Chapter 28 Marshall #2
“Breathe,” he said quietly. “In. Out. Just like before a presentation. You’ve done harder things than this.”
Her laugh came out strangled. “I’ve never outrun a kill squad before.”
He couldn’t help it—his mouth almost smiled, sharp and brief.
“First time for everything,” he said. Then softer, “You’re not alone anymore, Norah.”
Her eyes lifted to his. For a heartbeat, the corridor, the shouting, the clatter of boots—all of it faded.
Then Landon looked back at them, eyes high alert. “They’ve got the dock,” he murmured. “Morris’s muscle. At least six, probably more outside. Armed, but keeping it low profile. We poke our heads out, they’re not going to ask for a dance card.”
“And behind us?” Marshall asked.
As if in answer, the echo down the corridor thickened. Voices layered over each other. Someone barked an order in Russian. Another answered in English.
Landon grimaced. “That would be Sidarov’s fan club.”
Trapped between a private army and a kill squad with diplomatic immunity.
The sirens swelled, crawling under Marshall’s skin.
“We can’t just sit here,” Norah whispered. “They’ll sweep the hallway.”
Marshall’s mind ran the map. Could they force an overhead door? Drop to the alley? Too exposed. Could they double back and try another route? No time. No guarantee it wouldn’t lead into another kill box.
Marshall’s ribs hurt with every breath. His shoulder throbbed where he’d hit the wall. His legs burned from the sprint.
None of it mattered.
He reached up and smoothed a strand of Norah’s hair back from her face. His hand shook, just once.
He leaned in, forehead nearly touching hers. “When I move, you go with Landon,” he said. “He’ll get you to the SUV. From there, you put as much distance between you and this mess as you can. You don’t look back.”
She shook her head, tears bright now. “No.”
Landon swore under his breath. “This is touching and all, but we’ve got about forty-five seconds before this turns into a corridor execution.”
Norah’s fingers tightened painfully around Marshall’s. “I am not letting you leave again,” she said, every word an anchor.
His chest clenched.
He had walked away once. Told himself it was duty. Training. The right thing.
He was not that man anymore.
He turned toward the door to the loading dock.
Through the small wired-glass window, he could see motion—shadows crossing, the silhouette of a man with a weapon held low, professional. Another shape beyond that. The faint wash of light from the alley painted everything in shades of gray.
The exit was blocked.
Behind them, the echoing footsteps of Sidarov’s people closed in, voices growing clearer. They were being driven toward the dock like game toward a trap.
Marshall tightened his grip on Norah’s hand. Felt Landon shift at his shoulder, drawing a breath that sounded like a man settling into the only choice left.
Marshall pulled in a controlled breath. Then he raised his comm.
“Stephen. I need help.”
A beat, then Stephen answered—quiet, tight. “I hear you.”
“They’ve boxed the loading dock. I need a way through.”
Another beat. Barely half a second, but Marshall could feel the kid’s hesitation like a taut wire over the line.
“I can trigger a fire-suppression dump,” Stephen said. “Zone C only. It won’t hurt you, but visibility will tank for thirty seconds.”
Thirty seconds.
Marshall didn’t hesitate. “Do it.”
“Triggering on your go.”
Marshall lowered the comm. Turned to Norah.
He had maybe ten seconds before the men behind them hit this stretch of hallway. Fifteen before someone thought to check this door.
His hand cupped the side of Norah’s face, thumb brushing over the pulse in her throat. It slammed against his skin, frantic.
“Marshall,” she breathed. Her eyes glistened, lashes spiked. “Don’t you dare say goodbye.”
He should have listened.
He didn’t.
He bent, fast and sudden, and she rose to meet him.
Her mouth collided with his, hard and fierce and shaking. It tasted like salt and fear and fifteen years of unsaid things. Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, as though she could anchor him there by sheer will.
For a second, everything inside him stopped fighting. The noise, the pain, the calculations—they all fell away. There was only the reality of her, pressed against him in a service corridor that smelled like bleach and gun oil.
His heart hammered against his ribs so hard it hurt.
Then someone shouted at the far end of the hallway and the spell shattered.
She broke the kiss, breathless.
He stepped back, every cell in his body screaming at the distance. He slid his hand down until their fingers tangled again.
“We’re going to have to run. Hard. No stopping, no second-guessing. You stay on my six and you do not let go.”
He turned his head, just enough to see Norah’s profile. The smear of lipstick at the corner of her mouth where he’d kissed her. The tremor in her jaw as she fought to hold it together.
He owed her the truth, at least once in his life.
“Norah,” he said quietly.
She looked at him.
For a moment, the world narrowed to the space between their eyes.
“Whatever happens,” he said, voice roughened and low, “I love you. And I’m getting you out.”
Marshall lifted his comm. “Stephen. Now.”
A mechanical thrum rolled through the walls like the building inhaling. Red beacons lit overhead. Klaxons screamed. And then the suppression system dumped.
Fog exploded along the ground from waist-high vents—thick, white, cold. It rolled fast across the floor, swallowing pallets and crates and men’s legs in seconds.
Marshall shoved the door open and pulled Norah into the chaos.
The fog came up to his knees, then his thighs. Vision warped. Feet blurred. Muzzle flashes stuttered in the haze like heat lightning. Shouts collided with the alarms, echoing off metal beams.
Morris’s men faltered at the loss of their sight lines. Sidarov’s mercenaries adjusted quickly, but even they had to slow.
“Go!” Marshall barked.
He drove forward, dragging Norah with him, Landon covering their flank.
A guard appeared out of the fog—close, too close. Marshall slammed his forearm into the man’s rifle, knocking it aside. A sharp knee to the ribs, a twist, and the man folded.
Another shooter came from the right. Landon caught him with two fast strikes, dropping him cleanly.
“Left!” Landon yelled.
Marshall pivoted—to see Hale materialize out of the haze like a nightmare made of satin fog and gunmetal.
Hale’s hand clamped around Norah’s arm.
She cried out, stumbling as he yanked her backward.
Marshall’s vision tunneled.
He lunged.
Hale fired a wild shot—too high, blinded by the haze. Marshall hit him low, smashing his arm aside. The pistol cracked against the concrete and skittered away.
Hale tried to twist, but Marshall didn’t give him the chance.
Two moves. Brutal. Final.
The man collapsed in the fog, eyes going wide, then glassy as he exhaled his last breath. Marshall’s gut twisted with the realization that he’d taken another life.
Norah staggered backward into Marshall’s chest, breath breaking, tears cutting clean paths down her cheeks.
“I’ve got you,” he said, dragging her behind him as rifle fire tore through the haze where Hale had stood seconds earlier.
“Move!” Landon called. “They’re regrouping!”
The fog was thinning. Their window was closing.
Marshall wrapped an arm around Norah’s waist and pushed them toward the left bay door, the one cracked open to the alley. A burst of rounds hammered the steel behind them. Another snapped past Marshall’s shoulder. The fog lit with brief, violent light.
They broke into the cold air of the alley. Sirens bounced off brick.
And headlights—cutting sharp through the haze.
A dark SUV skidded to a stop, slewing sideways, brakes screaming. The passenger door flew open. Connor leaned across the seat, eyes wide. “Get in!”
Marshall shoved Norah into the back and dove in after her. Landon hit the front seat just as gunfire erupted from the loading dock behind them.
“Go!” he shouted.
Connor floored it.
Tires shrieked. The SUV fishtailed onto the street, engine roaring. Bullets pinged off the rear panel, spiderwebbing the back window. Norah cried out and ducked, clutching the seatbelt across her chest.
“Everyone breathing?” Connor demanded.
“Barely,” Landon muttered, looking back. “Boss—you gotta see this.”
Marshall twisted.
The alley was receding, swallowed in fog that still poured from the dock like smoke from a battlefield.
And in that fog—centered under the red spinning beacons—stood Ksenia Sidarov.
Perfectly poised. Unconcerned.
Her ballgown pooled around her feet like ink. Her hair immaculate. Her hands folded lightly in front of her. Mercenaries moved around her with professional urgency, but she didn’t move at all.
She watched them flee.
Calm. Calculating.
And faintly, unmistakably, amused.
Marshall faced forward again, jaw clenched so hard it hurt.