Page 21 of The Bodyguard

But not a single person in sight. He made a quick call to Cerberus HQ, speaking softly and then ending the call.

Andi stepped in behind him and immediately froze. “Where the hell is everybody?”

He keyed the door shut and activated the new deadbolt. “Gone.”

“Gone?” she repeated, pivoting to face him. “What do you mean, gone? They can’t be gone. This is a workday.”

“Someone pulled them.”

“But who?”

He moved toward the center of the room, scanning every shadow. “Cerberus protocol. Maya confirmed evacuation with HQ ten minutes before we left the loft. Someone directed your staff to a secondary location.

She followed him, voice rising. “And nobody told me?”

“You were already dealing with a press ambush and a compromised route. They were prioritizing containment.”

Her lips parted, but no protest came. Only the sound of her heels tapping across the polished concrete floor as she crossed to her desk.

That’s when he saw it. Three glossy photos, laid out side-by-side on the long table in the center of the room. Each image showed Andi—blurred, zoomed in, but unmistakable. One outside the Alder Club. One on the loft balcony. One from the campaign trail weeks earlier. Someone had drawn a single red line diagonally across each image. Deliberate. Clean.

“Back up,” he snapped.

She looked at him, startled.

He was already moving, circling around her, snapping photos with his encrypted phone and carefully picking up each surveillance still with latex gloves he kept in his pocket. He slid them into an evidence bag and sealed it shut.

Andi folded her arms, watching him. “They knew we were coming.”

“Yeah,” he said grimly. “And they wanted you to see this.”

“Do you think... this was Maya?”

“No,” Mitch said, too fast. He trusted his instincts. Maya hadn’t flinched when Andi had nearly been killed. She hadn’t shown even a flicker of evasion when he’d questioned her security details. If anything, she’d been overly transparent. Protective.

But he was convinced it was someone else. Someone with access to the building. Someone who knew the timing. Someone who used the cleared space to deliver a threat without confrontation.

“They used our evacuation against us,” he said. “Dropped this while the staff was gone. No entry breach. No cameras tripped.”

“Which means it was someone with a key,” Andi said quietly. “One of my own.”

Mitch watched her shoulders straighten. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did. She didn’t crumble. She hardened.

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “This changes how we move. From now on, all campaign communications run through Cerberus encryption. No exceptions. Every person on your staff gets vetted again. Private interviews. Travel logs. I want names, habits, and hours.”

“You’re assuming they’ll cooperate.”

He met her eyes. “They won’t have a choice.”

She hesitated only a beat. Then nodded. “Do it.”

There it was again—that fire in her that refused to be snuffed out. It made him want to wrap her in his arms and lay the city at her feet. But for now, he would have to settle for keeping her alive, and finding the son of a bitch who’d dared to mark her.

Andi didn’t speak again until they were back in the SUV.

“You think this is about intimidation?”

“No,” he said. “I think someone’s escalating.”

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