My mouth dropped open. “Your mama?” Mrs. Taylor didn’t seem like a woman that experienced abuse. She was always chipper, gossiping about her soap operas and bragging about her oldest daughter. But that was the thing about abuse, it rarely reared its ugly head for the world to see. Most punches were thrown behind closed doors. There was nothing a well placed smile and makeup couldn’t cover.
Godfrey’s lips thinned, and he gave me a terse nod. I was about to say more, but Rogue, Bonham, and Luis filed in the room, just as everyone else was walking out for their next class. Despite everything, I was proud of them. I liked how hopelessly devoted they were to one another. No questions. No refusal. They stepped up to the plate and went down swinging, the consequences be damned. They stuck together, and were loyal to a fault.
Rogue’s eyes swept over me before landing on Godfrey. “Ready?”
Godfrey grabbed his books and shoved them in his backpack before getting up. “Yeah.” I noticed that all four of them already had their masks on—their expressionless faces, their hard tones, their tense bodies. They were ready to do this cleanup job, and they’d switched to their impenetrable personas.
“I’m going with you,” I said, standing up and flinging my backpack over my shoulder.
“Absolutely not,” Rogue snapped.
“I am,” I countered, pushing past Godfrey to land a finger against Rogue’s chest. “We’re in this together now. All five of us. Either I go with you now, or I’ll just follow you later alone. Your choice.”
Rogue cursed and tugged at his brown hair with frustration. “Dammit, Scarlett, you can’t come! It’s dangerous,” he hissed, grabbing onto my arm and tugging me out of the classroom as the guys followed behind us.
“Yeah, it’s dangerous. You four shouldn’t be going either. Mr. Taylor shouldn’t make you do this in the first place,” I said, yanking out of his grip to whirl around and face all of them. “But you’re all going, so I’m going too. End of story.”
Godfrey and Luis exchanged a look, and then Bonham stepped forward. “Rogue, maybe—”
“No!” Rogue yelled, making people in the hallways turn to look at us. “I said no,” he gritted out, his brown eyes landing back on me. “I don’t want you involved.”
“I’m already involved.” I countered. “Let me come. Please,” I asked, letting some of the desperation that I felt creep into my tone. Rogue needed to feel in control because so much of his life was controlled for him. “I’ll listen to whatever you say, but don’t leave me behind again,” I said, my voice softer. “I’ll go crazy.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “If you fucking get hurt…”
“I won’t,” I quickly interjected.
He shook his head with anger. “You don’t know that.”
“We’re gonna be late if we keep standing here,” Godfrey said.
Rogue shot me one more withering glare. “You don’t fucking leave my side. Got it?”
I swallowed the bittersweet pill of victory and nodded. “Got it.”
It didn’t take long for us to get there, but it was a strange drive over. None of them spoke much, even Luis wasn’t his usual humorous self. We all rode with Rogue, who took us to his estate, where we then switched out of our uniforms. To my surprise, Rogue pulled out some of my old clothes from his closet. It was a pair of jeans and a long sleeved gray shirt that I must’ve forgotten about during one of my many times in the jacuzzi or sleeping over.
The guys were all tensely quiet as they got dressed. Not one of them look over at me as I stripped out of my skirt and stockings. After pulling on the jeans and shirt, I pulled my shoes back on and followed the guys downstairs. Rogue slipped into the basement, and when he came back, I watched him tuck a handgun into the back of his jeans.
He led us outside and around to the back, where the estate had a separate garage area. It was massive, housing at least ten different cars. Rogue keyed in a code for the one at the end, and the garage door slid open without a noise, revealing a large black SUV inside with tinted windows and a car dealership plate on the back instead of a license plate.
“Unmarked car?” I asked.
“Makes it easier. We don’t want to be followed.”
I got into the back with Luis and Bonham, while Godfrey rode shotgun. I watched with sick fascination as the guys worked together effortlessly, like they’d done this a hundred times, which, I guess they had. The fact that Rogue, Bonham, and Luis willingly joined Godfrey for these jobs to help him showed what kind of character they had when it came to each other. They were united, always. It was them against the world. It never even occurred to them to let Godfrey do this alone. I loved that about them.
Godfrey passed out burner phones to the four of them. Rogue had reminded all of us to leave our personal cell phones at his house before we left. Once the burner phones were turned on, Godfrey got a message from an unknown number that had coordinates. He keyed it into the GPS on the car, and I watched as Rogue drove like we weren’t about to go do something illegal. The only thing that betrayed his anxiety was how tightly he gripped the steering wheel and the slight tension around his brown eyes.
We drove to a gated storage unit facility on Bourne Avenue. Godfrey got another message that had the code for the gate, and after Rogue entered it in, he pulled inside. I watched out the window, the cool fall air blowing barren branches around haphazardly as I tried to catch my breath. Everything seemed so normal and yet ominous all the same.
There was no one else around, just rows and rows of uniformed, metal storage units. The lack of people made it all seem creepier.
“What’s the number?” Rogue asked.
Godfrey rattled off the unit number, and I found myself pressing closer between Luis and Bonham. They must’ve sensed my nervousness, because Luis threw his arm over my shoulders and pressed a kiss to my temple, while Bonham nudged me with his elbow and gave me a steadying look. “You can stay in the car,” he offered quietly.
I shook my head. “I’m coming with you.”
Bonham nodded like he expected that, and then Rogue pulled the SUV to a stop. He looked at me through the rearview mirror. “We never know what we’re getting rid of, but it’s usually documents. Sometimes we’re given computers to wipe, but that’s mostly Bonham’s expertise.”
I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. “Why here?”
“It’s always a storage unit, just different places,” Godfrey explained. “My father has a guy who takes shit from the scene of the crime and dumps it here, and then we deal with it after my father goes through it. Luis's family owns most storage facilities in Savannah, so it comes in handy when people start asking questions.”
What a well groomed ecosystem. Had Mr. Taylor come up with this, or had they?
My eyebrows rose. “So your daddy looks at the evidence first?”
“Of course,” Godfrey said bitterly. “He doesn’t just get criminals off with his stellar lawyering skills. He also collects information in case he needs to use anything later for trade deals and backstreet bribes, or even some good old-fashioned blackmail.”