So I took a deep breath, turned away, and went toward my bike, determined not to feel bad about it that I had to work to keep them fed and vetted and all that expensive shit.
The drop went pretty much as we expected it to. The clients had been a long-standing operation who we’d known going in wouldn’t fuck us over. That was why the other guys felt comfortable enough letting just me take the newer guys to do it.
After that, we met up with Eddie like we planned. And then, as expected, we found ourselves on the beach until the sun went down before heading back to Teddy’s place to shower, change, get some more food, then head onto the town.
Alaric, a former male stripper himself, had us skipping the lines at a couple of gentlemen’s clubs before we finally bounced out of that atmosphere to go to normal clubs where everyone could find some women who were looking for a good time.
Which was what I was expecting when I followed a woman back to her place. Only to find an apartment so fucking filthy that I was pretty sure I’d contract hepatitis just from touching any of the surfaces, let alone fucking on them.
So, yeah, I’d dipped right back out of there while she went into the bathroom that I could only imagine was even more disgusting than the main living space, and decided to hoof it back to the club where I’d abandoned the guys.
And it was on the hot, humid walk back to the club when I saw something weird as fuck.
Someone decked out in all black—long sleeves, pants, and a fucking ski mask—dart behind a building.
Curious, and a little too skeeved out to try to go back to the club and find a different woman, I went ahead and gave into the whim to follow whoever it was to see what they were up to.
I mean, it wasn’t everyday you saw someone wearing a ski mask in Miami. That kind of shit was interesting enough to warrant a little investigation. Especially when your plans for the night were dashed when you heard the shuffling of mice in a cabinet while you cringed at the little roaches in the sink of your potential fuck-buddy.
Had to have something to tell the guys when we made it back to the clubhouse later, right?
So I kept a safe distance as I followed the unknown person who must have been sweating like a fucking faucet as they rushed behind two buildings before stopping at a third.
Taking a slow, deep breath, they looked both ways, then reached for the Bilco doors that led to some sort of lower-level built up above ground but closed off like a basement, and very slowly—like a fucking cartoon version of a criminal—pulled one door open, going through, and just as slowly closing the door behind them.
Even more curious, I strolled up the alley between the buildings to see what kind of place they were sneaking into.
And finding a sign for a jewelry store. Not the fancy kind. More like the kind of place you could get diamond-encrusted lion’s head necklaces that looked cheap even though they cost a small fortune.
It had been around even back when we had lived in Miami, and the guys and I had mused on more than a few occasions that it seemed like a front for something else since they did such little business. It wasn’t even the kind of place tourists would drop into, despite having a good location.
It was, as I suspected, closed for the night.
But there were a shitton of cars parked in the lot.
Weird.
That was weird.
Sure, there were always a shitton of underground activities to be found in Miami. In any big city, really.
Gambling, fights, “massage parlors,” amongst many other things.
Even more interested, I went back down the alley and around the back.
And it wasn’t until I was rounding the dumpster when I saw something that had me stiffening.
A box with packaging saying it was cans of wet dog food in bulk.
A bulk amount of dog food at the back of a jewelry shop? No, that didn’t add up.
Sure, sometimes people dumped their shit behind a business when they had no way of getting rid of it themselves.
Still, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, making me reach for a stack of old crates and moving them closer to the stinking dumpster.
I should have known.
Even without looking.