Page 3 of The Woman in the Warehouse

“Gee thanks,” I said, trying not to sigh at the surprise in his voice. I had good ideas. It was just that no one ever asked me about them.

“Didn’t mean anything by that,” he said, shrugging. “Look, Miko came here this morning to brief me on the job. And he may or may not have gently suggested that I’m wasting your skills by using you as a guard.”

“The job went well,” I said, nodding.

“Better than well. One night of work, two hundred grand? No one hurt. That’s a damn good job. And he insisted that it wouldn’t have been possible without your help.”

That was probably pushing the truth. Miko had gotten a lead on a truck full of unreleased gaming consoles. The kind that went for seven hundred a piece. And the driver had a bit of a heroin problem and was desperate enough to score to leave his truck unattended just long enough for us to get in, take out the consoles, and get out of there.

“I do have to ask, though, seeing you…” he said, glancing up at my forehead.

To that, I snorted. “Miko clocked me in the head with his door when I bent down to tie my shoe,” I admitted. “At the garage he was renting. Far away from the crime scene,” I told him.

“Okay. Good. Also, fuck,” he said, wincing. “That couldn’t have felt good.”

“It’s fine,” I said, shrugging it off. Even if I did have to take a handful of painkillers before I dropped into bed to cut the headache if I had any hopes of sleep.

“Anyway, with Miko’s recommendation, I decided it was time to give you something of your own to handle,” he said.

This was it.

Fucking finally.

A chance to prove myself.

And if this went well, I could finally get a crew of my own, get a chance to build a future for myself.

“What’s the job?” I asked, pulling out the chair closest to him and sitting down.

“Know anything about the Czech mafia?”

CHAPTER TWO

Saylor

It was one of those mornings.

The one where there was no hot water when you took a shower, your favorite bra’s underwire started to poke out and jab you, and your coffee maker broke, leading to you standing in a line out the door of a coffee shop, and when you finally got up to the counter, the person in front of you had an order for twelve complicated lattes and one iced coffee with sixteen artificial sweeteners.

“Do you guys have an extra-large?” I asked, glancing up at the chalkboard on the wall full of neon-colored words in bubbly font that was borderline impossible to read.

“Sure,” the barista said, suspiciously peppy for so early in the morning with a seemingly unending line snaking behind me still. “Hot? Iced?”

“Hot,” I said. “Black.”

Only then did I see her suck in a breath, offering me a real smile instead of her hospitality one. “Bless you,” she whispered, letting me scan my card, then rushing to pour it for me.

I made my way out of the coffeeshop half an hour after I first got in line feeling overstimulated and grumpier than my left tit that was getting mercilessly stabbed with each step I took.

I’d have to add a trip to the lingerie store to my list of shit I didn’t want to do today, but now have to since all my other bras were good with the whole comfort thing, but complete shit with the actually lifting and supporting thing.

And, well, there was a decent amount of supporting it would be expected to do. Thanks, Ma, I thought, catching my reflection in a store window as I passed.

On the tall side for a girl. Long, silky dark hair, brown eyes, a fit frame, but ridiculously out of proportion boobs.

I was like a carbon copy of my mother at my age.

My father’s DNA didn’t even try.

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