Chapter Two

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.

A trip to get new bras would almost certainly mean I would need to get resized. Which meant getting felt up by a stranger.

The most action I'd had in months, I thought as I went down the steps to the subway, readying myself for what brand of insanity might be in store for me on my daily trip from Hell's Kitchen to Spanish Harlem.

I was constantly keeping an eye on real estate in both neighborhoods, some part of me dying to be able to just walk from my place to work instead of taking public transportation.

But, well, this was New York. Shit was expensive. And I'd managed to inherit a small warehouse from my maternal grandfather in Spanish Harlem and a nice condo in Hell's Kitchen from my great aunt.

For the time being, it made more sense to leave shit as it was, even if I did occasionally have to listen to someone rant and rave about lizard people, or have someone try to grab ass or try to hit on me while on the subway. Turns out, it doesn't matter how boldly you wear Fuck Off on your forehead, some men will still have all of the audacity.

"Keep following me, fuckface, and you're going to become intimately acquainted with the third rail," I hissed at the guy who was practically breathing down my neck as I walked down the platform away from the subway.

"Bitch," he grunted.

"You have no idea," I agreed, jogging up the steps and getting smacked in the face with the smell of food cart hot dogs and relish.

My stomach, full of nothing but coffee that was likely burning a hole in my stomach lining, let out a gurgle.

I stood there for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of eating processed meat for breakfast before grabbing one to eat on the walk to the warehouse.

It was probably generous to call it that.

Back in my grandfather's day, it had been a smaller scale print shop that mostly specialized in business cards and wedding invitations. It was a rectangular three-story brick building with a single loading dock out back that I'd had someone come in and turn it into a ramp, so that I could use it to drive my car up and park inside the lower level.

What can I say? Parking was either hard to come by or expensive in the city. And I didn't actually need all three floors of the warehouse to conduct my business.

I saved a piece of the hotdog and tossed it over the fence between my warehouse and the building next door where someone's dog always seemed to be left out, barking and snarling at anyone who came too close. Because her owners were into some shady shit. But, y'know, who the fuck wasn't?

"Hey, pretty girl," I said, risking my fingertips as she came over to sniff them, her butt tentatively wiggling. "At least it's not hot out here anymore, right?" I asked, rubbing my fingers up her snout. "I'll bring you something better tomorrow," I promised the block-headed tan pittie with her obnoxious chain collar.

I walked up to my building, plugged in my passcode then waited to hear the click, before moving inside.

The lower level was empty except for the SUV with blackout windows that was parked right in the center of the floor.

Nothing felt wrong.

Not right at first.

Until I was walking past the car on the way to the stairs that led up to the second floor. And I noticed the utility cart that had been up on the second floor the last time I used it was sitting near the door to the loading dock.

Like it had been used to…

"Fuck," I hissed, running up the steps, my heart starting to punch against my ribcage as a sick feeling rose up my throat.

I had security, damnit.

I had security on top of my security.

I flew onto the second floor, rushing toward the row of oversized black garage totes.

Not that I needed to.

The bright yellow tops were all off, strewn carelessly around the floor, a few even stepped on and cracked.

"No no no no," I growled, peering into the tote that had been home to some of the more important merchandise. "Goddamnit!" I snarled, picking up the empty tote, and throwing it across the room. Then checking the one below it.

Empty.

Same with the ones piled next to them, then next to those.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! " I yelled, my voice echoing back to me through the empty space.

Three-hundred thousand.

That was what my whole supply was worth on the street. Fifty-grand of that I still owed a small percentage on to the fucking biker club I'd bought the guns from in Jersey. And they weren't exactly the kind of guys who did shit on loan. But we had a history. They wanted the merchandise moved, and knew I was someone who could do that.

Except when, of course, someone stole from me.

I turned away from the empty storage tubs and made my way to the steps, rushing up to the third floor. My office. A place where I kept really fucking sensitive information.

Unlike the open second floor, though, the third had another door. Solid steel. With another security handle.

But with a different code.

And a retinal scanner as well.

Harder to break into because I had it set up to work as a safe room in case anything ever went down that would require me to hide out.

The door beeped as it opened, then closed with a solid click behind me as I slid the internal locks before looking around the space.

This, I was almost certain, was untouched.

My walls of whiteboards with their specially developed cipher that only I knew the code to were intact. And my notebook with an even more complicated code that listed my clients was still exactly where I left it, in a false bottom of my desk. Even my dozen or so personal weapons were all stashed where I kept them.

Not that my personal guns would do me much good when my entire supply was missing.

"Fuck," I groaned, dropping down into the cracked green leather office chair that had been my grandfather's when he had this same office, and turned to face my computer.

Yet another passcode had me in, toggling on the only thing that existed on this computer. The saved recordings of the camera feeds.

I dialed it back to when I was last in the building, watching myself move around, double-checking my supply, unloading a few things from the SUV and into a fresh tub that was free of fingerprints, glancing around, then hitting the garage door to make my way out the back.

If I wasn't looking for it, I might have missed it.

Right in the very corner of the screen after I walked around the corner to the alley between the buildings, where I couldn't see the loading dock anymore.

A shadow moved, an arm extended, and a brick slid under the door before it could close, making it glitch and slide back up, the lights flashing. An emergency feature I never really gave a second thought to before.

"You fuckers," I growled, watching as a minute or two later, likely when a scout said I was out of the area, a car pulled down the alley, then drove halfway up the ramp to the door, parked, and they climbed out.

They'd been smart enough to wear ski caps and gloves, but one of the guys was dumb enough to wear a short-sleeved shirt that displayed a tattoo.

I zoomed in when he came back out using my goddamn garden cart to carry guns out to their vehicle, his arm with the ink facing the camera.

"Got you, asshole," I said, taking a screenshot of what appeared to be to be a flag, then putting it in a reverse image search.

And got… the fucking Czech Republic.

That was unexpected.

I mean, when you thought of big players in the criminal world you thought of the classics, of course. The Italian mafia, the Russian Bratva, and the South American cartels. And, sure, if you wanted to go for other established crews, there were the Irish mob, the Chinese Triad, the Japanese Yakuza. If we wanted to go a little more niche, even the Serbian and Lebanese were, you know, on my radar.

But a Czech crew?

That was way out of left field.

And I kept a finger on the pulse of any significant crime crews in the city since, well, they was most of my clientele.

Clearly, though, these assholes had slipped past my radar.

I mean, you had to be pretty ballsy to break into the warehouse of a known arms dealer. We weren't exactly people who shied away from shooting someone.

But, obviously, they'd been watching me, getting to know my routine, and likely seeing that I was a bit of a loner by nature, so they probably thought they wouldn't have much of a fight on their hands.

Well, they clearly hadn't watched me enough.

Because having to liquidate some of my assets to pay back the fucking bikers was going to piss me right the hell off now that I had no way to pay them back with the sales by my deadline.

I watched the cameras for a couple more minutes after the car drove away, wanting to make sure there was no more activity, then I powered down my computer, grabbed a few extra guns, and made my way back out of the warehouse, hearing the incessant barking of the dog next door, and getting an idea.

"Hey hey hey, the fuck you think you're doing, ma?" a man in a ribbed tee that didn't quite fit him asked as he came rushing out of the building when I pulled open the fence they didn't even bother to lock since the dog wasn't exactly the friendly sort.

"I'm taking your dog," I told him, reaching down for her collar.

"The fuck you are," he shot back, a flash catching my eye in my peripheral. I knew the sun shining off a gun barrel when I saw it.

"Really?" I asked, producing my own with an eye roll. "You want to play it that way? I've been shooting since I was seven years old. Never missed a headshot in my life."

His bravado deflated a bit at that. His hand even fell a few inches. But he wasn't ready to give up that easily. "That's my dog, man."

I released her collar to reach into my pocket, pulling out a wad of cash. I didn't even know how much it was. A grand, maybe. More than enough to buy or adopt another dog.

"And now she's mine," I said, tossing the cash halfway between the two of us, grabbing the dog, and walking her back to my building.

"Listen," I said when she looked around the open space dubiously, "I know you've always been an outside dog. But, trust me, heat and air conditioning are the shit. Speaking of shit," I said, wincing. "Well, we will just have to work on that, right?" I asked, rubbing her head. "Let me just get you settled for a bit," I said, moving back around the warehouse, filling an old five-gallon bucket with water for her, then tossing a pile of leftover chicken nuggets from my office fridge onto the floor for her.

"I know it's not ideal," I told her as she immediately started to scarf down the nuggets, "but I will get you, you know, proper dog shit in a little bit, okay?" I asked, but she was too happy eating to give me another look as I made my way back out of the building.

There was a reason drug dealers like my neighbors had dogs.

Cameras could be thwarted. Security systems could be hacked. People could be bribed.

But a territorial dog?

They could scare off even some of the most hardened criminals. Or, at the very least, alert you that something was wrong.

"Rip the throats out of anyone who tries to come in here, and I promise you will get a steak dinner," I told her as I made my way back out, adding going to the pet store to my list of things to do.

It looked like getting felt up by a lady at the bra store was now off my list of priorities.

My left tit wasn't exactly happy about that.

But we all had to make sacrifices when someone had fucked with business.

I had to hit the streets and figure out how the fuck some Czech group I didn't even know existed managed to get into my building and steal my entire fucking inventory.

Then, well, then I had to get that shit back.