Not sure how getting beaten for twenty years has helped me in the business world though.”

  Apparently, we’d exhausted our quota of conversation, because Blue just stared at the board and made a move. I found my concentration consumed as Blue countered my clumsy attacks, putting me on the back foot. He was good. His moves were considered, and even the random ones made sense five moves later when he took my bishop and then my knight in consecutive moves.

  “Maybe we should have played checkers,” I grumbled, as he took another one of my pieces. I was holding my own, but it was hard work. I moved, and grinned.

  “Check,” I crowed. I was finally going to beat someone other than Rella. Rella did not have the patience for chess. She was more of a ‘charge full steam and consequences be damned’ type.

  Blue took a pawn. “Checkmate.”

  My jaw swung open. “Shit.” I reached out to shake his hand. “Good game.”

  He wrapped his hand around mine.

  Why does she have to be so fucking nice? So fucking perfect all the time?

  I frowned as his thoughts echoed through my brain, ignoring the stab of hurt that appeared somewhere near my heart. What the hell did that mean?

  “Good game,” he muttered. “Another?”

  I shook my head. “No. Thanks for getting the board. I'm kind of tired now.” Nodding, he packed up the board silently. I laid down in bed, rolling over so my back was to him and he couldn't see the emotions on my face.

  The room was painfully quiet once more. I couldn’t take it. “Why do you dislike me so much?” I asked, but I didn’t turn around because I was a coward. I wasn’t scared to admit it. I didn’t want to look at his apathetic face as he told me all the reasons why he held me in such low esteem. So if that made me cowardly, then so be it.

  For the first time since I met him, a trickle of feeling slipped through Blue’s emotional wall. Regret.

  “You are everything I can never be. You don’t even realize.” And that was it. Like that explained anything. I sucked in a shuddery breath and pushed the hurt down deeper. This time it was me who pretended to sleep. Another cowards act; burying my head in the sand and not examining why the words of a criminal, a killer, actually mattered so much to me.

  I heard his deep sigh. “You are a princess and I am a junkyard dog. It's my problem, not yours.”

  I ignored him, but his emotions were burning so bright that they all but seared my nerve endings. For a while, I sat in silence, just letting the wildness of his feelings brush along my skin. So much pain. I would fix him whether the stubborn asshole liked it or not.

  “It’s eleven in the morning, I know you aren’t tired.”

  “I’m convalescing.”

  “Maybe you are just a sore loser. Did you want me to hand you the victory, Princess?”

  I rolled over and sat up, ignoring the roaring pain in my ribs. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

  “I’m not a princess. Stop calling me that. And I’ve worked hard to be the woman I am today, not everything was handed to me.”

  He shrugged, wheeling the tray over to me. “You are basically a deity to the Mulligan Family. You are more than a Princess. You are a fucking way of life to them.”

  I scowled. “That’s not true.” I watched as his fingers deftly reset the chessboard.

  He just raised his eyebrows, and moved his pawn. “Isn’t it? I’m their best enforcer, their greatest tool, and they took me off all my jobs to come and babysit you in Manhattan for an undetermined amount of time. If that doesn’t sound like paying tribute, what does?”

  I made my move, and stared at those unflinching crystalline eyes. “Maybe you aren’t as good as you think you are. Besides, they love me, they just want me to be safe. If I had my way, you'd be on the first train back to Boston. Back to your girlfriend, your six illegitimate irish bastards and your killing spree. Your move.”

  He made a derisive noise in the back of his throat. “You aren’t my owner. I might be a junkyard dog, but you aren’t at the other end of my chain, Princess.” He moved. “Checkmate.” I looked down. Fury rose up in me, and I swept my hand across the board, pushing all the pieces onto the table, some rolling of the edge and onto the floor. “Fuck!”

  We both stared as the golden queen bounced across the floor, spinning in useless circles. I sucked in a deep breath, calming my emotions. I never lost control like that. Something about Blue Halloran, actually this whole damn situation, was twisting me all up. I needed to go home, get back to my normal life where Fallen Angels didn’t brood at my bedside and contract killers didn’t say things that hit too close to the damn truth. I took a deep, calming breath.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, sliding from the bed and bending to scoop up the scattered pieces. I sucked in a breath as my abused muscles protested.

  “Stop, I can do it,” Blue growled, grabbing the pieces from my hand.

  “I can do this,” I growled back, snatching the pieces back again.

  He shook his head, opening his hand and dropping all the pieces back on the floor. Asshole. I scowled, but I bent down and continued picking them up, glad he couldn’t see my face as I gritted my teeth against the pain. Finally, I’d picked them all up except the gold queen.

  Blue walked over, scooping it up off the floor. He held it out with a flourish, like a magician revealing the coin he’d pulled from your ear.

  I took it from him, careful not to touch him, and placed it in it’s spot in the box.

  I handed the box back to him, and he took it, shaking his head. I crawled back into the hospital bed, suddenly exhausted.

  I felt a wave of love. I looked at Blue. Well, it definitely wasn't coming from him. Then I picked up the comforting probe of Rella’s thoughts.

  I smiled brightly at Blue, and his eyebrows rose at my sudden shift in mood. Oh, this was going to be good.

  I’d just settled myself back in bed when the door opened and my twin, my strong, beautiful twin, ran into the room, throwing herself across my body and hugging me tight. Too tight. I sucked in a breath as my poor abused ribs got battered for the second time in ten minutes.

  “It’s so good to see you. You look like shit though. What have you been doing? God, I’ve missed you,” I said into her hair, though I didn’t think she was listening. That was okay. It was just nice to feel the warm safety of her familiar emotions. The blanket
of love that surrounded us both whenever we were together.

  She pulled back, and I could see the exact moment she remembered my ribs. “Don't worry, they don't hurt too bad anymore. Besides, I needed that too.”

  Blue scoffed, and Rella reared back. She was up, a gun pulled from god-knows where, pointed at Blue’s face with an almost inhuman speed. Blue, for his part, looked completely unfazed about having a gun trained on him.

  “Hope? Why is Blue Halloran sitting at your bedside?”

  Chapter Five

  The day after Rella’s visit and meeting her, uh, new friends, the hospital released me. Adnan, Aunt Clary’s adopted son, Mulligan golden boy, and proof that the Mulligans were moving into the 21st century, hustled me into the car. He barely spared a glance for Blue, which lent credence to Blue’s feelings that he was merely a tool to the Family. However, Blue just slid into the back of Adnan’s sporty convertible coupe like he’d been invited.

  “Ah, Hope. The apartment hasn’t been the same without you. Liesel was just saying yesterday that the apartment was just boring without you.”

  I shifted to buckle in my seatbelt, but Blue’s hands were there, clipping it in with cool efficiency, then sitting back in the cramped coupe, his long, muscular legs up under his chin.

  I looked over my shoulder. “Thanks, Blue.” I glanced at Adnan in the driver’s seat. “Do I know Liesel?” It was sometimes hard to keep up with Adnan’s dancing friends, almost as hard as keeping up with his boyfriends. They all seemed to have a rapid turnover, both friends and lovers.

  “No, but she can tell your aura is missing from the apartment.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Miss I-Can-Read-People's-Emotions.”

  I whipped my head to him, giving him my best quelling look. “Seriously?” My eyes shot to the mirror and I looked at Blue. Maybe he’d missed that. His eyebrows were raised. Maybe not.

  “Pssh. He’s your bodyguard, right? Duty bound to protect your body day and night? You were going to slip eventually.” What Adnan meant was that he was going to slip eventually. Adnan was not good at keeping secrets. Unfortunately, we hadn’t known that when we were five and Rella and I let him in on our biggest secret.

  I decided that the best course of action was to ignore Adnan’s verbal nip-slip and move on. I told Adnan about the doctor ordering rest, and that I had to take another week off work, maybe two, and I had to get my pain meds on the way home.

  I listened half-heartedly as Adnan went off on a tangent about the dangers of pain meds to dancers, which was apparently grave in his opinion, and instead appraised Blue in the rear view mirror as he looked at the streets of Manhattan.

  He really was attractive, but it was in an unusual kind of way. His icy blue eyes were a shade that was unsettling rather than pretty, and they were set under low, straight eyebrows that made him look serious, almost cruel. His body was nice though, all hard lines and edges. It was lean muscle, and while he didn’t look like he could bench press me or anything, he moved with an elegant sort of grace that told me he was consciously aware of everything around him and his place in the room.

  He was dangerous. Self-assured. And sexy as hell.

  I sighed, and tried to tune back into Adnan. I did not need to lust over my reluctant bodyguard, especially one with a kill count.

  The empath and the murderer, a love affair doomed to fail.

  Luckily, with little to no input from me, Adnan wrapped up his spiel just as we came to our apartment buildings underground garage. Adnan swiped his pass, waved to the gate attendant and drove to our spot.

  My little Prius sat where I’d left her. As I gingerly stood from the car, I ran a hand over her bonnet. It had to go. Even looking at it was making my heart pound. All I could think about were the men climbing out of the car, the shiny metal gun matching the paintwork almost perfectly in the Geneva sunshine. Logically I knew that my car and the rental Prius were completely different, but my heart didn’t seem to care as it thundered in my chest.

  A hand reached out and wrapped itself in mine, pulling me away from the car. The subtle wave of Blue’s muted emotions cascaded over me, and I dragged my eyes from my Prius to our clasped hands. But as soon as he had tugged me from between the cars, he let go of my hand, his eyes alert. I tensed, but couldn’t sense any malice or ill feelings from the carpark. I guess Blue was just doing his job.

  We walked to the elevator, Adnan holding my bags. “The place is a bit of a mess, but the cleaning lady is coming in tomorrow,” he said as he swiped our key. “I just haven’t had time, you know?”

  I rolled my eyes. Adnan was also a bit of a slob. It wasn’t that he was dirty, but he was creative. His mind lived in a constant state of organized chaos, and as a result, so did our apartment.

  I shook my head at him as the doors slid open and he glided from the elevator with all the aplomb of royalty. Looking at him move, you would never guess he was missing a leg, a casualty of a bomb blast that almost killed him when he was a boy, living in Aleppo. His entire family had died, except his older brother Nazir who he adored but didn’t see much of, and in a story no one really talked about, somehow Ace managed to move them both to US, and Aunt Clary adopted them and raised them like her own flesh and blood. Aunt Clary was the reason the Mulligans accepted their adopted, Middle Eastern, gay, one legged dancer relation with such ease. To treat Adnan with anything but love and respect would incur the wrath of Clary. I’d only ever heard rumors of Clary’s infamous temper, but it kept everyone in check when it mattered.

  Adnan hadn’t been lying when he said the place was a mess.

  “Has your apartment been ransacked?” Blue asked, and it didn’t sound like he was making a joke. The place did look like it had been tossed. But I knew it was just Adnan.

  I shook my head at Blue, who raised a single eyebrow but said no more.

  Adnan cleared off the couch and fluffed some pillows. I walked over and slumped into the seat, exhausted even though I’d done literally nothing but walk to and from the car.

  “I’ll run downstairs and get you your pain meds and a doughnut,” Adnan kissed the top of my head. “Will you be all right with…” he didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to.

  “We’ll be fine,” I said reassuringly. He hadn’t murdered me in my sleep yet, so I thought I was pretty safe.

  Picking up his keycard, Adnan swooped from the room with as much grace as he’d entered.

  Blue continued to stand in the middle of the room, taking in my home. When it wasn’t covered in Adnan’s crap, it was usually quite nice. It had a comforting, homey feel. I snuggled down into the plump couch cushions, pulling the soft grey afghan over my knees. It was good to be home.

  “What did the Little Prince mean about you reading people's emotions?” Blue said with feigned casualness, as he walked around straightening things.

  “You must have misheard,” I said, picking up a magazine that had been wedged between the couch cushions and pretended to read.

  Blue just raised a single eyebrow again.

  I sighed. “Exactly what it sounds like.”

  Straightening the coffee table books, he looked at me. “Elaborate.”

  “No.”

  Icy blue eyes stared at my face, as if he was mining my brain for his answers, and I squirmed beneath his gaze. I wondered briefly if this was how people felt when I spent too long trying to read their emotions.

  “Fine. I can read people's emotions. Like right now, you aren’t straightening everything to be polite, though I didn’t need to read your emotions to guess that. You are straightening because this level of disorganization makes you anxious. It goes against your need for everything to be ordered, perfect. I imagine that can only be a good thing in your line of work.”

  Blues hands halted. “And now?”

  “Confusion. Disbelief. A little fear that what I’m saying is actually true and I’ll see all the murky, dark parts of your soul.”

  He stilled. Like he was unnaturally still, as if
he was no longer even breathing, as if his heart had ceased to beat.

  I was a little relieved when his breath whooshed out. I was worried I would have to give him mouth to mouth. Yeah, worried, right.

  “That’s untrue.” He moved away from me, as if standing on the other side of the room might dull my other sense. It was wishful thinking. If I tried hard enough, I could feel the emotions of every person in this apartment building.

  “There's no need to be frightened,” I said quietly. This was why I never told anyone about my abilities. Our emotions were really the only things that were truly ours. People could tell you what to think, but no one could tell you how to feel. To know that I could get inside their emotions and poke around would freak out anyone. Except Rella and Adnan, but they’d had a lifetime to get used to it, and besides, kids already wore their emotions on their sleeves. It hadn't really felt like a big deal until we hit thirteen and I realized that Charlie, Rella’s best friend, had a huge crush on her. It was the first time that I realized I’d be privy to information that could effectively change peoples lives.

  “I’m not frightened,” Blue growled. I winced. I knew differently. The shock had obliterated his normal wall against his emotions and I was getting everything. It was a deluge of pent up anger, sadness, loneliness and rejection. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and groaned. I couldn’t slap my hands over my ears, or cover my eyes to make it stop. The only thing that would make it better was distance, but I couldn’t tell him to leave. He hurt in a place that couldn’t be healed by bandages and medicine. He hurt down to his very soul.

  I stood up, moving closer despite my instincts. He didn’t move away, even though he looked like he needed to bolt.

  I placed a hand on his arm first, and when he flinched from my touch, I stepped into his space, wrapping my arms around his waist and hugging him to me as tightly as I could. I wanted to take his decades of hurt and pain and suck it into myself, but emotions didn’t work like that. I couldn’t heal them with a wave of my hand. But I could let him know I had his back, well his front right now, if he wanted it.