You're Not Broken (23 page)

Chapter Eight
Rowan

              “I thought we were supposed to be downstairs fifteen minutes ago,” I said to Marsha as she rushed passed me with several shoes in different shades of blue in her arms.

              She barely flung a look over at me as she rushed into the closed off sanctuary that was her make up room where apparently no male presence was allowed. “Well that was before we had no shoes!” she said as she slammed the door.

             
Well then what the hell was all that in her hands?
If I wasn’t mistaken, I was sure she had at least half a dozen pairs in her arms.

              But I knew there was no point in arguing. Jessa was in the make up room and there was no way her stylist and Marsha would let her out without making sure her entire look was perfect.

              Sometimes it would astound me to what degree they would nitpick on her outfit. I had seen them trade out a skirt because it was “too red” only to put her in another skirt that looked practically identical.

              As a man, I had never really understood the beauty rituals of women but I was beyond my league when it came to the beauty rituals of actresses. It was a completely different level.

              So knowing the security team and I would just have to wait until Jessa was deemed ready to appear in public, I walked down the hall past Jessa’s master bedroom and back into the luxurious living room of the penthouse suite.

              Feeling kind of aimless without much to do at this point except wait, I thought about going out into the hall to shoot the shit with some of the other security members. I had just found out that one of them had been in 82
nd
Airborne Division and wouldn’t mind passing a few minutes with him while we all waited.

              But before I could decide what I wanted to do, my cellphone buzzed against my thigh. I immediately reached for it and flipped it open, expecting one of the Feds to be on the other end. I had almost weekly check-ins with them about Jessa’s security detail and her current situation with her stalker.

              “Hello,” I answered.

              “Steel,” a familiar voice rasped huskily. “It’s been a long time.”

              From my feet to even the ends of my hair, my body froze.

              I could feel the air pushing through my lungs and out my nose as a whirl of thoughts and questions stormed through my brain. This couldn’t be. No one should have this number except the FBI agents. I had been very careful.

              I had stayed away.

              “How did you get this number?” I said, my body still frozen to the ground. It didn’t matter now if I was in a penthouse suite in LA or in a tin shack in Mexico. My mind was lost in the memories of my past and I was standing in the middle of the storm.

              I heard a disappointed sound of dismissal. “Come on, Steel,” he said. “You really need to say that?”

             
Of course
. He could get my number. It couldn’t have been easy but he had plenty of contacts. He knew all the right people. I shook my head. Or really, all the
wrong
people.

              Realizing who I was talking to, I snapped into reality. I looked around to make sure no one had overheard me. I was alone in the living room. But I couldn’t keep talking here out in the open.

              The outer hallway was off. There were at least half a dozen security guards out there. There were no other rooms in the penthouse suite that were available. Jessa used the main bedroom. The remaining two bedrooms had been turned into a make up room and a wardrobe, both of which were currently occupied.

              I turned around.

              The balcony.

              It would have to do. Being on the penthouse, I could at least know reliably that there wouldn’t be other balconies around me where people could walk on and eavesdrop on my conversation.

              Swiftly, I walked out to the large balcony and securely shut the door behind me. I made sure to face it just so I could keep an eye out on anyone who might come looking for me.

              I didn’t want anyone to chance upon this conversation.

              “What do you want, Raze?” I demanded.

              “One last pick up,” Raze said immediately. He was a man who knew to get down to business. He didn’t bullshit when it came to club affairs.

              “No,” I said firmly. A cool breeze blew against me as I stood several stories above the busy LA streets. “I’m out. I’m no longer a member of the Black Wings.”

              “You’re
always
a member,” Raze countered. “You’re always a brother. And as a brother, I’m asking for your help.”

              “I’m not your brother,” I said tightly, mentally forcing myself to keep my temper down. “And I don’t want any part in your dirty shit.”

              I heard Raze’s sigh crackle the other end of the line. “I’m disappointed to hear that, Steel. We’ve always been so close,” he said. I knew he was baiting me, trying to hit me with some kind of knock on my sense of loyalty or sentimentality. Well that had all died within me. All I felt was a lingering anger that simmered down in my heart.

              I kept my silence.

              Raze sighed again, seeing that he was getting nowhere. “Know that your brothers are here,” he said. “And we’d always be glad to see you back again.”

              The connection ended.

              I lowered the phone, staring at it.

              It had been a long time since I had heard my old club president’s voice. Raze’s husky rasp still managed to bring out a sense of readiness, of action, in me but that was quickly overwhelmed by my feelings of betrayal.

              I had been so proud to have been a part of the Black Wings MC. I had always figured Low Pointe could never have survived without the club. They would’ve been destroyed in the drug and weapons traffic that ran through the area.

              Sure, we hadn’t been perfect. We had to dabble in the gray to fight off all the black that surrounded us. We took part in the arms trade. But only to make sure we had weapons for defense. We infiltrated some minor drug trades but only to divert the worst of it away from Low Pointe.

              But then one night, while we were riding out to meet our connection for a new shipment of weapons, we had been hit by an ambush. Shots had rained down upon us while the half moon barely gave us any light to see which way was up.

              We had managed to catch sight of the camouflaged jeeps that had waited for us out in the desert, knowing our route. Immediately we had thrown ourselves into formation and had quickly taken out the jeep, pinning down the gunmen. But not without loss.              

              I thought bitterly about Hawks and Ace, lost that night instantaneously to bullet wounds straight to the head.

              When we had bound up all the assailants, Raze had jumped off his bike and angrily gone to the man who looked like the leader. He jerked off the man’s ski mask, revealing a thin man with black hair and a thin black moustache. The bound man glared up angrily at Raze.

              “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Raze raged at the man.

              I was confused. I looked around at the other riders. They all had equal looks of puzzlement. It sounded like Raze knew this man. He sounded as if he had a relationship of some kind with him.

              But I had never seen this man. And as a high ranking member of the club, I liked to make sure that I knew everyone the club dealt with.

              “What the
fuck?!”
Raze shouted again. The quiet desert had no response and neither did the man. He only glared up angrily.

              “What happened to the deal!” Raze demanded.

              “You’re cheating us,” the thin man said. He spit at Raze’s boots. “You pitted me against Manuelo’s cartel but you were cheating both of us. My men and I take great risks delivering our product and you were cheating us out of our fucking money!”

              I had never seen such a look of twisted fury cross Raze’s face before. Before any of us could stop him, he pulled out his gun and shot the man clean between his eyes.

              “The fuck!” cried out Dozer.

              “What are you doing?” Bolt yelled.

              Raze only shook his head as a deep fury took hold of him. He shot and killed nearly all the other gunmen before we had been able to get off our bikes and stop him.

              The last remaining gunman had been allowed to live but told to run as fast as he could away from here. And he did.

              We rode back to the club in silence, calling off the arms deal as a lost cause for the night.

              And there the ugly truth had been spilt.

              For years, we had thought we had been protecting Low Pointe. We had thought we had been fighting against the bad that surrounded us. But it had been the other way around.

              For years, Raze had set up intricate drug, arms, and possibly even human trafficking trades all across the area. He had his finger in almost every big pie worth having a finger in.

              While we had been fighting against what we had thought to be gangs and cartels invading our small town, we had actually been fighting against opposing business that threatened to undermine Raze and his hidden empire.

              In fact, I had later realized that if it hadn’t been for Raze’s dirty dealings, Low Pointe could actually have been quite safe and peaceful city. There was a chance it could have maybe even prospered.

              But Raze being situated in Low Pointe meant all the opposing clubs, cartels, and drug lords were aiming their sights on the small city and its unfortunate citizens.

              And as members of the Black Wings who rode under Raze, we had only helped fuel the violence that had harmed and killed so many.

              Once I had learned the truth, riding down those same streets, I felt sick. I felt disgusted with myself. I began to see why my dad hadn’t wanted me to join. He must’ve known the truth of the club. He must’ve known but hadn’t told me for fear of the danger it would put me in.

              Unable to take the crimes I had participated in, aided in, I had left. I hadn’t said goodbye or left any word. All I had done was leave my leathers behind. That was words enough.

              The LA breeze blew against me again. I closed my eyes and tried to let it cool my temper down.

              I had thought others riders would leave as well but they didn’t. Nearly all the members had been born and raised in Low Pointe and that was all they knew. Though they felt no goodness about what they were now apart of, they reasoned that at least if
they
were apart of the drug and arms trade, there were men who could try to keep some kind of line amongst all the other clubs and crime lords.

              “We’re not as bad as them,” is what they all told themselves.

              I now saw the reasoning behind why my dad had pushed me to get out into the world. Unlike the other members, I had joined the military. I had been deployed to the other side of the world. I had been on bases across a dozen different states.

              By knowing what was out there, I wasn’t afraid to see the truth for what it was. Raze was wrong and what he was doing was wrong.