Chapter 6 #3
Throwing the blankets off her, Toni grouchily sat up.
The sun was definitely brighter than when she’d finally laid down, but it didn’t feel like she’d slept that long.
The trailer wasn’t that big, but it had two bedrooms on opposite sides, a bathroom, living room, and kitchen.
Her bedroom door was open, giving her a clear view into the rest of the trailer. Frowning, she didn’t see anyone.
When the tapping sounded again, Toni slowly turned her head to the left to see Sophia Groveton and Jasmine Sharpe standing at her bedroom window.
Sophia had a giant-ass, shit-eating grin on her face as she held up the coffee cup and the bag of donuts.
Jasmine looked sheepish as she waved behind her best friend.
“We’re coming around,” Sophia announced. “Might want to get dressed. Don’t worry, I’ve got a key.”
“Where the hell did you get a key from?” Jasmine demanded as Sophia left the window and started around the side of the trailer.
“Duh, from your husband’s keyring. All officers have keys to these trailers.”
“You stole my husband’s keys!” Toni heard Jasmine shout clearly from outside the trailer.
Toni just sat there in the bed, trying to blink away the fog that had settled over her brain.
What the hell was happening? Unfortunately, she did not need to take a minute to remember the night before, nor did she have the luxury of believing it had all been a dream.
The events of last night from sexcapade to sexcapade were all too vivid in her memory.
True to her word, there was the jingle of keys in the door and then the front door swung open as Sophia let herself in, and Jasmine followed.
At least she had the decency to look embarrassed, whereas Sophia looked far too happy and perky.
Actually, perky wasn’t the right word. Mischievous was a better description.
“I’ll get the plates,” Sophia announced a second before she put the bag of donuts and coffee down on the counter exactly where Ranger had fucked Toni only hours before.
Jasmine approached the bedroom doorway. “Sorry about this. I tried to stop her, but,” she glanced over her shoulder, “she hasn’t really matured much with age or motherhood.
” Turning back towards Toni, she gave her a small smile.
“I’ll close the door to give you some privacy. We’ll be out here when you’re ready.”
Toni stared at the cedar-colored door, still not entirely sure what was going on.
She’d gone to school with Sophia and Jasmine, but they hadn’t really been friends.
Friendly, sure. She’d done a book report or a science project with each of them at one point.
But they hadn’t really run in the same circles. Sophia was, well, Sophia.
She was the youngest child of Darnell and Beatrice Groveton.
According to lore, their family had founded Mount Grove, but there were also tales that her ancestors had simply renamed themselves to make that claim.
Either way, she was basically small-town royalty.
The Grovetons owned a good chunk of the town and the business fronts on Main Street, including the office building that Toni leased for her practice.
Jasmine was the much more reserved of the two. Wicked smart, she became a veterinarian and opened her own clinic after college. Since Toni didn’t have any pets, she hadn’t talked to Jasmine in many years, but she much more preferred her calm and collected manner to Sophia’s wildness.
Toni didn’t have any business with the Grovetons.
While she was sure they had a very well-paid team of lawyers on the payroll, to her knowledge, the Grovetons were actually good people.
Despite having riches beyond imagination, they sent their children to public school and didn’t let them become the stereotypical “spoiled rich brats”.
Each child had to work to earn their way in the world.
Which, so long as those rumors of their reputation were true, was something Toni could admire.
It would have been very easy with their type of money to have raised their children completely differently.
It was well known around town that the best friends had ended up marrying brothers who were in the motorcycle club, though Toni didn’t know who was with which brother or what their new last name was.
Hell, maybe they didn’t change their surnames.
And did Jasmine say something about motherhood?
Toni could not imagine Sophia as a mother.
But the more pressing issue was why they were here.
They didn’t… They didn’t know, right? From the proficiency that the club handled coming over to her house to clean up a dead body, Toni could only assume certain rumors about the club were true, and they were not as squeaky clean as they claimed to be.
They were all military men, but that didn’t mean they didn’t blink or didn’t question a dead body at a virtual stranger’s house.
Or did they have such loyalty to Steel, who wasn’t even a member of the club anymore, that they did what he asked without hesitation?
They had asked questions, though. But it wasn’t like they required answers to help her, and they brought her to this trailer when her house was no longer safe.
Ranger hadn’t been kidding about the shock.
While her memories of the night before were vivid, they were jumbled and out of order.
Like someone had taken her mental timeline, cut it up into little pieces, and then mixed them up in a bowl.
Toni pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs.
What if they knew? What if the club told their women—old ladies?
Or was it ole ladies?—everything? If they knew, that was even more people who could potentially turn her in.
If the club got in trouble with the law in the future—and given how easily they disposed of bodies, that seemed a reasonable assumption—they could easily turn on her to get a lighter sentence.
What had she been thinking, calling the club?
Maybe it was best to turn herself in now.
She’d get obstruction of justice, hindering the prosecution, and tampering with physical evidence charges.
Not to mention concealment of a corpse. Crap, and then there was failure to report a death, and hell, why not throw conspiracy on there, too.
She’d completely lose her self-defense argument.
Fuck. Her path was set. For better or worse, she was now in the deep end with the club. She wasn’t sure if she believed Ghost when he said the club wouldn’t be calling in a favor from her. Regardless, the club held her fate in their hands.
And to make matters worse—she was sleeping with one of the club officers.
Ranger’s cut last night had definitely stated he was an enforcer.
That was like their clean up guy, right?
How many bodies had he hidden for the club?
When someone wronged the club, he was the one who dealt with them, right?
She knew how biker clubs on TV “dealt with” people.
The more pressing question was how the Via Daemonia did it.
There was a soft tapping on the door. Toni lifted her head off her knees in time to see Jasmine stick her head into the room.
“Hey,” she said sweetly. “Just checking on you. Are you okay?”
What a loaded question. Toni had no idea how to even attempt to answer it.
She’d killed her father last night! She’d flushed meth down her toilet.
She was sleeping with a potential thug who disguised himself as a white knight.
She had no idea what time it was or what she was missing at work.
And two of her high school alums were now sitting in the kitchen or living room of the trailer she was calling home for who knew how long.
Oh! And she still had no idea where her mom was.
Glancing at her nightstand, she saw her phone, purse, and gun.
Ranger had given them back to her before he’d left.
No doubt her phone was dead by now. Was anyone looking for her?
What if the police showed up at her home to do a welfare check?
Would they look through her living room window, see the disaster that was her house, enter under the reasonable belief that someone might be injured, and then find the giant bloodstain from where her father had lain in the stairwell?
Had the club left behind her shotgun? It was the murder weapon. What if they were holding onto it to use against her in the future?
There must have been panic or something on her face, because Jasmine quickly entered, shutting the door behind her. She grabbed the shirt Toni had been wearing the night before during her ride from her house to this trailer, and approached the bed.
“Here,” she offered. “I don’t want to embarrass you. Sophia thinks everyone is as publicly free with their bodies as she is, but I have a feeling you’re not.”
It took Toni a second of staring at her shirt to realize what it was Jasmine was saying. A glance down her front revealed that she was very, very naked.
Mortified, Toni’s eyes widened, and she quickly covered herself, as if that would keep Jasmine from remembering having already seen her naked.
Ugh, what the hell was wrong with her?! First public sex, then being virtually naked under the bathrobe while talking to Ghost, Lucky, and Ranger on her porch, and now flashing her tits at someone she hadn’t spoken to in thirteen years?
She blamed Ranger. All brainpower seemed to have vanished the moment she met him the night before.
“Don’t feel embarrassed,” Jasmine coaxed.
“I don’t know why you’re here, but I know it was serious enough that they moved you here in the middle of the night.
I hope you know you’re safe here, and this morning notwithstanding, the club will leave you alone if that’s your wish.
Sophia’s just a nosy bitch who uses coffee and donuts to bribe people into letting her into their business. ”