Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset

by Grace McGinty

  Fallen Angels, Death and a Hitman did not share well, even for me. It was a recipe for disaster.

  But that was a problem for another day. Today, I was going to enjoy good food and good company and a hard body beneath my ass. I could worry about what-ifs tomorrow.

  Marco moved silently for such a big man. He sat down at the empty seat at the end of the table, and picked up a slice of pizza.

  I moved my hand toward his, and laced his fingers in mine. Gusion let out a low, ominous sound in his chest.

  Aww, he was jealous. “He’s mute. It's the easiest way for us to communicate. Unless you know sign language?” I teased.

  Gus scowled, but didn’t say anything.

  I see what you mean now about all the alpha personalities. The big guys are scary as hell.

  I laughed. Hell jokes never got old.

  “You have no idea. The kids?”

  Off at etiquette camp for the week, or some bullshit.

  I didn’t need to be an empath to sense his disgruntlement on that one.

  “Aren’t they a little young?” I asked. The girl, Cara, couldn’t have been much more than three.

  Yes. I sensed I wasn’t getting more than that on the subject. What do you want from me?

  I wished I could speak into his mind the way I could with the angels, but instead I lowered my voice until it was barely a whisper.

  “I want to burn your employers world to the ground. I want to take all his associates and any other member of Tenebrae I can find out of the equation for good. I need his contacts.”

  I didn’t know if he just had a good poker face, or if he was aware of the secret society, but he showed no confusion. We all sat in silence for a while as Marco thought over my offer. He didn’t ask who or what Tenebrae was, which was either a good sign, or a really bad one. I ate the remaining pizza, because it was too good to abandon. That's my kind of sacrilege.

  Okay. But I need your guarantee that the kids will not be hurt, and if anything happens to me, that they are taken care of properly.

  “Done,” I said, though it wasn’t much of a bargain. I had seen those kids with my own two eyes, sensed their trauma. I did not have it in me to make their childhoods worse, and I lacked the ability to sit on my hands while others suffered. I was the tender-hearted do-gooder Maximoff had so scathingly accused me of being. Even if Marco had turned down our offer, I would have helped those children.

  Let's get out of here and I’ll tell you what I know. Tenebrae have eyes and ears everywhere.

  He would have sounded like a supporting actor in a cheesy spy movie, if every word hadn’t been completely true.

  If I didn’t have the guys at my back, I’d have been really worried when Marco led us to a secluded underpass. If this was a B-grade movie, this is the part where the plucky heroine dies from her own stupidity. But I felt pretty secure with Memphis, Gus and Blue by my side.

  A little voice inside my brain reminded me that Rella had a merc, two gargoyles and the son of an Irish Mafia family at her back, and she still died in the most horrific way possible. My chest suddenly began to restrict, and I sucked oxygen into lungs that refused to work. It happened anytime I thought about the exact circumstances of Rella’s death. Her fear, her grief, her pain.

  Gusion twined his fingers in mine, squeezing them tight, grounding me. Now was not the time to have a panic attack. I saw the glint of a gun in the back of Blue’s jeans, and it both reassured and scared me.

  Marco’s eyes bored into mine, and I knew he was trying to speak to me. I stepped forward, but Blue’s hand crossed my torso, stopping me.

  “Just so you know, you harm a single hair on her head, I will kill you in the slowest, most painful way I know how. Then I’ll do the same to every person you’ve ever loved. And there’ll be no rest for you in the afterlife, that is a promise.” His voice was cold, but certain. He meant every single word. Warmth for Blue flooded me. I didn’t know what I’d done to earn his loyalty, but I was glad I had it.

  Marco nodded. It must be rough to be a mute with such a particular skill set. I wrapped my hand around Marco’s wrist.

  I wouldn’t sleep too often around that one. He screams crazy. You should sleep with a knife beneath your pillow.

  I laughed. “He is the knife beneath my pillow.”

  Dropping my hand, he walked to the underpass, lifting rubble out of the way to find a hole that had been chiseled into the wall. Inside the nook was a small leather-bound journal. He handed it to me without flourish, his fingers touching mine.

  That’s the names and addresses of every person he’s ever met, every late-night secret meeting, every illegal activity. The things, the people, he’s bought and sold. I was saving it to blackmail him for custody of Cara. But I couldn’t leave Sammy behind. These people… they aren’t here to fuck around. If they know you are sniffing about, you are as good as dead. They’ll not only take your life, but your reputation, leave your family destitute, have your dog put to sleep. Their reach knows no bounds. They have everyone from police to politicians in their ranks.

  I flicked the book open and saw names I knew, people I’d been to fundraisers with, voted for, sat beside at society luncheons and some I went to school with. The money was staggering in itself.

  Tenebrae paid, and paid well.

  “This is perfect. It's all the proof we need.”

  It won’t hold up in court. It's all circumstantial, and the things I did while I was employed by Richards…

  He trailed off, but I knew his horror at his actions, his self-loathing. I reached out and brushed his cheek. “Don’t worry, Marco. We don’t deal in legalities. We deal in justice.” I stepped away, feeling like a badass. As we walked back toward our car, I looked over my shoulder.

  “If you can Marco, I’d try and get a DNA test done. Cara is going to need her Daddy soon.”

  I slid into the back seat of our SUV, and Memphis slid in beside me. Blue drove, and Gusion sat beside him. We pulled out from the underpass and back onto the freeway. Using my phone, I sent photos of every page to Lux and Tolliver.

  Tolliver would sink the company. Lux would sink the man.

  I would take care of the rest of Tenebrae, and I knew just the avenging Angel to help me.

  I waited until I was home, in my kitchen, drinking a glass of wine before I called Ace. She was like a hurricane in a teacup and her emotions were so intense all the time. She loved as fiercely as she hated. She only lived in the shades of grey in life. But she was vengeance personified. She believed in punishing those that preyed on the weak.

  Ace? Ace, I need you. My entire life, that was all it had taken. Four words, and she would be there. She loved me so fiercely, almost as she much as she loved Luc.

  Ace appeared, speckled with blood on her dove grey wings. She looked like the goddess of war with her long black hair, her lithe frame basically a teenage boys wet dream.

  “Are you okay, Hope? I was a little, uh, preoccupied.”

  My stomach turned at the sight of the blood, but that seemed a little hypocritical considering what I was about to do. I handed her Marco’s notebook. She took the book and looked at Gus and Memphis who were reclining on my breakfast stools like they owned the place.

  “Did you break the Princes of Hell, Hope? Because, I’m pretty sure Memphis is smiling.” She eyed him like he was a clone, or an alien, or something.

  I looked over my shoulder at Memphis, who did look content. I smiled at him, and he gave me a warm look.

  I shrugged at Ace. “We are taking it slow. We’re figuring it out. You aren’t, you know, angry or anything?”

  Ace made a rude noise. “I want the assholes to be happy. You seem to make them happy. Or maybe Gusion’s just constipated. I could never tell the difference between those two expressions.”

  Gusion laughed and gave her a rude gesture. Ace grinned, and it was one of those completely raw expressions that meant you couldn’t help but grin back. She looked over at Blue. “I gotta say though, our f
amily doesn't have a good track record with Mulligans. Although your sister seems reasonably content with hers if the noises that coming from their wing of the palace is anything to go by.”

  I slapped my hands over my ears. “Seriously, Ace? That’s gross. No more details.” I meant it too. I was glad Rella was happy, even in death, but I didn’t need details.

  She flicked through the pages of the notebook, the mirth slowly leaving her face. “What have you brought me?”

  “All your Christmas’ have come at once. I'm pretty sure all these people are Tenebrae or people who have done business with Tenebrae. But luckily, I have a system for knowing who is innocent, and who is rotten to the core.”

  Ace raised both eyebrows. “Oh, have you become an Angel overnight?”

  I grinned. “Kind of. I met an Archangel in a dungeon and he gave me the ability to see auras.”

  Ace’s mouth swung open like one of those cartoon characters. “I think you better start from the beginning.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  We sat out the front of an ordinary office building uptown, its shiny glass and chrome exterior pretty, but wouldn’t win any design awards. It was average, just like the people who exited its rotating front door.

  Well, they were average to the naked eye. To me, every single one had an aura, and a good portion of the people leaving the building had a parasite on their aura, a shining red promise of damnation. They varied of course. Some had barely more than a spot. Some were consumed by the red parasite that circled their entire bodies, eating away at their aura, and their humanity in a slow, methodical way.

  “Can you see the auras?” I asked Ace, who was sitting in the front seat of an extremely ostentatious mustang that went way, way too fast. I’d learned that the hard way.

  She shook her head. “Not with the same clarity that you can, apparently. I can see their auras, but there's no red. There's more like a…” she paused and rubbed her cheek as she struggled to find the word. “Like a smudge over a section. Like a fingerprint on a camera lens. It's not noticeable unless I look at it in the right light. It must be why I never noticed before,” she said, more to herself than to me. Ace hated being wrong.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked quietly. For the first time in a while, I was without my looming male escorts. Basically, because Ace and her sword were scary as hell.

  “I’m going to go in, kill the ones that need killing.”

  My stomach turned at the violence. Too late to back out now, though. I just pushed the taste of fear that I’d witnessed at the club to the front of my mind. These were not good people.

  But still…

  “Do you think there's any way to remove Uriel’s mark? Give them a chance to turn their lives around?” My family were big on redemption. All of my fathers, each of the seven, had been damned to hell for a reason. But that was a story for another day.

  Ace cupped her cheek as she rested her elbow on the armrest, drumming her fingers across her cheekbone. “Maybe. Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

  She slammed out of the car and walked around the corner out of sight. I watched the people coming and going from the office building, mentally sorting them into categories. Tenebrae, Non-Tenebrae, oblivious to anything other than the video-games he wants to play later, Tenebrae, Non-Tenebrae.

  The driver’s door reopened, and Ace hopped in, stuffing a red-headed kid in before her. He looked at me with huge wide eyes and I noticed he had small brown freckles across his nose. He didn’t look much older than me.

  “Hope meet… what's your name, kid?”

  “Uh, Ben?”

  I smiled, and looked Ben’s aura over. Wrapping around his right hand, discoloring his sunny yellow aura, was an insidious red spot. Poor Ben.

  “Did you kidnap me a test subject?” I asked Ace, who just grinned and shrugged.

  She lifted up Ben’s right hand. “It's here, right? I wanted to test myself, see if I could pick up even the subtlest of marks.”

  I nodded, and took Ben’s hand. “Ben, how do you feel about human trafficking?”

  The kid’s face went pale, even his freckles washed out, and his eyes went wide with fear. I probably should have phrased that question better. “I mean, do you think it's a reasonable way to make money. I promise, we aren’t about to sell you for parts or anything.”

  For some strange reason, my words didn’t seem to reassure him. Ace shook him a little by the shoulders. “Answer the question, Benji.”

  “Uh, I don’t like it?”

  “Sweatshops that employ child labor?”

  “Not good.”

  “Undermining a coworkers’ chances at promotion by spreading rumors?”

  This time, Ben hesitated, heat flushing his cheeks and his eyes going a little wild. “I only did it once.”

  I brushed his floppy red hair off his forehead gently. “Once is enough to ruin a life, Ben.” I looked at Ace. “Do you think if we chopped off his hand, that would stop the mark?”

  Ace gave a considering look at the aforementioned hand, holding Ben still as he tried to climb over her and back out the car door.

  “We could try. It does seem to be confined to his hand. I think if we get it at the elbow, we should be fine.”

  I could feel the rapid thrumming of Ben’s thoughts. His fear, his regret. I rested my other hand on his head, pushing positive emotions toward him, forgiveness, absolution, the promise that he had time to fix his mistakes. It was an ability that worked sometimes, but it was patchy. It always worked best with Rella.

  “Well, that’s new,” Ace murmured beneath her breath, and I looked down at Ben’s aura, and noticed the red fading until it was like it had never been there.

  Ace grabbed Ben’s face, and I felt his fear ratchet up, but the red taint didn’t return.

  “Listen, Ben. Consider yourself lucky. But if you fuck up again, try and take the easy way up by causing suffering, there will be no second chance for you. I’ll cut off your hand and bitch slap you with it, got it?”

  Ben nodded, and tumbled out of the car and onto the footpath. He ran so fast, he was basically a blur.

  “Well, that complicates things. I was going to sift in and slash anyone who had Uriel’s mark, but now I actually have to be picky.” Ace pouted like I’d just told her that Santa wasn’t bringing her a puppy this year.

  She opened the book, mentally ticked off a few names, then disappeared into thin air. I sat in the car, the sounds of AC/DC’s Highway to Hell playing through Ace’s stereo speakers and I wondered whether this would stain my soul, like Luc had said. I had instigated this after all, even if I wasn’t the one, err, slashing.

  “This is interesting.” I screeched as someone spoke from the back seat of the Mustang. I whipped around and gave Azriel the stink eye. “Seriously? Are you messing with me right now?”

  There was a tiny smirk on his lips, and I realized he was actually messing with me. He thought it was funny. I didn’t have the heart to yell at him for giving me a freaking heart attack again, not when it made him show open emotion, even if it was at my expense.

  “Hello, Azriel.”

  My voice was huskier than I intended, my mind flicking back to the BDSM club. I saw him swallow, and his face go carefully blank. That was when I realized I couldn’t feel his emotions any longer. Instead, the smooth barrier that Memphis and Gus could place over their emotions blocked me. I reached out and touched his hand, but I still got nothing. I wondered if I kissed his lips, whether that wall would crack in two.

  “I heard that you have the ability to sense the emotions of others. I suspect it's not just humans though, am I right?” He was looking at my lips, and maybe I imagined it, or it was wishful thinking, but I thought I saw longing in the depths of his ancient eyes.

  I gave him my own blank look. Apparently, my empathic abilities were hot news on the Angel grapevine. I wondered how long it would take to get back to Ace and Luc. I was going to get my ass kicked for a second time this week. “What ar
e you talking about?”

  His lips twitched. “Keep your secrets, Child of Acerezeal.” He leaned forward and stared at the office building. “There seems to be an alarming call for my services in there. And here you sit. Care to tell me what is occurring?”

  I shrugged, not seeing the harm. “Tenebrae, the organization that arranged my abd-,” I swallowed back the word. I still couldn’t talk about it without my heart feeling like it was going to explode from my chest. “That arranged what happened in Geneva, operate out of this office building. Ace is doing what she does best. Exacting retribution.”

  His eyes narrowed as they snapped back toward the building, his face going cold. “I see. You are morally fine with her doing this on your behalf?”

  I stiffened my spine, staring at him straight in his beautiful face. “Yes.” I dared him to argue, to tell me I was wrong.

  Instead, he just flexed his jaw and his hands tightened on the headrest of the driver’s seat. “Me too.”

  Then he was gone too.

  It wasn’t long until people began to pour out of the building like ants from a kicked nest and I could hear the steady wail of sirens. I contemplated leaving, even though I was in a car park right across the street, as far as you could be from the center of the chaos. I wondered how Memphis and Gus were going holding up our end of the bargain with Marco. I didn’t want details. I didn’t want to know the end result. I just wanted the whole thing to be over.

  I watched the vivid red auras of the first responders screech to a stop in front of the building. They were almost all fire engine red, not the oozing old blood red of Uriel’s mark. I hoped Ace would know the difference.

  A knock on the driver’s window made me jump in my seat. I looked over to see a policeman in an NYPD uniform leaning in.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to move this vehicle.”