55. Mandy
MANDY
Clara Whitlock is twenty-four years old, obscenely rich, seemingly invisible, and somewhere out there vulnerable.
I already hate everything about this. Not her—the pattern. I know what it looks like when powerful men stop seeing a woman as a person and start seeing her as leverage.
By the time we make it back upstairs, I need sugar. Bad. I head straight for the pantry and open my donut box.
And I stare into its emptiness.
“Goddamn motherfucking cocksucker.” I close the pantry door—not gently—and turn to see Hendricks watching me with a half-concerned, half-amused expression on his face.
“Problem?” he asks mildly.
“Did you eat the last donut?” I accuse, knowing full well he hasn’t touched them.
“And risk being gutted in my own house?” He arches his brow as he pulls out two mugs. “You have a serious sweet tooth.”
“I have a serious appreciation for fried dough.” I slump against the counter. No donut, bad day.
“You’ve eaten a box of donuts in three days,” he points out as he starts to make coffee.
“That sounds suspiciously like judgment coming from a man who wants to see me naked again.”
“It’s not judgment. It’s data collection.” Hendricks leans against the counter, watching me.
I frown at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing the thing.” I gesture to his face.
“What thing?”
“The analyzing-Mandy-like-she’s-a-nuclear-weapon-with-a-hair-trigger thing.”
The corner of his mouth kicks up. “I was wondering why donuts.”
For a second, I consider making a joke. Then I don’t. “When I was taken, I used to think about food.”
His expression changes. He doesn’t move, but he suddenly feels like he’s ready to pounce.
I clear my throat. “Not fancy food. Stupid things. Cheeseburgers. French fries. Donuts. Mostly donuts. There was this place I used to take Lily. They made these ridiculous chocolate ones with enough frosting to put you into a diabetic coma.”
Hendricks doesn’t say anything, which is one of the things I’m starting to understand about him. He knows when silence is better.
Exhaling, I continue. “I used to lie there and think, if I ever get out, I’m going to eat every fucking donut I want. Two donuts a day if I want.” I shrug. “So I do.”
Something moves across his face. Gone before I can name it.
Then he drops a kiss on my lips. “Be right back.”
I blink. “Where are you going?”
“To get you donuts.”
Jesus.
I look at his naked torso, his sweats riding low on his hips. Exhaling emotions I’ve never felt before, I yank his T-shirt off and hand it to him. “You can’t go out like that. You’ll give the old lady at the bakery ideas she doesn’t need and a heart attack she doesn’t deserve.”
He pulls the shirt over his head. “You’re jealous.”
Shaking my head, I wag my finger at him. “I’m territorial. There’s a difference.”
“Then we understand each other.” He does do a thorough once-over of my nakedness. “I’ll be back in forty with your treat, and then I’ll expect mine.”
Oh boy.
I take a shower while he’s gone, wishing I had worn underwear to toss on the bathroom floor. He deserves a treat. “I wonder what happened to the other pair,” I say to the poof. “Ten bucks says Hendricks has them stashed somewhere.”
The poof maintains a suspicious silence.
“Exactly.” I nod. “That’s what I thought.”
Hendricks gets back in record time, two boxes of donuts in hand. I meet him in the kitchen, my hair wet, wearing one of his dress shirts—a white one with sleeves I’ve rolled up my forearms.
The sight of him takes my breath away for a second. It feels amazingly intimate, me in his shirt and him in the T-shirt and obscene sweatpants, making us both coffee. I have to swallow back the feels and dredge up my usual snark.
“Think you got enough?” I ask as I saunter to the counter and open the first box. My heart does a stupid little squeeze. He bought damn near everything in the case.
I pick one with chocolate frosting and sprinkles and take a bite. It’s better than the ones I bought—fresher. From now on, I’m sending him in his slutty sweats to get them for me.
Hendricks watches me—I can feel his gaze—so I moan long and loud with my next bite.
His phone chimes, and the moment disappears. He’s looking at the screen as I turn around.
“Marcus?” I ask.
He nods.
I set the donut down on the counter. “Encrypted files?”
Another nod.
I move beside him as he opens the messages, my arm on his shoulder, leaning closer to him so I can see.
There are six attachments.
The first one is financial records. Not the polished corporate kind—Turner’s kind. Dates, amounts, account numbers, shell companies. Money moving through so many layers it looks deliberately incomprehensible, especially to my eyes.
Hendricks scrolls and then stops.
I glance up to see the faintest furrow on his brow. “What?”
He enlarges one section. A company name is highlighted beside a transfer: ASHFORD CAPITAL HOLDINGS.
“Well.” I stand up straight. “That seems to answer a lot of questions.”
Hendricks shakes his head, scrolling through the rest of the information. “It could be legitimate.”
I snort. “You don’t believe that.”
“No.” He opens the next file.
There are more transactions—different companies, different accounts. All with the same destination buried underneath them: Ashford.
The third file is worse: emails.
Turner and Ashford never use full names. Initials. References to shipments. Payments. Problems that need to be handled. Women reduced to numbers and dates.
I know the language. I’ve spent years hunting men who use it.
“Son of a bitch.” I realize my fingernails are digging into my palms, and I force myself to ease up.
Hendricks keeps reading. “Marcus has added notes beside several entries, tracing shell corporations back to Ashford-controlled entities.”
“This isn’t a business relationship,” I say.
“No.”
“Ashford was part of it.”
“Yes.”
The word lands like a bullet.
I stare at the screen. All this time I thought Ashford wanted me because I’d killed the wrong man. Or maybe I’d asked the wrong question and gotten too close to something he wanted protected. Turns out I was thinking too small.
Turner wasn’t working around Ashford. He was working with him.
“Why keep this?” I wonder out loud.
Hendricks looks at me.
“Turner.” I wave at his phone. “Why document any of it? If Ashford is this powerful, keeping evidence linking him to the operation is suicide.”
“Leverage,” Hendricks says. “If Ashford ever decided Turner had become a liability, Turner has enough evidence to take him down too.”
I look at the files again, and everything clicks into place. “Oh, shit.”
Hendricks’s attention snaps to me. “What?”
Cold, ugly certainty crawls through me. To Ashford, I’m not simply a problem anymore. I’m evidence with a pulse. “Oh, fuck.”
Hendricks slides his arm around my waist and pulls me to him. “Are you worried?”
“Because I’ve spent years dismantling pieces of their network, killing their clients and partners, and Ashford apparently has a problem with that?” I give a fake laugh. “Why would I be worried?”
Hendricks’s jaw hardens. I can tell he wants to promise me it’ll be fine, but we both know he can’t.
But it can be for Clara, if she’s still safe. “Clara’s part of this.”
He nods. “We don’t know how yet.”
“No, but Turner put her in that notebook for a reason.”
Hendricks takes the donut I abandoned and holds it out to me.
I blink at the donut, then him. “Seriously?”
“You stopped eating.”
“I just discovered one of the most powerful men in the Lower 48 may be involved in human trafficking.”
“You already suspected.” He holds the donut up to my mouth. “You can be pissed off and eat a donut at the same time.”
“That’s disturbingly sensible.” I take a bite, my eyes on his as I chew.
“I have my moments.”
I take the donut from Hendricks and have another bite, thinking. I always think better with donut in my mouth. Hendricks returns to scanning the information his contact sent him. I watch him as I run through it all in my head.
Turner.
Ashford.
Clara.
Me.
Four pieces that finally belong to the same puzzle.
And suddenly my original plan seems like the best course of action. “We take him out.”
Hendricks doesn’t ask what I mean. He doesn’t even look up from the screen. “No.”
I raise my brows at him. “Did you just tell me no?”
“Yes.”
My eyes narrow. “You might want to reconsider your tone.”
“No.”
I point my donut at him. “You realize I kill people for being irritating.”
“I’m used to living dangerously.”
Despite myself, my mouth twitches.
Then I remember what we’re talking about. “Hendricks, we have him.”
“We have evidence suggesting Turner and Ashford were partners.”
“Exactly.”
He spears me with his cool gray gaze. “That isn’t the same as having Ashford.”
I lift my chin. “It’s enough for me.”
“That’s what concerns me.”
“I can get close to him,” I insist.
His face goes stony. “No.”
Striding up to him, I poke his chest. “Stop saying that.”
“Stop proposing stupid plans,” he replies, annoyingly calm.
“You haven’t even heard the plan.”
He sets his phone on the counter, as if he might need his hands free. Smart man. “I heard the part where you get close to Ashford.”
I grip his T-shirt, getting in his face. “It’s perfect. He already wants me.”
“Exactly.”
“This is win-win. Ashford thinks I’m a threat. It’s immaterial whether it’s because of what I took or what I know. So give him what he wants.” I hold my arms out. “Me.”
Hendricks goes very still.
He’s a logical man. Once he gets over his fit, he’ll see this is the way. But it probably wouldn’t hurt to point out some facts. “You were hired to deliver me to him.”
Something dangerous enters his eyes. “I’m aware.”
I shrug. “So deliver me.”
His jaw flexes.
“We use the commission, like we discussed to begin with,” I say. “We control the meeting. I get close enough to find out what he knows about Clara, what happened to the rest of Turner’s network, and how deep this goes. Then we cut it off at the head.”
Hendricks’s hands grip me tighter. “And if he decides to put a bullet in your head the second you walk through the door?”
“Presumably my terrifyingly competent boyfriend has planned for that.”
His eyes narrow.
I smile winningly, smoothing his T-shirt over his shoulders. “You wanted this, Hendricks. Partners.”
“That does not mean I help you get yourself killed,” he grits out.
“I’m not planning to die.”
He snorts. “Excellent. Very reassuring.”
I wind my arms around his neck and press my body to his. “This is what I do, Hendricks.”
His hands automatically hold me closer, one hand twining in my hair. “I know.”
I meet his gaze. “I can get Ashford.”
He nods. “I know that too.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
He studies me for a long moment. “You.”
My smile disappears.
He uses my hair to tilt my head back, just a little. “I can calculate the operational risk. I can plan for Ashford. I can plan for Turner’s remaining people. What I cannot do is put you inside that house alone and pretend you’re an acceptable loss if something goes wrong.”
Something squeezes hard behind my ribs. I cover it the only way I know how. “Good news. I’m adorable and extremely difficult to kill.”
His expression doesn’t change.
Fine. Worth a shot. I sigh. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying if we do this, we don’t do it alone.”
“Who do you have in mind?” I ask cautiously.
Hendricks is already somewhere else mentally—probably calculating manpower, entry points, and contingencies. The bastard is planning the operation while simultaneously holding my hips.
Hot.
His eyes meet mine, and somehow, before he says it, I know who he’s going to suggest.
The Blackthorn boys.