Page 87 of Thor

"The exact thing I was afraid would happen if I told you," I whispered.

His head snapped toward me. "What?"

"This. The rage. The inevitable violence." I gestured helplessly at his clenched fists. "I was trying to prevent exactly this, Thor."

"By putting yourself in their crosshairs instead? By making yourself a fucking target?" His voice rose with each word, his control slipping further. "What did you think would happen, Mandy? That you'd go meet a patched member of a rival MC, tell him 'no thanks' to his blackmail attempt, and he'd just smile and walk away?"

Put like that, it did sound naïve. Dangerous.

"Did he touch you?" Thor's voice dropped to a deadly whisper.

"No." I shook my head quickly. "Nothing like that. It was a public place. He just . . . talked. Showed me the photos. Gave me the phone."

Thor's hand moved to my face, tilting my chin up, his eyes searching mine. The touch wasn't gentle, but it wasn't rough either—demanding truth. "Are you sure? Did he threaten you physically? Intimidate you?"

"Just with the photos," I whispered. "He said it wasn't personal. Just club business. That I was the perfect weak link."

Something flashed in Thor's eyes at that—a new level of fury, but also a flicker of pain. His hand dropped from my face.

"I'm sorry," I said, the words feeling pathetically inadequate. "I thought I was protecting you."

He laughed then, a harsh sound with no humor in it. "Protect me? By keeping secrets? By meeting an enemy alone?" He ran a hand through his hair, frustration radiating from every movement. "I trusted you with everything, Mandy. Everything. My sanctuary. My secret. Things no one else knows."

The pain in his voice cut me deeper than his anger ever could. "And you didn't trust me enough to tell me when you were in danger."

I reached for him then, desperate to bridge the growing chasm between us. "It wasn't about trust, Thor. I trust you more than anyone. I was scared. I was stupid. I—"

My phone chimed from my purse. Then again. And again. A cascade of notifications, one after another, the sound growing more insistent with each passing second.

The blood drained from my face as I pulled out my phone with trembling fingers. Email notifications lit up my screen, all from the same domain: prestige-partners.com.

"What is it?" Thor asked, his anger momentarily redirected by the fear on my face.

I unlocked the screen, opening my work email. My inbox was flooding with messages from partners and colleagues, with subject lines like "Inappropriate Photos," "Urgent Meeting Required," "Professional Conduct Violation," and "Immediate Action Necessary."

"They sent them," I whispered, looking up at Thor in devastation.

I glanced around, left and right. They must now I told Thor. Someone must be watching right now.

“They sent what?” Thor asked, face a mask of horror.

“I can’t do this,” I said, my heart racing. “I can’t do this.”

I stumbled back, and then I turned and ran.

Chapter 15

Thor

Fourdayshadcrawledby since Mandy ran from me in the park, four days that had scraped my insides raw and left nothing but a hollow ache where my heart should be.

I stumbled through my cabin, kicking aside an empty Jack Daniel's bottle, barely registering the clang as it hit three others clustered by the coffee table. The place stank of stale takeout and unwashed clothes—a wreck that perfectly matched the chaos in my head.

Sleep had become a stranger. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face—the hurt, the fear when I'd confronted her. When I'd accused her of betraying me, betraying the club. The memory cut deep, kept me pacing until dawn each morning, forced me back out to search again and again.

My phone sat on the counter, its screen cracked from when I'd hurled it against the wall after the twentieth unanswered call. I picked it up anyway, scrolling through the text messages I'd sent her.

Where are you?

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