Page 85 of The Bodyguard

Mitch nodded once. “He knows where the line is now. And what happens if he crosses it.”

She gave a single breath of relief, but her jaw stayed set. “Faulkner?”

“Cerberus has him. He’ll be gone before dawn. Clean extraction. Feds will take it from there.”

“Good.” She paused, then looked up at him fully. “I want them both.”

Mitch narrowed his gaze. “What does that mean?”

Andi stepped closer. Her voice was low, firm. “I want justice. For what they did. For the people they hurt. But I want the exposure, too. I want the truth out in the open, where the public can see it. Names. Companies. Contributions. Every thread.”

Mitch studied her—sweat still on her brow, fire still in her eyes.

“You’re sure?”

“I am.” She didn’t blink. “I want both. One for the courts. One for the people.”

Mitch nodded slowly. “Then that’s what you’ll get.”

He reached into his coat and handed her the flash drive, recovered from Faulkner’s case. “This has it all. The money trail. The blackmail. Emails. Burner numbers. It’s damning. We’ll move on two tracks—public and private.”

Her fingers closed around the drive. She didn’t tremble. He saw it then—what they’d all underestimated. She wasn’t just surviving. She was taking control, and this time, Mitch wasn’t shielding her from the fire… he was fanning it.

She lifted the flash drive, looked at it for a moment, then slipped it into her inner jacket pocket. “Let’s go burn the whole thing down.”

Mitch searched her face. “I love you.”

Maya grinned. “I knew you could do it.”

Andi laughed. “I love you too.”

Maya clasped her hands together and did a little laugh. “Oh, I love a happy ending.”

Andi looked at her. “We don’t have that yet… we’ve got an election to win.”

Mitch’s hand brushed hers as they turned to leave. The storm might not yet be over, but she had taken this battlefield and would, he was sure, win the whole damn thing.

20

ANDI

The city had spoken, and it had roared.

From the marble steps of City Hall to the dive bars in Logan Square, the energy cracked through Chicago like lightning over the lake—furious, electric, unstoppable. Headlines screamed across every screen:

DONATO EXPOSES CORRUPTION IN CITY HALL. WEXLER CAMPAIGN COLLAPSES UNDER FRAUD SCANDAL. FAULKNER IN FEDERAL CUSTODY AFTER FAILED ESCAPE ATTEMPT.

By the time the footage hit cable news—Mitch tackling Faulkner to the pavement, the briefcase flying open, cash spilling across the sidewalk like a scene from a movie—Andi had already taken the stage again, eyes clear, voice steady, spine straight. Not as the woman who’d been hunted, but as the woman who had survived the hunt and dragged them into the light.

Cerberus ran point on the media drop. Coop and Maya coordinated with federal prosecutors for a simultaneous statement. By dusk, the flash drive contents were everywhere—emails, wire transfers, photographs, burner logs. The entire rot of Wexler’s network stripped bare for the public to see.

Andi watched it all from her loft dressed in her favorite sweater and leggings, the lake and city laid out beneath her like a prize she hadn’t asked for—but had damn well earned.

She didn’t flinch at the footage. Not when Wexler was shoved into the back of an unmarked vehicle. Not when Faulkner was walked into federal court in handcuffs. Not when talking heads flipped from skepticism to reverence in the space of a single news cycle.

She merely curled up in Mitch’s arms, sipping her coffee, and watched a chapter close.

She didn't say ‘I told you so.’ Didn't gloat.

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