“Maximoff Richards was the person who organized your abduction. He’s part of a bigger, evil organization, but it was Richard's that wanted you dead and gone.”
It had rocked me to my very core. I’d kept the nightmares under control by assuring myself that the bad guys weren't here in Manhattan. They were on the other side of the globe.
I’d been so wrong.
Maximoff Richards hated me, I’d always known that. When the NRH Pharmaceutical wing decided to produce and essentially give away life saving medicines to impoverished countries, we knew we were going to get resistance from the other Pharma companies. We were taking a huge chunk out of their profits. It would put pressure on the execs; from disgruntled stockholders to the public pressure to follow our trend. We’d been prepared for that kind of hostility. No one had been prepared for murder plots.
Part of me wanted to stay in my apartment, the part of me that remembered the immense pain. The more stubborn part of me, the part that got a dash of Ace’s craziness, and Mom’s sense of right and wrong, decided I wouldn’t be held prisoner in my own home anymore. My boogeyman had a name, and now I had some of the power back.
I hadn’t told the guys. The last twenty four hours had been almost like bliss. Their emotions were blocked, and it was like being disconnected from the world for a day or two. We watched more boring TV, I listened to the guys talk about the past. And when they talked about the forties, they meant the 40’s B.C. I wanted to get out my notebooks and just mine their brains for stories. I loved every minute of it.
Yeah, they knew where Atlantis was.
They knew what lay at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle.
The depths of their knowledge defied description. And they were happy to share it with me. They gave me as much knowledge as I could humanly take in, and when I was at capacity, we’d watch mindless daytime T.V. in comfortable silence. They respected my boundaries, even Gus. Well, to a degree. He flirted outrageously, though I think he just enjoyed getting emotion out of Memphis.
I didn’t know if I was happy or frustrated that they took me at my word. The two of them, wandering around my apartment without shirts on was torture. The best kind of torture. Sometimes, when I lay awake in bed, I’d imagine what it would be like to have both their hands on me at once.
“Are you ready, Hope?” Gus whispered in my ear, shaking me from my dirty thoughts. At least my breathing was normal again.
Both Gus and Memphis were with me today. I mightn’t have told them about Maximoff Richards, but they were still intuitive enough to know that I was petrified. Especially Memphis, who’d been privy to my little anxiety attack/ meltdown last week.
I nodded, wrapping their presence around me like a shield. I stepped over the threshold and stopped in front of security.
The slightly pudgy security officer behind the counter jumped to his feet. “Miss Jones. It is good to see you back.” He looked at Memphis and Gus, and blanched. “I was sorry to hear…”
“Thanks, Mike,” I interrupted. He was genuinely sorry. I gave him a sad smile. I missed JJ too. “This is my, uh, security. Memorize their faces. They can come and go as they please, okay?”
“Yes, Miss.”
I walked through to the elevator, and felt every set of eyes in the building glued to my back. I felt like a moving target. Memphis and Gus closed ranks around me as we stood at the bank of elevators.
“Okay?” Memphis’ smooth voice slid over me, steeling my spine. I nodded. I was always on public exhibition, this was no different. Smile for the cameras, Hope.
The elevator doors slid open and the car was thankfully empty. As we stepped in and the doors closed behind us, I let out the breath I’d been holding. That was just the lobby. The worst was still to come.
Gus leaned forward, and kissed me hard. Bruisingly hard. He swallowed my little yelp of surprise, and soon I was kissing him back. I moved my lips against his, trying to give back as good as I got. The man could kiss. He kissed better than I breathed.
Finally tearing my lips away, I stared. “What was that for?”
“You looked pale. You needed a little color in your cheeks,” Gusion said, grinning unapologetically. I slid a look at Memphis, but he seemed more exasperated than angry.
“You know, I have blush in my purse for just that reason,” I huffed out, but I wasn’t really annoyed. No red-blooded woman could be angry after a kiss like that.
“My way was more fun.”
Well, touché.
The elevator dinged at the top floor and I straightened. Shoulders back, chin up. I was fierce. I was kind. I could do this.
I stepped into the marble tiled reception area, and breathed a sigh of relief. I’d spend so much time here. It was as familiar as my apartment.
The receptionist looked up, and then nearly dropped her coffee mug. “Ms Jones. You’re back! We weren’t expecting you. Let me call Mr Mateo. Mr Sigurson is out of the office at the moment, he’s across town at an early meeting, but I could call?”
I waved a hand at the secretary. “It’s fine, Annalise. Just call Dad and tell him I’m here. I know my way to his office,” I said, giving her a warm smile, which she returned. Then her eyes swung up, and hit the wall of angelicness behind me. I was pretty flattered that she’d been so glad to see me she momentarily overlooked the men behind me.
This time she did drop her mug. I grinned. Yeah, that was a fair response.
I had ears. I heard how the women in the office spoke about Tolliver and Sam. Silver foxes was a term that was whispered around the water cooler more often than I found comfortable. And when we had Gala’s and all my parents came, well, it was a bit crazy. But Gusion and Memphis, especially Gusion, had an otherworldly beauty that shocked your system.
“I’ll just go this way, yeah? Come on, you two.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to meet the parents, Sweetheart,” Gusion teased. I rolled my eyes.
I strode down the halls of NRH, halls I’d walked as soon as I could toddle on two chubby little legs. The huge corner office at the end of the hall overlooked the city on both sides, and both Sam and Tolliver had their desks in the space. I’d often wondered if they ever got sick of each other, living together, working together, being committed to the same woman, but they showed no signs of discord.
I knocked, and a muffled voice told me to enter. I poked my head around the door jamb. As expected, Tolliver was in front of his computer, not even looking up as I entered.
“Hey Dad.”
His head snapped up at the sound of my voice and a smile bloomed on his face. “Hope!” He stood and moved around the desk, coming over to wrap me in his arms. He smelled of the exact same cologne he’d worn since I was a child and it soothed my frazzled nerves.
“You are looking so much better,” he said as he stepped back, appraising me for any residual injuries. When he met my eyes, his almond shaped ones narrowed. “How are you feeling?”
He’d always been the canniest of my parents; not as instinctual as Lux, or as naturally brilliant as Eli. But he could always, and I mean always, tell when I was lying. He could read me like every word I thought was written across my forehead. When I was a teenager, I was almost convinced that perhaps he was psychic too. But he’d helped raise me, and could read my body language like the keen businessman and attentive father he was.
“Physically, I’m great.”
A single dark eyebrow rose. He didn’t even ask.
“Emotionally, it's going to take a little while to stop seeing bogeyman wherever I go. I’ve got an appointment to see a professional about…it.”
Tolliver looked over my shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry too much about monsters under your bed with the company you seem to be keeping. Gusion. Mephistopheles. Interesting to see you here, with my daughter.”
It might have been my imagination, but there was a not so subtle warning in those words. As a child, I’d tried hard to block out the emotions of my parents, much the same way I did with Rella and
Adnan. As soon as I knew their emotional frequency, so to speak, I could block it out unless they were feeling high emotion or I was in physical contact. It was a survival technique. I would have gone mad without it.
Even now, I didn’t know if I’d emerged from my teens fully sane.
“Luc…” Gusion said as Memphis said, “Hope-”
Tolliver raised a hand. “Stop.”
I’d never seen either of them even a little bit flustered. But right now, they seemed at a loss.
“Hurt her, and Ace’s wrath will seem like nothing in comparison to the pain that will rain down.”
These were Fallen Angels, who spent their time poking people with pitchforks and torturing wrongdoers. The idea of Tolliver threatening them should have been ludicrous. But both of them nodded solemnly.
I raised a hand in the air. “Uh, hi? This isn’t the 7th century. You don’t get to make decisions for me like I’m not here. Besides, I’m pretty sure Rella, Mom and Ace together and out for blood is legitimately the scariest thing in or out of hell.” There was a small chorus of agreement. I turned back to my father. “I just wanted to know how the Foundation was getting on without me. I’m sorry that I have been so absent. I hope the soft support from Geneva didn’t fall through?”
“Quite the contrary. We’ve had even more support than you initially projected…”
My heart stopped.
Tolliver’s lips were still moving, but there was no sound. A high pitch whine rang in my ears and darkness clouded my vision. Until my heart thudded back online, but it was uneven. Wrong.
Rella.
Rella.
Then half my soul was ripped away and I screamed. I screamed and screamed until I could feel it burning in my chest where my heart used to be. I fell to my knees, pain spearing through my head like a hot poker. Or a bullet.
“Rella!”
She was dead. My twin was dead.
14
Their emotions felt like whips against my already raw soul. I stared at the hole in the ground where they’d lowered the other part of me. I wanted to climb in there after her, curl myself around her like we did when we were young. But instead, she was going to be cold in the ground, alone. We weren’t made to be alone. We were two parts to a whole. One couldn't survive without the other. I couldn’t survive.
This was wrong.
I could hear them speaking behind me, but I ignored them. Mom sobbed softly into someone's chest, I could tell because her cries were muffled.
“She won’t eat. She won’t speak.”
“She won’t look me in the eye. It’s like she…” Sam stopped whatever he was going to say, but I could almost hear the rest of the sentence. It was like I died too. I wanted to. It was too much. It had all been too much.
Charlie and Nazir’s funerals yesterday, the barrage of grief-stricken Mulligans like a tornado of sadness, and I sat alone at its center. I wanted the pain to eat me up. Maybe if I felt enough of everyone else’s grief, I could forget the emptiness inside me. The connection that was missing.
“Bring her away,” someone said, but Memphis stepped in to stop them. Memphis hadn’t left my side, nor had Gusion. Even as I lay curled on my bed for hours on end, they were there, silent protectors.
“Leave her. She needs time. We will watch her, I promise. I swear this on my immortal soul. I will let no harm come to her.”
I looked to where he was speaking to Lux, who was staring me with more emotion than I’d ever seen on his face. Such jagged pain.
“Please,” Memphis said. He almost sounded like he was begging. “She needs to be alone. This emotion,” he waved at the group, “it is pushing her into the darkness. I am not sure we can catch her if she falls much further. Please.” This time I was certain he was begging. For me.
Lux was conflicted. I could feel his need to grab me, to take me back home and never let me leave again. To never feel this grief again. He stared at me, and I must have looked like death, because eventually I heard them move away. I was alone again, with that white box. With my twin.
“Rella,” the single word came out on a sob, but I sucked it back down. What did I do now?
I slumped to my knees in the soft dirt, ignoring the grave diggers waiting to bury my sister. Rella had always been the invincible one. I was the one who was made to break.
A hand touched my back, and a huge wave of something that felt suspiciously like love came through the contact. I looked over my shoulder, and if I still had the capacity to feel, I would have been shocked.
Luc knelt beside me, his large hand almost spanning my back. His face, his usually hard, scary face, was twisted in something that looked like compassion. And love.
I took one look at his face and wailed. I dove into his chest, and let him wrap his arms and his huge onyx wings around me. He blocked out the world, all the pain and grief, and I sobbed against him as my eyes cried my heart's blood against his chest.
“Hush, little one. Hush. It is okay,” his whispered in his deep voice, the voice meant to strike fear into mortals, instead of soothe their wounds. “It will all be okay.”
“How?” The word came out jagged and angry. “She’s dead, Luc. Bring her back to me. Please. I need her.”
He mumbled something low and Latin, but shook his head. “I cannot.”
“You can! I know you can, because you’ve done it before. Please. Please. Please,” I begged, my fingers digging into his forearm.
“I’m sorry. But you will see her again, Hope. This I swear. I can promise you she is happy. She is not alone. It is you who must draw strength to go on.”
I sniffled as I looked up into his bottomless black eyes that assessed my very soul with a glance. “She’s in hell?”
Luc inclined his head. “They probably weren’t being the most virtuous of people these last few weeks. Romanus and Rouen, and Nazir, were already in my purview. They are all fine. Ace is setting them up a beer pong table in my grand dining hall, of all places.” His normal scary mask slipped back into place. “Estrella is sad, but it is because she knows how you will have taken her death. You must pull yourself from the abyss, and live for the both of you now. That would make her afterlife truly happy.”
I nodded, and then Luc was standing. He helped me to my feet. I didn’t bother brushing the mud from my knees.
I wrapped my arms around his waist, and hugged the Devil close to me. He loved me. He loved Rella too, this supposed Fallen Angel, who was storied to have no capacity for love, but had proven the stories wrong over and over. Unlike my parents, he had never aged. But he was ageless.
“Thank you, Luc.”
He let out a scary rumbling noise. “Do not thank me. I failed you both. You are the beloved children of my consort. And I let one of you die.” The last part came out in a scary, inhuman voice that made the temperature around us drop. The hairs on my body rose.
I dropped my arms, but I didn’t step away. “That’s the thing about us pesky humans. We never do quite what you expect.” I looked up, meeting his eyes again. A bold move, even for me. “I want them all to pay. Every single person who had anything to do with Rella’s death. I want them to regret ever being born.”
Luc groaned. “Please. Not another plot for vengeance where you go in with guns blazing. The last one did not end so well,” he gently reminded me.
He didn’t have to tell me though. I wasn’t Estrella. But I was no longer the Hope of last week either. I wasn’t the Hope who could rely on the love and protection of her twin any longer. Something was now a little broken.
I shook my head.
I wasn’t Estrella. I couldn’t shoot, or kick ass.
But I was going to raze their world to the ground. For Rella.
And for me.
Note From the Author
Thank you for reading The Fallen: Part One. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As you could probably tell, Part One of The Fallen runs concurrently with The Unrepentant. However, from this point on it wil
l diverge off onto its own course and hopefully complete this multigenerational saga once and for all. I always meant to start with Hope’s story first after The Redeemable, but Rella jumped the queue and the rest is history.
Actually, while I’m talking about Rella and her guys, just wanted to say that The Fallen: Part Two definitely answers all those lingering questions about the fate of Rella, which I know caused a little bit of angst given the number of “OMG WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?” Emails I got after the completion of The Unrepentant.
I love hearing from readers, so you can find me at any of these places below:
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/GraceMcGintyAuthor/
Instagram: @gracemcgintyauthor
Website: https://gracemcgintyauthor.wixsite.com/mysite
Twitter: @McgintyGrace
Email: [email protected]
And now for the battle cry of all indie authors. If you liked this book, or any book, leave a review, or recommended it to a friend, or write the Amazon link on the wall of a bathroom stall.
Anything helps, and it keeps indie writers creating the stories you love so much.
The Fallen- Part One Page 10
