The floor drops out from under me.
I feel it physically, a cold, dizzying lurch in my stomach that I have to breathe through very carefully. My fingers press into the worn leather of my purse, hard enough that I can feel the broken zipper digging into my palm, and I use the pain to anchor myself.
What the fuck is he asking me this for?
I keep my face completely neutral. “No relation,” I say simply.
“Oh.” Milo nods slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. "They died," he says, and his voice is perfectly, carefully sympathetic. "A few years back. I heard it was a robbery gone wrong." He shakes his head. "Terrible thing."
The silence that follows is so loud I can hear my own heartbeat.
"That is terrible," I say, and my voice comes out steady, which feels like a small miracle.
Raff moves, one small shift of his weight that brings him half a step closer to me, his arm pressing firmly against mine. I don't look at him.
I can't afford to look at him right now because if I do something is going to crack open in my face that I can't afford to have Milo see.
But I feel my alpha there, solid and warm and completely certain, and it's enough to keep me standing upright while Milo watches me with those careful, patient eyes.
"Did you know them well?" Milo asks. "The family?"
"Not really," I say. "I was only there a short time."
He nods again, slow and thoughtful, like he's simply taking it all in. Then he looks around the shop one more time, his gaze moving over Odette and Perrin, over theCamaro, over the tool chests and the hydraulic lift and the cluttered workbench where I was sitting five minutes ago.
"Well." He looks back at me. "I'm glad you're okay, Elle. After the market." He taps the side of his leg once with his palm, a small, restless movement. "Anton was worried about you."
And there it is.
"Tell him I'm fine," I say pleasantly.
Milo holds my gaze for one long moment. Then he nods. "I'll do that," he says quietly. And then he turns and walks back out through the open bay door into the afternoon sun.
Nobody speaks for a moment.
I stand there in the middle of the shop floor with my worn-out purse in both hands and listen to the sound of Milo's footsteps on the concrete outside, then the distant sound of a car door, and finally an engine turning over and pulling away.
Then nothing.
Raff turns to me first. His intense expression is gone, replaced by something considerably more tender.
"Who is he?" he asks quietly as his dark eyes move across my face.
"He worked with me at the Morder," I say. "He’s a pharmacy tech.”
"And the pharmacy he mentioned." Raff's voice is careful. "Cassville Care."
I look down at the purse in my hands. At the worn leather and the broken zipper and the work badge somewhere inside it with my mother's pharmacy printed across the top in the clean, simple font she chose herself because she said it looked professional without being cold.
"That was my parents' pharmacy," I say.
Raff's jaw tightens, but he doesn't say anything. He just watches my face.
"It's fine," I say, and I mean it. Mostly. "People used to ask all the time before I left Cassville." I squeeze the purse over in my hands, running my thumb along the broken zipper. "After my parents died, the police asked me about it a hundred times. Neighbors asked, even strangers who read about it in the paper and recognized me in the grocery store." I shrug one shoulder, trying to make it feel as casual as it sounds. "People are morbid. They want the details.” I look up at Raff. "Milo probably heard about it somewhere and wanted the story. That's all."
I say it with enough conviction that I almost believe it.
Almost.
