“I’m going to push on one foot. Can you swing the other to the balcony?”
“Yes,” she said with a gasp. She’d come this far—there was no way in hell she was letting go of the railing until she was standing on the balcony. He pressed both of his hands beneath one foot, boosting her up another few inches. With that momentum, she lunged her knee to the concrete ledge and wiggled her hands up the bars. She was too high for Milo to reach her other foot. She was on her own.
She summoned all her strength and ignored the burning in her shoulders. Gritting her teeth, she dug her knee deeper into the piercing surface. She dragged her other leg up and her toe caught the lip of the ledge. The pins and needles in her arms faded away.
She’d made it.
She turned to look down at Milo, a grin tickling the corners of her mouth. The flash of his white teeth made her smile brighter. She climbed over the metal railing and dropped to the balcony.
“Yes! Way to go.” Peyton’s giddy encouragement shrieked through the earbud. She didn’t risk responding but gave a thumbs-up in her direction.
Her muscles desperately wanted a break, but she couldn’t waste a second. She pulled the cable that hung across her chest over her head and secured it to the top of the railing. Then she tossed the end down to Milo.
She watched as he jerked on the wire and shook his head. He turned toward Brock and signaled him.
She held her hand out in the air, palm up. What the hell was he doing?
“I need a boost,” he mouthed.
Brock’s form skittered across the lawn from the fountain, following the same route they’d taken. There was a flurry of movement below as Brock boosted Milo up the wall. With his boots pressed into the stacked stone, the cable in his hands, Milo walked his way up the steep incline. His muscles tensed with every hand-over-fist motion and every stomp of his boot. His head reached the railing, and he shot his gloved hand out to catch the steel. Serena latched her hands onto his forearm, but before she could try to help him over, he swung his leg over the edge and dropped down beside her.
A rush of air blew from his lips. “Don’t ask me to do that again.”
She snickered behind her fingers. “You did good.”
“Pretty sure I pulled a hamstring.”
“You never were good at stretching after your workouts.”
He grunted and nodded at the balcony door. “Is it locked?”
“I didn’t try it.” She moved to the double doors and pushed on the winged handle. “Yeah, it is.”
Without missing a beat, she pulled out her lock-pick set. She’d let Milo catch his breath while she worked on the door. She inserted the tools and a few clicks later, the lock released. She pushed on the handle again and the door glided into the room.
Milo caught her wrist before she could cross the threshold. “Wait here.”
“Why?”
“Stay put.” He advanced into the room, flashlight in hand, and she reached for the gun at the small of her back. Its weight made the aching muscles in her hands ache that much more. Milo disappeared into the room, and she rocked onto her toes and back down to her heels.
A second later he stepped into the pool of moonlight shining through the balcony doors and motioned her inside.
“Can’t take any chances.”
She nodded and returned the gun to its spot before following him into the room. His flashlight illuminated their path. They passed a large stone fireplace at the foot of the California king-sized bed and moved into the en suite. Memories of Titus parading her through the same space flooded her. Had it really been only days since she’d been a rising, hungry realtor without impending doom closing in on her every breath?
Her fingers drifted toward the white marble and quartz with light-blue accent tile, but didn’t touch. A soaker tub large enough to fit a horse sat nestled beneath a chandelier, with the fireplace at its back. Despite the fact that she was robbing her client, excitement at the house’s features hummed through her all over again. Maybe selling the house in record time would cancel out the bad karma of her act.
“Oh my god,” she moaned. “I forgot how glorious this bathroom is. I’d kill to soak in this tub.”
Milo turned, and the flashlight’s glow cast shadows over his face. His jaw moved back and forth.
“If you start stripping, we’ll never leave this bathroom.”
“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 w
hispered 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.”
“Oh my god,” Peyton said, her words as sharp as glass.
Brock unleashed a stream of curses. “Get the hell out of there quickly, you guys. I did some research on the safe’s alarm. Looks like you can snip that little wire and it won’t sound.”
Serena pressed the button on her sleeve, activating her mic. “And if it does?”
“Run.” Brock’s clipped response didn’t settle her nerves. She looked up at Milo. He curled his lip, obviously not satisfied with that answer either. Brock pulled out the flashlight, knelt and set it on the ground. Next, he pulled out a small toolkit from his inside jacket pocket and retrieved a pair of cutters.
Serena dropped her head back to stare at the large globe of light where the beam ended.
Snip
She squeezed her lips together and fought down the rush of vomit that wanted to leap from her stomach.
Nothing. Not even a beep.
Milo’s husky laugh broke through the web of anxiety clouding her vision. “We’re in.”
She lowered her chin, bringing her gaze level with Milo’s. He smiled and motioned her to the floor next to him. She dropped down, took the flashlight, and found the small latch that secured the wood to the wall. She flipped it open and the frame cracked away from the drywall. Milo grabbed the edge and inched the frame open.
Sunken into the wall was the safe’s five-foot-tall gunmetal door. Milo whistled. “This thing is huge.” He turned to her. “Think you can crack it?”
She nodded. Milo swung his backpack to the floor and passed her the stethoscope. She removed her earbud and tucked it into her pocket, then fit the rubber pieces of the stethoscope into her ears and pressed the diaphragm to the door near the handle. “Be ready to remember the numbers.”
She closed her eyes and spun the dial, taking slow and steady breaths through her nose. The soft whir of the dial sounded in her ears, drowning out the sounds around her and heightening her other senses. This time, she didn’t have the uncontrollable pattering of her heart in her eardrums to compete with the sound of the safe. Not with Milo on guard at her back.
Click
“Forty-four.”
She spoke the comb numbers aloud. Milo would keep note of them in case she made a mistake and they had to start over. She spun it again and let her muscles relax with every inhale of Milo’s sandalwood cologne.
Click
“Thirteen.”
Milo shifted next to her. She swallowed. One more.
Click
She ripped the earbuds out of her ears. “Six.”
Milo took the stethoscope from her, and his hand closed over hers on the door. She reinserted the earbud, and pulled on the handle of the safe. It sailed open. The muscle behind Milo’s grip made the door move a hell of a lot easier than if she’d pulled it on her own.
“We’re in,” Serena said into the mic at her wrist.
“Yes!” Peyton hissed in her ear. “See? Piece of cake.”
“Easy, we’re not done yet,” Milo said. His breath on her neck kept her from shaking. If there was one man more terrifying than Alban, it was Titus. As Milo had said, stealing from him would ensure their hands—and who knew what else—would be cut off before their throats were slit. Milo turned the flashlight and a beam of yellow glowed over the shelves. Serena’s gaze skimmed over the contents.
One shelf held knives of various lengths. Seven handguns and some ammo sat on another shelf. The one beneath it held stacks of papers.
Milo reached above her head and pulled out a wide tray from the top shelf.
“Is that it?” she said, rising to her tiptoes. He held it out for her to see. She lifted the lid. Eight rows, each with ten compartments, held various stones. “Holy shit,” she wheezed. She rested her fingers on the brushed satin of the case, tilting it an inch to display its contents.
Diamonds ranging in color from the clearest white to near black sat coordinated in each pocket. The center compartment held one single blue diamond.
“That looks like a piece of a fucking glacier.”
“It has to be ten carats.” She opened the black velvet drawstring bag that she’d pulled from her pocket. “Dump them in.”
Milo shook the diamonds out of the tray, and they fell into the bag like a rainbow waterfall of glittering candy, catching the light to send tiny prisms along the wall. Milo put the tray back in the safe and closed it with a gentle thunk. Serena fit the bag into her jacket pocket and zipped it shut. Milo returned the frame to its original position and latched it.
Serena lifted her wrist to her lips. “We’ve got the diamonds. We’re heading out now.”
“Gotcha. I’m waiting beneath the balcony,” Brock said.
“The coast is clear from my vantage point—we’ll be out of here in no time.” Peyton’s reassuring sing-song pep settled the tremor in Serena’s bones.
Milo’s hand nestled between her shoulder blades and moved her through the bathroom and toward the doorway of the bedroom.
A deep growl rumbled through the air. She froze. “What the hell was—”
“Get back!” Milo shoved her behind him as a rush of energy from the bedroom charged at them. She cried out, and her back connected with the marble vanity. Milo’s body crushed against her front, the only barrier between the ferocious beast and her.
A sharp ringing screamed through her ears, deafening her. Her heart roared, warring with the attack on her eardrums. She could barely make out Brock’s words. “Serena! What’s going on?”
Serena slid her gaze around Milo’s shoulder. The black rottweiler’s white teeth were on display, and its muscles jerked beneath its shiny coat. Heat radiated off Milo’s back. His arms hovered in front of him, his stance wide, as if trying to block every inch of her from the animal. She didn’t dare breathe, let alone answer Brock.
“On the count of three, run for the door,” Milo said in a whisper.
Her eyes widened. He had to be out of his effing mind. She wasn’t charging past that thing.
“No.”
“Do it.”
The dog’s deep, guttural growling int
ensified, and she bit her lip to fight off a whimper.
“Do it before it tears my fucking balls off.”
She couldn’t nod, only groan.
“Now!”
She tore her feet from the safety behind Milo and charged for the door. The dog darted after her. Its sharp whine brought her to a halt on the bedroom carpet. She whirled around. Milo had one hand latched around the dog’s muzzle, his other arm across its chest, and his legs braced on either side of its body, immobilizing it.
“Don’t hurt it,” she wailed.
“I’m not hurting it for god’s sake, but I’m not going to let it attack you. Go,” he said, nodding at the balcony. “You need a head start.”
Her breath expanded in her lungs, sending sharp pain through her chest. No. She couldn’t leave him here. By some stroke of luck, the animal hadn’t barked, but if it did, Milo would be toast. Thank god the guards were in the kitchen eating pizza in a far section of the house and likely hadn’t heard the commotion since they’d already done their rounds of the upstairs.
“I’m not leaving you.”
His face pinched into the sharpest scowl his face had held since the night he told her he never wanted to see her again. “This isn’t negotiable. Get the hell out of here.”
She wet her lips and lifted her wrist. “Brock, we’re stuck. A rottweiler has us trapped in the bedroom. Milo has him restrained.”
Brock cursed. “Did it bark?”
“No,” she said, ignoring the flares of rage in Milo’s eyes.
“Got any food?”
She winced. Normally she carried a cashew bar in her purse, but the sleek backpack Milo wore hadn’t been packed with rations. Milo, picking up on Brock’s question, shook his head.
“No,” she said. She turned in a circle, taking in the room. There had to be something they could use. She inched past Milo and the now snarling dog and went to the closet. She grabbed a handful of silk ties and turned back to Milo.
“We can leash it with this.”
Milo scoffed. “How are we going to keep it quiet?”
The Last Heist (Pretty Thieves Book 1) Page 17
