Page 35 of The Bodyguard
Mitch was already moving. He didn’t curse. He didn’t yell. He just started planning. Whatever the hell she thought she was walking into, she wouldn’t be walking alone. Not anymore. Not on his watch.
* * *
She hadn’t changed her gait. Hadn’t looked over her shoulder. Hadn’t done a damn thing to show she knew someone was following her. That wasn’t bravery. That was hubris.
Mitch spotted her the second she stepped off the train and headed into the shadowed fringe of Riverline Park, a location buried in a crumbling district just far enough outside of her campaign zones to raise suspicion. Not close enough to downtown for casual foot traffic. Not far enough for a clean line of Cerberus surveillance. A dead zone.
And she’d walked in like it was just another photo op. Alone. Unarmed. Unaware.
He followed her from the opposite platform, slipping into the shadows beyond the fence and dropping low to observe. The park had three entry points. One of them—behind the community rec center—was wide open. Another, near the loading dock of a shuttered grocery store, was partially obscured by a rusted-out van. That’s where her tail had settled. Civilian clothes. Generic posture. The kind of forgettable face that blended in everywhere… and nowhere.
Mitch didn’t break stride. He moved fast, cutting around the fence line, bypassing the edge of the broken playground equipment. Even over gravel, he moved silently, his body moving like the weapon he was trained to be. Mitch reached the van, sidled up alongside it, keeping himself flat against it and waited.
Mitch realized he must have been spotted in the sideview mirror as the guy opened the door and tried to flee. Wrong move. Mitch struck, wrapping one arm around the man’s throat, dragging him into the shadows and closing the door of the van in one clean movement. The man barely had time to gasp before Mitch had him on his knees, wrist bent at an angle designed to discourage resistance.
“Give me a name,” Mitch growled.
The man struggled. Mitch shifted his weight, adding just enough pressure to make a point.
“Not her,” the man hissed. “She’s not the target today.”
“Then who is and why get Andi involved?”
“She’s bait.”
“For who?” Mitch asked adding more pressure.
Mitch’s pulse slowed. Not sped. Slowed. That was the danger point—the clarity before combat. His voice dropped even lower.
“Who’s the target?”
The man didn’t answer.
Mitch drew his knife. It made no sound, but the glint of steel was enough.
“You,” the man choked out. “The people I work for don’t leave loose ends.”
“I may not be loose, but I will be their end. And you have just failed your assignment,” Mitch said, and knocked the man out cold with one swift blow to the temple.
He dragged the unconscious body deeper into the bushes and zip-tied the wrists behind his back. He snapped a photo and uploaded it directly to Cerberus. Let the field team deal with the cleanup. He had bigger priorities.
Like the woman who had just walked straight into a trap.
He spotted her in the open concrete expanse behind the empty park field. She stood at the edge of the old skate ramp, holding her phone up to her ear, pacing. Still looking around like the source might be late.
He’d never been more furious or focused in his life. Mitch strode straight to her laying his hand on her shoulder.
She flinched. “Jesus. Mitch, you scared the hell out of me. How did you…”
“Walk,” he ordered.
Andi hesitated for half a breath. That was all before she turned, heels clicking on the cracked pavement, and started toward the exit. He took her elbow—not gently—and steered her back the way he’d come, cutting across the lot at an angle that shielded them from both visible entrances, but took them past the guy who had tailed her.
They didn’t speak until they reached the car. Only when she was inside, the seatbelt clicked and locked, did she finally break the silence.
“I was being followed?”
“Yes.”
