Page 105 of Untamed Sinner

There’s silence on the comms.

“He knows something,” I explain. “I need him alive long enough to find out what.”

Hendricks curses in my ear.

“Relax,” I tell him. “I said adjusted, not abandoned.”

Footsteps sound down the hall, like a troop marching—coming toward me.

So much for the five minutes. I pull the pin from my hair. “Hold that thought,” I say as the doorknob turns.

71

HENDRICKS

Every muscle in my body is tight as I wait for Mandy’s signal to go in. I’m three hundred yards away. Might as well be three hundred fucking miles.

“Eyes on the house,” Jake says beside me. “She’s good.”

I know she’s good. That’s not the problem. The problem is I left her in there. On purpose. And she adjusted the fucking plan.

I watch Ashford’s house through the monitor and wait for the signal.

Thirty seconds.

A minute.

Then Mandy’s voice comes through my comm—calm, almost amused. “Houston? We have a problem.”

I’m already on my feet.

72

MANDY

The door starts to swing open.

I hear movement through the comm. Of course he’s already coming.

Impossibly, I smile. “Hendricks.”

“I’m here,” he says, sounding as unruffled as usual.

Three hundred yards away, a house full of armed men between us, and somehow those two words settle something inside me.

I’m here.

Yeah—I know.

I slide the pin between my fingers and turn toward whoever’s coming through the door. Showtime.

73

HENDRICKS

Jake and I are crouched behind the stone wall that borders the service wing, the house looming dark above us.

“What’s happening?” Lily’s worried voice comes through the comms.