Chapter 1 #2
“Stay with me, Martha!” Asher pressed his hand to the wound. Blood—hot and slick—pulsed through his fingers with her heartbeat. Too fast. Too much. “Help is coming. Just stay—”
Deputy Marshal Ethan Butler knelt beside him, radio already at his mouth. “Witness down. Courthouse lobby. GSW to the chest. We need EMTs now!”
Martha’s hand shot out and grabbed Asher’s jacket with surprising strength. She pulled him close. Her eyes—wide, desperate, already glazing—found his.
“I’m sorry.” Barely a whisper. Blood on her lips. On her teeth. “I’m…sorry…”
“Don’t talk. Save your strength.” Asher kept pressure on the wound even though he could feel the life pulsing out of her with each heartbeat. “You’re going to be fine. Just—”
Her eyes lost focus.
“Martha? Martha, stay with me!”
Her hand went slack and fell away from his jacket.
Gone.
No, no—
Sirens, and then EMTs, and still Asher’s hand pressed the wound.
“Sir—” The EMT touched his shoulder gently. “Sir, she’s gone.”
“I know.”
But he couldn’t make his hands move. Couldn’t make himself let go.
Hank and Diego—courthouse security, weapons drawn, completely useless—arrived at the scene.
Too late. Always too late.
“Secure the exits!” The lead marshal was coordinating the response now, voice crisp despite the chaos. “Shooter down near the entrance—”
“He’s dead.” Michael’s voice.
Asher glanced over at the man, the pool of blood widening.
Dani approached, her FBI credentials in hand. “You okay?”
He didn’t know how to answer her. Looked at Martha’s whitened face.
He should have done more.
“You tried to save her.” Michael. Not a question.
Asher looked up at him, at Dani. Then frowned.
“I saw you knock into the shooter. Right before he fired.”
Asher blew out a breath. “I saw the weapon and just reacted.”
“You might have reacted by pulling your weapon,” Dani said, her mouth tight.
Around them, crime scene techs were already activating. Yellow tape going up. Photographers arriving. Evidence markers.
Asher nodded and got up, backed away from Martha. “Yeah.”
He scanned the lobby through the chaos. Dmitri’s bench near the coffee cart—empty. Newspaper abandoned.
The syndicate’s observer had vanished.
Which meant he’d seen everything. Asher stumbling into Carlo. Martha dying anyway, despite the interference.
And now Dmitri would report back to Draven Frost.
Their corrupt FBI agent had tried to save the witness.
Failed spectacularly.
But tried.
Yeah. That was going to be a fun conversation.
The EMT assessing Martha motioned for a black bag. Asher watched them lift her carefully onto the gurney, watched them cover her face—
He’d broken Patterson’s order and exposed himself to Dmitri’s scrutiny. Maybe even destroyed eighteen months of careful cover-building.
And Martha Lintz had died anyway.
His phone buzzed. Patterson.
Asher stepped toward the windows, away from Dani’s and Michael’s suspicious stares. Morning sunlight made the blood on his hands look almost black.
“Yeah.”
“I told you not to interfere,” Patterson said.
“She would have dismantled them,” he hissed. “And we’d be done.”
“Not without Roger and Destiny Rousseau’s corroboration.”
Well, and that. “We still have—”
“Roger Rousseau was attacked in prison thirty minutes ago.”
Asher stared out the window, the morning sun gilding the mountains to the west that cordoned off Renegade. One would think that a city like Renegade, part urban cowboy, part old-town rangers, might be immune to organized crime.
They’d be wrong. Too close to Denver, maybe.
“They were coordinated hits,” Patterson said. “The syndicate is cleaning house.”
“Yep,” Asher said. “But the question is—how did they know when she’d be transferred? We didn’t broadcast it.”
A pause.
“You didn’t tell them?” Patterson said.
“Not this time.” He’d given them the date. Not the route. Not the blind spots. “We have a mole.”
The EMTs wheeled Martha’s body toward the exit. He turned his back to the sight.
A sigh from Patterson. “Maybe.”
Maybe? Someone else had leaked the route. The timing. The marshal rotation. Which meant what? “Am I blown?”
“I don’t know,” Patterson said, sounding less concerned than Asher would like. “Wait for contact from the syndicate. You’ll need to explain your performance this morning. And Morrison? Next time I give you an order, follow it.”
The line went dead.
The burner phone in his left pocket buzzed against his ribs.
Unknown number
Interesting performance at courthouse. Boss wants to talk. Tonight. Come alone.
There it was.
Dmitri’s report filed. And now, Draven Frost—the man who ran the entire Shadow Syndicate operation—wanted a personal explanation for why his FBI agent on the dole had tried to save a witness.
Asher deleted the text message.
Michael was watching him from near Carlo’s body. Through all the chaos—crime scene techs arriving, evidence being photographed, witnesses being interviewed—his attention never wavered.
Too many questions in those eyes.
Dani approached again. “Asher, I need your statement.”
“Give me a minute.”
“We need to process the scene—”
“I said give me a minute.”
Too sharp. She stepped back, but her eyes tracked him with the same wariness Michael’s did.
Yeah, they probably thought he was the mole. Which was terribly, ironically, brutally funny, really.
Since, well, normally, he was.
Asher looked down at his hands.
Blood under his fingernails.
Staining his shirt cuffs.
Soaked into the knees of his pants.
I’m sorry.
Martha’s last words.
Yeah, well, him too. Because he’d spent eighteen months selling pieces of his soul. Eighteen months telling himself the end justified the means.
And what did he have to show for it?
Blood on his hands. A dead witness. And a meeting tonight with Draven Frost, who just might put a gun to his head and…
Well, he’d always known it would end that way, probably.
So, just another Tuesday.
He got up, looked at Dani, and said, “Okay, ready.” And prepared himself to betray his country. Again.
Three weeks. No—twenty-one days and eight hours of hypervigilance, protein bars that tasted like cardboard, and exactly four hours of sleep per night.
Daphne Cross was so over this gig.
But Angela Carter was alive and walking into federal custody with borrowed clothes and wielding the sword of justice.
That was the job, wasn’t it? Keep them breathing. Keep them moving. Keep them alive long enough to testify.
“I don’t know how to thank you.” Angela stood outside the Seattle Federal Courthouse, the November midmorning sun breaking through the fog that clung to Puget Sound. The woman clutched Daphne’s borrowed overnight bag, eyes already shining with tears.
Daphne kept her face neutral. “You saved your own life by agreeing to testify. I just made sure you survived to do it.”
Angela’s eyes filled. “I’ll miss you.”
Daphne offered a smile. “No, you won’t. You’ll be glad to be rid of me. Because it means you’ll be free.” She held out her hand.
Angela ignored it and pulled her into a hug.
Okay, whatever.
Daphne patted her back. “Go be brave.”
Two FBI agents emerged from the courthouse in dark suits and polished shoes, credentials gleaming in the morning light. The older one—gray at the temples, crow’s feet deep—nodded at Daphne as Angela let her go.
“Good work, Cross. Clean handoff.”
Clean. As if three weeks of living in Angela’s shadow while a corrupt senator threw money at hired killers was some sort of spa vacation.
“She’s all yours.” Daphne stepped back.
Angela moved toward the agents, stopped, then turned back.
“You’re the hero here, not me. I mean it. Thank you for keeping me alive.”
The words landed somewhere in Daphne’s chest. The place she tried not to acknowledge still existed.
“Stay safe, Angela.”
Then Daphne walked away. Down the courthouse steps. Across the plaza, where commuters hurried toward coffee shops and office buildings. November in Seattle meant rain, but today the sky held back with gray clouds threatening but not delivering.
Her car waited in the lot—reliable Toyota Camry, forgettable silver, four years old but well maintained.
Daphne slid into the driver’s seat and exhaled.
Done.
Angela Carter was back in federal hands. Safe and alive.
Thirty-two for thirty-two. Perfect record.
Daphne started the engine. Her phone buzzed on the passenger seat—payment confirmation. Wire transfer complete.
Good. Now she could go home. A bath and a glass of wine awaited her.
Twenty-three minutes later, she parked in the lot behind her apartment building, a converted 1908 Craftsman on a leafy First Hill block, all wide eaves and a deep front porch. Daphne loved it for the quiet, the south light, the way the place felt at once significant, sturdy, and unmovable.
She grabbed her mail from the brass box, climbed to her second-floor corner, and unlocked the door.
Late-morning light poured in through the bay window, gilding the pine floors.
The kitchen had been updated without losing its bones—shaker cabinets in soft gray, a run of white subway tile, and her mother’s old round table with the creaky chairs.
Down the short hall, the bedroom overlooked the shared garden—a hush of rhododendrons and a Japanese maple.
She set the mail on the oak mantel, listened for the building’s familiar creaks, and felt the place settle around her like a well-worn coat.
Her apartment smelled like the lavender sachets she kept in her closet and the faint mustiness of a space closed up for three weeks. It was small. One bedroom. A kitchen that opened to a living room barely big enough for her couch and TV. But it was hers.
Alone at last.
She headed into the bathroom. The bathtub was her one luxury—a deep, old-fashioned claw-foot tub that actually fit her whole body if she angled right.