Calculated Risk (Black Tower Security #5)

Chapter 1

MARSHALL KELLEY

Marshall Kelley generally lived his life waiting for the moment things went wrong–because he was the guy they called to put it back together. He and his team at Black Tower Security.

And something always went wrong.

The conference room smelled faintly of burnt coffee and the gunpowder residue everyone dragged back from the training range buried two levels down.

Marshall slid into his usual seat halfway down the long black table, the chair cool against his palms, the room half-lit by the glow of the massive video wall at the front.

Ross McClain stood near it, flipping through a tablet.

His jaw was clenched in that way it did before he delivered bad news.

It was only Monday morning. Less than forty-eight hours since they’d toasted their victory in Old Town after rescuing Kaylie and Lia.

Oh, and preventing the defense spending bill.

Senator Collins and his defense lobbyist money could pound sand.

Nothing ticked off a former military man more than draft-dodging bureaucrats using the defense budget to line their own pockets.

Forty-eight hours and already the weight of the world was back.

The room could hold thirty, but less than a dozen members of BTS were scattered throughout the room, Ross at the head of the table, Tank taking up enough space for two men, and Will Gilbert sprawled in his usual half-alert way.

Miranda, poised and professional, sat near Ross with a notepad already waiting.

Joey perched in front of a laptop, half-standing as she worked, her curls caught up in a messy bun as she pointed out something on the screen to her protégé, Stephen. Others waited quietly for the ball to drop.

Ross lifted a hand, silencing the murmur of side conversations. “All right, team. Hope you had a good weekend off. It’s time to get back to work.”

Marshall straightened slightly. McClain’s voice had a naturally no-nonsense cadence. He was, as usual, part commander, part big brother. The former Secret Service agent had started Black Tower Security five years ago, along with Flint Raven, the former CEO of RavenTech.

“Joey,” Ross prompted, with a gesture for her to proceed.

She grinned, fingers flying across her keyboard as the screen behind her lit up with charts and connections. “This is going to take some brain power. Think you walking action figures can handle it?” She rubbed her hands together. “It’s going to be fun.”

Marshall almost smiled. Joey was the only one who thought digging through encrypted servers and shell company spreadsheets qualified as fun.

She was the best he’d ever seen. Stephen was a close second, though.

She’d brought him into the fold around six months ago, the week of President Waters’ assassination.

Joey launched into her briefing—her words tripping over each other as she outlined the latest threads she’d pulled from the Syndicate’s web of deception and murky machinations.

“Trip Harrington’s moving money again,” she said, tapping the keyboard.

Harrington was the Syndicate’s money man, an expert at making their financial machinations seem innocent.

Or hiding them altogether. A diagram blossomed across the screen, companies, accounts, and wires darting across continents.

“He’s hiding it better this time, but the pattern’s the same.

Offshore holdings, back through a Luxembourg account, then into a couple domestic conduits. Most of it’s what we’ve seen before.”

Marshall’s gaze slid to the blank stretch of table in front of him, the diagrams dissolving into background static. Numbers and shell companies weren’t his world.

Then she said it, almost a throwaway comment. “One of the conduits he used more heavily this round was Summit Capital. Could be nothing, but it’s worth learning more about.”

The name cut through the fog of his distracted thoughts. Summit Capital . . . Why did that sound familiar?

“Something wrong?”

Jackson’s voice cut into his thoughts, light and teasing. Marshall shot him a warning look, but his younger brother was already leaning back in his chair, arms spread wide and folding behind his head.

He nudged Marshall’s knee with his foot. “Isn’t that where Norah is working?” Jackson said with a whisper, apparently not satisfied with Marshall’s lack of reaction.

The name flashed red-hot in his mind, dragging with it a memory. Her face, her laugh, the way she’d looked at him that night before everything shattered. He forced his jaw to unclench and kept his expression flat. But he couldn’t stop the knot forming in his chest.

Jackson had briefly mentioned Norah and Summit Capital just the other night, but Marshall had just as quickly shoved the information—and the memory—out of his mind. But here it was again.

He told himself it was a coincidence. Summit was a big firm. Hundreds of employees. Just because Norah worked there didn’t mean there was any reason to worry.

“Can you please focus, Jackson?” Miranda asked from across the table.

“Anything you say, baby girl,” Jackson replied with a wink in her direction. Marshall shook his head at his brother’s antics.

Miranda’s cheeks pinkened, and she pushed her glasses back up, pressing her lips together.

Ross gave Jackson a long-suffering look, then gestured for Joey to continue.

“Right.” Joey’s tone sharpened. She clicked to a new slide, a grainy black-and-white photo of a woman in her fifties.

Time hadn’t softened her. Her face was all hard planes and angles, framed by dusty blonde hair, her gaze sharp enough to cut.

“This,” Joey said with a flourish, “is Ksenia Sidarov. And if I’m right, this is our Saltykova. ”

Marshall leaned forward before he realized it, pulse ticking up. They’d been chasing shadows for months, but they didn’t know who Saltykova was. Just that they were vicious, Russian, and behind nearly everything the Syndicate was doing. And now Joey had put a face to the name. Possibly.

“Since Yuri gave us the lead, I’ve been digging.

” Joey tapped the photo on the glowing screen and Sidarov’s name appeared under it.

“And with Kaylie’s intel from the phone call she overheard at Citadel’s creepy villain lair in Chicago?

We’ve got a breakthrough. This is the strongest lead we’ve had, and I’ve spent the last seventy-two hours pulling everything I could find on Ksenia Sidarov. ”

She clicked again, enlarging the grainy image to focus on the woman’s face.

“Sidarov runs in Russia’s elite circles.

She’s widowed now, but she was married to Victor Sidarov, a cabinet-level official under the prime minister.

” Joey delivered the dossier as though she was a podcaster diving into some true crime suspect.

“On paper, Ksenia was a trophy wife. But that proximity gave her access—and she has leveraged it into power. These days, she doesn’t need a husband.

Her social calendar reads like the Who’s Who of Russian politics and industry. ”

Joey clicked to another slide—this one appeared to be an old newspaper photo.

“This is from her husband’s funeral,” she said.

The black-and-white shot showed Ksenia Sidarov standing alone at the graveside.

While generals saluted and mourners wept, she stared straight at the camera, lips pressed in a line, her eyes cold and dry.

“Reporters said she didn’t shed a tear. Not one.

People in Moscow started calling her the Iron Widow. ”

Marshall felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

The room quieted. No one moved, the only sound the hum of the projector. Marshall had been in plenty of tense briefings, but this silence felt different. Like everyone knew they’d just stepped closer to the heart of the Syndicate than they ever had before.

Jackson let out a low whistle. “Well, she definitely gives me evil grandma vibes.” Marshall glared at him. Couldn’t his brother ever take things seriously?

Joey tapped again, revealing the web of connections she’d been creating, but leaving Sidarov’s photo visible.

“Bare minimum? Sidarov’s in the Syndicate and on speed dial with Shane Lowell.

But if our theory is right, she’s Saltykova.

” Joey’s gaze swept across the team. “And if she is? That means every nightmare Darkshade babbled about before he took a bullet in the skull? That’s her reputation getting in his head. ”

Miranda leaned forward, pen tapping her notebook. “So she’s not just another player. She’s one of the architects. Or the architect.”

Will frowned. “This is all just a theory, though.” He was as pragmatic as they come, and Marshall wasn’t the least bit surprised he wasn’t willing to take the story as fact just yet, no matter how convincing a tale Joey spun.

“True,” Joey said with a shrug. “We don’t have her on a Syndicate Zoom call with a nametag.

” “But between one—" Joey counted off on her fingers. “—Kaylie overhearing Shane Lowell greet a caller as Ksenia. Two, Ryder flagging Sidarov, and three, every terrified whisper I’ve tracked online . . . Yeah. My money’s on her.”

Stephen jumped in, sounding slightly nervous.

He wasn’t used to presenting in briefings yet, but Marshall liked the awkward computer nerd well enough.

“Like Saltykova’s reputation, Sidarov is brutal.

In business, she’s made a name for herself buying and gutting companies without mercy.

Personally, multiple staff have fled Moscow or just .

. . vanished. One of them turned up floating in the Moskva River with one hand sliced off and his skull crushed in.

Everyone else learned to keep their mouths shut. ”

Marshall chimed in with the question that had been niggling at him. “What’s her motive?”

Stephen shook his head. “We haven’t found it yet. Not sure it has to be more than money and power, right?”

As the others began to speculate, Marshall’s mind spun.

Money and power were the easy answers, but they didn’t fit the kind of fear he’d seen in Darkshade’s eyes.

Men like him didn’t beg for protection from ordinary greed.

Whoever Saltykova really was, she had something darker driving her.

Something that made killers and politicians alike fall in line.

He stared at the photo on the screen. A face to the monster. That should’ve made him feel like they were gaining ground. Instead, all he could think about was how many more bodies it would take before they finally cornered her.

Ross studied the frozen photo as well, his face grim.

“All right. Action item. Keep digging. Quietly. If she’s Saltykova, we don’t tip our hand until we know more.

” He glanced down the table. “Meanwhile, Harrington’s conduits stay on the board.

Joey, follow the money. Miranda, plan contingencies if we need eyes on Summit, Citadel, or elsewhere. Tank, Will—standby.”

Then his gaze shifted to Marshall. “I want you focused on Summit Capital. If Harrington’s running money through them, we need to know how deep it goes. So far, they’ve been under the radar, but if Joey thinks it is significant, it probably is.”

Marshall nodded once, his voice even. “Understood.”

Ross gave a final nod. “That’s it. Dismissed.”

Marshall stayed seated. The screen still glowed with Joey’s expanded Syndicate diagram, one line of text taunting him as his next assignment. Summit Capital.

He exhaled slowly, scrubbing a hand over his face. He didn’t want to care. Didn’t want the rush of protective instinct that came at the thought of Norah entangled in Harrington’s money laundering. Fifteen years was a lifetime. She wasn’t his to protect. Not anymore.

And yet . . . the thought of her anywhere near the Syndicate’s corruption twisted something inside him.

A prayer nearly rose to his lips, but he shoved it down. He hadn’t prayed in a long time—not really. And he wasn’t about to start now. Not for her. Not for himself. He couldn’t bring himself to say what he really meant, what his heart had already whispered without permission. Keep her safe.

The silence that followed felt heavier than any response.

Marshall shoved back from the table, shoulders squared, mask back in place. He had more important things to worry about than one little analyst at a massive investment firm. His ex-girlfriend would have to survive without him. She’d made that choice a long time ago.