Page 41 of Ruthless Enforcer

He snorts as he starts the car. “I’m not suicidal.”

We drive through Helena in silence. The city is locked in that dead, hollow late-night stillness where every tire roll sounds amplified. Hendricks parks two streets over in an alley shadow, and we cover the remaining distance on foot.

The service entrance is tucked behind a brick alcove near the alley dumpsters, exactly where Clara said it would be. I slide her small silver key into the deadbolt, turn it with a soft click, and ease the door open.

The stairwell smells like industrial floor wax, damp concrete, and cold radiator iron. We climb three flights without a sound—Mandy covering the rear landing with her hand resting easily on the grip of her sidearm, Hendricks sweeping for wireless sensors with a handheld scanner.

"Clear," Hendricks murmurs at the third-floor landing.

Clara’s studio sits at the end of the hall behind an unmarked solid wood door. I unlock it and step across the threshold.

The room hits me instantly with the scent of paint and oil, but I catch a whiff of Clara’s perfume too. The space is sparse and disciplined. A large north-facing window looks out over the street, covered by a rolled canvas shade. White walls are splattered with paint in all colors. A sturdy worktable is crowded with glass jars, palette knives, and a mess of half-squeezed tubes.

And along the perimeter were her canvases.

Mandy and Hendricks move past me without a word, opening padded transport cases and methodically packing the brushes, palette knives, and jars according to Clara’s inventory.

I walk toward the stacked canvases leaning against the brick wall. I tilt the frames forward one by one. They have to be part of her upcoming show. What We Hold.

The first is a woman’s scarred hands cupping an empty bird’s nest. The second, a worn child’s boot sitting on a sun-bleached windowsill. The third, an empty canvas chore coat draped over a straight-backed chair, still carrying the phantom posture of the man who wore it.

There isn't a single soft, sentimental line in any of them. They are raw, unflinching studies of survival, memory, and presence. The brushstrokes are confident, sharp, and deliberate.

This isn't an heiress’s diversion to pass the time between social galas. This is talent—a gift. It’s how she breathes. It’s how she shares herself with the world.

"Everything's boxed," Mandy says from the doorway, hoisting two foam-lined cases. "Hendricks is already running the descent."

"Good.” I nod. “Load the truck."

We move down the service stairwell like ghosts, packing the SUV’s cargo bay in under ten minutes.

Back at the hangar, the transfer takes less than five minutes.

"Hendricks and I will scrub the camera loops from the city grid, wipe our local footprints, and head back south." Mandy steps back from the jet's airstairs with a knowing look. "Try not to fall in love with your wife, huh."

Ignoring her, I turn to Hendricks. "Add this to my tab."

Putting an arm around Mandy’s waist, the man smiles knowingly. "I already have."

I pull the hatch shut, and by three in the morning, I’m back in the air, flying west over the jagged black spine of the Rockies.

I sit alone in the dark cabin beside the secured crates of paints and stacked canvases, the hum of the twin engines vibrating through my ribs. Alessandro would call this reckless exposure. James Whitlock would call it theft.

I don't give a damn about either of them. Clara Whitlock is going to finish her collection, she’s going to hit her gallery deadline, and she’s going to do it under my protection.

We touch down at the airstrip before dawn. I load the crates into the truck and drive the winding coastal road back to the beach house. The rain’s tapered into a low, drifting sea mist.

The house is dead quiet when I arrive. I carry the gear inside, moving barefoot across the hardwood so I don't disturb Clara upstairs.

I take everything into the south-facing room off the main hall—a wide, bright space with floor-to-ceiling glass looking straight out over the rolling gray surf. I set up her easel near the center where the morning light breaks cleanest. I unpack the brushes and line the tubes of paint on the kitchen table I hauled in there so she’d have a worktable. I set the blank canvases by the easel and the canvases for her upcoming show against the wall in the exact order she had them in Helena.

When I step back, the room is no longer an empty solarium. It’s hers.

I leave the door open, head upstairs to my bedroom, and strip off my jacket and boots. When my head hits the pillow, the exhaustion finally pulls me under. I’m asleep before I can think too hard about what I just risked to give Clara a piece of her life back.

34

CLARA