You don't need to use multer to delete the file and besides _removeFile is a private function that you should not use.

You'd delete the file as you normally would via fs.unlink. So wherever you have access to req.file, you can do the following:

const fs = require('fs')
const { promisify } = require('util')

const unlinkAsync = promisify(fs.unlink)

// ...

const storage = multer.diskStorage({
    destination(req, file, cb) {
      cb(null, '/tmp/my-uploads')
    },
    filename(req, file, cb) {
      cb(null, `${file.fieldname}-${Date.now()}`)
    }
  })

const upload = multer({ storage: storage }).single('file')

app.post('/api/photo', upload, async (req, res) =>{
    // You aren't doing anything with data so no need for the return value
    await uploadToRemoteBucket(req.file.path)

    // Delete the file like normal
    await unlinkAsync(req.file.path)

    res.end("UPLOAD COMPLETED!")
})