The Redeemable Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  The Redeemable

  By

  Grace McGinty

  Copyright © 2017 by Madeline Young

  Writing as Grace McGinty

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the author

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First Printing, 2017

  Chapter One

  Today was a brittle day. My body felt like it would fall to pieces at any second, leaving me a gory mess of plasma and regrets on the pavement.

  Almost home now, just hold your shit together, Ace said. Ace was complicated. Complicated in that she was merely a voice in my head. My calm voice of reason crossed with the attitude of the angst ridden preteen I'd been when I'd first heard her. Like an imaginary friend who bitched a lot, but had my back. The psych’s said I'd developed her to cope with the traumas of my childhood and the combined blows of my parents’ death. But despite the cocktails of drugs and therapy, she persisted, and deep down I was glad.

  I pushed my way through the turnstiles and down the stairs to my subway platform. Groaning, I pushed my hands to my temples as I took in the scene. A fight had broken out, and the crowd had formed a circle around the dueling businessmen. This was New York, so fighting stockbrokers wasn't the weirdest thing I'd ever seen, but it was unusual enough to draw an audience.

  I pushed my way around the crowd, desperate to make my train. The musty smell of the tunnel was gusting from the darkness, the silent harbinger of my train’s imminent arrival. I edged way too close to the safety line, but there was no other way around the ring of spectators. People behind me jostled and shoved, and I plowed into the back of a man standing in front of me.

  Despite the force of my meager weight pushing into his back, the man didn't shift an inch. He didn't even turn, so I could politely ask him to move. Dammit.

  He was huge and muscular, not someone I wanted to annoy, but he was in my way.

  “Excuse me,” I yelled over the shouts of the fight.

  This time the man turned, and I took an unconscious step back. I took in his tense jaw, not-so-straight nose, and his flinty gray eyes. Small scars littered his face. His hair was shaved so close it may as well have been a five o’clock shadow to match his beard. It all added together to make him look rough and cruel. Plus, he was a behemoth, must have easily been six and a half feet. Those gray eyes stared down at me with an intensity that made my sluggish heart beat faster.

  “What?” He said the word softly, at odds with his hard expression. I pulled together the shreds of my dignity and tried to stop staring.

  “Excuse me. This is my train and I can't get past you. Could you please move?” I gave him a polite smile as my headache began to thump.

  “You have to be fucking kidding me. You?” He looked over my head, towards the crowd watching the fight. “Ri, get the hell over here.”

  He still hadn't moved, and his eyes were back to my face.

  “I'm sorry? Do I know you?” I was very sure I didn't. He wasn't someone you'd forget.

  An equally large man joined him, but this one had caramel colored skin inked in dark black patterns from his neck down. Dark brown curls were cut close to his head and his eyes were the color of whiskey.

  “Lux, what's up man? The fight was just getting good. One guy just hit the other with his briefcase.” His voice was smooth and deep and his grin was guaranteed to melt the panties of any straight woman under a hundred.

  “It's her,” the behemoth said, and the new guy's face lost every trace of mirth as he looked down at me with the same intense expression as his friend.

  “Are you sure?”

  The behemoth placed a warm, gentle hand on my cheek, and I found it oddly comforting.

  “Holy shit,” the new guy muttered.

  Snap the hell out of it, Arcadia. Random strangers are touching you in the subway. Do you not remember any of those after school specials we had to watch as a kid? This is not normal. Ace was beginning to sound very un-calm.

  I moved my face away from the behemoth’s outstretched hand as the whistle of the train echoed down the tunnel.

  “That's my train. I really gotta go.” I edged around the behemoth, but that just put me in front of the new guy, the one called Ri. The train blew its horn again and I could see its lights coming out of the tunnel over his shoulder as he moved to do the same thing as his friend. He reached up and put a hand on my cheek, his full pink lips parted as he just stared down at me, mute.

  From what I can piece together, several things then happened at once. My heart began to thunder in my chest until the edges of my vision began to blur, and I could hear Ace yelling in my head to stay upright until I was on the train, but her yelling was only making my head thump more. Simultaneously to this small problem, the fight had shifted closer to me, and I turned at the last moment to see a briefcase connect with a face in a spray of blood, and the overly soft body of an office worker lurched toward me. As the office worker connected with me and my body toppled sideways towards the track, I remember thinking only one thing as the darkness replaced the bright lights of the train. There were worse ways to die.

  I woke up on a leather couch that wasn't my own, a set of light blue eyes staring down at me from a chair placed beside it. My brain was foggy, but Ace was loud and clear.

  You've been abducted. How the hell did we end up here? She sounded worried, but I just couldn't summon the energy to care.

  “I need my meds.” My voice was rough. The man beside me held up my pill bottle and a glass of water. Helping me to ease into a sitting position, I realized there were more people in the room with us. Five more men to be exact.

  Shit. You are about to become a late night repeat of America's Worst Crimes.

  I scooted away from the man, and perched on the edge of the couch. I shook out a couple of pills from the bottle and dry swallowed them. They could've put anything in the water.

  “What am I doing here? Where am I?”

  “You passed out in the subway. If Lux hadn't grabbed you when he did, you'd probably be dead. When they realized they couldn't rouse you, they brought you back here to me. I'm Dr Elias August. These guys call me Eli.”

  I finally noticed the stethoscope around his neck as he pulled it on and placed the end on my back. I took a deep breath out of reflex.

  Great, a doctor. At least the cops will be able to appreciate the mark of a professional when they find your dismembered body in a dumpster.

  “I'm Arcadia. Everyone calls me Cady. Who are those guys?” So far the other people in the room had just been standing quietly at the edges of the room, staring at me with an intensity that was both confusing and a little scary.

  “We'll get to them in a second. Don't worry, they are completely harmless to you.” He placed the stethoscope on my chest. “Any pain?”

  “No more than normal.”

  “Diagnosis?”

  “Severe dilated cardiomyopathy.”

  “You're on the transplant list?”

  I shook my head sadly. No matter how many times I repeated this bit, it was never any less of a blow to my soul.

  “I'm in remission for Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The transplant board said no.”

  Eli placed his hands on his thighs, his fingers coming under and flexing hard. He had nice thighs.

&
nbsp; A totally inappropriate thought to be having right now, in this situation, Ace groused.

  “So you are dying?” Eli sounded stoic and professional, but someone else in the room sucked in a breath as if they'd been sucker punched.

  “Essentially, yes. But hey, at least it wasn't today!”

  “You can't be any more than eighteen.” Eli shook his head.

  “Twenty actually. I have a baby face.” I gave him a tight smile and stood. “I better be heading home. Thank you for doctoring me,” I said to Eli, and turned to find behemoth, or Lux I guess his name was. “Thanks for saving me.” He was even better looking in this light, his face less harsh when he wasn't under the fluorescent lights of the subway. I gave myself a few seconds to really drink him in.

  “Didn't really save you, did I?”

  I shrugged. I knew the look he was giving me all too well. I'd seen it far too many times in my life. Frustrated hopelessness.

  “You can't save them all, right?” I walked around Eli’s chair towards the door. “Can someone point me to the nearest bus stop?”

  Lux said something to Eli in a language I didn't understand and had never even heard before. “What language was that?”

  “Latin,” a voice said from somewhere in the room. I peeked around the couch to find another guy lying on the ground behind the backrest, like a lost dollar. He had a full red beard, long hair that was tied in a messy bun on top of his head, and a red check shirt. He looked like a sexy lumberjack. His hands were linked behind his head and he was grinning at me without the intensity of the rest of the room’s occupants.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Who speaks Latin, anyway?”

  “Rich private school kids and those two. Definitely not me. I barely speak English with any kind of fluency. I'm Oz by the way.”

  “Cady.”

  “You're cute. Kinda like a pixie.”

  “Uh, you too?”

  Eli and Lux finished arguing in Latin, and Eli turned toward me. “Lux will drive you home. Is there someone there to take care of you? Parents? A boyfriend? A roommate?”

  “Uh, no. My parents are both dead. But my friend calls me every day to check on me. She'll know if I'm missing.”

  Great save, Arcadia. Smooth. Let's not tell them that she's actually working in Cambodia right now, nursing orphans.

  Lux smothers a smirk, and Oz openly laughs from his spot on the floor.

  “I understand, but I'm worried that if you have another episode like the last one, you may fall and hurt yourself. Would you perhaps think of staying here until you are well? We have a big house and I promise you'll be completely safe. We would be overjoyed to have you.”

  My automatic response is no. They were strangers, and I was being reassured that they are good people by another stranger. Besides, I would never be well again. No was the right answer.

  The only answer!

  But I looked around, and instead of feeling scared to be in a room of guys, I feel a level of comfort that's just bizarre. Earnest reassurance comes off them in waves, and I find that I really want to say yes. I have two years left in my life, did I really want to spend them home alone watching HBO? Do I want to take this chance?

  Have you gone mental? How are you even contemplating this? You might only have two years, but the wrong choice could make Chemo seem like a resort spa. Haven't you ever seen the Saw movies? Ace was outraged in my mind, but lucky for me she was just a voice.

  Seeing me obviously vacillating, Eli comes to my rescue.

  “You don't have to make your decision now. Stay for dinner, Valery is a three hat chef. He's making something extravagant I'm sure. No one else is allowed in the kitchen.” He turns to look at a man who is leaning against the doorjamb. He was shorter than the other men in the room, but still inches taller than me. He had floppy blonde hair and a smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners.

  “Unfortunately, I was only making Mac and Cheese,” he replied, his voice had a slight accent I couldn't place.

  Oz scoffed. “Mac and Cheese with blue cheese and some other fancy shit. Not like you poured it out of a box, Val.”

  Valery smiled wider, dimples creasing his cheeks. He was very cute. Actually, they were all kind of hot. So weird.

  I smiled back at him. “I'd love to stay for dinner. Thank you.” They did save my life. It would be rude to turn down their dinner invitation.

  How have you even survived this long?

  Valery looked like all his Christmases had come at once. “Excellent. I shall be in the kitchen,” he said and left. His accent made him sound like he was saying ‘keeshun’ and it was adorable. Maybe French?

  I took a better look at the room I was in. It had high exposed beam ceilings. There was a massive flat screen TV in the center of one wall, and the leather sectional sofa was positioned around it. A glass bookcase held a small collection of books, some very old from what I could see. Everything was tastefully minimalist in muted tones of silver and navy. It was definitely a bachelor pad. There wasn't a throw pillow in the place.

  “Please. Sit. Everyone can stop loitering around now,” Eli said, and everyone converged toward to the sofa. “Oz, put on some music please.” I leaned over the back of the couch, to see Oz hadn't moved from his comfortable position.

  “You aren't coming up here?” There was something about Oz that made me want to tease him.

  “Nope, but you can always come and join me down here.” He gave me a wink and I blushed. It didn't help that I could see a small strip of his flat stomach from where his shirt had ridden up. “Mini-Oz, play ‘Pretty Girl Dinner Party’ playlist,” he yelled at nothing, but sure enough, the sound of Frank Sinatra started to pour softly into the room from hidden speakers.

  “That is seriously amazing.”

  “Voice controlled home management system. The pinnacle of technological laziness.” He grinned widely at me and I grinned back.

  “Well, I'm impressed.”

  “You shouldn't encourage him,” a soft voice said from beside me. I whipped around to see the most beautiful man I'd ever laid eyes on, sitting mere inches away on the couch next to me. He must have been hiding in a dark corner or something, because I definitely would have been dumbstruck before now. Thankfully the guy ignored my unhinged jaw and continued. “He's hidden the remotes, so now the channel can only change on the TV if he tells it too. It's super annoying.”

  I could only nod as I took in the man's midnight blue eyes, high cheek bones and ash blonde hair. He looked like a Scandinavian super model.

  “I'm Sam,” he held out one huge hand. I took it, and tried not to sigh contentedly as it's strong, soft warmth enveloped by own.

  “Cady, nice to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine. I wanted to introduce myself before I had to head out to take Ri to work.” He nodded toward the pretty guy from the subway station with the golden skin and the tattoos. And the voice like raw sex.

  I gave Ri a little wave, and he smirked back. “Nice to see you with some color in your cheeks, Beautiful Girl. You scared the hell out of me back there.”

  “I'm sorry,” I said, meaning it.

  He gave me a sad smile. “Me too.”

  He picked up a leather jacket from the back of the couch and threw it over a black jeans and tight grey shirt combo that sculpted his body like a liquid. My mouth physically watered.

  “Well, I better get to work, I'm already late. But if I turn up with the great Sam Sigurdsson, they'll forgive me once the pictures start hitting Instagram and Twitter. Free press.”

  Sam Sigurdsson. The name rang a bell. Hang on. “Oh my goodness. You're the Calvin Klein model from the side of the bus.”

  They all laughed, and someone muttered something about five foot junk.

  “Hopefully you're still here when we get home. But if not, I hope to see you again soon. Take good care of yourself.” He took my hand in his and kissed it. I forgot to breathe. Ri winked as he followed Sam out the door.

  Now Sam had
left, I could see the person sitting down on the couch beside him. My mouth swung open again. “You're the Armani suit guy from the Time Square billboard. What the hell is this place? Mecca for models?”

  Oz man-giggled from behind the couch.

  The Armani model slid his perfectly proportioned body up the couch toward me. His face showed signs of a mixed heritage, but I couldn't guess what. He had beautiful golden skin, not quite as dark as Ri, a smooth square jaw and almond shaped eyes.

  “Tolliver. Nice to finally meet you.”

  Odd choice of words, but then he smiled and I was distracted by the shiny white perfection of his teeth.

  “Hi,” I squeaked. “Aren't there any trolls amongst you at all?”

  “Comparisons have been made between Oz and Bigfoot.” Tolliver sounded amused, but he didn't crack a smile. “Would you like a tour of the mansion?”

  “Wait, mansion?

  Chapter Two

  Apparently, I was being invited to live in SoHo, on my own floor of an apartment building owned by these guys. These seriously mouthwatering guys.

  I'm pretty sure you are dead and this is just your version of heaven.

  Somewhere around the gilded marble bathroom the size of my apartment, Ace had gotten over her general distrust of the guys and was enthusiastically in favor of moving into this place. Well actually, I'd be moving into the pool house, which was basically a full apartment on the floor below the rooftop pool.

  From what I could gather, they were all friends, though they were sketchy about how they met. Whatever. Maybe they all met at Hooters.

  They left me to explore the pool house, and I discovered it has a galley kitchen, a walk in wardrobe, a flat screen TV and a king size bed. And that bathroom! It was bigger than the kitchen and living room combined in my current apartment. I walked up the stairs that were just outside the front door, and onto the rooftop.

  The rooftop had been professionally landscaped, and there was a full herb garden and patio sized lemon and lime trees. A wide deck hugged the edges of the lap pool. I smoothed down the back of my dress and dipped my toes into the cool water, watching the summer sun set over the city.