Page 55 of Point Blank

She lifted a slice to her plate and blew on it. “Well, for one thing, I like this view a lot better.” She let her gaze slide to his bronze, ripped abdomen.

“And I like this”—he inched up the T-shirt she wore—“a lot better.”

She shooed his hand away, but laughter tickled her throat. She took a bite of pizza, and the sweet taste of basil touched her tongue. A cloud of hesitation crept over her. This was dangerous. Having unattached sex with Milo was turning out to be harder than she’d anticipated. He was right: nothing they did would ever mean “nothing.”

But what did it mean? She couldn’t entertain the fantasy of having a relationship with him. Wounds could be healed, but betrayal? She had to know more. Had to dredge up the past.

“I have to ask . . . where’s your dad now?”

A string of cheese dropped onto Milo’s chin, and he wiped it off before flicking his gaze toward her. His expression remained neutral, but the vein at his temple pulsed.

“In prison.”

Questions burned her throat. She let that information settle as she scarfed down the rest of her slice. Angelo Baxter hadn’t exactly been a shining father, from what she remembered. He’d always been so hard on Milo and Tasha, but more so Milo. On more than one occasion she’d witnessed the older man backhanding his son, or cutting him down. Milo might not have been flat-out physically abused, but she suspected emotional abuse had been part of his daily life. Yet, Milo had always strived to earn his father’s pride. Had he ever attained it?

“I don’t even remember the last time I saw your dad.” She reached for another piece of pizza. It was a flimsy thing to say, but she didn’t want the conversation to die. Not yet.

“What about your uncle?”

She snorted. Her stomach bunched into knots. The atmosphere in the kitchen was no longer heavy with passion but with tension. She hated talking about her uncle, but if it opened the lines of communication between Milo and her, she would.

“I haven’t seen him since the Alban heist.”

“You were working that for him?”

Taking a bite more viciously than necessary, she nodded. “Yup. That was our big-ticket parting heist. For years Dani and I tried to get away from him, but every time we’d tell him we were done, he’d come crawling around a few months later saying how sick Aunt Mae was. That she needed this or that, that they didn’t have money for food or had been evicted.”

Milo got up and circled the island. “Water?”

“Please.”

He filled their glasses at the fridge. “I’m not surprised. Sebastian was a con man. I still can’t believe he had you girls stealing so young.”

Memories circulated through her mind. By the time she was fourteen, she’d robbed a liquor store and stolen a car for her uncle. It wasn’t long after her sixteenth birthday that he had Dani and her doing heists with him. Teenage girls weren’t suspicious, especially when it came to drug dealers or other criminals. She and Dani had revolted against him often. Their sweet, beloved Aunt Mae was the only reason they hadn’t run away sooner. By eighteen, Serena had been so deep in that life that she didn’t know any different. Sometimes, she fantasized about what life would have been like with her mom. Catalina wouldn’t have allowed Sebastian to manipulate them—she would have protected them. Serena’s heart throbbed in her throat. Her mom wouldn’t have wanted the criminal life for them.

If only she hadn’t been addicted to drugs. If only she hadn’t died. Their life would have been so different. She and Dani would have been loved. Cherished. Happy. Not used and brainwashed.

“Yeah, he was great at manipulating. After the Alban heist went down, Dani and I totally cut him out. We left our apartment in the middle of the night and changed our phone numbers. He must have been livid.”

“You haven’t heard from him since?” He passed her a glass of water.

“Nope.”

“And Aunt Mae?”

“She passed away a few months before the heist.” Serena chortled. “Uncle Sebastian even used her death to trap us. With the medical bills and funeral costs . . . it wasn’t hard to believe he needed money. We agreed that job would be the last one.”

“Do you think he tried to find you?”

“Probably for a while,” she said, shrugging. “I can’t see him having much purpose anymore, with Aunt Mae gone. Even when he asked us to do the Alban heist, he was different. Resigned, you could say.”

Milo leaned forward on the counter across from her. The deep greens of his eyes roamed over her face. “I’m sorry about Mae. She was the kindest lady I’ve ever met.”

Fondness burned a fuzzy halo over her skin. She missed her mother’s sister almost as much as she missed her mother. Serena had never wanted to burden her with what their uncle made them do, but Mae wasn’t stupid. She’d known her husband better than anyone. It seemed she’d always put her head in the sand about how he provided for them.

“Me too.” She stretched her spine against the back of the stool. “Angelo hasn’t reached out to you?”

Milo looked down. She hated that she had to make him uncomfortable, but if they didn’t talk about their past, they couldn’t move forward.