Steele Hearts Redemption Read online

  Steele Hearts

  Redemption

  By M.P. Hingos

  Copyright 2014 M.P. Hingos

  Smashwords Edition

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events described in this book are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  Prologue

  Time was on my side. With a few changes to my appearance I was able to move freely without anyone recognizing me and make plans that will ultimately result in the demise of the person I hated most. She has taken everything from me, even a mother I loathe but needed and now it is my time to take everything she loves away from her.

  I discretely surveyed the building the man I have been following for the past month entered and took note of the security guards posted at the doors and the surveillance cameras on the walls. Getting into the Production Company he built was going to be tricky, too many people around, which meant I had to take him where he lives.

  Being one of America’s biggest movie stars, he relished his privacy and chose to live in a secluded area of Malibu beach making his home his oasis, his place of solitude, which he preferred, very rare for a thirty-year-old man that exude sex appeal, but his security there was very lax. Apart from a live-in housekeeper and errand boy, his house was pretty much empty.

  The things I have planned for him would make anyone cringe but I have decided in order to make her see how serious I was about making her suffer, before I destroyed her, I needed to go big and my first order of business was killing Gabriel Steele, the hotshot movie star in her family.

  A figure entering the building wearing a familiar green jacket caught my eyes. At first, when I began noticing this person stalking my prey I became a little worried but it was when I saw the little stalker sneak onto the beach-house property in the middle of the night and broke into his truck that was parked in the driveway I realized I might have found the distraction I needed to go about my revenge business while everyone became distracted with the stalker.

  I pulled out of the alley I had parked in earlier and gave up on my surveillance of the Production Company. My time would be better spent at his home. Switching on the radio at full blast I happily sang along to the country song playing as I made my way up to the Malibu coast.

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  Chapter 1

  The shrilling sound reverberated through my brain, intruding into my much-needed sleep as my eyes snapped open and I fixated on the clock on my nightstand. 3:27 in the God-dammed freaking morning. Whoever’s calling me at this hour better have a good reason for doing so because the last time I looked at the time it was 2:48, which meant I got less than an hour’s sleep. As the fog cleared from my brain, panic sets in as I ran through the different scenarios that may come with a phone call at this time of night and considering the chaos that has enveloped my life lately it could be a number of things.

  I grabbed the phone off my nightstand and without checking the caller ID, I quickly answered.

  “Hello,” I croaked into the phone.

  “Ally,” a voice that has haunted my dreams and waking thoughts replied.

  Images of short golden blonde hair, intense and penetrating blue eyes, full, deliciously red lips and a chiseled jaw flashed through my mind. Then there was that hard muscular body that exuded power. Memories of being pressed against that body and having his beautiful lips devour mines scuttled around my mind. As if my life was not complicated enough, to have Gabriel Steele call me in the middle of the night was not something I expected, given our history.

  “Ally, please don’t hang up,” he pleaded.

  “Gabriel, what’s wrong?” I asked, sounding as irritable as I felt.

  “I’m fine thanks Ally, how are you?”

  “Gabriel, it’s the middle of the night and I haven’t been sleeping lately so you better have a God dammed good reason for calling and interrupting my much needed sleep.”

  “I need your help Ally,” he replied, suddenly sounding exhausted.

  “Ally, I have a problem and you’re the only person I trust right now to ask for help from.”

  The sound of his voice had me twisted up in knots but knowing he might be in trouble make me nauseous.

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I have a stalker and I’m hoping you could discretely find whoever it is.”

  “Gabriel, why don’t you just go to the cops or hire a Private Investigator in California, or even call Connor. He’ll have Sterling put someone on it. This makes me wonder why you are asking for my help when you could have easily called Connor.”

  Gabriel’s brother, Connor Steele a self-made billionaire is married to my stepsister, Tessa, the only family I have, apart from my psychotic mother who is currently in prison for the attempted murder of Tessa and Connor and my biological sister, Alexis, whose main focus was destroying Tessa and is currently on the run for an actual murder. The Steele family accepted me into their fold with loving arms, despite the tension that exist between Gabriel and I and the thought that one of them might be in danger meant that the whole family would rally behind that person.

  Connor has an extremely competent security team that he relies on to keep his entire family safe and I know Sterling, his head of security, will find someone very capable of protecting Gabriel, which brings me back to my original question, why call me and not Connor.

  “Gabriel, why didn’t you call Connor?”

  “Ally, they have enough to worry about without adding me to the mix. With Tessa being pregnant and your sister, Alexis, still out there, somewhere, I don’t need to give them another reason to worry.”

  He was right. Even though she doesn’t show it, I know the mess with Alexis is taking a toll on Tess and with her becoming pregnant the second they got married, she didn’t need any added stress on her, which was the main reason I didn’t tell her I was fired from my job at the FBI more than a month ago.

  “You’re right, but what do you think I could I do that the cops or a PI couldn’t do?” I asked, looking for a reason not to commit myself to going to California and being near him.

  “I could trust you to be discrete and not leak any of this to the press, something I can’t trust anyone else, not even the cops, to do Ally. I don’t need this mess escalating any further than it should. If you come, we can go over everything that’s happened within the last six months and if you still think I should go to the cops I’ll go,” he pleaded.

  “Besides I know you have the time Al, I know you were let go from the FBI.”

  I knew he didn’t mean to be hurtful but hearing the words from him stunned as well as stung.

  “How did you know,” I asked.

  “My dad,” he replied, “He told me in confidence, and no one else knows. He didn’t say anything to you because he’s trying to find a way to get you reinstated.”

  If I weren’t already lying down, I would have been knocked of my feet. Conrad Steele was one of the kindest and most caring men I knew. I didn’t want to know how he knew or what he was doing but just the fact that he was trying his best to get me back the job I love brought tears to my eyes. The least I could do was helping his son when he needed it.

  “I’ll fly out to California as soon as I can Gabriel, I j
ust need to come up with an excuse to give to everyone for my leaving town.”

  “Thank you Ally. Call me with the details of your arrival and I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  Shortly after, I hung up with him and resigned myself to another sleepless night.

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  I was anxious as well as nervous knowing she was coming to California. Anxious to see her and have her close to me but nervous as hell to know what she might think of my lifestyle here even though she’s the least judgmental person I know.

  From the first moment I saw her I was bewitched, with her quiet reserve and immense beauty. Her long midnight black hair and contrasting soul-searching blue eyes captivated me, combined with her full, lush pink lips and slender yet enticing figure. I knew I wanted her from the moment I laid eyes on her but I played down my attraction to her. With all the chaos that was happening around her when I first met her I threaded lightly but nothing prepared me for the overwhelming passion I felt the first time I held her in my arms, even though that ultimately ended in disaster. Thinking about her now made me hard. Being near her always made me hard. I wanted to possess her in everyway but I also wanted her to know me, the real me, not just the persona that the public knows and loves. I could use her time in California as an opportunity to show her the real me and then, maybe, she might give me a chance to redeem myself and reclaim that passion I denied us both.

  The mess with my alleged stalker was becoming serious. I choose to ignore the books containing the photos that were sent to me months ago thinking it might be an over zealous fan and barely registered any concern over it, but after receiving the last one containing photos of me in Switzerland, where I was for two months filming my new movie, with the words “I see who you are.” inscribed on the inner cover, my concern grew. All the photos I received before were local, taken at my favorite restaurants or events I was obligated to attend but the ones taken in Switzerland were all close range telling me that this person was on set while I was filming. What’s even more worrisome was that whoever was behind those photos placed them in my truck, which was on my property, sometime during the night, knowing I would find them the next morning. Having my privacy was tantamount to breathing in the world I live in, where the smallest action I make in public can be misconstrued as something that it wasn’t. I play by my own rules, giving the public what I think they deserved of me but to have someone break those rules and dared to encroach on my much-cherished privacy made me livid.

  My hope now lies in Ally, hope that she can find out whose behind the mysterious packages and put a stop to this mess before it escalated and people I care about ended up getting hurt.

  From what my dad told me I knew Ally was good at her job and was considered a rising star within the agency at the age of twenty-six. She was methodical and had a knack for reading people. Her boss even had plans to encourager her to become a profiler but because of one mistake, a mistake she made trying to find answers that she knew would heal her family, her whole career was taken away from her.

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  Chapter 2

  “Alexandria Riley, what do you mean by you’re going to California for a work thing and you’re not sure when you’ll be back?” Tessa screamed at me for what seemed like the hundredth time since I told her about my trip to California.

  Maybe I should have gone with my first instinct and called her when I was already in California to avoid her meltdown instead of catching her before she left for the office. Being pregnant meant all her hormones, emotions, maternal instincts and every other wacky display of affection she had was being thrown-in in the mix, which also meant I had to use a little finesse to try to calm her down.

  “Tess, I’ll only be gone for a week, maybe two at the most,” I replied soothingly, hoping if there’s a God somewhere he’ll help me out a little before the waterworks began.

  “But why do you need to go to California,” she whined.

  The only good thing I had going right now was that she was so worked up about me leaving that she did not question me on my alleged suspension.

  “It’s just something I have to do Tess. I promise you would not even know I’m gone.”

  “Fine, but promise me you’ll call at least once a day.”

  I quickly promised her I would, grateful I wasn’t subjected to the tears.

  “I’ll know you’re gone sis even if it’s just for a short time and I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too Tess.”

  It felt good knowing I had someone who cared for and loved me unconditionally. My own mother and sister were monsters who only showed any kind of interest in me when they needed something and for far too long it was only my step-dad and me. When he died shortly after I found Tessa, after years of searching for her, I felt the loneliness creeping in, until Tessa and Connor suggested I move to New York to be closer to them. Leaving Chicago and my life there behind was a decision I will never regret, because, regardless of the constant shitcloud hovering over my life, my home will always be with the people I love.

  “Where’s my beautiful wife?” I heard Connor shouting from somewhere further in the penthouse.

  “I’m in the living room baby,” Tessa shouted back.

  These two could not keep their hands or eyes off each other, even for just a minute, which might explain why Tessa got pregnant shortly after they were married. Connor appeared bearing gifts for his beautifully pregnant wife, mouthwatering blueberry muffins. Tessa’s eyes brightened at the sight of her husband but the gleeful squeals that escaped her mouth at the sight of the muffins were just pathetic. In between mouthfuls of muffins and slapping my hands away after my many attempts to commandeer a muffin for myself she updated Connor on my trip, who was now looking at me with the same intense blue eyes as Gabriel.

  “Tess, honey, Rebecca has breakfast laid out if you’re still hungry,” Connor informed her after she devoured the muffins.

  Tessa always had the appetite of a truck driver and even more so now that she was pregnant and eating for two, which, miraculously, never affected her beautiful figure. The slight baby-bump that she now carried only enhanced her beauty. Quickly springing off the sofa, she made a beeline towards the kitchen with Connor’s eyes fixated on her. With Tessa out of the room, Connor turned his attention towards me.

  “Ally, may I speak to you in my office for a few minutes please?” he asked.

  I nodded, followed him to his home office and made myself comfortable in a chair at his desk.

  He took the chair opposite me before asking,

  “Al, you know I love you as much as I love my brothers right?”

  He didn’t have to ask that. I knew he did, which made me curious as to where this conversation was going. I nodded.

  “Okay, good, so forgive me for prying, but I want to know why you lied to Tess.”

  I stared at him, openmouthed, trying to quickly formulate a lie in my head but he pressed on before I could think of anything to say.

  “I know you’re not going to California for work. I know this because I know you were cut loose by the FBI.”

  God, was there anything that could be kept secret in this family.

  “How did you find out and does Tess know?”

  “Sterling’s contact told him. He thought you got a shitty deal and no I didn’t tell Tess. I figured you’d tell her when you thought the time was right. As far as I know no one else knows.”

  “Your dad knows. He didn’t say anything to me as yet but from what

  I found out he’s trying to get me reinstated.”

  “So what’s really going on Ally?” Connor asked, his sharp eyes focused on me.

  “I am going to California but it’s really to help out a friend with a small problem,” I answered as honestly as I could.

  “I’m sorry but I can’t tell you anything else.”

  “Does this small problem happens to involve my brother?” he asked.

  Very perceptive Mr. Steele, I thought to myse
lf, but I promised Gabriel I wouldn’t say anything to anyone about his problem so I kept my mouth shut and shook my head.