Destiny, p.1
Destiny, page 1
Destiny
Steel Brothers: Book Twenty-Seven
HELEN HARDT
This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
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Copyright © 2023 Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Design by Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Photographs: Shutterstock
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All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Epilogue
Continue reading the Steel Brothers Saga with Book Twenty-Eight
Message from Helen Hardt
Acknowledgments
Also By Helen Hardt
For everyone who believes in destiny.
Prologue
Ava
Donny and Callie are hardly in the door when I pounce.
“I need to know everything you know about the future lawmakers club at Snow Creek High School.”
Donny takes Callie’s jacket from her and hangs it on the coatrack in the entryway. “Good evening to you too, cuz.”
Michaela takes Donny’s blazer once he removes it.
“Goodness, Ava,” Mom says. “Let them get inside the house first.”
I can’t help myself. I’m starved for information. I’ve finally got a lot of the story behind my ancestors, and though it’s nausea-inducing, I’m determined to find out everything.
“Don, Callie, what do you want to drink?” Dad asks.
“Just Diet Coke or water for me,” Callie says. “Thanks.”
“Water’s good.” Donny follows Mom into the kitchen and then the family room. “Something smells good.”
“Michaela made rigatoni.” Dad takes his place behind the bar. He pulls a can of Diet Coke out of the refrigerator for Callie and a bottle of water for Donny. Then he pours a glass of one of his reds for himself. “Ava, Ruby? Anything to drink?”
“I’ll have some of the Ruby,” Mom says, smiling at the mention of her namesake wine.
“Just water for me, thanks.” I take a seat next to Donny and Callie on the leather couch. “So…the future lawmakers…”
“Sounds like something from the past,” Donny says.
“How much do you know?” I ask him.
“I know a lot, unfortunately.”
Yes, he does. But I can’t go there. The thought of what happened to him and Dale, to Uncle Talon…
“I can answer your question,” Callie says. “The future lawmakers club didn’t exist when Dale and Donny were in high school. But they did when Rory and I were there. It was a newer club, and I went to a meeting.”
I drop my jaw and look to Donny.
“Callie and I don’t have any secrets,” he says.
“So you and she both know…”
“About the future lawmakers of the past? Yeah, we do.”
“It was called the FLMC for short. I don’t know who started the club when I was in school.” Callie takes a sip of Diet Coke. “But as I’ve always been interested in law, I went to a meeting once.”
“And…?”
She takes another sip. “There was no discussion about the law or making law at all. It was all about”—air quotes—“sticking it to the man.”
“What’s that mean?” I ask. “I mean, I know what it means. But what did it mean with regard to the club?”
“I don’t know,” Callie says. “I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. Soon after that, the club became invite only.”
“Oh?” I lift my eyebrows.
“Yeah, but anyone could get an invite. The FLMC members soon established themselves as troublemakers. They took credit for a lot of the crap that went on at school. When Rory and I decided to try to figure out who had spiked the punch at the homecoming bonfire her senior year, the FLMC was where I was going to start investigating.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing, because I never got that far. I ended up overhearing Pat Lamone and Jimmy Dawson bragging about it, so I had my answer.”
“Do you know anything else about the club?” I ask. “Was Pat Lamone a member?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. I don’t even know if the club still exists.”
“The question,” Donny says, “is whether the reincarnation of the club had anything to do with the club our grandfather belonged to. And I sure hope not.”
“I hope not as well,” I say, “but with everything else that seems to be reappearing…”
“So Brock told you.”
“He did. It made me sick. A lot of things have made me sick lately. It’s getting easier to stomach each time I learn something new…which in itself is disturbing.”
“I know. I hear you, Ava.”
“You know about…Wendy?” I ask.
Donny nods. “Yes.”
“So you know I’m not a full-blood Steel.”
Donny frowns slightly. “You’re more of a full-blood Steel than I am.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Donny nods, though he doesn’t smile. “I know you didn’t. Blood doesn’t matter. Dale and I were fathered by a man who sold us into slavery for five thousand dollars.”
I drop my jaw.
“I guess you don’t know everything,” Donny says.
“Donny, go easy on her,” Callie says. “This is difficult for all of us.”
“I know. I’m only saying that blood doesn’t matter. Our ancestors don’t matter. What matters is who we are. Who we want to be.”
I nod, swallowing. “I’m so sorry for everything you and Dale have been through.”
“It’s ancient history, Ava. It sucked. I won’t lie. But it was so long ago, and we’ve had amazing lives here on the ranch.”
“I know. So have I.”
“So our true parentage doesn’t matter. We’ve all got major skeletons in the closet.”
I take a drink of water. “How can we find out what this FLMC is up to now?”
“I don’t even know if they still exist,” Callie says. “I graduated eight years ago.”
“Our family doesn’t have anyone at that school anymore,” Donny says.
“True. Maybe it’s nothing.”
But even as I say the words, I don’t believe them. The FLMC, whether they’re related to the original or not, are still around.
The question is what they’re up to, and whether it’s good or bad.
Chapter One
Brendan
The bar is busy for a weeknight, and hours pass before I remember to check my phone. Hmm. No text from Ava yet. I text her quickly and stuff my phone back into my pocket…just in time to see Pat Lamone walk into the bar.
Lord.
Did his mother tell him?
It’s not my problem, but man…
He walks to the bar and takes an empty seat right in front of me.
“What can I get you, Lamone?”
“Answers,” he says.
“Look, I’m sorry about your birth mother, and—”
“I can’t talk about that.” His tone is robotic. “Not yet.”
“So she told you.”
He nods.
“What can I get you?” I ask again.
“Scotch. Neat.”
I pour his drink and slide it in front of him.
He downs it in one gulp and slides it back to me. “Another.”
I pour another, set it in front of him. “If you have another after that one, I’m taking your keys.”
“No problem. I walked over here.”
“You still living at Mrs. Mayer’s place?”
He nods, takes a drink.
I don’t want to get into his life any more than I already am, but I’m a bartender. This is what I do.
“Spill it,” I say. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“My grandmother,” he says.
“Dyane Wingdam. Also known as Wendy Madigan.”
“Yeah. I went to see her tonight. At the hospital in Grand Junction.”
“I see.”
“I wanted answers. I needed answers. Answers my birth mother couldn’t give me. Answers about my grandfather. The man who made me a Steel.”
“I understand, but how did you expect to get answers from a comatose woman?”
“I don’t know, but my trip turned out to be in vain.”
Now my curiosity is piqued.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means…the very day that I met my birth mother and learned the circumstances of my birth…my grandmother…” He stares at his drink, picks it up, swirls the scotch in the glass.
“For God’s sake, Lamone, what? What are you trying to say?”
“She’s gone. Her hospital bed was empty.” He slides the glass toward me once more. “Another.”
I hide my surprise. Ava’s grandmother…gone? A comatose woman…gone? Something’s fishy. Ava will be affected, and not in a good way.
“I see.”
Mrs. Mayer doesn’t live too far away, so Pat should be able to make it home all right, even if he’s stumbling most of the way.
I pour another drink. “Didn’t the nurses say anything to you?”
“They just said they discharged her.”
“How did that happen? A doctor would have to—”
“They wouldn’t tell me. I’m her grandson. A DNA test proved that. But technically, I’m nothing to her. Not her next of kin, not anything. So they wouldn’t give me any information.”
“But you’ve been visiting her all this time.”
“Apparently that doesn’t matter in the medical world.”
“Yeah, they’re really careful. The HIPAA laws and everything. But still…” I shake my head. “I don’t understand what could’ve happened. Do you think your mother had her discharged?”
“From what I understand from my talk with my mother”—he clears his throat, shoots the drink I just poured—“they weren’t on speaking terms when my grandmother went into the hospital. So I doubt she had anything to do with it.”
“Did you call her? Ask her?”
“How the hell can I do that? She just told me I was the product of a brutal gang rape. The last thing she needs is me bothering her.”
“I see.”
He shoves his glass toward me again. “You know what to do.”
Damn.
I pour him another. If anyone ever needed a drink, it’s Pat Lamone at this moment.
“I was hoping,” he says, “that maybe you and your father could find out what happened to her.”
“We’re not related to her, unlike you.”
“Yeah? Well, when my birth mother looks at you, she doesn’t have to relive a traumatic experience.”
He’s got me there. Plus…my father and I may well have a connection to the Madigan family through Lauren’s son Jack. Though that seems pretty farfetched.
I sigh. “I don’t think I’ll get anywhere, but I know someone who might be able to.”
“Who’s that?”
“You leave that to me.”
I’m thinking of Ryan Steel, of course, but I can’t say this to Pat. He doesn’t know about Ryan’s connection to Wendy Madigan. He doesn’t know that Ryan Steel is his uncle, and Ryan may not appreciate me telling him that.
While his connection to the Steel family is through his paternal grandfather, he has another connection through his mother. His mother and Ryan Steel.
This man is Ava’s cousin.
Knowing what I know about him—what he did to Diana Steel and to Rory and Callie Pike—my sympathy for him is limited. But it does still exist. He didn’t have the best start in life for sure.
I have no idea what his adoptive parents were like, and since they’re both dead now, there’s no way to ever know.
But I am a bartender—a makeshift therapist.
“What else is troubling you?” I ask.
“Does there have to be something else?” He shoots the fourth drink. “My birth mother was raped by three masked men, all of whom are now dead, so there’s no—”
I hold up a hand. “Wait, wait, wait… How do you know they’re all dead? Does that mean…”
He shakes his head. “No. I don’t know who they are. My mother told me they’re dead. At least that’s what her mother told her.”
“Hmm…”
Wendy could have had them taken care of. It’s certainly on brand for her from what I know. Or…Wendy may know who they are, which means…
Fuck. I need to keep my head on straight.
“Hmm…what?” Pat lifts his eyebrows.
“Nothing. Go ahead.”
“Right. Anyway, there’s no way for me to know for sure which one fathered me.” He closes his eyes for a moment, exhales. “Does it really matter? Genetics are genetics, right? Maybe there’s a reason I’m a bad seed. Maybe there’s a reason why I got involved with the likes of Brittany Sheraton. Why I did what I did to Diana Steel and the Pike sisters.”
I scratch an itch on my temple. “What are you talking about? How are you involved with Brittany Sheraton?”
“So Ava hasn’t told you the whole story.”
“I’m not sure Ava knows the whole story.”
“Brittany Sheraton is kind of screwed up. Plus, her dad blames the Steels for the loss of his business. It’s a long story. Talk to Brock Steel. He knows all about it.”
“I see.” I wipe the bar down with a cloth. “How about you? Tell me about your adoptive parents.”
“What the hell business is that of yours?”
I hold up a hand. “Hey, man. I’m just trying to be a friend.”
“Right.” Pat narrows his eyes. “And I’m just that gullible, Murphy. I know you’re almost engaged to Ava Steel. You’ll be a Steel before I will.”
“I don’t know about that.” Though admittedly, the idea makes me happy. “Currently you’re already a Steel.”
“Descended from the bastard half brother. I don’t even know who his mother was.”
“I don’t think anyone does.”
“And there’s no way to find out, short of finding his grave, exhuming his body, and doing a DNA test.” He sighs, rubbing his forehead. “And even then, what would it yield? Without knowing who the DNA belongs to…”
“Nothing,” I say. “It would yield nothing. You’re going to have to get used to the fact that you’ll never know.”
“Just as well. I sure as hell wish I didn’t know about my birth father.”
“You don’t want to tell me about your adoptive parents, then?”
“Why the fuck do you care, Murphy?”
“I’m a bartender. It’s what I do. I listen.”
“Right.”
“Ask any bartender, Lamone. They’ll all tell you the same thing.”
He sighs. “My birth parents were okay. They didn’t think they could have kids, so when they adopted me, it was a big deal to them. They were great parents up until the time I was about nine or ten years old.”
“What happened after that?”
“A damned miracle,” he says. “My mother got pregnant.”
I nearly drop the cloth I’m holding. “Oh?”
“So once they realized they could actually have their own biological child, they stopped caring so much about me.” He taps his fingers on the bar.
