Page 89 of The Woman in the Garage

I opened Dasha’s door, and she slid in. “What am I going to say?” she asked.

“About what? Nothing happened, remember?”

“Right.” She nodded. “My car is there, though.”

“It didn’t start.” I was good at coming up with a believable lie; sometimes my line of work demanded that skill. “So you had a friend come pick you up.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

There was a sad twinge to her words that I wanted to erase. I would, I assured myself, with time. My friends and family would become hers. She wouldn’t feel so alone anymore.

“Have you ever expressly stated that to your employees?”

“No. I really… don’t talk to them at all.”

“Good. Then you got a ride from a friend. Maybe you even stayed at their house, explaining why you’re later than usual today.”

“Right. Good. Okay. I got it.”

“I know you want to show your face. I get that. But just… hang in your office or the waiting room as much as possible, okay? I don’t want to take any chances with you.”

I pulled the car to a park out front of the repair shop. Before she could slide out, I wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, pulling her close, and pressing my lips to hers.

It quickly started to get hot and heavy as her lips responded and little mewling sounds vibrated against my lips.

“Okay. Gonna need to stop now before I pull away, take you back to my place, and spend the entire day fucking you instead of getting all the shit we had planned done.”

“Fiiiine.” Her face and chest were flushed with her desire. “But only if you promise we can finish that later.”

“Baby, you can have me any way you want me.”

With a sweet little smile, she climbed out and walked toward the front door. I idled, watching the way she paused and took a steadying breath before reaching for the door handle.

I hated knowing she was going back to the literal scene of the crime on her own. But the last thing we wanted was for anyone at the shop to know about us. If it was one of her employees who’d attacked her, if they were watching her, and they’d seen her getting too chummy with my Family, they might escalate.

Watching Mass stand and look out the front window, giving me a subtle nod, I forced myself to pull off.

Dom, Dante, and I all met at the docks, knowing it was the only place where we didn’t have to worry about surveillance as we put fake plates on a moving truck that we’d bought at an auction years before.

We each took turns going into the office building to change into throwaway sweats. We donned baseball caps with large brims and sunglasses. We put on gloves. Then we piled into the truck and drove to the unit that Dasha had been to herself.

“I honestly thought maybe she was exaggerating or mistaken,” Dante said as he uncapped one of the totes to reveal the bricks of cocaine once we had them safely in the back of the truck. “And it’s all of them,” he said, uncapping tote after tote to check.

We took the totes to the dock, checked the time, then made our way to the next unit that we had the passcode to the gate for.

Inside, we found the exact same setup as the previous units. Metal storage shelves. Black and yellow garage totes. Every one of them had, roughly, a million in street value in them.

We’d moved four units’ worth of product into the shipping container before we had to call it a day.

“What is this, all said and done?” Dom asked as we stood at the mouth of the unit, looking at the totes.

“Thirty mil? Give or take,” I said.

It was a huge sum of money. Even to us, who were used to doing multi-million-dollar deals.

“And there’s another thirty or so left? Maybe more?” Dante asked, whistling. “You’re dating a rich woman,” he said, shooting me a smile.

As much as I loved the idea that Dasha could see herself sitting on a pile of money, I had a sinking feeling it wasn’t going to be as easy as that.

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