Steele Hearts Redemption (15 page)

I found all five men in the game room,
enjoying the flashes of bombs blowing up and the sounds of rapid
gunfire coming from the games they were playing. I looked around
the room and took in the multiple big flat screen televisions and
the game consoles hooked up to the them together with all the
controls and headgear scattered around the room and shook my head.
Men and their games. There goes the evening. Spying me standing by
the door Gabe gave me a quick smile before returning his attention
to the big screen in front of him.

“Hey babe,” he said nonchalantly.

“Hey yourself,” I said, “Marianna wants to
know if we’re staying in for dinner?”

“Ah….no I thought we all could go out this
evening, probably for steaks. Tell her it’s nowhere too
dressy.”

I loved how he treated Marianna like she was
his second mother. He’d never not included her in dinner plans and
even if she declined he’d always remember to bring her back
something. I scooted into the kitchen to relay the plans for the
evening but she respectfully declined. I slowly made my way back to
the game room thinking it wouldn’t be a bad thing to find a nice
respectable gentleman for Marianna so she’d have some company for
herself. Lately I was becoming such a mush for love. I entered the
room in time to hear Gabe screaming at Tyler for being a cheat.
Everyone else laughed claiming Tyler won the game fair and
square.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Tyler cheated and won,” he screamed.

“Did not. All I said was and I quote,
“hmm…why is Ally walking around without a shirt on?” and the big
dummy actually looked up,” Tyler said, still laughing.

“And then you blew my head off you big
cheat,” Gabe threw back at Tyler.

“Yeah well it was the only way to kill you,
while you were unguarded,” Tyler returned.

Walking into the middle of the room I looked
at the screen and said,

“It doesn’t look to hard. You must not be
very good at it if you had to distract Gabe in order to win
Ty.”

This brought on an on slaughter of laughter
from the room. I saw the tears streaming down Gabe’s face while
Tyler sat there, a shocked expression frozen on his face. Hey at
least I got them to stop shouting.

“Really Ally? Really? And here I thought you
were my friend. Why don’t we see what you’ve got,” he said issuing
a challenge.

I haven’t met a challenge I’ve backed down
from yet.

*********

“Babe, let it go. Let’s go out and have a
nice dinner and fun evening and when we get back if you don’t like
what I have planned for you and I for the rest of the evening you
can try kicking his ass at the game again,” Gabe said, grabbing my
hand and pulling me to the front door just after I grabbed Tyler
and tried pulling him towards the game room.

“I’m not going to try and kick his ass next
time. I AM going to kick his ass and no amount of cheating is going
to help him,” I said baring my teeth at Tyler, who had the balls to
laugh in my face.

I’ve heard the stories of Tyler cheating at
video games because he hated loosing but never believed them. Not
my sweet gentle soul, Tyler. But after today I believe all the
stories to be true. I was moments away from kicking his ass and
winning the game when he reached over for a bottle of water in
front of me, “accidentally” dropping it and “accidentally” knocking
the controls out of my hand. As I tried grabbing the controls he
quickly fired a missile at me and blew me to smithereens and
declared himself the winner and God of the controls. His exact
words. Everyone saw it, they all knew he cheated. Even he knew he
cheated but yet he celebrated like a victor, hence my desire to
kick his ass. If only Gabriel would let me go so I could drag
Tyler’s butt back to the game room.

“Have a nice night guys,” Marianna called out
to us.

“Sure you haven’t changed your mind,” Gabe
asked, kissing her gently on the head before propelling me towards
the door.

“I’m sure,” she said, then pointing to the
cheater Tyler she said, “I’m in the middle of his new book and it’s
got me so hooked I want to finish it tonight. He makes me the envy
of my book club.”

Scooping her up in his arms for a big hug and
kiss on her cheeks, Tyler declared her one of his biggest fan
before she shooed Gabe, Tyler, Cane, Dell and myself out the door.
Jonah didn’t join us for the evening because of a big date his
girlfriend had previously planned.

**********

The evening went off without a hitch save for
one incident. As we were leaving the restaurant a middle aged man
ran up to us screaming “I love you, I love your work.” The ever
protective Cane and Dell, thinking the crazed man was about to
launch himself onto Gabe quickly blocked his access as Gabe pulled
me into him. To our surprise the man latched onto Tyler. The always
laidback and calm Tyler, except when he was cheating at video
games, took it all in stride, gently releasing himself from the
man’s grasp with the help of Cane. After a quick and polite
conversation with his fan and a signing of one of his books which
the man happened to have in the backpack he was carrying Cane and
Dell rushed us into the already waiting SUV and we sped off into
the night, leaving the small crowd of paparazzi and fans that
suddenly gathered out of nowhere. Tyler was, in all his rights,
just as famous as Gabe was, a household name, with millions of
people buying and liking his books. Having one Steele brother
around always drew out the crazies, but having two of them
together, drawing attention, was a security nightmare so I was more
than happy having both of them secured in the backseat of the
SUV.

“I honestly thought he was going to knock you
over the way he threw himself at you Tyler,” Dell said as we
entered the house.

Gabe chuckled. “Better you than me little
brother. At least I got one night free of the crazies,” he
said.

“Hey the more crazies like me, the more books
I sell. But all in all my fans are usually cool. I don’t do a lot
of book signings but when I do it’s fun meeting the people who take
the time to come out.”

“I know that feeling, but then there’s the
few who are actually crazies who makes you think “why the fuck am I
putting myself through it”” Gabe said, probably thinking about
Bernie Wilson.

A box on the coffee table caught my eye. I
walked over to it, a strange feeling came over me. There was no
post mark on it, which meant it was delivered by hand.

“Gabe, were you expecting any deliveries?” I
asked, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

“No,” he replied, walking up to the box.

He bent over to pick it up but I caught his
hands before he touched it. It was an ominous looking big, black
box, sealed with tape. Maybe I was over-reacting because of the
Bernie Wilson incident but I wasn’t taking any chances with Gabe’s
or even Tyler’s safety, especially knowing my sister might be close
by. Gabe snatched his hands away from me.

“What the hell Ally, paranoid much?” he
said.

“Gabe maybe you should let one of us open
it,” Dell said, coming up behind him.

“Come one guys, you think someone’s gonna try
and blow me up by sending me a bomb in a box?” he asked
jokingly.

That’s exactly what I was thinking.

“Gabe we can’t take anything for granted….” I
started before he cut me off.

“Ally, you’re not here as my personal
security detail okay, so just relax. I don’t need to be handled
like some sort of subject by you,” he said almost angrily.

He snatched the box off the coffee table and
found the end of the tape and pulled it off. He flipped open the
top and I heard the beep as the timer for the bomb switched on.
From the look on Dell’s and Cane’s face they heard it to. I grabbed
the box out of Gabe’s hand before he had the chance to touch
anything or look inside the box. Both Dell and Cane pushed Gabe and
Tyler aside as I gently pulled back the paper at the top of the
box. 14:23,14:22,14:21. The timer was counting down from fifteen
minutes.

“What the hell!” Gabe said just as Cane and
Dell both said at the same time “Ally give me the box.”

I shook my head and slowly backed away,
carefully tightening my hold on the box.

“It’s a bomb,” I said softly.

Both Gabe and Tyler gasped.

“Ally put it down and lets get out of here,”
I heard Gabe say but I couldn’t risk leaving it here. I didn’t know
the radius of this thing and the damage it could do. My best bet
was getting down to the beach and getting it into the water as far
out as possible.

“Cane, Dell get them out of here and then get
Marianna and Jonah if he’s not out, on the street and as far away
as possible and call 911. I’m going to take it into the water. Come
on guys, NOW!” I said as forceful as I could without screaming. I
didn’t want anything to trip the bomb off and that meant loud
noises or sudden movements.

“Ally, no god dammit,” Gabe screamed and
launched at me.

Cane grabbed him and pulled him into him as
Dell held onto to Tyler. I turned to walk towards the back of the
house as Gabe continued to holler at me to stop and from the corner
of my eye I saw him struggling with Cane, landing a punch to Cane’s
jaw as Cane tried dragging him towards the front door.

“Oh God please let this work, please let this
work,” I chanted as I quickly but very carefully made my way down
the path and onto the beach. As my feet hit the water I checked the
timer. I had less than seven minutes to get as far in the water as
possible and dump the bomb, hope it doesn’t go off and hightail it
up to the house as fast as I could. With three minutes to go I
sprinted up the path to the house thanking God the bomb didn’t go
off when I placed it on the ocean bed. I rounded the corner to the
front of the house and through the opened gate. I saw Gabe still
struggling with Cane as Tyler tried holding him down as well. The
bomb went off just as I made it to the gate, shaking the earth
around us. It felt like an earthquake. I looked back and saw sea
water spew into the air before falling back into the vast
ocean.

He was mad. He looked at me silently and I
could feel the anger radiate from within him. I did what I needed
to do. I don’t regret it and I would do it all over again if it
meant keeping him safe. Tyler rushed to me and crushed me in a hug
as he just stood there.

“You crazy, foolish girl,” he whispered,
quickly brushing the tears from his eyes, “you ever do anything
like that again and I’m going to kick your ass, you understand
me.”

Marianna, Jonah, who apparently was home,
Dell and Cane each took turns hugging me and looking me over as the
distant sirens grew louder but he just stood there, in that one
spot, staring at me, his eyes burning holes in me.

“How the hell did a bomb get in the house?”
Tyler asked, raking his hands through his hair.

“That’s what I want to know,” I said, still
looking at Gabe.

I needed answers before the authorities
became involved.

“Marianna, did anyone come by while we were
all out?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound panicked as I scrambled
for answers.

“No. Not that I know off,” she answered,
sounding as shaken up as she looked.

“Jonah, what about you. Did you see anyone
when you got home?”

“No,” he said, “I didn’t leave. Melissa came
over instead and surprised me. She thought we could go down to the
beach for a moonlight picnic. She brought a picnic basket and
everything. I met her up here at the main house.”

This got my attention. We were all huddled
around as the authorities grew closer.

“Jonah, did you at anytime go into the
house?” I asked, knowing the answer before he replied.

“Yeah, she forgot the wine-opener and asked
if we could get one from inside the house. I don’t understand Ally,
what does that have to do with anything?” he asked, sounding a bit
defensive.

“Did she go in the house with you?” I asked
harshly, not really concerned with his feelings at this time.

“Ally, what are you getting at?” he
asked.

“Jonah, just answer the question,” Gabe
demanded, finally speaking.

“Yes she did,” Jonah said and for the first
time I heard the despair in his voice.

“What happened after that Jonah?” I
asked.

“I left her in the foyer and went into the
kitchen. When I came out she was on the phone. She said it was her
boss and he needed her for something. She said she was sorry but
she had to go and she left.”

He was played and I knew exactly by who.

“Jonah, does your girlfriend have short black
hair, dark eyes and wears dark rimmed glasses?” I asked.

He looked at me shocked and softly whispered,
“Yes.”

I heard the gasp from everyone. I could see
the emergency vehicles coming full speed around the bend.

“Do you have a picture of her Jonah,” I
asked, hoping to God that he did and he had his phone with him.