Page 41 of The Woman in the Warehouse

“Oh,” the woman said. “Oh, my. I will have to draft up the paperwork,” she said, flustered.

“That will be perfect,” Saylor agreed, nodding, eager to get it over with.

“How much was it for the three months again?” I asked, wondering if I had enough cash on hand to pay it.

“Oh, yes, uhm, it was sixteen-ninety per month. So that’s…”

“Five-thousand-seventy,” I said, getting a brow raise from Saylor. “Will cash work for you?” I asked.

“Yes, of course. Of course. Okay. How about you two meet me in the office in an hour? I should have everything ready for you by then.”

“Perfect,” Saylor said as we all moved back out of the apartment and rode the elevator down to the main level.

The woman, Rhonda, said her goodbyes, then rushed off to work on the paperwork as we stood in the entryway.

“There’s a back exit,” Saylor told me, moving down the opposite hall that led to the mail and laundry rooms, then out into a small back alley where the trash cans were all lined up. “Five-thousand-seventy, huh?” she asked as we started to walk away from the street where the row houses were located.

“I’ve always been good with math,” I admitted. “Especially when it comes to money. So, when did you come up with this idea?” I asked as we moved down a tiny alley between two buildings the next block over.

“Keith called when I was walking Fury. Apparently, one of his gamer friends who I now know entirely too much about, by the way, wants to move to the city, so Keith has been hacking into the fucking real estate sites to try to send him listings before they hit the actual market. When he saw this one was about to go up, he let me know. In exchange for information on the mafia deli,” she said, shaking her head.

“That was really lucky. How are we going to get past giving IDs and shit like that, Sam?”

To that, she turned toward me, walking backward slowly as she shot me a wicked look. “I may or may not have an ID with my mother’s name but my face and birthdate,” she told me, somehow managing to sidestep a man bent over to pick up some change without even seeing behind her.

“That’s handy,” I said. “Does she know?”

“Yeah. It’s really only meant for an emergency-type situation, but it will work for this. I figure taking out a bunch of guys who want to take my job away from me sooner than I plan on constitutes an emergency.”

“When do you plan to stop?” I asked.

“I am hopeful to be done in seven years. Ten at the absolute most.”

“Why? If you’re successful, why retire so young?”

“It’s not worth the risk for an extended amount of time. I figure that, by then, I should have enough for a comfortable retirement. And I can also sell the warehouse for a hefty profit when I am done with it. Use that to, I dunno, invest in real estate or set up a passive income business. You guys don’t really retire, do you?”

“I mean, eventually, you kind of step down and let someone younger have your crew and neighborhoods. But you would get a kick-up from them until you’re dead. I’m not even thinking of retirement yet, though. Still trying to earn my own fucking crew,” I said, wincing at the bite in my words.

“Well, when we take down these fuckers, you will get the respect they’ve been keeping from you,” she said, sounding so sure that I truly started to believe it as well. “What are you doing?” she asked as I walked up toward an ATM.

“Getting some cash,” I said.

“You can only take out, what, five hundred?” she asked.

“True. Okay, we have some time. Let’s hop in a cab to my place.”

“Or I can go to mine and get the cash.”

“Can you not be stubborn about this?”

“It’s going to be in my name.”

“It’s going to be in your mother’s name. And I think we both know she’d side with me on this.”

“Ugh,” she grumbled, knowing I was right, as she walked to the curb and threw up her arm to hail a cab. But she didn’t object when I rattled off my address as we both slid in.

I was unexpectedly nervous as we made our way up the elevator to my apartment. It wasn’t that I’d never had a woman at my place before. I had. But, I dunno, I guess some part of me cared what Saylor thought of it. Even if I didn’t quite understand why she was different from the other women I’d brought back to my place before.

---