It came out quieter than he meant, and the room didn’t miss it.
Jackson’s smirk was immediate on the sceen. “You realize that’s not what objectivity sounds like, right?”
“Objectivity’s overrated,” Joey muttered, still typing.
“You’ve all lost your minds,” Miranda said, but there was no real bite in it.
Marshall scrubbed a hand over his jaw and turned toward the board. The network diagram glowed against his face, Summit’sclean blue lines intersecting NorthBridge’s blood-red ones. Somewhere in that tangle, Norah was sitting at her desk, still chasing data because she believed truth was an equation that could be solved if you worked hard enough.
He envied her for that.
Jackson leaned forward, closer to his camera. “Marsh, you sure you’re not too close to this?”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting,” Jackson said mildly. “Just observing. You’ve been wound tighter than a bomb tech since she walked back into your life. You tellin’ me that’s coincidence?”
Marshall ignored him. It was easier than admitting he wasn’t wrong.
Joey saved him from answering. “Let’s table the personal commentary, gentlemen. Ask Norah and we’ll go from there. For now, we’ve got bigger villains.” She tapped another file. “Sidarov’s timeline is accelerating. If she’s funneling through Summit, we’ve got a three-way problem — corruption, defense contract infiltration, and foreign leverage. Your little visit to Geneva is showing us that much. President Coulter is at the European Summit. Things aren’t going well.”
The door opened behind him. Connor stepped in, soaked through, his expression tight. “Sorry I’m late. Chicago went sideways.”
Joey’s head snapped up. “Sideways how?”
“The buyer from Citadel never showed,” Connor said. “And the decoy files we planted surfaced in the wrong channel before the op even started.”
Miranda’s pen stilled again. “What?”
“I’m still not sure,” Connor said. “Stephen is running forensics now.”
Ryder pushed off the wall, all humor gone. “Why didn’t they bite?”
“Too soon to tell,” Connor said. “It’s like they knew it was a honeypot.”
Ryder pressed the stress ball between his palms. “Action items. Joey, replicate the NorthBridge trail with independent data—county records, assessor databases, utilities. No Summit credentials, no Summit IP. Build a three-tier alias tree for any subpoenas we might have to route later.”
Joey’s fingers were already moving. “On it.”
“Connor,” Ryder continued, “spin a discrete counter-intel sweep on Chicago comms. Assume contamination. Figure out who the heck keeps blowing our ops.”
Connor dropped himself into a chair. “Yes, sir.”
“Tank,” he said, “you’re on the shadow rotation for Norah. No contact unless Marshall requests it. Pull in Landon and Pierce, as needed.”
Tank nodded. “Copy.”
Ryder turned to Marshall. “You okay with all this? I know ops can get sticky when there’s someone you care about involved.”
His words reminded Marshall of how Ryder had ended up playing bodyguard for Flint’s little sister, Fiona.
“It’s not the same,” he insisted. “We agreed to some rules of engagement.”
Jackson couldn’t help himself. “Rules likedon’t dieanddon’t make eye contact with your ex-fiancée?”
“We were never engaged,” Marshall said, automatic.
“Semantics,” Jackson sang through the video chat.
