Page 30 of Pin-up Girl

“Just…shut up for a few minutes. I need to order my thoughts. Milo and Jules should be here any second, and we can all pick over it play by play.”

“What the fuck ever.” Flopping back, she covered her face with her palms, the tip of her nose the only thing showing.

Three minutes was all it took before Milo came barging into the room with Jules on his heels. Both were understandably nervous with the way I left the text. Too bad for them that wasn’t going to go away.

“What happened?” Milo softly panted as he slung his backpack on his bed and grabbed a water bottle from his mini-fridge.

Jules pointed a thumb at Milo in awhat he saidgesture.

“We were crossing the street to get Elise to her art class when some fucking asshole tried to run us down.” I leaned forward, gripping my bouncing knees. The adrenaline wasn’t leaving, so I needed to either run a marathon or participate in a sex-a-thon to level myself down.

“What?” Milo’s shoulders slightly lowered like this wasn’t a big deal. It was. A. Big. Fucking. Deal.

“What the hell does that mean? They’ve caught on to us. What other reason would someone try to turn me into roadkill?” I nearly shouted the last word, but caught myself just in time.

“Emmett, no one knew you would be over there today. It was probably an accident.” Milo fell into the corner armchair, holding his head up with fingers to the temple.

I opened my mouth, then shut it. Elise was getting way too much information about us, and until we got her in a compromising position that would guarantee she wouldn’t snitch, we couldn’t trust her.

“Elise.” I rubbed a soothing hand down her leg. “Why don’t you go shower and take a break? This all has to be stressful for you. You can use either my room or Jules’.”

She violently shook her head. “No fucking way. You dragged me into this, even after Irepeatedlygave you dickheadsmy wordI wouldn’t go to the police or any-fucking-one else. Now, it seems there might be more danger than what you originally shared with me. If my ass is going to be on the line for any goddamned reason, I want to know why.”

The three of us exchanged glances, not sure where to go from here—at least, I wasn’t sure. She had a valid point, but her concerns weren’t my top priority. They weren’t even on the list of shit I gave a fuck about.

Milo broke our stare down, slowly nodding at Elise. What the hell? We might as well kiss our shot at freedom goodbye if he was going to start smearing our shit all over the wall for anyone to see.

Jules took two threatening steps toward Milo, but he just held up his hand, silently telling him to wait. “We have something we need to do tonight. You’re going with us. After that, if you still want answers, we’ll give them to you.”

Jules relaxed and so did I, but I wasn’t so sure this was a good idea anymore.

“Maybe we should postpone this job.” I pinched the knees of my jeans, tugging them down as I adjusted in the seat. As soon as I was comfortable, I set about tapping a wicked fast beat on the arm of the couch.

“I’m not convinced this is what you think it was.” Milo shook his head, but the doubt clouding his face was obvious in the way he set his mouth and tilted his head.

“Okay, let’s say you’re right, all we lose is a couple of days. If you’re wrong—and I’m telling you, Milo, everything in my body screams that you’re wrong—we could just be giving these Fuckfaces more opportunity to get to us. I say we head to Jules’ house in the mountains for a few days and calm our asses down.”

Elise’s gaze burned into the side of my head. She had questions, and who wouldn’t in her place? But they’d have to wait. I should be ecstatic she was letting us hash this out our way without interfering with one of her smart-ass comments. Only, my heart was in overdrive, and I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky at all.

Jules whipped out his phone, typed something into it, then showed it first to me, then to Milo.

I think Em is right, and this was an attempt to hurt us. But if we hide, it will make us seem guiltier. Maybe they know we are, maybe they just suspect it, but if we hide, we’ll be admitting it. Plus, if we stay and move forward as planned, whoever is after us will have more chances to mess up. We know to be vigilant now.

Fuck, all of those were good points. Milo agreed one hundred percent as he read the message, nodding and shooting determined glances at me.

I bent forward and snatched the phone.Fine. I can see I’m outnumbered, but I want it on the record that I think this is a horrible idea. Oh, and the car that nearly ran us over was a black Maserati. Just thought you’d like to know.

Milo stiffened. If anything was going to put this into perspective, it was that. All the elite members of Infinity drove black fucking Maseratis. What better way to give us anin your facewarning than to nearly kill me with their symbol? It was too much of a coincidence to think it was anything other than a warning, or a hit gone wrong. I hoped it was the former.

“We’ll keep moving forward, and depending on tonight, we might speed it up,” Milo decreed.

Clownface wasn’t going to be happy, and he had the power to shut our shit down fast if he squealed. If we played our cards right, we’d be able to intimidate him into our corner. Either that or blackmail. We’d see how the night went.

And for the love of fucking God, I hoped this didn’t backfire on us. But with an attempt to take us out hanging over our heads, and Elise chomping at the bits to leave us in the dust, my expectations were suddenly basement level.

Only a handful of hours, and we’d find out exactly where we stood.

Chapter Nine

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