Page 107 of Untamed Sinner

“East wing,” Harper says. “Fast.”

Jake reads my face and doesn't like what he sees. “Hendricks.”

I shake my head. “I'm fine.”

“We’re getting her out.”

Yes, we are. I don’t make promises I don’t keep.

The corridor opens into a room that used to be a study—leather, glass, art that costs more than most people's lives. It's the room Ashford took her into. I know because I mapped this house for two days before I let her walk into it, memorizing every hallway, every door, every place a man could hide a threat.

I did not map for this.

The room is wrecked. A lamp shattered against the far wall. One of the chairs on its side, a long gouge in the leather like something—someone—was dragged across it. A single man’s shoe near the doorway.

Then I see it—on the floor, near the window, catching what little light filters through the shutters.

The pin.

Six inches of sharpened steel, the one she'd twisted into her hair before we set out today. The one she'd told me, casually, like she was discussing the weather, could put a man down before he knew he was already dying.

She never goes anywhere without a weapon.

She wouldn't have left this behind unless she didn't have a choice.

I'm on my knees before I realize I've moved, my hand closing around it like it's something that can tell me she's still okay.

It doesn't tell me anything. It's just metal. Cold. Silent.

“Hendricks.” Jake's voice, quiet, close. Not an order—a tether. “She's not here. Get up.”

Taking a deep breath, I pull it together. Because not getting her back isn’t an option.

Luke's voice comes through, breathless, satisfaction under the strain. “Gate's a mess. Two guards down, nonlethal. The rest are chasing their own tails out here. Tell me we've got her.”

I look at Jake.

“Guys.” Luke again, sharper now. “Tell me we've got her.”

“We don't,” Jake says.

Silence on the line. Then, quieter, “Copy.”

Mason's voice cuts in, steady despite the shift. “No movement on the grounds that matches extraction. If they moved her, it wasn't through the front or the north face.”

“Basement,” Luke says. “Or a tunnel. This kind of money, there's always a secret way out.”

“It wasn’t in the blueprints,” I mutter.

“Harper.” Jake's already thinking three steps ahead, the way he always does. “Mandy’s comms?”

“Still transmitting.” A pause, keys clicking somewhere on her end. “Comm's still transmitting. She's got maybe forty minutes of battery left on that thing, and I can triangulate as long as it's active.”

“Ashford's people know about the comm?” Mason asks.

“It’s still working so I’d say no. If they found it, they’d have destroyed it,” Jake says. “Unless they put it on a decoy to lead us on a false trail.”

I shake my head. “We don’t have intel to that end, so we still follow it.”