He moved with her to the curb, angled the umbrella so it covered her completely and left him partially exposed. The cab idled, heater fogging the windows. Norah turned to him, the city muffled, the moment pocketed by rain.
“Thank you,” she said again.
“Be careful,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. It didn’t feel like an order this time. Then his gaze shifted to something behind her.
She nodded and reached for the door handle. “What is it?” she asked, trying for casual, failing.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said, and for once the evasion didn’t sting. She trusted him a little more than she had before.
He held the umbrella until she was inside, then swung it back up as the driver pulled away. Through the rain-smeared window, she watched him turn back toward the restaurant. He was already on the phone, posture coiled.
Norah let the seat swallow her and pressed her palms flat to her knees. Rules, she reminded herself. Distance. Questions, not conclusions. Parcel IDs, not accusations.
Outside, DC blurred by rain and light. Inside, the cab smelled faintly of citrus cleaner and someone else’s cologne. She closed her eyes for one breath and then opened them on purpose.
Numbers don’t lie.
But something else did, and it was bigger than her.
“Where to?” the driver asked, glancing up in the rearview.
“Georgetown,” she said. “And could you take P Street?”
CHAPTER 8
MARSHALL
He’d spottedthe watcher before the second refill.
Gray suit, no coffee, phone screen never lighting up, attention trained on the reflection in the café’s window instead of anything on his table. A professional trying not to look like one.
Marshall had clocked him halfway through Norah’s rundown of shell companies. While she talked—eyes fierce, hands steady despite the tremor underneath—Marshall’s focus had split cleanly in two between her voice and the man in the glass behind her.
If he hadn’t been distracted, he could have listened to her talk for hours. The woman could disassemble a global conspiracy armed with a spreadsheet and a caffeine drip. Heaven help him, it was attractive. He’d never known financial jargon could sound like flirting. Or perhaps he was just as far gone as Jackson implied.
But he hadn’t been able to enjoy watching Norah’s lips as she expounded on derivative exposure patterns and risk-weighted asset distortions. He’d been too busy debating how to neutralize the threat seated three tables away.
Every instinct had saidmove now.But he didn’t. Couldn’t.
They couldn’t make a scene. Not two blocks away from her office.
So he’d stayed put, nodding at her explanations, pretending to sip his coffee while mapping sightlines. Two cameras in range. One exit that offered cover. And a stranger who wasn’t eating, drinking, or leaving.
He’d let the scene play out until she was safely in the cab. Until he could breathe again without worrying what his expression might give away. Now, standing on the rain-slick sidewalk, that restraint felt like acid in his veins.
After tucking Norah into the cab, Marshall looped back toward the corner. Rain slid off the brim of his borrowed umbrella, pattering on the pavement. The café’s chrome sign glowed behind glass.
He adjusted his path, checking the street’s reflection in the puddles the way he’d been trained to—angles, sightlines, shadows. He slowed near the edge of the window, shifting his grip so the umbrella blocked his face from the nearest camera. From the outside, he was just another commuter avoiding the downpour. From beneath the canopy, his eyes tracked the gray suit as the man pushed off the wall and started walking—same direction as the cab.
Marshall shifted course and made the collision look accidental.
“Whoa—sorry about that.” He reached out, catching the man’s shoulder as if to steady them both. The umbrella tilted forward, the black canopy a curtain of privacy between them and the street. To anyone passing by, it looked like a polite recovery. To the man in gray, it was a vise.
The stranger tried to sidestep, eyes tracking the red taillights down the block. “It’s fine,” he muttered, accent faint but there—Baltic, maybe?
Marshall smiled like a man trying to smooth over an awkward bump. “You sure? You looked like you were about to walk into traffic.”
“Excuse me,” the man said, and tugged once. Marshall didn’t let go. His fingers tightened fractionally, enough to shift the balance of power.
