Chapter 4 Marshall
MARSHALL
The marble lobby of Summit Capital was designed to make men like him feel underdressed.
Miranda had made sure he wasn’t. Navy suit, white shirt, muted tie—everything chosen by his logistics expert to make him look like he had money that knew how to be quiet.
He moved past the glass sculpture pretending to be art and accepted the visitor badge the receptionist printed without questions.
Joey had built him a backstory with three LLCs and a Cayman feeder fund. Miranda had drilled the schedule into him. He had fifteen minutes with a mid-tier partner who thought Marshall was there to discuss shifting his considerable assets to Summit for management.
That was the pretext.
The truth was different. They’d been digging into Summit. Yesterday, Ross said a friend from the SEC tipped him off that someone inside Summit was digging around something that would get themselves painted with a target.
All Marshall had was an office number and the knowledge that the trail led here. Someone inside Summit was digging. A potential ally?
Joey and Stephen had spent several hours trying to determine which projects at Summit would upset the Syndicate if someone looked too closely.
Only one popped bright red on Joey’s Syndicate web.
Summit’s venture capital division was vetting NorthBridge Energy.
NorthBridge was currently owned by Trip Harrington’s best client.
A greedy Texas billionaire with a big hat and far too many cattle. If by cattle you meant oil rigs.
And if Summit was vetting NorthBridge and had connections to Harrington?
It meant there was probably far more already on their books.
They needed eyes inside the Summit internal servers.
Much to Joey’s chagrin, the Summit cybersecurity team was actually competent, and she couldn’t get in from the outside.
She needed a physical port. Enter Marshall on recon.
He stepped into the elevator and watched his reflection settle into neutrality. Nothing to see. Just a man with capital to deploy. Just a man hoping he wouldn’t find her on this floor. A man hoping to find five minutes to disappear into a server room without someone calling building security.
On the twenty-sixth floor, the doors parted to reveal a small reception area guarding a corridor of glass offices.
He took in the layout—corner offices angled for the river view, bullpen tucked behind frosted dividers, cameras at each corner.
He cataloged faces without looking like he was cataloging faces.
Ten years in Army intelligence had taught him that long before Black Tower made it second nature.
“Mr. Simmons will be right with you,” the assistant said, gesturing toward a seating area. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Sparkling water?”
“Still water is fine,” he said, because pretentious people who said still water belonged in buildings like this.
The assistant disappeared, leaving Marshall in the waiting room with the leather chairs. On a side table, financial magazines were carefully fanned next to an orchid so pristine it had to be real. He sat with body balanced forward, his posture relaxed but ready.
The assistant brought him water in a glass bottle with a twist cap. He thanked her politely and opened it. Then, he waited.
He should have been thinking about his pitch to Simmons.
Instead, his thoughts edged back to the tip.
Someone inside Summit had been digging into something.
That was more than curiosity. It meant motive.
It meant courage—or recklessness. Joey hadn’t been able to trace the access cleanly, not without leaving footprints.
All they’d been able to narrow down was an office number.
Which made this meeting the best excuse Marshall had to sniff around.
The assistant’s voice broke the quiet. “Mr. Simmons will see you now.”
Marshall rose smoothly, buttoned his jacket, and followed her down the corridor. He flagged the likely server room as he passed, unmarked but locked with an electronic keypad and swipe access.
The office was glass on three sides, a view of the river stretching wide beyond Simmons’s desk. Simmons was already standing, smiling that polished, too-white smile Marshall had seen on half a dozen men who thought they could read you by your handshake.
“Mr. Kincaid,” Simmons said warmly, offering his hand.
Marshall clasped it with practiced confidence. “Appreciate you making the time.”
“Always happy to make new connections.” Simmons gestured him into a chair.
The small talk began—fund performance, shifting allocations, where opportunities were ripest. Marshall let the man talk, asked a pointed question here and there, just enough to keep the mask in place.
His real attention flicked past Simmons’s shoulder, to the corridor outside.
He had to figure out a way to poke around the offices.
They needed a list of potential assets before they could figure out who was on their side.
A woman with a dark blazer and her hair pulled back walked by quickly, clutching a file to her chest.
Marshall’s heart stopped and then started again, harder this time.
Norah.
For a moment he thought he’d imagined her. That she was just another shadow in his memory, conjured by this building. But she slowed outside the office door, her eyes flicking toward the elevators, then to Simmons’s office—then landing square on him.
Recognition flared, sharp and undeniable.
Marshall schooled his face into stillness. Simmons was still talking about bond exposure. Norah, however, had gone perfectly still in the doorway, like she’d stumbled into a nightmare she couldn’t step back out of.
“Ms. Winslow?” Simmons said, glancing up. “Did you need something?”
Her gaze snapped to Simmons, and she forced a thin smile. “I—sorry. I didn’t realize you were in a meeting.”
“This is Mr. Kincaid,” Simmons said, as if her presence was of no consequence. “We’re just discussing some possibilities.”
Marshall inclined his head politely, like she was no one to him. “Ms. Winslow,” he said evenly, the formality sounding strange. Norah. Babe. No-No. Love. He’d called her all of those a hundred times. Never Ms. Winslow.
If she flinched, she covered it well. “Mr. Kincaid.” Her tone was crisp, professional, but her eyes betrayed her. She knew very well that wasn’t his name. Would she blow his cover?
Simmons glanced between them. “Do you two know each other?”
“We’ve met briefly,” Marshall said smoothly, before she could speak. He didn’t give her room to contradict it. “Mutual friends.”
Norah hesitated a half-second too long before nodding. Her smile was tight, her knuckles white around the file. “Nice to see you. I’ll come back later, Jeff.”
Simmons waved her off, already turning back to Marshall. “She’s one of our sharper analysts. Very thorough.”
Marshall’s jaw ticked once. Thorough. Of course she was.
The conversation with Simmons limped on for another few minutes, but Marshall’s mind wasn’t on allocations anymore.
When Simmons rose to shake his hand again, Marshall obliged. He snaked his left hand to Simmon’s belt and deftly unhooked the Summit Capital ID badge that was clipped there. Simmons, oblivious, led him out into the corridor.
He didn’t look for her—he didn’t need to. She was there, waiting, file clutched tight, a storm in her eyes.
“Mr. Kincaid, could I have a moment?” she said pointedly. He finished tucking the badge into his pocket.
He paused. “Of course. Whatever you need.”
He met her eyes and for an instant the years between them vanished.
Up close, time showed itself in places you had to look to see them.
The corners of her eyes held tiny creases.
She had a few gray hairs where her hair parted and the color had grown out.
She kept her shoulders squared like she’d learned the world pressed if you gave it an inch. The rest hadn’t changed.
He followed as she led him to her office, passing the server room once more, still trying to figure out how he could get inside. He didn’t even know if Simmon’s badge would unlock it. Norah rounded the corner in front of him, and he took the moment to swipe the badge, frowning when it beeped red.
He took a few steps to catch up, the worthless badge again nestled in his pocket. Norah shut the door behind them, hitting a button near the door that made the glass walls suddenly cloudy, granting them a bit of privacy.
“What are you doing here, Marshall?”
“Evaluating my portfolio,” he said, taking the chair opposite hers.
He let his eyes trace, measure, and file away every detail.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d been twenty years old, standing on a porch with his bag by her feet.
She’d had a look on her face that had broken him, because it said she realized he couldn’t be the thing she needed.
“Liar,” she said. “Mr. Kincaid might have been evaluating his portfolio, but the Marshall Kelley I know wouldn’t step foot in a place like this for financial advice.”
Marshall let the corner of his mouth shift in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “People change.”
“Not you.” She set the file down with deliberate care, knuckles still white. “The Marshall I knew didn’t dress like an investor, didn’t talk like one either. So what game are you playing?”
He leaned back in the chair, calm on the outside, his pulse tight beneath. “Not a game.”
That earned him a sharp look, one he remembered too well. The same look she’d given him when he said he’d come back. She hadn’t believed him then. She didn’t believe him now.
The silence stretched. She folded her arms, blazer creasing, shoulders squared. “Why are you really here?”
He let his eyes move across her face instead of answering—older, sharper, steadier now, but still Norah. The girl who’d laughed with him under string lights and whispered dreams about futures neither of them had gotten.