Page 16

15

MITCH

T he tension in the loft had weight now. Not just the kind that lived in Andi’s posture or the way she gripped her coffee mug too tight—but the tactical kind. The kind Mitch could feel in his spine. A storm gathering behind the walls.

Cerberus hadn’t just identified the leak. They’d started pulling the thread—and what they’d found underneath was worse than he expected.

Brian Lennox wasn’t working alone.

Mitch stood at the far end of the loft, hunched over the secure Cerberus laptop. Andi was across the room, talking quietly with Maya. Coop was off site, tailing Lennox’s last known movement. The air buzzed with suppressed energy. Nobody was breathing normally. Not anymore.

Mitch’s fingers moved quickly over the keyboard, decrypting the last of the files recovered from Lennox’s sync. His comm was live in his ear, a low murmur of Cerberus data feed humming like white noise.

“Langdon, you will not like this,” came the voice of Reyes, Cerberus’s lead analyst, clipped and dry from the Chicago node.

“Give it to me,” Mitch said, eyes locked on the screen.

“We traced Lennox’s outbound communications. Encrypted strings piggybacking on city network relays—he’s been hiding behind municipal server architecture for weeks. And he’s not sending this data to a private buyer.”

“Then who?”

“A mid-level city official. Name’s Halstrom. Works in urban planning.”

Mitch’s jaw clenched. The name was familiar. He tapped a few keys, pulled up a background dossier, and there it was.

Eli Halstrom. Deputy coordinator for citywide development initiatives. Longtime political fixer with no public dirt, but Cerberus had flagged his financials twice for offshore holdings. He was clean on the surface—just like Lennox. But underneath, his affiliations lit up red.

“Wexler’s PAC,” Mitch muttered. “He’s on the damn payroll.”

“Confirmed,” Reyes said. “PAC contributions from Paragon Equity routed through a shell nonprofit Halstrom chairs. Lennox sent him four data packets. All tied to Councilwoman Donato’s private schedule, internal comms routing, and last week’s speech drafts. Two of the leaks align with external media tips.”

Mitch stared at the feed. Rage wasn’t the word for what moved through him. This wasn’t just sabotage. This was an operational compromise. They’d come within a trigger pull of losing her last night. And now he knew—really knew—that the threat wasn’t abstract. It was local. Organized. Funded.

And still inside the damn campaign.

Behind him, he felt Andi shift. She hadn’t come near him since he started working through the Cerberus reports, but he knew she was watching. She always did when he went quiet like this—when his shoulders locked and his voice dropped.

He didn’t turn around. Not yet.

“Reyes,” he said into the comm, “cross-check Halstrom’s activity with any open city development deals tied to Donato’s district. I want to know what he’s trying to bury—or what he’s trying to rig.”

“Already compiling. You’re going to want to see it in person.”

“Send the file. Full encryption. I’ll open it on-site.”

He closed the feed, secured his laptop, then turned.

Andi was watching him from the couch, her legs curled beneath her, that damn oversized sweater swallowing her frame like armor. She looked exhausted. But not fragile. Never that. There was steel under her skin.

“What happened?” she asked, voice low.

Mitch moved toward her slowly, every step measured. Controlled. He didn’t sit. Just handed her the tablet he’d secured from the desk and waited as she scanned the summary.

Her fingers tightened on the edges of the device. “Halstrom. City development. PAC money. Paragon’s got its teeth in everything from zoning committees to speech drafts. This isn’t just a leak. It’s a coordinated burn.”

She looked up, eyes sharp. “They want to gut me from the inside.”

“They want to make sure you never reach the podium. And if you do, it’s on their leash.”

She set the tablet down and rose, tension rolling through her body like a tide she couldn’t suppress. “We go public.”

“No.”

That stopped her cold.

“You want to protect the campaign’s integrity, I get it,” Mitch said. “But if you go public with this now, they’ll deny. Bury. Wexler will spin it as political slander, and Halstrom’s too far down the food chain for the press to take seriously without hard video or money trails. All you’ll do is tip your hand.”

Andi didn’t like it. He saw it in her jaw, the way she held her breath just a second too long.

“So what do we do?” she asked.

Mitch stepped closer, his voice lowering. “We feed them another string. Something deeper. You give them access to a vote you’re supposedly waffling on—let them bite, let them pass it to Halstrom, and then we burn the entire network to the ground.”

She stared up at him. “You’re going to play them.”

“No,” he said. “I’m going to hunt them.”

Andi’s eyes didn’t flinch. She stepped in close enough that her fingers brushed his chest. “And if they try again?”

“They won’t get the chance.” Mitch reached up, cupped her jaw with a slow, deliberate grip. “You’re mine to protect. And now I know who they are—I can stop holding back.”

Her breath caught. He didn’t kiss her. He just held her gaze, letting the weight of his promise fill the space between them.

Because this wasn’t politics anymore. It was war, and Mitch Langdon played for keeps.

* * *

Elmo’s was the kind of place that hadn’t changed in thirty years, because it hadn’t needed to.

Booths with worn leather. Coffee that never stopped flowing. Grease on the walls and a no-bullshit attitude behind the counter. The kind of spot that existed on a handshake system between cops, feds, political rats, and ex-military types who wanted their breakfast without questions and their meetings without surveillance.

Which was exactly why Mitch picked it.

Neutral territory didn’t necessarily mean safe—it meant visible. No one drew a weapon here unless they were ready to lose a hand. And Elmo’s people? They didn’t ask what your business was, but they’d break ribs if you brought your mess inside the walls.

Nick Ryeland slid into the booth across from Mitch at 5:37 p.m. sharp. Clean-cut, lean muscle, Cerberus to the bone. He hid his eyes behind dark lenses, but Mitch didn’t need to see them to know he was scanning the room. Every doorway. Every face. The same way he’d been doing since they arrived.

“He’s late,” Nick said.

“He’s trying to make it look casual,” Mitch replied. “Wants to show he’s not nervous.”

Nick didn’t smile. “He should be.”

The door opened. The bell jingled. The target stepped in.

Tobias Crane. Wexler’s mid-level staff rat. Technically a campaign aide, unofficially a PAC runner. Forty-two, smug, balding, lived off the expense account and the illusion of relevance. He had the kind of ambition that leaked out of cheap suits and smug grins, and tonight was no different.

Crane walked in like he owned the place and spotted Mitch immediately. That brief flicker of recognition passed over his face—just a twitch—but Mitch caught it.

The guy knew exactly who he was sitting down with.

Crane slid into the booth with a greasy smile. “You must be Langdon. Cerberus must be charging Donato overtime if they’re sending you.”

Mitch didn’t speak. Just stared.

Nick’s mouth twitched. Maybe a smile. Maybe a threat.

Crane glanced between them, then leaned back in the booth like he was about to order dessert. “What’s this, some kind of unofficial deposition? You boys look like you lost your badges.”

“Cut the performance,” Mitch said. “We know you’ve been coordinating payment routes from Halstrom’s office. We have the shell company files, the bank traces, and Lennox’s sync data.”

Crane’s smirk held. “If you had all that, I’d already be in cuffs.”

Mitch leaned forward, voice low. Controlled. “I’m not a cop, Crane. I’m not here to arrest you. My job—my only job—is to protect Andrea Donato, and that I will do. I’m here to offer you one chance to stay above ground.”

That hit. It was quick—a flash of tension around Crane’s eyes—but Mitch saw it. Crane wasn’t a field guy. He was a chess piece. And the second someone like him realized they were sitting across from someone who didn’t need a warrant to ruin their life, they started squirming.

“You don’t have leverage,” Crane said, but the words were thinner now. “If this is about Wexler…”

“Did I say Wexler, Nick?” Mitch said, looking to the other Cerberus operative.

“No, Mitch, I don’t believe you did, but it seems Mr. Crane may have information we need,” replied Nick before staring Crane down.

“This is about Donato,” Mitch interrupted. “About the itinerary you sold. The fake threats you manufactured. The shooter you hired.”

Crane flinched. A millimeter.

Nick saw it too. “So it was a scare tactic,” Nick said. “Not a warning. That’s good to know. I’d hate to think you guys can’t even hire a shooter who can hit the target. A pressure move.”

“I want names,” Mitch said. “Everyone on your PAC pipeline. Every dollar that came through. You tell me who green-lit the hit, or I start making the kind of mess you can’t walk away from.”

Crane’s jaw twitched. “You think I’m afraid of you?”

“No,” Mitch said, slowly. “I think you’re too smug and too stupid to be afraid of me. But you should be afraid of what happens after me.”

Crane laughed. “You think this scares me? This diner, your quiet threats, the muscle act…”

Before he could finish, Nick moved.

He didn’t lunge. He didn’t growl. He smiled—and then flicked his hand out under the table, catching Crane by the wrist so fast and so tight the man’s eyes bulged.

“No one’s acting,” Nick said, voice low and calm. “We just don’t do screaming here. Elmo would get upset. It’s bad for business.”

Crane yanked his arm back, rattled now. He looked around and realized no one in the diner had moved. Because no one would. Not until the blood hit the tile.

That’s when Elmo’s people stepped in.

One of the busboys—a six-foot-five mountain named Marco, who doubled as backroom security—walked over slowly, towel over one shoulder, eyes unreadable. “Gentlemen,” he said. “We don’t do this here.”

Mitch raised his hands. “No problem.”

Marco stared at Nick, who released Crane’s wrist with exaggerated slowness. Then Marco turned to Crane. “You need another minute?”

Crane’s voice came tight. “No. I’m leaving.”

Mitch stood first. “You forgot your phone.”

He handed it to Crane, the device sitting in his palm like a peace offering. Crane snatched it and turned to leave, muttering something under his breath. The bell jingled. The door shut behind him.

Nick waited three seconds before asking, “You got it?”

Mitch held up his phone and turned the screen. “Cloned his on contact.”

Nick exhaled. “Nice trick.”

“We’re Cerberus,” Mitch said, sliding back into the booth and opening his laptop. “I don’t do magic. I do extraction.”

Nick sat down beside him as the terminal on Mitch’s screen decrypted Crane’s stolen data. Lines of financial logs, payment messages, and location metadata unfurled like a confession.

“Here,” Mitch said, pointing. “That’s her itinerary. Every move, every route. Sold two days before the museum gala. And this—” he tapped a different column, “—is the payout ledger. Halstrom’s account to Crane. Crane to Lennox. And at the bottom—Paragon’s routing number. The shell company’s clean, but the destination account links to an offshore Cayman asset. Wexler’s.”

Nick let out a long breath. “He’s not just playing dirty. He’s paying for blood.”

Mitch’s jaw tightened. “Not anymore.”

Because now he had proof. Now, the gloves were off. And if Wexler wanted war?

Mitch was done playing defense.

* * *

Mitch didn’t go straight back to the loft. After dumping the data clone from Crane’s phone into Cerberus’s deep server net, he spent two hours cross-referencing every financial thread, location ping, and ghost route tied to the leak. By the time it was done, the map of betrayal was so precise it could’ve been sketched in blood.

The truth was brutal. Andi hadn’t just been targeted—she’d been packaged. Sold. Prepped like a damn product, with itinerary updates and exposure windows wrapped into premium bids. Not just surveillance. Coordination . Someone had built her campaign like a funnel for extraction—her locations, movements, public statements—all tracked, timed, and monetized through third-party buyers.

And the buyers weren’t random. Developers. Lobbyists. Real estate firms who wanted zoning easements. PAC puppets who couldn’t touch her publicly but could pay someone else to do it quietly. She wasn’t just the opponent. She was a pivotal piece in their game—a high-value, disruptive force that needed to be an asset, contained or deleted.

Mitch now had proof of the transactions, the routes, the exact windows of exposure. He had payment confirmations. Names. Dates. Intent. It was everything they needed to burn Wexler down, and it still wasn’t enough because Wexler wasn’t smart enough to build a network this precisely. He was just the face. The mouth. The conduit.

The real threat was the one behind the curtain. The one paying Wexler’s bills. The one orchestrating the hits. And until Mitch had that name, he couldn’t exhale. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t let his hand drift from his weapon or Andi’s back for more than a second.

So he drove the long way back to Andi’s loft, letting the cold bite through the open moonroof. He let the city blur past in streaks of neon and shadow until the rage inside him finally settled into focus.

By the time he entered the loft and briefed Coop, Andi was waiting.

She stood barefoot near the windows, her arms wrapped tight around her ribcage, the long hem of his black T-shirt brushing the tops of her thighs. Her hair was a mess. No makeup. No mask. Just Andi, stripped down and raw, and still somehow the most powerful thing he’d ever seen.

She turned when he stepped inside, her eyes catching his. “You found something.”

Mitch nodded once. “Yeah. We did.”

He set the duffel down, stripped off his jacket, and crossed the space to her in slow, deliberate steps. His hand brushed hers as he passed, grounding her. Himself.

“You will not like this,” he said.

She didn’t blink. “Say it anyway.”

He exhaled. “You weren’t just targeted. You were for sale.”

A beat. Just long enough for the words to sink in. Andi’s throat worked, her expression unreadable. “Explain.”

“Your routes. Your events. Security gaps. Speech drafts. Everything that passed through campaign servers got leaked to Crane. He was coordinating with Lennox and a buyer’s list pulled from Wexler’s network. PAC donors. Developers. A few foreign LLCs pretending to be local holding firms. They paid for access. Then they paid for exposure. Then they paid for someone to make you disappear.”

Her face didn’t fall. Not exactly. It just… shifted. Hardened.

“Why am I not surprised?” she whispered. “This whole damn system runs on who can be bought and who can’t. I just didn’t realize I was sitting on a shelf waiting for the highest bidder.”

“You weren’t,” Mitch said. “You were resisting. That’s what made you valuable. You wouldn’t bend. So they tried to break you.”

A long silence passed between them. Then she turned, walked to the kitchen with slow, measured steps, and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge. She didn’t drink it. Just stared out the window, like the silence might explain the unthinkable if she held still long enough.

Mitch followed, closing the gap between them. “This doesn’t end with Wexler,” he said quietly. “It ends with the man who hired him.”

Her voice was hoarse. “Do you know who?”

“No,” he admitted. “Not yet. But we will. We’ve got threads, and they lead somewhere deeper. The money’s moving through a hedge fund shell out of D.C. It’s designed to loop itself in six jurisdictions before hitting the final account. That kind of protection isn’t built overnight. It’s not political. It’s strategic. Whoever they are, they’ve been planning this for a while.”

Andi finally looked at him. “What do they want, Mitch? My resignation? My silence? My body in a morgue?”

He met her gaze, jaw locked tight. “Control. And when they couldn’t buy it—they tried to eliminate the variable.”

Her hand clenched around the bottle. “So I’m not a person. I’m a liability.”

“No,” he said, stepping closer. “You’re a threat. And someone powerful enough to bankroll a hit list wants you neutralized . It’s a compliment in a warped kind of way.”

She laughed—sharp, bitter. “Warped is right. Guess it means I must be doing something right.”

He reached out, pulled the bottle from her hand, and set it down. Then he slid his fingers under her chin and tipped her face up to his.

“You listen to me,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “You don’t go dark on me now. You don’t shut down. You don’t build walls I can’t get through. Because this—” his thumb brushed the edge of her jaw, “—isn’t over. We’re just getting started. And when I find out who pulled the trigger? I burn them down. Every last one of them.”

Andi nodded once, slow and deliberate. “Then we end it.”

He kissed her—quick, hard—re-focusing them both.

The war wasn’t coming. It was here. And Mitch Langdon didn’t lose wars. Not when the woman in his arms was the one they wanted most. Not when she trusted him to end it.

Outside, the wind howled across the steel bones of the city.

Inside, Mitch opened the encrypted message Cerberus had just pushed to his phone.

New lead identified. Crosscheck confirms international origin. Possible intelligence asset embedded in donor ranks. Codename: Kestrel.

Connected to primary Wexler backer. Threat level escalated. Awaiting orders.

Mitch stared at the screen, blood going cold. This wasn’t typical dirty politics; this was calculated and covert.