Page 101 of Untamed Sinner

I exhale. "Yes."

The house appears through the trees.

The driveway curves through manicured grounds. Too open, no cover, designed to expose anyone approaching.

I tap the comms. “Security matches. Cameras every thirty feet. Motion sensors. Two at the main entrance, two on perimeter.”

“Copy,” Jake says.

Calling it a house is inaccurate. It's a monument to what happens when men have too much money and desperately need everyone else to know it. Stone. Glass. Steel.

And men with guns. I count seven before I park. Mandy counts too. I know because her fingers tap once against my thigh every time she spots another one.

Seven taps.

Good girl.

I kill the engine.

Neither of us moves.

For one second, I let myself look at her. Not Mandy Reed, the woman I was hired to find. Not the vigilante who dismantled Turner's operation one body at a time. Not the woman Ashford thinks I'm delivering.

Mandy. Amanda.

Mine.

The word comes so easily now. That should probably concern me, but it just feels right.

She reaches for the door.

This time, I let her. We get out together.

68

MANDY

Hendricks walks beside me up the walkway.

I look at him and realize there’s something I want more than surviving today. I want tomorrow—with him in it.

Well.

That’s fucking inconvenient.

69

HENDRICKS

Aman waits at the top of the steps.

Ashford. I recognize him immediately. Expensive suit. No tie. Hands loose at his sides. The relaxed confidence of a man who has spent his entire life believing consequences are something that happen to other people.

His attention lands on Mandy and stays there.

Everything inside me goes still.

She walks beside me up the steps—not behind me. Never behind me.