Page 8 of The Woman in the Warehouse

The morning slid toward afternoon as I left my truck only to hustle around the corner to grab another coffee and use the bathroom, checking my chest and stomach in the bathroom mirror.

The skin was red and painful under the layered aloe and petroleum jelly I’d put on after a quick internet search. But I was reasonably sure that the degree wasn’t bad enough to warrant a visit to Salvatore.

Besides, I was pretty sure I still had that magic shit he gave me the last time I got a nasty burn in my medicine cabinet back home. The same stuff he claimed they used for the worst kinds of burns in hospitals. I could use that as soon as I had something, anything to tell Lorenzo and could go home.

I had just gotten back in my car when, finally, I saw a car pull down the street, suspiciously double-parking outside of the last row house on the street.

A crew of three men climbed out, gazes moving around for a second before they popped the trunk.

One of the men went toward the house, unlocking the door that was on the street—or basement—level under a staircase to the main floor, propping it open, then joining the crew as they, I shit you not, started to unload guns. A shitton of guns. Every kind. Handguns. Automatics. Some shit I didn’t even recognize.

The trips seemed endless, the men working tirelessly until the trunk seemed empty, then sharing a few words in the street before two of the men went inside, and the third took the car.

Well.

That was certainly a development.

On the one hand, they might just be arms dealing. Though, obviously, they had to pay us to do that kind of thing on our turf.

On the other, though, they had accumulated enough firepower to potentially take all of us out if that was their plan.

I opted to stay in my car, risking being seen as suspicious, to see how many members there were on this crew.

The third man returned about an hour after he left, carrying bags of what I guessed were takeaway.

Ten minutes after that, two more men arrived.

Then, finally, one last one.

Six men.

Not exactly an impressive crew.

But with firepower like that, they didn’t need to be big if they opted to be discreet and slowly pick off the senior members of the family in a targeted attack.

Six men could mean Lorenzo, Emilio, Brio, Cosimo, Salvatore, and Cesare. The biggest capos we had. Leaving, who? Lorenzo’s brother Santi, and Cesare’s brothers. And others like me, who didn’t even officially have crews yet.

It would be a devastating, Family-ending attack.

Which warranted me hanging out even as night fell and I was out of coffee, but not willing to risk getting out of the truck again, and having someone see me with the interior lights going on and off.

So I just sat.

And watched a house as lights went on and off.

And not a damn thing else happened.

Until, finally, someone walked down the street, black hoodie up over their head, casting their face in shadows.

If you looked quickly, you would have thought it was a man. Maybe a teenager, given their long, slim limbs.

It was the walk for me that was a dead giveaway.

Men shuffled, swaggered, and strode.

Women, whether they meant to or not, swayed more than men did. I figured it was more to do with their hips and different center of gravity than the fact that they were, you know, doing it consciously.

And this hooded figure swayed enough for me to clock it.

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