Chapter 28 Marshall
MARSHALL
Marshall hit the service corridor at a run, Norah’s hand locked in his.
The door thudded shut behind them, cutting off the last smear of ballroom light. Out here, the hotel’s polished glamour stripped away. Bare concrete floor. Exposed pipes. The hum of industrial fluorescents.
And voices.
He dragged Norah into the shadow of a vending alcove just as two men in dark suits jogged past the intersection ahead, radios clipped to their belts, earpieces tucked in neat, practiced loops.
Norah’s breath shuddered against his shoulder and her dress swayed around his feet. She was still in a gown. Still in heels. Glitter and silk thrown into a war zone.
“Stay with me,” he murmured, low enough that it was barely sound.
She nodded once, jaw tight.
The corridor angled left, right, and back on itself in a series of elbows. Marshall scanned—stainless-steel doors, maintenance closets, service entrances. No visible map. No helpful YOU ARE HERE.
Of course not.
Hotels were built to move bodies and money invisibly, not to help anyone escape an execution.
He leaned around the corner, counting under his breath. One. Two. Three—
Footsteps echoed from the far end. A man’s voice, sharp, clipped Russian. Another answering in English, too calm for Marshall’s liking.
“—dock secured. South exit covered. You see them, you put them down.”
They were already locking the place down.
Backup still hadn’t checked in. Things were up in flames here in DC, and what was happening in Geneva?
He shoved the thought aside before it could distract him.
Focus. Protect Norah.
He felt her pulse hammering through the thin bones of her wrist. It matched the pounding in his own ears.
“We can’t stay here,” she whispered.
“I know.” He scanned the intersections again. “Service corridors will feed to the loading dock. From there, alley access. My car is there.”
He released her hand long enough to shrug out of his tux jacket and jam it under his arm. Too hot. Too constricting. He needed full range of motion.
Norah wobbled on her heels as she shifted weight. The stumble was small, but it lit up every protective tripwire in him.
“Shoes,” he said.
“What?”
“Lose them.” He jerked his chin toward her feet. “You twist an ankle back here and they won’t need to shoot us. We’ll be dead in place.”
Her chin tipped up in automatic defiance—fifteen years hadn’t touched that impulse—but she looked down at her stilettos. Ridiculous weapons on her feet.
She swallowed and bent fast, fingers fumbling with the delicate straps. The shoes came off with soft snaps. Her bare toes curled against the cold concrete, purple polish absurdly bright.
She straightened, heels hooked in one hand, eyes meeting his.
Vulnerable. Furious. Terrified.
“We’re going to have to run,” he warned. “No stopping. No second-guessing. You stay on my six, you do not let go of me unless I put you in someone else’s hands. If that happens—”
Her throat worked. “You’re already planning to hand me off?”
“If it were up to me, I’d never let you out of my sight again,” he admitted. “But if it comes down to it, you are walking out of here alive, with or without me.”
She stared at him, chest lifting in fast, shallow breaths. For a second, he saw every version of her at once—the college girl with ink on her fingers, the brave analyst determined to uncover the truth, the woman in a gown who had just watched a man die two strides away from her.
“Numbers don’t lie,” she’d told him once.
Tonight, the numbers were brutal.
They were outgunned. Outnumbered. Out of time.
She grimaced. “No,” she argued. “I won’t let you sacrifice yourself. You don’t get to decide the ending for me. Not after everything you’ve already decided on your own.”
His throat tightened. “I’m trying to save your life.”
“And I’m trying to save yours,” she whispered fiercely.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, unwilling to argue right now.
When it came down to it, he knew what he would do.
He inhaled, testing his ribs where one of Hale’s guards had landed a lucky shot.
The muscles barked with protest but nothing felt broken.
Pain he could manage. Exhaustion he could override.
Later, his body could send its invoices. Tonight, he’d pay the interest.
Marshall eased them down the corridor, counting cameras, doors, and calculating angles. The smell shifted from hotel detergent and chafing-dish stainless to chemical cleaner and old grease. Somewhere nearby, someone had been prepping banquet food hours ago.
He took the next corner low and fast.
“Contact,” a voice barked behind them, too close.
A round cracked off the wall just above his shoulder, throwing chips of concrete into his hair.
Norah flinched, ducking instinctively. “Marshall—”
“Move.”
He shoved her ahead of him, putting his body between her and the gunfire. Another shot, then another. The echo turned the hallway into a drum. Shouts as someone called for flanking positions.
They ran.
Norah’s bare feet slapped the concrete, her heels clattering uselessly in her hand. The corridor narrowed, then opened into a T.
“Left,” she gasped.
“Right,” he countered, trusting his internal map of the hotel, feeling the faint draft of outside air. He grabbed her elbow and hauled them right.
Behind them, boots pounded closer.
“Stop them!”
New voices, different cadence. Not Russian. American. Corporate security, probably hired by the hotel and seconded to Morris for the night.
Working together. Perfect.
If the Syndicate ever put the same effort into humanitarian aid that they put into coordinated murder, the world might actually improve.
Another shot cracked, close enough that he felt the air kiss the side of his face.
Marshall hit the next corner hard, shoulder screaming as he caromed off the cinderblock and kept going. Norah stumbled and nearly went down. His hand snapped out, yanking her upright.
“Sorry,” she gasped.
“Just run.”
The hallway ahead kinked sideways, then again. Whoever had designed this floor had never met a straight line they liked.
A shadow detached itself from a doorway ahead.
Marshall’s hand was already going for the weapon at his back, mind cataloging threat vectors.
Then the shadow smiled.
“About time,” Landon growled, bracing a blood-smeared palm on the frame. “You took the long way around.”
Adrenaline surged in a different direction, relief and joy.
“Landon.” Marshall grabbed him with his free hand, checking the other man quickly. Jacket torn, knuckles raw, sweat slicking his throat. No obvious bullet holes. “Took you long enough to get here. What happened to ten minutes?”
“Car died half a mile out.” Landon jerked his head back down the hall behind him. “Felt like the fuel line got kissed or the battery got ghosted. Lights on the dash went Christmas, then nothing.” His breath sawed in and out. “Ran the last mile. You’re welcome.”
Boots thundered behind them, closer now, a tide of sound pushing them forward.
“Loading dock?” Landon asked.
“Only shot,” Marshall said. “You know the route?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Landon said grimly. “Come on.”
Marshall shoved him forward. “She’s your shadow now. You do not lose her.”
For a heartbeat, Norah’s fingers tightened on his.
“No,” she said.
Both men looked at her.
“I stay with you,” she said, voice shaking but stubborn.
He met her eyes. Fear clocked in them. So did steel. He wanted to argue. To plant her behind Landon’s broad back and order the man to drag her out of here.
But there wasn’t time. And there were too many angles that ended in someone bleeding out alone in a concrete hallway.
“Fine,” he ground out. “Then we move as one. Landon, point. I’m tail gun.”
Landon nodded once, reading the calculations in Marshall’s eyes. “Copy.”
They moved.
Landon pushed off the doorframe and ran, lengthening his stride despite whatever pounding he’d given his own lungs. He took the lead with the easy, predatory gait that made him so useful in the field and so annoying in training.
Norah pressed close at Marshall’s side, their hands tangling and untangling with every twist in the corridor.
At one point the hallway narrowed to a choke point between a bank of industrial dishwashers and a wall of folded tables.
Landon slid through. Norah hesitated, satin catching on metal, a breath of perfume bruised into the air.
Marshall put his hands on her waist and lifted her clear, the heat of her body searing his palms. For half a second, time did something strange—fifteen years collapsing, memory overlaying the present.
Her body had fit against his exactly the same way when they were kids and the stakes had been things like curfews and calculus exams.
Then a bullet snapped against the metal behind them and reality slammed back into place.
They burst into a wider corridor, overhead doors lining one side.
“Dock’s ahead,” Landon panted. “Two bays. Alley beyond that to the street.”
“And my SUV’s down the block,” Marshall said.
“Assuming it hasn’t grown legs,” Landon muttered between heavy breaths.
The hum of the building changed here. The air was cooler, threaded with the oily tang of diesel and asphalt.
Somewhere, a refrigerated unit kicked on with a low, steady roar.
Over it, faint but growing, came the low wail of sirens.
Multiple, overlapping. Not right outside, but close enough to be a problem soon.
Police. Ambulance. Fire. Or all three.
They were running toward law enforcement and away from it at the same time.
Landon’s hand came up, palm facing him, a silent halt.
He flattened against the wall beside a push-bar door, breathing hard. “Voices,” he mouthed.
Marshall eased Norah into the angle of the wall, putting her in the shadow of a maintenance cabinet. She pressed back, shoulders shaking.
He leaned in close, close enough that he could feel the tremor travel through her.