Steele Hearts Redemption Read Free Page B

headed out to the location. When we
arrived, the place was already swarming with law enforcement. We
were quickly briefed on the situation; the General Manager was
holding two executives, a twenty-six year old female and a
32-year-old male, from New York hostage in a conference room. There
was a gunshot at one point and there was reason to believe that the
male was shot. After my team took control of the situation, we were
introduced to billionaire Connor Steele, owner of the steel mill
and I have to admit my eyes did linger a tad bit longer on him,
appreciating for a moment the fine specimen of man he was. From him
we learnt that the female executive, Tessa Matthews, was in fact
his executive assistant, who, while conducting an audit on the mill
in New York found some discrepancies in the accounting which led to
the discovery of over five million dollars missing and the male
executive, John Lucas, was actually her bodyguard. They were in
Chicago to gather more evidence of the thief before Mr. Steele took
charge of the situation. After the eventual release of Lucas and
hours of agonizing wait, the situation finally ended with the
General Manager putting a gun to his head and taking his own life.
The speed at which Mr. Steele left the room after that gunshot
confirmed my suspicion that Ms. Matthews meant more to him than
just an employee.
    However, nothing prepared me for the shock
that overcame me when I first laid eyes on her, forcing me to fall
back through the crowd that gathered around her where she sat
cradled in Connor’s arms. This was the woman I spent my entire
adult life looking for, but instead of looking for Tessa Matthews,
I was looking for Tessa Riley, my stepsister. I never got the
opportunity to talk to her that day but the elation of having found
her and knowing where I could contact her had me speeding home to
my dad, well, technically my step-dad, Tessa’s biological dad and
the only person I considered my real family. He was overcome with
joy when I told him I finally found her but instead of rejoicing
like I hoped we would he suffered a heart attack that night barely
managing to make me promise that I would get her and bring her to
him.
    My mother, Bethany, married Sebastian when I
was ten and my sister Alexis was twelve, quickly changed our last
name to Riley after Sebastian legally adopted us and severing all
ties I had to my biological father and his family. My biological
father wanted nothing to do with us anyways and even when my
parents were married, I would often hear his family refer to my
mother as a money grubbing whore, whose main goal was to be at the
top of the social ladder in Iowa. Being too young to understand any
of their grown- up bullshit I surrounded myself with things I
liked, being outdoors and playing sports, which pretty much
distanced me from everyone around me. My mom and Alexis were like
two peas in a pod. Where I preferred to get my hands dirty and
engage in physical activities they preferred to remain dainty and
well kept. They saw me as being different, treated me as if I was
and would often torment me about my unkept state. My mother took
every opportunity she got to criticize me. My father finally had
enough with her and her selfish ways when I was five and divorced
my mother and I guess his kids as well because he barely made any
attempt to see us after that. We had a good life with the
outrageous divorce settlement my mother received and when she met
and married Sebastian, she was determined to maintain the lifestyle
she surrounded herself with. When I first met Tessa, she was shy
and reserved but she looked at my mother with hope in her eyes. I
could tell after sometime when the disappoint of being ignored by
both my mother and Alexis wore off she was disgusted by my mother’s
bold attempts to alienate her father from her. With her head always
stuck in a book it was difficult for me to get to know her
considering she was an intellectual and I was a tomboy but I