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ANDI

S he was back there again. In the decadent living room of Rick Wexler’s penthouse, the one with floor-to-ceiling windows and the glass coffee table always smudged with fingerprints and something else she didn’t want to name. The music was too loud—some synth-heavy club track echoing off steel and marble. Her voice broke against it. She remembered yelling, her throat burning, demanding he put the bag down. That the cameras outside had seen him come in. That she’d covered for him twice already.

Rick laughed—laughed, like she was the punchline to a joke… a joke that ended in handcuffs and mugshots. He reached for the coke, anyway. Andi lunged for it.

That’s when the door burst open. Blue uniforms, guns drawn. Shouting.

Hands were on her. Someone yanked her back, another shouting her name like she was the one committing a crime. She remembered her hands shaking as they forced them behind her back. The sound of the cuffs ratcheting closed.

She wasn’t high. She wasn’t even drinking. But that didn’t matter.

Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong man.

Andi shot upright in bed, her heart thundering in her chest like she’d run the full length of Michigan Avenue. Her sheets were damp. Her breathing was jagged. For a second, she didn’t know where she was.

Then she heard it—the low click of a mug settling on wood. Her gaze snapped to the doorway of her bedroom.

Mitch stood just outside it, framed by the loft’s muted morning light. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just watched her.

He wore black again—jeans and a long-sleeved tee that clung to his frame as if someone had sewn it there. He folded his arms across his chest. His posture relaxed. But the alertness in his eyes was anything but.

“You were dreaming,” he said, voice calm.

“Dreaming? No. Nightmare? Reliving a memory? Absolutely,” she muttered, dragging a hand through her hair.

She didn’t need a mirror to see that she’d probably smudged her makeup under her eyes from the night before. She looked wrecked. She felt worse.

He crossed to the low shelf outside her room and picked up the coffee he’d set there. Without a word, he brought it in.

She wrapped the sheet tighter around her body, more from instinct than modesty. He didn’t care about modesty. He cared about vulnerability. And she hated he saw hers far too clearly.

He handed her the mug.

She took it without meeting his gaze. “Do you always watch women sleep?”

“Only the ones who get death threats.”

“You hear me?”

“You cried out.”

Her throat tightened. She took a long sip of coffee to avoid answering.

“I ran into the room the second I heard you,” he added.

That made her look up. “And?”

“You were fighting in your sleep,” he said. “Whatever it was, you weren’t just dreaming. You were defending yourself.”

She stared down into her coffee.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked, softer now.

“No.”

“Okay.”

She blinked. “That’s it?”

“You don’t owe me your past. But you should know I’ve already read the file.”

Of course he had. She wrapped both hands around the mug and stared at the rising steam.

“Then why ask?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I dated Rick Wexler. You probably figured that out already.”

“I did.”

“I tried to get him to stop using,” she said, voice low. “Tried to pull him out of a party I never wanted to be at. The drugs weren’t mine. They dropped the charges. But it didn’t matter. The press made it look like I was there for the party, not the damage control.”

She glanced up, half-expecting judgment. There wasn’t any. Just his steady, unreadable expression.

“After that,” she added, “I promised myself I’d let no one put me in a position where I couldn’t control the outcome.”

One eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. “How’s that working out for you?”

She let out a short, humorless snort. “Oh, I don’t know. You’re in my house, carrying a gun, giving me orders, and apparently watching me sleep. So, yeah. Just stellar; couldn’t be better.”

The edge in her voice didn’t move him an inch.

Instead, he crossed his arms again and leaned against the doorframe. “You asked for protection.”

“I didn’t ask, Maya did, and I’m not sure even Maya was asking for a Dom in Kevlar.”

His gaze sharpened. “But you didn’t say no to it either.”

Her fingers tensed around the mug. “Do you enjoy it?”

He didn’t pretend not to understand. “Yes.”

“That certainty,” she said, her voice quieter now. “The control. The rules.”

“Yes.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “Does it ever get exhausting? Carrying everyone else’s safety like a responsibility you were born with?”

“No,” he said. “Because I don’t carry what isn’t mine. I only take what’s given.”

Something about that sentence slipped under her skin.

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” she asked. “Giving you my power?”

“You haven’t given me anything,” he said. “Not yet.”

Andi’s pulse fluttered. “But you think I will.”

“I think you want to.”

She wanted to deny it. She really did. But her mouth wouldn’t form the words.

Instead, she asked, “And what if I did? What would you do with it?”

He pushed off the doorframe and stepped inside her room. Not rushed. Not dramatic. Just deliberate. He crossed the room, stopping a foot or so from her bed.

“I’d protect it. Honor it. Push you harder than anyone ever has. And never let you fall.”

She swallowed. The coffee in her hands had gone cold. “And what would you expect in return?” she whispered.

“Truth,” he said. “Obedience. Respect.”

“That sounds a lot like ownership.”

He studied her, then spoke the words like they were facts. “Only if you give yourself willingly. Otherwise, it’s not submission. It’s coercion. And I’m not interested in that.”

Her heart thudded against her ribs.

“What if I don’t know how?” she asked, the question escaping before she could stop it.

“You learn,” he said. “From the right partner.”

She stared up at him, her throat tight, her body coiled in ways that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with what he represented. What he promised.

Power… Safety… The ability to finally let go.

Andi looked down into her lap, the fingers of one hand brushing the edge of the sheet. She felt exposed in a way she couldn’t quite understand—not because of what he saw—but because of how easily he seemed to see right through her, as if she were glass.

After a long silence, she said, “It scared me. That night. Seeing him arrested. Feeling the cuffs on my wrists. I knew that one mistake could undo my life—everything I’d worked for.

“I don’t blame you.”

“I never wanted to feel that helpless again.”

Mitch crouched, suddenly eye level with her. “You’re not helpless now,” he said. “But you are still carrying it. All of it. Alone. I have to wonder what you think you get from doing that.”

She didn’t answer.

“You’re strong, Andi. But even strong people need someone to lean on.”

“And you think you can be that someone?”

“I think I already am.”

She looked away, but she didn’t argue. That silence—her silence—was as near to permission as he was likely ever to get.

She said nothing else after that and refused to look him in the eye. Mitch rose to his full height, watching her for a beat longer before he turned and left the room, leaving only the fading scent of cedar and spice behind him.

Andi sat frozen for a moment, the cool ceramic of the coffee mug anchoring her in the present even as her thoughts ran in all the wrong directions.

She’d never wanted a man to take control of her life. Not when it mattered. Not after Rick. Not after that moment when they shackled her wrists and ignored her voice, seeing only her last name and ZIP code. She’d spent every minute since then earning her power, building her image. Taking back control.

And now, one infuriating, gorgeous, maddeningly steady man was cracking her foundation with nothing but a low voice and unshakable conviction.

It terrified her. It thrilled her. And that was the problem.

She set the mug on the bedside table and pulled herself to her feet, the chenille robe hanging on the nearby hook brushing her knees as she slipped it on. The floor felt cool beneath her bare feet as she stepped into the main loft, catching the tail end of Mitch’s call on his encrypted device.

“…no, she’s secure. For now. We’ll start running full interrogative protocols on her staff later this afternoon. Flag anything with overlap to The Alder Club, even second-degree contacts. I’ll handle the rest.”

He ended the call and turned, unsurprised to see her there.

Andi crossed to the kitchen, opening a cabinet and retrieving her favorite cinnamon twist protein bar. “So now we’re interrogating my campaign team?”

Leaning against the counter, he folded his arms again, looking as if carved from discipline. “We’re screening them. Thoroughly.”

“They’re not suspects, Mitch. They’re people I trust. People who’ve had my back from day one.”

“Then the innocent ones have nothing to worry about.”

Andi tore open the wrapper and bit off a chunk, chewing as she studied him.

“This… everything you’re doing,” she said slowly, “you do it because you’re a protector. Because you’re trained to think ten steps ahead, to see threats before they happen.”

He didn’t argue.

“But it’s not just that, is it?”

“No,” he said plainly.

She swallowed and looked away. “You enjoy it.”

“I already told you I do.”

“I don’t understand that,” she admitted, walking to the windows and staring down at the quiet street below. “Wanting that much control. Needing it.”

“You do,” he said from behind her. “You just don’t want to admit it.”

Her breath hitched. Not at his words, but at how easily they cut through her defenses. She stared out over the skyline, arms wrapped around her middle, pressing into the chenille robe like it could hold her together.

“I can’t afford it,” she said softly. “Not in my life. Not in my career. Not in a city where every decision I make gets dissected by a thousand strangers looking for a reason to call me weak.”

He was closer now. She could feel him. Not touching. Just there.

“You’re not weak,” he said. “You’re wired for control. But needing to let go sometimes doesn’t make you any less powerful. It makes you human.”

“What about you? Don’t you need to let go?”

Mitch nodded. “I do. Where I believe you could find respite in submission to the right partner, I find mine in dominance. So much of my life is reacting to out-of-control situations. With D/s, I have complete control. With the right partner, there is a yin/yang to the relationship that works for both of them equally.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice cracked. “Even if I wanted that… even if I wanted you that way, there’s no room for it. Not with everything coming at me.”

“You want me that way?” he asked, voice low.

Andi turned slowly to face him. The air between them hummed with all kinds of tension—danger and sexual just to name two—thick, potent and filled with everything neither of them wanted to admit, much less say.

“You know I do,” she whispered. “And that’s the part that scares the hell out of me.”

His gaze locked on hers. “Then say it.”

“No.”

“Say it anyway.”

She glared at him. “You don’t get to order me around like?—”

“Like what?” he challenged, stepping in so close she could barely breathe. “Like someone who knows exactly what you need?”

She didn’t back down. “Like someone I can’t afford to want.”

His mouth was a breath from hers. “But you do.”

She clenched her fists at her sides, resisting the urge to either punch him or pull him closer. Maybe both.

“I can’t be that girl,” she said. “The one who gives in to something she can’t control.”

“You wouldn’t be giving in,” Mitch said. “You’d be choosing to allow someone else to care for you enough to relieve you of that burden.”

The words landed hard, almost harder than the kiss from the night before.

Andi shook her head and took a step back. “I don’t know how to choose that and survive in the world I live in.”

“You wouldn’t be alone in either the choice or your world. D/s is a way couples can connect sexually and emotionally and then carry that intimacy out into the world.”

She turned away, trying to shove the desire back down into the place she kept her regrets. It didn’t fit. It never would. The worst part was that the desire for it was starting to feel like more than just a fantasy. It felt like a choice she was going to have to make… and soon.

Before she could answer, before she could find the right words or the breath to speak them, the loft’s security panel chimed.

Mitch was across the room in a heartbeat, checking the feed. A uniformed courier stood outside the building’s front entrance, holding a standard white envelope with a red stripe across the seal.

Andi’s stomach dropped.

He glanced back at her. “Stay there.”

She didn’t argue this time. Mitch keyed in the code to unlock the building’s front entrance and met the courier at the door. Andi watched from a distance, wrapping her arms tighter around herself as the envelope was passed over with a nod and nothing else. No ID check. No signature request.

When he returned, his face was unreadable, but his jaw was tight.

He handed her the envelope. It was thicker than the others. Heavier. Not just a letter.

Her hands trembled slightly as she pulled back the seal. Inside were three more photographs. High-resolution. Black and white. One was of her sitting at her desk at campaign headquarters—alone, typing. Another of her standing on her loft balcony, mug in hand, staring at the lake. And the third… the third was from earlier that morning, taken through the glass of her bedroom window. In the picture she was asleep, her hair spread across the pillow, the sheet tangled at her waist—completely, terrifyingly unaware.

A low gasp escaped her throat. Mitch took the photos gently from her hands, inspecting them with practiced eyes.

“High-angle shot,” he said. “Possibly from a drone. “But the reflection on this one shows it was taken from inside the building,” he said, pointing to the campaign photo.

Her breath caught. “Someone on my staff?”

“Or someone who had access.”

Andi sat heavily on the edge of the couch, unable to stop staring at the envelope.

“Why now?” she whispered. “Why show me this now?”

“Because they want you afraid,” Mitch said. “They want you to feel like you’re never alone. Like they’re always watching.”

And in that moment, she felt exactly that. She felt every inch of it—the knowing, the violation, and something else. Something darker. The urge to reclaim the pieces of herself being stripped away one threat, one photograph, one unanswered question at a time.

To take back control, but not the way she always had. Not with walls. Not with distance. Not with sharp words and sharper smiles, but with surrender—not to the danger, not to fear, but to him.

To the one man who didn’t flinch when she snapped, didn’t run when she pushed, didn’t treat her power like something to fear—but something to protect.

She looked up at Mitch. He was watching her, silent and steady, like he already knew what she was about to do… or say… or break.

The war in her chest roared louder. And this time, she didn’t know if she had the strength to keep fighting it.

Her phone buzzed once. Then again. She didn’t look. Mitch did.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, already moving.

She reached for the phone, heart pounding. New message. No name. No number.

He’s closer than you think.

Andi didn’t move at first. The message still glowed on her phone screen, sharp and taunting. The words pressed in on her chest like a slow vice, and across the loft, Mitch stood near the kitchen, already in motion—already hunting shadows.

And that was when she knew—the leak wasn’t just inside her campaign, it was much closer than that.