“Has it always been this way?” I asked. “Using the Salvador storage units and all these…protocols? It’s all so organized.”
“We had to be. Our first job together was scary as fuck. We thought it was a one-off, something to get Mr. Taylor off Godfrey’s back,” Bonham explained.
My heart clenched again as the image of Mr. Taylor punching Godfrey seared through my vision. I kept seeing the pain on Godfrey’s face, and the force of his father’s hits. “But it wasn’t enough, was it?”
“No,” Godfrey answered, his tone curt. “It’s never enough. And now he has enough blackmail on us to make sure this cushy little side hustle happens for as long as he wants it to. He’s implicated all four of us. We’re not minors anymore. We’re adults, which means we’re fucking stuck. We could do some seriously hard time for the shit we’ve done.”
“But he forced you,” I argued.
“Come on, Scar,” Luis said, looking over at me with his dark eyes. “The courts would never believe that.”
My lips thinned in anger on their behalf. Mr. Taylor was a son of a bitch.
“Alright, Bonham, grab the shredder,” Rogue interrupted, before opening the car door.
We all piled out, and as we stood in the cool fall weather, I pictured stacks of boxes piled high in the medium-sized storage unit. I imagined incriminating evidence, teeth in ziplock bags, and blood-stained clothes. Even though they had assured me that most of it was bank statements, it still made my imagination go wild. The people Mr. Taylor got off were no joke. Some had been charged with some pretty hefty crimes. As much as the guys wanted to brush off the intensity of these jobs, something told me that it went much deeper than that. Hell, Rogue killed a man without a second’s pause. You didn’t get to that point by simply shredding papers. Exactly what else had they been forced to do?
Despite my wild imagination, when Godfrey and Rogue stood in front of the garage door and unlocked it, I never expected to see a single manilla file folder lying flat on the cracked, concrete ground. I looked at the guys in confusion, trying to figure out if this was normal. With how much organization it seemed to take, I was thinking we'd have more than a single file folder to work with. Was all of this really necessary?
"Is this normal?" I asked in a whisper as Rogue moved closer to inspect the folder.
"None of this is ever normal," Luis replied. "But this is definitely a smaller job than usual. Why didn’t your father just shred this himself?”
Something didn't feel right, I could feel it in my gut. Something told me that we needed to get back in the car and run far, far away. But I didn't voice those concerns. The guys were finally letting me in, sharing this dangerous world that they were a part of. I didn't want to break that trust by chickening out now.
“I’m not sure. It was his guy that sent me the job. I learned to stop asking questions a while ago,” Godfrey explained, but each of the muscles in his arms were flexed and ready to attack. “My father doesn’t get his hands dirty with setting up the job. He has fall guys for that. And us.”
Despite the cool breeze, it felt like someone was breathing down my neck. Although no one was around, I couldn’t help but feel like we were being watched. “Have you ever used this location before?” I asked.
“Once before. We try to rotate things to make sure our movements are unpredictable,” Bonham explained. He was standing watch by the car with his arms crossed over his chest. “I prefer this to the warehouse. Warehouse shred projects take weeks, and they’re usually in creepy as fuck places. Remember that one four hours from here?” he asked while nodding towards Luis who agreed absentmindedly with a nod. He was still staring at the single file on the floor. “We had to pretend to be on a weeklong camping trip to get that shit done.”
I remembered that week. I remembered feeling hurt that they went camping without me. Daddy used to promise to take me to roast marshmallows over a real campfire when I was a little girl, but he was always too busy. It became a fixation of sorts, a tick on the bucket list normal families with love and other normal feelings did. It made me feel a little better to know that the guys hadn’t actually gone without me. It was still just another secret they’d kept from me.
Rogue bent over and picked up the piece of evidence we were supposed to shred. His brows were dipped in scrutiny as he slowly opened the yellow folder to look at a single white sheet of paper inside. From my vantage point, I could see that there were bold, red letters on it, but I couldn't make out what it said. I watched comprehension dawn over Rogue's face, and I knew the exact moment shit hit the fan. It was written all over him.
"Get in the car, now!" he yelled, but then screeching tires were rolling in behind us. Bonham stood in front of me with his body, stretching his arm out to protect me as the sounds of shouting men filled the storage space. It was too late. We were surrounded. Two cars boxed us in, and eight guys with guns poured out.
"What did the note say?” I yelled over the commotion. There was nowhere to go, I couldn't back into the car, and I felt like a cornered animal. A man wearing a bandana over his face stalked closer to us, his wild eyes gleaming as he tilted his head to the side, inspecting us.
Rogue tried to draw his handgun, but two guys were on him in a second. One of them swiped the gun right out of his grip, while Rogue fought the other one. He managed to punch the man in the jaw before he was tackled to the ground. Another man shoved Luis to the ground too, and bound his hands together while scraping his cheek against the concrete. Godfrey was shoved against the metal wall of the unit, his skull connecting hard enough to make him grunt in pain.
With the three other guys contained, all eyes moved to me and Bonham who still stood in front of me. His muscled body was poised, his hands already in fists, ready to protect me.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” Rogue growled from his spot on the ground.
They ignored him. “Should we take her too, boss?" one of the guys asked as four of them crowded around us. Out of all four of the Heirs, he looked the least violent and intimidating with his dimpled chin and dirty blonde hair. But that meant people underestimated him. As soon as one of the men stepped forward to try to grab me, Bonham turned on a dime and threw his fist into the man’s jaw. He went straight down on his back. But then the other three men clued in that Bonham was a force of his own, so all three of them tackled him to the ground and secured his hands.
I backed into the wall, my palms automatically curling in. Bonham’s voice flashed through my mind, when he’d first taught me how to throw a punch. He’d taken my fists in his hands and gently pried open my curled fingers. “Thumbs out, Scar. Always thumbs out.” With my thumbs curled over the front, I readied myself.
Terrified, I watched as my guys were hauled to their feet.
The one that wanted to grab me was shorter, but solid. He probably had a good one hundred and fifty pounds on me, but I didn’t hesitate. As soon as he stepped into my space, I threw my fist at his stomach using all of my strength. Bonham taught me to sucker punch someone where they least expected it, and since a face hit probably wouldn’t do much, at least I could hope to steal his breath with a blow to the stomach.
I’m rewarded with his breath whooshing out as he grabbed his stomach. “Fucking bitch,” he gasped.