I was going to get her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Noa
My storage unit was my first stop. Partly because it was rented under a dummy alias, so the cops—if they were looking for me—wouldn’t be able to track me there. But it was more so about what was in that unit. All the things I didn’t want to keep at home: cash, weapons, fake IDs, and a set of keys to my safe house.
I’d been meaning to get it stocked with essentials too: changes of clothes, toiletries, cleaning supplies, sheets, maybe even a tent, anything I might need to get away in a pinch.
But I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
This was the closest call I’d had since moving back to the Miami area.
That wasn’t a good excuse, though, and I knew it. I should have been prepared to bug out.
As it was, I grabbed a duffle bag, shoved in a few stacks of cash, various weapons, and one fake ID—just in case.
Then I walked calmly back toward my apartment so no one had a reason to pull up beside me and question what might be in my bag.
When I got to my place and saw no cops anywhere, I stashed the duffle in my trunk before heading up to my apartment.
I’d convinced the owner of the strip mall to allow me to knock down a few walls when I’d first toured the place. And by ‘convinced,’ I meant gave the greedy bastard what could have been a down payment on a house.
The thing was, it was harder to secure a house. A townhouse meant too many people knowing my business. And a traditional apartment meant too many possible victims if something popped off.
So, whenever possible (and it was always possible if you were patient enough), I went with units over the top of businesses.
It allowed you not to be completely alone—at least during work operations. It also gave you a height advantage to see a threat coming from a while away. Add in the fact that there was only one entrance—the one in front between the storefronts, and that I had that covered with cameras but inside and up the stairwell—and that I had a box under each and every window with an emergency fire escape ladder tucked away in them, and I felt pretty comfortable with the location. Once the walls were down and I had space to breathe.
I rushed up the stairs, feeling relief at being home, even if I knew it wasn’t a safe place for me at that moment.
I just wanted five minutes in my own space to decompress, maybe make myself a cup of really good coffee before I had to spend the next who-knew-how-long in a shitty little safe house with nothing but a pour-over coffee and stale grounds.
So I went through the ritual of packing the portafilter, putting it into the machine, and letting the espresso drip as I warmed up milk in the microwave. A couple pumps of caramel syrup, some frothing of the milk, and the finished espresso, and I had the perfect latte to give me the pick-me-up I needed to get through the process of packing.
I made my way to the bedroom, flicking on the light, and going right to my phone, checking to make sure no one of those guys had made any contact.
No missed calls.
No texts.
Nothing.
Save for some calls from Zayn I was pretending I didn’t see.
“You little assholes,” I grumbled.
I scrolled to their number, hit call, and set the phone on speaker as I grabbed another duffle bag.
But there was no answer. Not on the first, third, or fifteenth calls. Not to the many texts that went from ‘Guys wth?’ in tone to ‘I’m going to track you down’ when I still got no answer.
“Dammit,” I grumbled, ending the call and turning off my phone. I changed burners every few months, but if the cops were trying to track me, better to be safe than sorry. There was no such thing as a hundred-percent untraceable phone. They all dinged off of cell towers and could be traced if someone knew the number.
It was the same reason I left my smartwatch on the bathroom counter, since it linked to my phone. I was going to miss the updates on my sleep (or utter lack of it) but this wasn’t going to be forever. And with no internet at the damn safe house, I would probably be bored to sleep pretty easily.
If I even made it to the safe house.
My first priority was to find those damn stoners and the guns and get this job back on track.
