Page 87 of Beyond the Blue Horizon

This nine-year-old little girl who’d been living on the streets with her brother. I’d happened on the dude looking guilty as fuck after he’d stolen a loaf of bread to feed her.

Knew they weren’t going to make it on their own, so I brought them back to the abandoned building where the rest of our crew and I lived.

That kid had stolen my heart in the purest way.

This little girl with all her innocence and belief had bred something in me that I hadn’t known existed.

Devotion.

Loyalty.

It was the first time I knew I’d sacrifice everything for someone else. No matter the cost. And somehow that thing she’d stirred in me had transferred to the rest of our crew.

Old memories howled. A shame so severe as Scarlett’s face flashed through my mind. A ghost that would forever haunt.

Had thought maybe I could love her, too. The way she wanted me to.Neededme to.

But she’d proven my heart was as black as my mother had accused it of being. I had dragged her into a life that she had no business being a part of and had abandoned her there.

Turned my back when she needed me most.

Left her desperate.

Because if I got too close, I always, always ruined the good.

Piper’s gorgeous face took the inopportune time to push its way into the forefront.

This woman making me feel something I’d never felt before.

Something foreign.

Something that made me terrified I was going to do something stupid like prove that black-heart theory all over again.

Superficial was all I fucking ever had. I needed to remember it.

I scrubbed a palm over my face to break up the wayward thoughts, shoving them off as I strode toward the roped-off area.

River and Charleigh were cuddled on the right side of the booth.

Dude was so obsessed with her he could never keep his hands to himself. Two of them so perfect together it made my chest swell.

Not that Otto was any better, the brute all up on Raven as she resituated some bottles on a makeshift mini bar that was set up on another table next to the food. The man pressed against herfrom behind with his giant paws gripping at her baby belly as he nuzzled his face into the side of her neck.

Two months ago, the two of them had gotten married at just before dawn under a waning crescent moon.

Just the handful of us were there to witness it.

It was fucking beautiful, getting to watch two people who adored each other the way they did permanently pledging their lives to each other.

Cash was at the booth, too, sitting alone and aloof on the far-left side while sipping at a glittering tumbler of whiskey.

There were a few other women and a couple men around the high-top tables. Acquaintances from town, though they would never be privy to what we did. Couldn’t help it that it always made me fuckin’ nervous when other people started loitering around.

River noticed me first, and he lifted his beer. “Yo, Theo. What’s up, brother?”

Raven whirled at her brother’s voice, and she squealed when she saw me. “Theo, thank God.”

She untangled herself from Otto and hurried my way.