“Same thing,” he said. “One quarter their numbers looked like spaghetti. Three months later it all balanced once the consolidation finished. Accounting quirks. Timing lags. You’ll see it a dozen times in your career. I’m sure we just got an updated version of their data after some bookkeeping was finalized.”
His tone was calm, reasonable. The kind of reassurance she’d leaned on since he’d first taken her under his wing.
“But—” she started.
He held up a hand. “Norah, you’re sharp. The best analyst on this floor. If your gut says something’s wrong, we’ll dig deeper. But sometimes? Sometimes the gut is just ahead of the facts. Give it a little air.”
She looked at him, searching for any flicker of suspicion or dismissal. But all she saw was Richard, steady and kind. The man who had vouched for her when she was a nobody with a secondhand suit and a scholarship résumé.
Her chest eased fractionally. If Richard wasn’t worried, maybe she was overreacting. Maybe Marshall’s warning had just gotten under her skin.
Hale wasn’t family, not exactly, but he was the closest thing she’d had to a father figure in a city where loyalty usually came with an invoice attached. Richard never made her feel like she owed him for his belief in her. He gave it freely. And so, trusting him became a reflex, almost like breathing—because if she didn’t trust him, then she’d have to admit she was on her own. And she wasn’t ready to go back to that.
Richard rose, taking his mug. “Trust your instincts. That’s why I trust you. I’ve got a meeting, but we can talk more later.”
And just like that, he was gone. Leaving her alone in his office. Another subtle sign that he trusted her.
Norah went back to her office and stared at her screen again. The neat columns glowed back at her, blank-faced, innocent.
This is not an inconsistency. It’s a fuse.
She pressed her palms against her eyes. She hated that Marshall’s words had more staying power than Richard’s reassurance. Richard was the one she should be leaning on. Richard was right here, the proof of integrity she wanted to believe in.
Still, the memory clung. The way Marshall had leaned across her desk, his eyes hard. The way he’d said her name like he was still allowed to. She told herself the irritation she felt was because he thought he could still control her. That was the only explanation. Not the flicker of something else she didn’t want to name.
Unlike Marshall, Richard hadn’t warned her away. “Trust your gut,” she whispered under her breath. That’s what Richard had said. And that was exactly what she was going to do.
Norah opened the “Q4 Slides” folder and checked the screenshots again. Still there. Proof she hadn’t imagined it.
She zipped them, renamed the file “Marketing Review,” and tried the cloud sync again. This time, the progress bar moved. She held her breath until the green check appeared.
But as the confirmation faded, a new pop-up blinked in the corner of her screen. A system notice:Session activity monitored.
Her mouse stilled.
She hadn’t triggered that. She had never seen that alert before. And just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.
Norah’s pulse skittered. Someone had been watching.
She shut the folder and closed her eyes for a beat.
Richard believed in her. And Richard would never let Summit be involved in something dirty. She’d prove it for him—prove that Summit wasn’t compromised. If anyone was dangerous, it was NorthBridge.
Richard’s trust had to count for something.
Numbers didn’t lie.
But people did.
And if Marshall thought he could scare her out of following this trail, he was wrong.
She straightened her blazer, pulled the NorthBridge file open again, and started from the top.
CHAPTER 6
MARSHALL
The SUV’sengine idled low, heater humming against the cold creeping in through the windshield. From his spot a block down, Marshall watched the mirrored face of Summit Capital throw back the city’s dying light—glass and steel reflecting gold like it didn’t know the rot under its foundation. He’d been watching long enough for the caffeine in his paper cup to turn cold and bitter. Every few minutes, another suit came or went, phone pressed to their ear, chasing numbers that didn’t matter.
