Chapter 17
Victoria
For an entire week, Victoria had been patient.
She bided her time, hoping something or someone would reveal itself at the storage facility.
So far, there had been nothing out of the ordinary.
Knowing she was probably being watched at work, she acted like she didn’t know and that nothing was wrong.
Over the past week, though, she’d done a few things in the name of investigation and self-preservation.
She’d gone back to Venus Rising one afternoon, Bobbie wasn’t there, thank goodness, and picked Lauren’s brain about the surveillance system.
Lauren was happy to help, and showed her which app to download, how to log in, and then manipulate the settings all from her phone.
Lauren even showed her a toggle switch that let recordings be saved, and all week, Victoria practiced.
Lauren warned her that there was limited memory, so Victoria was sure to erase the practice videos as she went along.
She’d been pleased to hear that things were progressing nicely with Lauren and her partner.
She felt proud that she’d helped facilitate their reconnection.
During that entire week, though, Victoria had become a bit obsessed.
Using the app, she spied on Erin and Miguel looking for anything out of place.
She felt a slight pang of guilt spying, but WTF, Erin had been doing that all along.
Both Erin and Miguel seemed oblivious to the fact that the system now showed all twenty cameras, probably because you needed to scroll to the last page to see the new ones.
She unplugged the audio wire after every shift to keep her discoveries under wraps.
The other cameras that had come online after she’d rebooted the system pointed to weird places.
One was directed at the woods behind the storage facility.
Another camera made her blood boil. There was a hidden camera in Kimo’s unit.
Someone had been spying on them as they worked out.
During the week, she kept up appearances and continued to do her usual workouts with him, but tonight it was time to change that routine.
She pulled into the storage facility parking lot and pulled into her usual spot.
She was a few minutes early, so she sat in her pickup with the engine running to keep the heater on.
November was cold in Indiana. She’d forgotten how the plains and farmland did nothing to hold back the icy winds.
Throughout the week, Victoria had been repacking her boxes stacked in Erin’s living room with stuff she’d had scattered around the apartment.
She would be moving out, that was for sure.
She just didn’t know when. She even moved a few boxes back onto the floorboard of her extended cab.
Soon, the seats and the open bed in the back would be filled with her stuff.
Where would she be going? She had no clue.
She only knew that she couldn’t stay there much longer.
During the week, she’d checked in on Kinks, too.
Juicy_Babe seemed to be AWOL. Victoria had received no messages from her and had seen no new posts.
Of course, Victoria hadn’t been active either.
With all this shit at her job, she just couldn’t find the energy to initiate a conversation with Juicy_Babe.
Besides, the woman probably saw Victoria for what she was, an insensitive coward who’d run away from her problems instead of admitting her part in them and staying to make it right.
Who wants a Domme like that? No one. It was probably for the best since Victoria planned to take off soon.
She’d run before, and she was running again.
It was time. Victoria braced for the cold and left her safe, warm pickup. Robby had just pulled up, so she said hello to him, but didn’t linger. Once inside, she was grateful that Erin didn’t skimp on the heat in the office.
“Hey, cousin,” Erin said. There was a happy lilt to her voice.
“Cold out there,” Victoria said and shivered. The weather was a good, neutral topic in any situation.
“All’s quiet here.” Erin put her coat on and headed for the office door. “Robby’s taking me out for Tuesday night wings at Indy Sports Bar and Grill.”
“Nice place?”
“Yeah, the food’s good. And there are sports on every TV. Go sportsball,” Erin said sarcastically. “Hey, we’ll try not to wake you tomorrow morning.”
“Enjoy your evening,” Vic said.
Victoria watched through the parking lot camera as Erin got in Robby’s car and they drove away.
She took a deep breath for courage. All week, she had been waffling between thinking Erin was somehow playing her big time like Eddie and Donny had done back in the day, but then she’d think the cousin she’d grown up with, who was almost like a sister, would never do anything like that to her.
And Victoria was still waffling as she plugged in the audio wire and set the system to record.
She pulled out her app and set that to record as well.
If her half-baked plan came to nothing, that would be fine.
She would simply erase everything and try again the next day.
Her instinct to give the hidden clock camera a one-finger salute was strong, but she focused on the beverage station instead as she put on her coat.
She set a timer on her phone for five seconds but didn’t start it.
She set it to go off if she needed a quick excuse to ditch Kimo.
She checked the Kimo camera on her app as she walked out the security office door.
There he was, in his unit, just sitting there, tapping on his phone.
She walked quietly but steadily toward his unit on the back side of the facility and watched him on the app. Just as she rounded the corner, he looked toward the partly opened door and picked up one of the hand weights.
“Hey, Kimo,” she announced as she ducked under the door.
“Fourteen, fifteen,” he said, doing bicep curls. He put the weight down. “Hey, Vic. Cold, huh?”
Victoria’s spidey senses prickled. There was no way he had done fifteen reps. He had just picked up the weight when she rounded the corner.
He went over to the door and closed it all the way. The battery powered lanterns he had scattered around gave enough light for them to see adequately with the door closed.
“Nah,” she said, and told him to leave it open three feet. Sure, it was cold, but she needed it open. And even though she was the one with the taser and the pepper spray, every woman knew not to put herself in an isolated situation like that.
He turned the music on and cranked it up.
“Hey, I got a headache. You know, I have cramps and all that,” she said, trying to throw him off. No guy wanted to hear about menstrual cramps. “Can you turn the music down. Nah, turn it off, man. Period headaches suck.”
She bit back a smile when his eyes grew wide, and a panicked expression took over his face.
She had to turn away from him. “I mean, you could sing or something,” she added and then laughed.
“I’m just gonna do some cardio, I think.
” She grabbed the jump rope from the rack and moved toward the space near the partly opened door.
“Hey, did you stretch before starting? Oh, of course you did, Mr. Fifteen Reps. Never mind.”
She had to stop. She was babbling and getting weird.
If she kept it up, he would catch on. Her nerves were trying to get the better of her.
She groaned to relieve the tension and rubbed her lower belly as if the cramps were getting to her.
She did her own dynamic stretching to get the blood flowing.
She dragged it out, but while she was stretching, she was also actively listening.
She couldn’t exactly pull out her phone and watch the camera feeds on her new app, right?
She heard nothing outside.
She began her jump-rope routine, purposely messing up so she had to regroup and could listen. Nothing each time.
Kimo, meanwhile, had moved on to triceps work with the free weights. She hoped he wouldn’t ask for her to spot him for squats. She wanted to stay by the door, freeze her ass off, all in the name of finding out how and why someone was messing with her.
She finished her usual jump rope routine and then decided she needed to do floor work.
She got down on the concrete, held a plank position for thirty seconds, then rested.
Just as she pushed up for her third plank, she heard it.
Outside. Metal on metal. Adrenaline exploded in her chest. It was happening.
She dropped to the ground as if exhausted, pulled out her phone, and tapped the timer.
It was the longest five seconds she’d ever experienced.
When the timer alarm finally went off, it sounded like a typical phone ringing.
She made a show of looking at the screen.
“Oh, shit, it’s a prison call from my dad. I have to take this.”
She didn’t look at Kimo and simply rolled calmly out the door leaving her jacket inside.
Once outside, she sprang to her feet. There it was again.
Someone was opening or closing a door to one of the units.
She pulled the taser from its holster. She didn’t run; that would make too much noise, but she moved quickly and stealthily.
“How many more?” a male voice asked.
Oh, shit. Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. It was her cousin Donny.
They were right around the corner. She peeked and saw both of her cousins hard at work obviously up to no good.
“Five,” Eddie said, wheeling out a hand truck laden with boxes. “And then a big payday.”
Victoria flattened herself against the building. They hadn’t seen her, but she knew time was not on her side. Kimo would let them know she was out and about. Of that she was certain.
“Best hire our sister ever made,” Donny said and laughed. “Vic has no fucking clue she’s been our patsy this whole time. She’s so stupid.”