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MITCH

T he shot had come from the alley below, close enough to crack through the night like a warning, distant enough not to be a genuine threat. Which meant it wasn’t an attack. It was a test. A measure of his response time. Someone wanted to see how fast they moved, how hard he’d clamp down after the trigger was pulled.

Mitch stood at the loft window, barefoot and shirtless, his sidearm steady in his grip. He scanned the rooftops and the streetlights with a practiced eye. No shadows moved. No telltale flicker of a second shooter repositioning. Whoever fired the round was gone. Already cleaned up. Probably halfway across the block by the time he’d registered the crack of the shot.

He didn’t relax. He kept his gaze fixed on the darkened street below, measuring every shift in the wind, every silhouette behind the glass across the way. He let his body calm, his mind slow. Not to drop his guard—but to shift into precision.

Behind him, the loft was still. Andi hadn’t spoken after the shot. She’d gone silent as he moved, letting him sweep the perimeter, letting him lead.

This wasn’t going away; it was all part of the escalation. The hit hadn’t been for her. Not this time. It had been for him.

He turned back into the loft, stepping away from the window, and activated the secure comms line on his phone. The moment it connected to Cerberus, he didn’t wait for pleasantries.

“Langdon. We had a perimeter breach. Single round, no contact. South window, upper loft. Shooter’s already ghosted. I want a full trace run.”

The voice on the other end didn’t waste time. “Copy. Parameters?”

“Everything,” Mitch said, pacing into the kitchen. “Any digital signature in the last forty-eight hours around Donato’s schedule, GPS route, internal campaign cloud access, or personal devices. I want a forensic dive. Deep and wide. Full trace on her staff’s electronics—phones, tablets, watches, personal routers, even smart plugs. If it connects to a grid, I want it cracked.”

A pause.

“Even Maya Ramsey?”

“She’s not off-limits,” Mitch said flatly. “No one is. Get someone inside her apartment within the hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

He ended the call. Pocketed the phone. Opened the fridge, stared at the bottles of water and leftover takeout without really seeing any of it, then closed the door again.

She was going to fight him on this. He knew it. She wouldn’t like what he’d just ordered. Would probably tell him he’d gone too far. That this was a violation. But she was wrong.

Trust didn’t win wars. Vigilance did.

The sound of soft footsteps behind him told him she was still awake. He didn’t turn around.

“You find anything?” Andi asked, her voice low but steady.

“Not yet.”

He heard her shift, standing near the counter, watching him. “You called it in?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

He turned slowly. Met her eyes across the island. “It was a test.”

She blinked. “What?”

“They wanted to see how fast we’d respond. What protocols I’d trigger. What perimeter layers I’d activate first.”

Andi’s jaw clenched. “So you think it was about you, not me.”

“I know it was about me protecting you.”

She took a step closer. Her robe hung loose, one shoulder slipping free, bare legs visible. But there was nothing soft about her expression.

“What else did you order?” she asked, voice dangerously calm.

Mitch didn’t hesitate. “A trace on your team’s electronics. Everything from phones to smartwatches. If it’s plugged in, Cerberus is inside it by now.”

There was a beat of silence. Then her expression hardened.

“You what?”

“I’m not saying it again.”

“You had no right to go after them without even telling me…”

“I had every right,” he interrupted, voice going cold. “Because you’re not the only one with a target on your back. I am. And now, they’re coming for you through me.”

She stared at him like he’d slapped her. “You went after Maya. She’s not a suspect.”

“Yet.”

“You think she’s the leak?”

“I think nothing until I have proof,” he said. “But she’s close. She’s trusted. She has access. And that makes her a vulnerability.”

Andi stepped around the counter, closing the distance. Her voice rose, sharp and clipped. “You don’t get to bulldoze through people’s lives just because you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” he said evenly. “I’m calculating.”

“Bullshit.”

“No,” he said, lowering his voice, but not the command in it. “You want to talk about trust? Then hear this—trust doesn’t keep you alive. Intelligence does. Action does. The second I stop treating everyone like a threat is the second someone gets a bullet between the eyes. I won’t let that be you.”

She opened her mouth, fury in her eyes, but he cut her off.

“You think I crossed a line?” he asked. “You’re damn right I did. And I’ll keep crossing them. Because trust won’t matter if you’re dead.”

Her mouth snapped shut.

He stepped in closer, lowering his voice further. “I get it. You’re angry. You think I betrayed something sacred between us. But Andi, this isn’t a love story. This is a goddamn war. And if I have to burn bridges to keep you breathing, I will. You don’t have to like it. You just have to stay alive long enough to understand why I did it.”

Her breath hitched—just for a second. Her eyes flicked to his mouth, then back to his eyes.

“I trusted you,” she said, but it came out softer this time. Less like a sword. More like a plea.

“I know.”

“And you went behind my back.”

“I went in front of your coffin,” he said. “Pick which one you prefer.”

That landed. She backed up a step, arms wrapping tight around her middle, like she was trying to hold something in. He didn’t move. Let her sit with it. She paced once. Then again. Then stopped and looked at him with eyes clearer than they’d been a moment ago.

“Just… promise me,” she said, voice quieter now, “if you find something on them—on Maya—don’t go silent again. Don’t shut me out.”

His answer was immediate. “Only if you promise not to protect people who might be trying to kill you.”

Silence stretched again. Not sharp this time—just fragile.

Finally, she nodded.

He nodded back.

“Good,” he said. “Because we’re out of time for internal politics.”

She stared out the window to the streetlight flickering below. “You think they’ll try again?”

“I know they will.”

And he would be ready. Because this wasn’t just about defending anymore. That one shot had been the opening salvo to declare hunting season.

* * *

Mitch kept himself busy for the next hour. Tactical busy. Calculated busy. The kind of busy that masked the mess building inside him.

He stripped down the weapons cache, cleaned the slide on the Glock he’d pulled from the drawer after the shot, recalibrated the trigger tension on her panic ring just to double-check the response window. He reviewed the latest Cerberus logs, scanned the GPS perimeter again, then moved to her computer—not to spy, but to check the firewall. He discovered that a third-party sync had weakened the firewall. Not unusual, except the sync came from a campaign staff device. Specifically, a tablet logged to one of her fundraising consultants. Brian Lennox. Mid-level, well-liked. Quiet. Clean file on paper.

But when Cerberus dug into the backend through their forensic net, the cracks began to show.

Mitch read the data feed twice to be sure. Lennox had personal bank transfers totaling just under fifty thousand, spread out over three months. From a holding company connected to an urban redevelopment—a shell company. On the surface, it looked like consulting payments. But the LLC tied back to a familiar name.

Paragon Equity—a known backer of Rick Wexler. One of the outfits that had tried to sue Andi into oblivion during the zoning committee vote last spring.

Mitch leaned forward and rested both forearms on the table, the corner of his mouth twitching once before it disappeared. Not a surprise. Not anymore. Just confirmation that the walls were thinner than anyone had realized.

He could feel the tug at his spine—his body calling out for movement. For violence. His instincts told him to go dark, pull Lennox out of circulation, break him down until the bastard either confessed or bled information.

But that would blow everything. No leverage. No evidence chain. And Andi would never forgive him for going rogue. Still, he wasn’t going to tell her yet. Not until he had proof she could see, touch, verify. Not until he could look her in the eye and say, ‘ This is the man who opened the door.’ And not until he knew what else the bastard had compromised.

He stood slowly and let the information soak in. Paragon’s fingerprints weren’t just on Wexler’s money. Paragon’s fingerprints were all over half the real estate deals corrupting Andi’s district. Their MO was always the same—buy loyalty in chunks, wear down resistance with just enough legal distance to avoid fallout.

And now they’d bought someone inside her team.

He texted Cerberus:

Isolate Lennox’s cloud backups. I want GPS tags, message strings, and voice logs. Discrete surveillance only. Do not tip him.

The reply came back instantly.

Affirmative. Confirming proximity logs—device synced near Donato’s personal schedule twice this week.

Twice, which meant the leak wasn’t a trickle. It was a goddamn pipeline.

Mitch pushed away from the desk and crossed to the window again. The street was still. Just a garbage truck humming down the far side and a cyclist slicing through the quiet with a messenger bag swinging off one shoulder. The night pressed against the glass with a steady kind of threat. Not overt. Just constant.

Behind him, the soft rhythm of footsteps padded across the loft.

Andi. She didn’t speak. Didn’t come close. Just passed through, grabbed a blanket from the arm of the couch, and settled on the far end with a book she didn’t open.

Mitch didn’t turn around. He didn’t trust what might show on his face if he did. She was getting to him. Not just under his skin, but beneath it. Deeper than he should have allowed. Her scent clung to the space now—jasmine, honeysuckle and a faint note of citrus she used in her lotion. It wrapped around his thoughts in ways he couldn’t shut off. Made it hard to breathe clean.

The worst part was, he didn’t want to breathe clean anymore. He wanted the mess. The fight. The fire. He wanted her voice in his ear, her hands on his shoulders, her laugh breaking through the places that hadn’t felt human in years.

But that kind of want got people killed. It blurred edges. Dulled instincts. Made men reckless, and reckless got you ambushed in alleys and flanked by your own goddamn client’s campaign staff.

So he stayed quiet. Pulled away. Let her think it was strategy, not survival. But he felt every inch of her. Every breath she took across the room.

She shifted once. He heard the blanket rustle. “You’re quiet,” she said.

He didn’t respond.

“Mitch.”

He turned just enough to look at her over his shoulder. She had one leg tucked under the other, her head tilted as she studied him like she was trying to figure out which version of him she was getting tonight.

“I’m working,” he said.

“You always say that when you’re trying to disappear.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Is that all you’re doing?”

He didn’t answer because the truth wasn’t safe to say.

Andi held his gaze for another second. Then gave a small nod and looked back down at her book. She still didn’t open it. Just held it in her lap like some kind of shield.

Mitch turned back to the window.

Cerberus sent another ping:

We’ve pulled the background on Lennox. Connected address matches drop point for envelope two.

There it was. The connection. Mitch ran a hand over his jaw, tension grinding deep in his teeth. He needed a play that didn’t blow the lead. Something clean. Surgical. A private meet under pretense. Isolate, interrogate, extract.

He checked his watch. Midnight. Too late to act now. Too early to sleep.

Andi rose from the couch, moved toward the kitchen. She moved quietly, but he still tracked her with every step.

“You want tea?” she asked, voice neutral.

“No.”

She nodded, opened the cabinet, and filled the kettle anyway.

They stood in silence. He didn’t approach. She didn’t push. It should have felt like détente. It didn’t. What it felt like was failure.

Because no matter how far he pulled back, he couldn’t stop seeing her in his arms—naked, trembling, trusting. Couldn’t stop hearing her voice when she’d whispered, ‘what do you need from me tonight?’ like it cost her something, and she gave it freely, anyway.

Protocols did not build that kind of trust. They were built on something deeper, and he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

When she turned with the mugs, he took his without comment. She leaned her hip against the counter, sipping hers, studying him again.

“I don’t like this,” she said finally.

“I know.”

“You’re locking me out again.”

“I’m protecting you.”

“I’m not glass, Mitch.”

“No,” he said. “You’re a bomb. And someone’s trying to light the fuse.”

Her jaw set. “Then let me help.”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll lead with your heart. And that’ll get you killed.”

She didn’t like that answer. He didn’t care.

He drained the tea, set the mug down, and turned to her fully. “When I have something concrete, you’ll know,” he said. “Until then, I need you to stay exactly where I can see you. And if that feels like a leash, good. Because if I lose sight of you again, it won’t be a rescue mission. It’ll be a recovery.”

She flinched, but she didn’t argue. Not this time. She just nodded once, quietly, and walked away.

He didn’t follow. Instead, he stayed by the counter and stared at the dark street until the lights blurred and the first whisper of sunrise touched the far edge of the sky.

Because he knew what came next. It wouldn’t be clean; it would be personal. And when it broke, he was the only one who could afford to bleed.