Chapter 31 Marshall
MARSHALL
Miranda had bullied them both into eating.
Marshall wasn’t hungry, but he’d learned a long time ago that adrenaline lied and your body paid later if you believed it.
So he sat at the scarred wooden table in the safehouse kitchen with a paper plate in front of him, a half-eaten sandwich growing cold, and watched Norah take small, mechanical bites of hers.
She’d wrapped both hands around a mug of tea like it was a lifeline, shoulders hunched under one of the navy Black Tower hoodies he kept in his locker. It dwarfed her, sleeves pushed up past her wrists, but a primitive satisfaction filled him at the sight of her in his clothes.
The fluorescent light overhead made the shadows under her eyes look deeper. Every now and then her gaze would flick toward the doorway, as if expecting another threat to materialize.
He hated how familiar that look was. He’d seen variations of it in war zones and refugee camps, in safe rooms and field hospitals. Trauma itself took many different forms, but the symptoms had significant overlap.
“I checked the logs twice,” Miranda was saying, pacing between the counter and the fridge like a short, furious metronome. Her dark braid swung behind her. “Three times. There’s nothing. No missed calls, no dropped connection, no partial handshake. It’s like you never dialed.”
Marshall pushed a piece of bread crust around his plate. “I dialed. Or Stephen did, anyway. Trust me.”
Miranda grimaced. “Yeah, that’s what worries me.”
Norah’s fingers tightened around the mug. “Why does that worry you?”
“We route our field traffic through enough redundancies that it shouldn’t happen,” Miranda said.
“Even if one node glitches, the others catch it. For a call to go nowhere and leave no record . . .” She blew out a breath, cheeks puffing.
“Someone would have had to ghost it on purpose. Or be inside our system in a way I really, really don’t like thinking about. ”
Norah’s gaze dropped to the table. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “This is because of me.”
Before Marshall could protest, Miranda was on it.
“It’s not,” Miranda said immediately, whipping around to face her. “This is because of the Syndicate. You just had the questionable honor of being last night’s main event.”
Norah’s mouth pressed into a flat line that said she didn’t entirely agree.
“That reminds me. Thanks for thinking to get Cleo for me. I am glad she’s here safe.”
Miranda’s gaze narrowed and her eyes slid to Marshall. He gave a subtle shake of his head. There was no need to tell Norah that he’d been the one to insist someone go retrieve Cleo. “Of course,” Miranda replied graciously.
Marshall’s phone sat face-down between his elbow and his plate. The screen kept lighting up with secure pings—updates from Joey, Will, and a thread about rerouting comms. He hadn’t opened them yet. For the first time in a long time, he’d chosen the person in front of him over the intel.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, heavy and unhurried. Boot tread over smooth tile.
Ross McClain stepped into the kitchen a heartbeat later, filling the doorway.
His boss usually looked like a recruiting poster for competent leadership—pressed shirts, crisp jawline, that steady, unflappable calm that had helped convince Marshall to sign on with Black Tower in the first place. Now, he just looked tired.
His button-down was wrinkled under a navy blazer that had seen too many airports.
His sandy hair stood up on one side like he’d run a frustrated hand through it in the last hour.
There was stubble on his jaw, shadowing the lines bracketing his mouth.
The blue of his eyes seemed duller, like Geneva had scraped some of the color out.
“Hey,” Miranda said softly. “Boss.”
He scanned the room. Took in the plates, the food, Norah’s hoodie, the way Marshall had angled his chair between her and the door without realizing it.
His gaze flicked to Norah, then back to Marshall. Something settled in his expression.
“Good,” Ross said. His voice was roughened by travel and too little sleep, but it still held that command edge. “You’re both in one piece. It’s nice to officially meet you, Norah. I’m Ross McClain. Welcome to Black Tower Security. I trust Miranda is making sure you have everything you need?”
Norah straightened in her chair automatically, like she’d just been called on in a board meeting. “She has, Mr. McClain,” she said. “I—”
He lifted a hand, the faintest ghost of a smile touching his mouth. “Ross is fine. You’ve had a night. No formalities required.”
Her fingers tightened around the mug. “It was . . . eventful.”
“That’s one word for it,” Marshall muttered.
Ross’s gaze lingered on Norah for another beat—assessing, maybe checking for visible breakage. Then he looked at Marshall, and some of the general exhaustion sharpened into something more personal.
“Marshall,” he said. “I need a word.”
The old instinct rose automatically to reply “Yes, sir.” To be up and moving before the thought finished. He tamped it down, keeping his voice level. “Sure.”
Beside him, Norah’s shoulders hitched. “If you need the space, I can go home if—”
“No,” Ross said quickly, then softened it. “You’re not in the way. I just need to talk to Marshall first.”
First. Not instead. Marshall caught it. So did Norah, if the small exhale she let out meant anything.
He turned toward her. “Hey.” He nudged her knee with his under the table, gentle. “Why don’t you grab a shower? Hot water’s decent here. Mostly.”
Some of the tension in her face eased at the faint attempt at humor. “You saying I smell, Kelley?”
He huffed a quiet not-quite laugh. “I’m saying it might feel good. It’s been a long night.”
Her gaze searched his like she could read the subtext there. He tried to project something steady. I’ve got this. You’re safe. I’m not going anywhere.
“Okay,” she said finally. She set the mug down and pushed to her feet. The hoodie sleeves slid down over her hands. “If you touch my french fries, Miranda, we can’t be friends.”
Miranda pressed a hand to her heart. “I would never. Almost never,” she amended with a guilty face.
Norah’s mouth twitched—almost a smile. She glanced at Marshall one more time, then slipped past Ross into the bedroom they’d designated as hers.
He tracked her until she disappeared around the corner. Only then did he drag in a breath and turn back.
Ross watched him watching her. That knowing glint in his eyes, even tired, made Marshall want to grit his teeth.
Miranda shifted. “I’ll . . . go check on Joey,” she said, reading the room with her usual accuracy. “See if she’s traced the satellite images.”
She snagged her own plate and slid out, leaving the door ajar behind her.
The kitchen felt quieter without them. The hum of the fridge. The faint rush of pipes somewhere in the walls. The distant sound of running water as Norah turned on the shower down the hall.
Ross dragged a chair back from the table and sat opposite Marshall, bracing his forearms on the worn wood. For a moment, he just looked at him. Measuring. Choosing his words.
“Start with the good news,” Marshall said dryly. “You look like crud, so I’m assuming there’s at least some.”
One corner of Ross’s mouth kicked up, then flattened. “Jackson’s alive.”
The words hit harder than he expected. Something in Marshall’s chest went loose and tight at the same time, like a fist unclenching and then slamming shut again.
He hadn’t let himself name the fear on the drive back from the hotel. He’d kept it compartmentalized—one more variable in a night full of them. But now, hearing it out loud, it landed.
He closed his eyes for half a second. Just long enough to picture his brother’s stupid grin, the way he threw himself into danger like he believed he was bulletproof.
Thank you, God.
“Okay,” he said. His voice came out steadier than he felt. “That’s one.”
Ross exhaled slowly, fingers lacing together. “Now the rest.”
Of course. There was always a rest.
“In the last twelve hours,” Ross went on, “every piece of intel coming out of Geneva points to Jackson as not only our mole, but a traitor on the largest scale.”
Marshall didn’t flinch physically. Years of training held, but the world tilted a degree to the left.
“Walk me through it,” he said. The words scraped on the way out, but they stayed level. “From the top.”
Ross nodded—a small tilt that said he approved of how Marshall was still thinking. “Coulter landed in Geneva two weeks ago. Standard security protocols. Russians were already on edge—intel chatter about a faction unhappy with the summit. Coulter wanted a few extra people he could trust.”
Marshall nodded. He knew all this already. That was why Jackson, Tank, Will, and Pierce had gone to Switzerland. Coulter trusted Black Tower more than half his own security detail. Consequences of finding deep FBI and Secret Service corruption when his predecessor was assassinated.
“Everything was going okay. The usual political theater and very little productive negotiation. Then yesterday morning, or the day before last? Geez, what day is it?” He ran a hand over his face.
“Late Thursday night or Friday morning—Geneva time—NORAD hit the alarm on a missile launched from a base in central Russia, headed straight for western Europe.”
Marshall shook his head, his eyes glancing back to the TV, where the news coverage still played silently.
“As Defense scrambled to initiate DEFCON 2 and get Coulter into the air back to the States, someone took a shot at his hotel room. Missed him by inches. Shooter vanished. But in the sweep afterward, they found something worse.”
Marshall felt the first true spike of unease. “What?”
“Three hours before the attempt on Coulter,” Ross said, “your brother’s summit security credentials were used to access a restricted holding room reserved for the Russian delegation.”
Marshall stared at him. “That’s impossible.”