Page 19 of Point Blank

“You have a gun?” Her throat squeezed out the word.

He lifted his shoulder. “Does that bother you?”

She wet her lips and shook her head. Any form of protection was an asset right now. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

He winked at her. “Don’t worry, I know how to use it.” He edged her back with his elbow until she was two feet away from the door. He moved close to the white-painted wood and brought his ear close to the surface.

He unlocked the door, stepped back, and shoved it open with his foot, keeping his gun trained on the open doorway. She pressed her body tight to the wall as blood rushed through her brain.

Milo stepped over the threshold and jerked his head toward the interior.

“Stay close.”

She nodded and followed him into the apartment. He held his hand out, indicating for her to wait in the open-concept kitchen and living area as he swept through the rest of the tiny space.

“All clear,” he said, as he exited Dani’s bedroom, closed the front door, and secured the lock.

Serena rolled her shoulders back and advanced to the edge of the couch, where Dani permanently kept her laptop. On the side table sat several framed pictures—one of Dani and her celebrating her first real estate sale, another of Peyton and Dani in Europe a couple of summers before. A smile touched her lips as she stared at Peyton’s tight hold on her sister’s shoulders. Dani and Peyton had been best friends since they were nine.

Dani had taken their mother’s death the hardest. For the first month after moving in with their aunt and uncle, she hadn’t spoken a word to anyone.

Then she’d met Peyton.

Serena’s heartstrings pulled at the memory of the petite strawberry-blonde girl who at age nine had looked no older than seven. The day Dani had found Peyton, cops and a fire truck had surrounded the little girl’s house and she’d been hiding in a tree. Dani climbed up and sat beside her. They instantly bonded. Later, Serena learned that Peyton had set fire to the back porch of her new foster home. Having grown up watching her father beat her mother half to death, she’d been whooshed into child protective services and had a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas. She’d rebelled against every home she’d been placed in, but the last set of foster parents didn’t give up on her despite her pyro moment, and now, from what Serena knew, she had a good relationship with them.

She lowered herself to the couch and opened the computer. Milo paced in front of the door with his gun still drawn for a few moments and then turned to face her. The password bar popped up, and she glided her fingers over the keys. Milo dropped down beside her on the couch.

“You know her password, too?” His eyebrow cocked.

She glanced at him. “Dani has used the same password for everything since she was a teenager.” A beat passed. “Don’t you dare tell her I told you that.”

He chuckled and laid the gun on the coffee table inches from his knees.

“Scout’s honor. What are you looking for?”

She pulled up Dani’s email first. “She was trying to coerce me into doing a job, so that means she already had it well planned. Which means she’d put a team together.”

“Can’t you just phone those people?”

She shook her head. Saying she and Dani ran in different circles would be an understatement.

“I don’t know her friends anymore.”

“What about Peyton?”

“I haven’t talked to her since the Alban heist. I don’t have her number now, but maybe I can reach out to her another way.”

Milo rested his elbows on his knees, and his hands hung between them. God, he was so close. The muscles in his thighs pressed against the material of his jeans. Her throat constricted.

Focus.

“You and Dani were joined at the hip growing up. How is it you don’t know her friends other than Peyton?”

Sadness gripped her tongue as her childhood washed over her. She rubbed the pad of her thumb over her middle fingertip as she stared at the screen. She and Dani had always been best friends. As children raised by a thief, they’d always known they were different, that their home was different. Kids at school talked about their parents’ careers and spent their evenings playing sports with the neighborhood kids. Not Dani and her. When their uncle wasn’t grooming them for a job, they were helping Aunt Mae around the house. Even in school they’d been ostracized. No one wanted their kids playing with the nieces of a criminal. Dani, Milo, Brock, and Peyton had become her family. After Serena had gotten out, she’d told Dani to keep her jobs and colleagues away from her. All it took was for Serena to be seen with one wanted criminal to detonate the life she’d built. However, doing so had put a small wedge between her and Dani. Peyton was the only friend of her sister’s that she knew well.

She scrolled through Dani’s inbox, but nothing from the last few days jumped out at her. A couple of Amazon orders and—ooh, her favorite designer boot store. She resisted the urge to click on the shipping notification that could be her Christmas present and went to Dani’s Sent folder.

She didn’t spare Milo a glance. “Because, like I already told you, I’m not in that lifestyle anymore. We hang out and watch our favorite shows, shop, eat, but she knows I don’t want anything to do with her . . . associates.”