by HELEN HARDT
“It’s the symbol for evil,” I said. “The devil.” I pointed to Mathias’s now motionless body, blood seeping all over the hardwood floor. “He figured it out. So did Larry Wade. And so did we.”
“Of course you would, my brilliant son.” She smiled—a sickeningly sweet smile, right out of a slasher flick. “I contorted it a little, but at its center was the symbol for female…and the symbol for evil. But it’s also the symbol for copper. Do you know why that makes sense?”
No one spoke. I looked around. Jade was holding on to Talon. Joe’s eyes moved back and forth. He was planning something. If I could take my mother down, get that gun away from—
“Copper is a soft metal, you know. Soft, like a female. Not hard like iron. Like a male.”
I gathered my courage. My father might be shot in the process, but—
“And copper turns green. Green, the color of envy and jealousy.” She smiled again. “I never was good at sharing. I always envied others who had what I wanted. So I took things. I made people do things to suit my purposes. But it was never enough. Never enough, Brad, because I never really had you. I could have forced you to be with me long ago. We both know that. But I didn’t. I wanted you to come to me, to admit the truth about our connection. That we were always meant to be together.” Her fingers tensed around the firearm. “I’m done waiting. Now I will finally have what is mine. You and I are going to be together, Brad. The two of us and our son. One way or the other.”
Panic shredded through me. She truly was crazy. Not that I’d ever doubted that revelation. But then—
The memory…
Never. I’ll never believe that. You’ll pay for this, Brad. I swear to God you’ll pay.
What she’d said after that emerged into my mind. I could hear her say the words in the voice I now knew as I pressed my ear to my bedroom door.
You and I are going to be together, Brad. The two of us and our son. One way or the other.
My father was no longer enough for her. She wanted us both.
I suppressed a shudder as my skin chilled around me like a cloak of ice.
She turned to me slightly, still holding the gun at my father. “It’s your choice, my beautiful son. Either we’re all together in this life…or the next. What will it be?”
“I’m not sure”—my voice cracked—“what you mean.” In reality, I had an inkling of exactly what she meant. My heart thundered, and a wave of sickness traveled through me.
“Darling, you’re not a simpleton. You’re the son of two geniuses. You know very well what I mean. You choose. Do you and I and your father stay together here, without the rest of these people, or do the three of us go together into the next life?”
My blood pulsed in my head like a freight train. Was she truly asking me to choose whether my siblings or I lived?
No.
I’d just found happiness with Ruby.
But Talon was healing. Joe and Melanie were having a baby. Marjorie was young, so young, only twenty-five years old.
My father was dying anyway, and Wendy’s life wasn’t worth anything to anyone.
But my life…
Damn it, I wanted my life! I wanted a life with Ruby, with our children, with my brothers and sister. My true siblings, even if I’d been borne to this lunatic.
“Wendy,” my father interjected. “I will go with you into the next life. Our son deserves a life here. Don’t put him through this.”
“Why not? It’s time to find out where his loyalty lies.”
“You’re asking him to choose between his own life and his siblings. It’s not fair.”
“What if the three of us go off somewhere together?” I said, the words coming out rapid and jumbled. “You don’t have to kill my brothers and my sister. We can keep them away from us. You guys will leave us alone, right?”
“O-Of course,” Marjorie stammered. “Won’t we?”
My two brothers and Jade said nothing. Even Joe was speechless, his face pale and his eyes…something different about his eyes, something I’d never seen before. Fear. He was scared.
“No,” Wendy said. “My mind is made up. I deserve closure, and this is how I aim to get it. I’ve waited long enough to have my family together, and I won’t have anyone fucking it up for me.”
I knew the answer in my heart before I voiced it. Talon, Joe, and I had recently had a conversation about the horror Talon had lived through. He’d told us that he’d have gone through it willingly if it meant saving us from the same fate. Joe and I had both agreed. We would do the same.
And I would do that now.
“I choose my siblings.” My voice was strangely monotonous, but it didn’t crack. “They will stay. We will go.”
“No!” Ruby and Marjorie shouted together.
Ruby stood, leaving her father’s lifeless body and running to my arms.
“Easy,” I said, holding her tightly. “I love all of you.”
Joe finally came out of his stupor. “We’re not going to let this happen, Ry.”
I eyed my mother, who still had the gun trained on our father. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay. May I please say something to each of them first?”
“Of course, dear.”
“Joe.” I looked to my big brother, trying to draw in his strength.
“Hey, you wait. This isn’t going down like this,” Joe said. “I’ll fix it. Somehow.”
Always the big brother. But he couldn’t fix this. “We don’t have a choice. You’re having a baby. You need to live. You’re the bravest and strongest of all of us, and you’re going to be a hell of a father, Joe. Tell your child about me. Please.”
I shifted my gaze to Talon, wise beyond his years mostly from losing his innocence at such a tender age. “And Tal, you’ll always be my hero. Be happy. Please. Every minute.”
“How can I be happy if I lose my little brother?”
“Because you have your wife. You have Joe and Marj. You’ll have children someday.”
“Ryan, please!” Ruby shouted.
“Baby. Try to understand.”
She gulped back sobs, still holding on to me as I turned to my sister, who represented youth and joy. “Marj, you’re so young, so full of life and energy. Find your life and live it. For me.”
My baby sister said nothing, just bit on her lip, sobbing.
I turned to the woman I loved. She nodded slightly at me, and an understanding passed between us.
“I love you, baby,” I said. “You’ve shown me things I didn’t think were possible. I’ll always love you.”
My mother pointed her gun at my heart.
I pushed Ruby away as hard as I could, and she fell to the floor, sliding against her father’s body.
I closed my eyes and absorbed every fear I’d known in my short life. What would it feel like to die?
“No.” My father’s voice. “You will not kill our son. Not before you kill me.”
“Fine.”
I opened my eyes. She pointed the gun back at my father. I breathed a sigh of relief without meaning to.
“You may have your last request, Brad. You know I could never deny you anything.”
She fired the gun, and my father slumped over his desk. Screams echoed, as if they were being yelled from the top of Pikes Peak.
My mother turned to me.
And a shot rang out.
Chapter Fifty
Ruby
The gun my father had held on Wendy fell from my hands and clattered to the floor. This was not my first kill, but taking a human life—even a human as psychotically deranged as Wendy Madigan, who was bent on shooting the man I loved—was never easy.
I had hesitated. For a split second I’d thought Wendy wouldn’t harm Brad Steel, and I’d been so relieved that she’d taken the gun off Ryan. I hadn’t been able to save Ryan’s father, and I’d have to live with that.
I ran to Ryan and fell into his arms. “Are you all right?”
He didn’t say anything, just held on to me and
wept against the top of my head.
Marjorie had run to her father. I had no idea what the other two Steels and Jade were doing. All I could do was hold on to Ryan and never let go.
He sniffled. “You saved my life, baby.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save your father. I was so relieved when she took the gun off of you that I didn’t act quickly enough. I’m so sorry.”
“He’s ill. He would have gone to prison. You saved him suffering through cancer while he was incarcerated.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. “I hoped you understood that I was going for my father’s gun. I should have taken it sooner, but when she pointed that thing at you…” I choked out a sob.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry.”
He kissed the top of my head. “You’re here. I’m here. My brothers and sister are here. That’s what matters right now.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “We both lost fathers today. Fathers who weren’t anything close to what they should have been…but they both ended up saving our lives.”
The truth in Ryan’s words flowed through me.
I hadn’t put any stock into my father’s promise when he first uttered it, but he had fulfilled it.
I’m going to make sure she doesn’t hurt you.
He had made sure Wendy didn’t hurt me.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
The others buzzed around us, making calls, crying, hugging each other, but it was all white noise in a haze of relief and gratitude. I just held on to Ryan.
For a long, long time.
* * *
Both my father and Ryan’s were cremated with no ceremonies. As far as the world was concerned, Brad Steel was dead already, and no one mourned Theodore Mathias. Not even Jade’s mother, Brooke Bailey, who’d once fancied herself in love with him. Jade had told her the truth about Nico Kostas aka Theo Mathias, and though Brooke hadn’t believed it at first, she finally did when Talon corroborated the story.
Wendy’s failsafe had appeared in the form of ironclad documentation linking my father, Tom Simpson, and Larry Wade to the human-trafficking operation—a moot point since they were all dead. Oddly, Brad Steel was not implicated in any way. Perhaps she had never planned to bring him down, despite her threats. In her own warped way, she had truly loved both him and Ryan.
Talon and Jonah had begun working on arrangements for their mother to come back to Colorado. Now that Wendy was no longer a threat, they could have their mother close by.
And who else had turned up? Trevor Mills and Johnny Johnson, the high-priced PIs who had disappeared in the middle of the Steel’s investigation. It had been Wendy, not my father, who had kept them away with doctored documents accusing them of crimes. They’d gone underground and used their own know-how to prove that the items had been forged.
My father had told me something right before he died, something I shared with Ryan a few days later when we’d all recovered a bit from what had occurred.
Gina’s dead. I’m sorry.
I hadn’t been surprised. But at least she was at peace now. He’d also pushed a piece of paper into my palm. I’d pocketed it and forgotten about it until after both men had been cremated. It had been through a wash cycle, but thankfully I could still read it.
The paper had a name on it. Diamond Thornbush. My mother. And an address.
Ryan and I were headed there now.
My nerves were jumping.
We drove into a trailer park on the outskirts of Grand Junction. Would she be there? Was this one last hoax by my father?
I had no way of knowing, but I had to check it out.
We drove up in Ryan’s pickup. The yard was well kept, and a plastic lawn chair sat outside. The stoop built of rickety wood creaked as I walked up to the door. I knocked once. Then again.
The door opened, and a woman stood there in capri pants and a worn T-shirt.
A woman I recognized, though her hair was silvery white now and a few lines marred her pretty face.
“Mom,” was all I said.
Her blue eyes—the same color as my own—widened. “I think I’m seeing a ghost.”
“It’s me. It’s Ruby.”
“It can’t be. He told me you were…”
“I’m here.”
“Your father forced me to leave. He said he could give you a better life. He said… I didn’t believe him, but he threatened both of our lives, and he meant it. I figured the best thing for me to do was disappear and make you a ward of the state. I thought they’d protect you. God, I’ve always regretted that day! How could I give up my baby?” She grabbed me into a hug.
I inhaled. She still smelled the same. Like honeydew melon.
“I’m sorry I didn’t look for you. I was told you were dead.”
“Sweetie, it’s okay. Did they protect you? Did you have a good life?”
I couldn’t bear to lie to her. At least not yet. “I’ve had a good life. And it’s about to get better.” I motioned to Ryan. “This is my fiancé, Ryan Steel.”
“Ms. Thornbush,” he said. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Honey, call me Diamond. Or Didi. Or Mom. Whatever you want.”
“Mom sounds good.” Ryan smiled that killer smile of his.
His words rang true. He’d call her Mom. One of his mothers was dead, and the other lived in a cloud of fantasy and wasn’t really his at all. So he had an opening for a mother. I’d be happy to share mine.
“Well, come on in! It’s not much, but it’s mine.”
“Mom,” I said. “You don’t have to stay here. We’re going to take care of you now.”
“You bet,” Ryan agreed.
Finally, all the pieces of my life were coming together.
Epilogue
Ryan
My brothers stood beside me in the backyard of the main ranch house. I wore a black suit, no tie, and Talon and Joe both wore blue-gray. The weather had cooperated beautifully for November. The orange and gold colors of fall surrounded us, and the temperature was a balmy sixty-two. Ground had been broken for Ruby’s and my house, and it would be ready by spring.
Today was Thanksgiving Day, and Ruby and I hadn’t been able to think of a better day to exchange our vows and begin our life as husband and wife.
We had so much to be thankful for.
Next to Talon, having put on a little weight and wearing suits matching his and Joe’s, were Dale and Donny Robertson, soon to be Dale and Donny Steel. Talon and Jade had begun the process of adopting the two brothers. Having a father who truly understood what they’d been through would be healing for all three of them. Melanie had started working with them, and she’d arranged for them to see a preeminent child psychologist in Denver twice a month. And they’d have another sibling soon. Jade had announced their good news at our rehearsal dinner the previous evening.
In chairs, waiting for the bridal party, were Ruby’s mother, Diamond Thornbush, who looked radiant in a soft-pink dress; Brooke Bailey, finally without a boot on her leg, wearing soft beige; and Bryce Simpson, Joe’s best friend, holding his toddler, Henry. A few other close friends completed the scene.
The string quartet began playing, and Marjorie strode forward first, wearing light blue. Jade followed in a slightly darker hue, and then Melanie in darker yet, her baby bump apparent, as Ruby’s matron of honor.
The quartet slowed, and those in chairs stood for the bride’s entrance.
I was expecting a vision in white, but Ruby never failed to surprise me. She entered in a dark-blue silk dress, completing the graduation of color. Her skirt billowed in the soft breeze blowing through the leaves on the trees and scattering several to the ground in a colorful collage. Her nearly ebony hair had been curled and piled loosely on her head. On her arm sparkled the sapphire bracelet, and on her left ring finger, the engagement ring.
The red and gold leaves on our maple trees rustled. The crisp and cinnamony scent of autumn permeated the air.
&nb
sp; And my love strode toward me, smiling.
* * *
The End of the Steel Brothers Saga
* * *
Enjoy Steel Brothers: Unraveled?
Please leave a review.
Message from Helen Hardt
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Unraveled. If you want to find out about my current backlist and future releases, please like my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/HelenHardt and join my mailing list: http://helenhardt.com/signup/. I often do giveaways. If you’re a fan and would like to join my street team to help spread the word about my books, you can do so here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hardtandsoul/. I regularly do awesome giveaways for my street team members.
If you enjoyed the story, please take the time to leave a review on a site like Amazon or Goodreads. I welcome all feedback.
I wish you all the best!
Helen
Also By Helen Hardt
Misadventures:
Misadventures of a Good Wife (with Meredith Wild)
Misadventures with a Rock Star (June 5, 2018)
* * *
The Temptation Saga:
Tempting Dusty
Teasing Annie
Taking Catie
Taming Angelina
Treasuring Amber
Trusting Sydney
Tantalizing Maria
* * *
The Sex and the Season Series:
Lily and the Duke
Rose in Bloom
Lady Alexandra’s Lover
Sophie’s Voice
The Perils of Patricia (Coming Soon)
* * *
Daughters of the Prairie:
The Outlaw’s Angel