Page 65 of Point Blank

“Let’s avoid that, shall we?” She nodded toward the end of the bathroom, where the dressing room waited. “Go.”

His fingers flexed on the flashlight at his side, but he obliged. She followed him into the dressing room the size of her living room. Along one wall were mirrors and along the other, perfectly lined-up dress shirts, suits, and shoes—more shoes than she and Dani put together owned.

“The safe is here,” she said, gesturing to a large painting on the wall opposite the mirrors. Milo grabbed the frame and lifted, but it didn’t budge.

“That can’t be right. Who would nail a painting to the wall?”

“I don’t see any nail holes in the frame,” she said, dragging her fingers along the bottom. The last time she was here, she certainly hadn’t inspected the frame. “But—” Her fingers brushed a metal latch. “Oh, look.”

Milo’s hard hand clamped on her wrist. “Wait. There could be an alarm. Did Titus say anything about one?”

She yanked her fingers away from the frame as if it had burned her. Good god, she hadn’t even thought about an alarm being on the frame. Slowly she shook her head. In her mind, she tore through the conversation she’d had with Titus.

“No, he didn’t say. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.” She wet her lips and crouched. Milo dropped next to her, shining the flashlight’s beam under the frame. “How would we be able to tell?” The years since she’d operated on a heist had thinned her access to facts that she’d once stored at the forefront of her mind.

Milo made a tsking sound. “It depends,” he said. His breath warmed her cheek. The wide circumference of his bicep moved in front of her vision as he fingered the spot her hands had just vacated. “If it’s a hardwired alarm, we might not see much. Hold the light.”

She wiggled lower under the frame and took the flashlight. Its yellow beam washed each crevice in a warm glow. “Would it be on the latch or the hinge?”

Milo’s face tightened. “I thought the latch, but I don’t see anything.” He inched over to the hinge and she crawled closer to him.

“There,” she whispered. She stretched her hand over Milo’s shoulder and hovered her finger near a single tight curl of a wire that jutted out from the frame and then disappeared into the wall. “Can we cut it?”

Milo cursed and pulled out his phone. He snapped pictures and then sat back on his haunches. “I’ll send this to Brock. He might know. I think we can cut it, but I want to be certain.”

Beep, beep

A muffled voiced followed the peel of static. Serena snapped her head toward the bedroom. “What was that?” she hissed.

Milo looked up from his phone, his body rigid.

Crrr . . . beep, beep

“I’m upstairs,” a deep male voice rumbled from the hallway beyond the bedroom. Serena’s blood raced through her veins and her breath expanded in her chest. She stared wide-eyed at Milo. He shot his hand out, gripped her under the arm, and hauled her to her feet.

“I’ll be down in a minute. I thought I heard something from the master bedroom, just checking it out.” Another beep followed.

Shit, shit, shit!

Milo’s fingers bit into her bicep. He dragged her backward, behind a wall of suit jackets, and pressed her into the corner. His hot, heavy body molded over top of hers, his sternum against her chest and his thighs against hers. She closed her hands around the thick leather of his jacket and pressed her face into his chest. The heady scent of leather filled her nostrils. She clamped her lips together to stop the panicked, greedy breaths her lungs desperately wanted to suck in.

“Don’t move,” Milo whispered into her ear. She heard a switch being flipped on in the walk-in closet. Shafts of light shone on them through the suit jackets. The intrusion stripped away her adrenaline, replacing the much-needed hormone with the prickly sting of fear. She turned her head a fraction of an inch toward the suit jackets. From where they stood, she had a view of half the closet. She kept her eyes down but couldn’t for the life of her close them. Her lids ached to blink, but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

Black leather boots stepped into her line of vision and her muscles sprang to attention. Milo’s arms tightened around her, his breath creating a puddle of moisture at her neck. She moved her gaze up the guard’s body and stopped on his hand, which hung at his side.

He lifted his hand, poking his fingers through the slit between the two jackets concealing her. She sucked her breath in through her lips and squeezed her eyes shut.

Crrr . . . beep, beep

Serena jumped at the sound of the radio, but Milo’s hold restricted her movement to no more than a hiccup.

“Rudy, pizza’s here. Better hurry up or I’m eating all the pepperoni slices.” The guard’s fingers fell away from the suit jackets and his boots retreated.

“Don’t touch the pepperoni. You said you wanted Hawaiian.” His voice trailed off, and a beat later, the closet light switched off, basking them in darkness. Serena exhaled all the air from her lungs and picked her head off Milo’s chest.

She brought her hand to her throat, where her pulse still galloped against the thin flesh. “Holy shit,” she whispered. “I thought we were done for.”

Milo grunted, moved one of the sleeves to the side, and peeked through the jackets. He brought his wrist to his mouth. “We had a close call. One of the guards came up. We overheard him say he thought he’d heard something. Be on the lookout for the guards. Didn’t sound like they were going to continue the search, but be careful.”