Page 59 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
They’d risen above it.
Gave themselves over to brutality, because they all knew what it was like to be weak.
They wouldn’t allow themselves to be that again.
Bent and broken to another’s will.
And that power rolled from him as he wound in and out of cars as he traveled through the city.
Wearing his leather cut with the Iron Owls emblem emblazoned on the back.
The vicious owl with its wings outstretched and in full flight.
A skull hanging from its claws.
Warning every motherfucker what would happen to them if they even considered crossing them.
The engine chugged as he slowed and made a right, driving deeper into the sordid. To that squalid place where you could taste the wickedness oozing from the decrepit buildings.
At least he and his boys had gotten out of this area.
Bought a house thirty minutes away that was safe for Raven. The one they protected with every fiber of their beings.
Didn’t matter if they’d moved themselves out of it, though. It would always be a piece of who they were. Each of them cut from the fabric of immorality. Sewn into the mold.
Night rained down. A cloth of iniquity that bound around him like chains, and he slowed even further as he cut across the road and took to the barely visible alley that ran the back side of a metal building.
An old fabrication shop.
A building they used for exchanges and drops.
Theo fought against the ball of guilt that threatened to roll up his throat.
This was the part he hated. The part that contributed to poverty and pain and shredded, broken families.
The part that preyed on the vulnerable and susceptible.
He tried to tell himself that none of them were innocent. They made the choice for themselves. But not even he was a big enough liar to convince himself of it.
Doing his best to squash his shame with the heel of his boot, but never quite managing to stub it out.
But this was who he was, so he eased his bike up to the back of the building and stopped near the door.
He killed the engine, the roar cutting off and giving way to the quiet shout of the city.
The drone of traffic and the cry of faraway voices and the unmistakable sound of gunshots in the distance.
His attention scanned the desolate, dimly lit area as he strode for the door. He always watched his back, not fool enough to get complacent. He swung open the door to the dingy light inside the building.
Three Owls were inside waiting.
Dom, Toga, and Flea.
Unease rustled through Theo.
That loyalty he was speaking of? It didn’t extend to all the Iron Owls. Only his brothers and a few other guys, their vice president, Trent Lawson, and his brother, Jud.
He knew most of these assholes would be happy to stab him in the back the first chance they got.
