Page 96 of The Woman in the Garage

“I mentioned last night that we are going to work on a few of the other units today.”

These were some of the units we didn’t have the gate codes for. Instead of having Dasha going in, getting the units turned over, and getting a code—which would put her on the cameras if something ever came of this legally—I’d opted to have some ofour club associates use their fake I.D.s and rent their own units in those facilities. This way, we had a way into the lot without anything ever tracing back to us or Dasha.

“She going to work?”

“Yeah.” If there was frustration in my voice, it was because it was in my heart too. I wanted her to take a leave of absence. I wanted her as far from that place as possible until we caught these fucks on camera and had some evidence to go on.

“Alone?”

“Aurelio is getting his car worked on. He’s probably already on his way there.”

Dom nodded at that as I got him a cup of coffee, then made my own bagel.

Eventually, Dante made his way in, had some breakfast, and listened to the plan for the day.

“Just gonna leave a note for Dasha,” I said, finding a notepad and writing on it, reminding her that Aurelio would be with her all day, and that there were now cameras in the shop, so she should just go hang in her office or the waiting room for a few hours, then head home.

Yes, home.

We’d both started referring to my place as simply ‘home’ now. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

“The fuck you writing, a love letter?” Dante asked, rolling his eyes at me.

Someday, he was going to have a woman rip the rug out from under him. I couldn’t wait to rib him about it even half as much as he’d been teasing me about Dasha.

“Shut up,” I said. There was no malice in my tone. We’d been fucking with each other our whole lives. There was no animosity between us. “Let’s go.”

I followed them outside, pausing only to lock the door and set the security system. I made a mental note to shoot Dasha atext about how to use the security system, just in case. We’d gone over it a few times, but I just wanted to tell her the code and mention again the special emergency button.

We made our way to the docks, changed, got the moving truck ready, turned off our phones so locations could never link us to the units, then piled in the truck, and headed out.

The first unit was the closest, but it was a solid twenty minutes outside of Navesink Bank.

I wasn’t sure if it was the distance that was fucking with me or what, but my stomach felt knotted as we drove into the lot of the storage facility.

“Well, that’s easier,” Dante said when we realized this unit was the first that wasn’t inside a building but had outside access instead.

“Seems like this should go without saying,” I said as I looked at the blue door, “but don’t open the bins until we are back at the docks.”

They nodded at that, then we climbed out, opened the unit, and each started to grab totes.

I shook my first garage tote, brows pinching.

It was heavier than the ones in the previous units.

My gaze slid to Dante, who’d just picked up his first one too.

There was a similar sudden stiffness to his shoulders as he looked in my direction. But we both had wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses on; we couldn’t read the other’s face. And we’d all agreed not to speak unless there was an emergency, not knowing how good the surveillance was at these places.

And since we couldn’t open the totes, we did all we could. We just loaded them into the truck, closed the unit, climbed in the truck, and left.

“Those were significantly heavier than they should have been,” Dante said as soon as we were on the highway again.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Maybe they have more product in them.”

“We going all the way back to the docks now?” Dom asked, looking out the side window. “We’re more than halfway to the other unit from here.”

My stomach twisted into tighter knots.

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