“I’ll do it,” she said.
Marshall wasn’t sure if he was pleased, frustrated, or just plain terrified at her decision.
Maybe all three.
Marshall watched her, the way her fingers twisted in her lap, the stubborn line of her jaw, the fear she was trying—failing—to hide. He knew that look. He’d seen it on soldiers before missions they weren’t sure they’d come back from. And seeing it on Norah made every breath feel like gravel in his lungs.
He shifted closer, lowering his voice. “If you’re going to do this, you can’t just walk in like an accountant pulling overtime.”
“I know that,” she whispered.
“Good.” He forced calm into his tone. “Because we need to plan this right.”
Her eyes flicked to his, wide and unsure, like she wasn’t sure which part of him she was talking to—the soldier or the man she used to love. He hated that he’d made that a question. Hated that he’d drawn so many lines between them she now had to guess which version of him she got at any given moment.
He pulled in a breath. “Listen carefully. You’re going to treat this like any other evening when you are here late. You’re here late a lot, right? It won’t seem strange to anyone.”
She nodded. He held out a keycard.
He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “When you get to the server room, you’ll need to swipe this card, enter the pin 4574, then wait half a second before pulling the door. If you go too fast, the secondary sensor flags it as a forced entry. Too slow, and it logs a suspicious delay.”
She blinked. “How do you even know that?”
“YouTube tutorial,” he said dryly.
Her lips twitched. “Liar.”
The truth was, Joey worked for Raven Tech before Black Tower. And Marshall had seen that Summit still used Raven Tech physical security systems. They were none the wiser about the convenient little backdoors Joey had left herself in all the hardware.
“You’ll put this thumb drive into a USB port somewhere out of sight.” He slipped the small silver stick into her trembling fingers.
Marshall’s hand lingered before he thought better of it, brushing his knuckles over the back of hers. She startled—not because the touch was unwelcome, he didn’t think, but because it had been years since they’d sat this close and talked about danger like it was ordinary.
“Norah.” His voice lowered. “If anything feels off, you walk. I don’t care what Joey needs. I don’t care what data we lose. Your safety is the only thing that matters.”
She stared at him, eyes searching. “You really think they’d hurt me?”
He didn’t sugarcoat it. “If they think you’re a threat? Yes.”
A shiver went through her, delicate and painful to watch. He cupped her hand fully now, thumb sweeping once, slow, deliberate—comfort he couldn’t say out loud.
“I’ll be outside,” he murmured. “The entire time. The second you say something’s wrong, I’m coming in.”
“And if I don’t say anything?” she whispered.
“Then I’m still coming in,” he admitted. “Just quieter.”
For a moment they didn’t speak. They just breathed, close enough the world narrowed to the space between them.
“Marshall . . .” she began.
He shook his head, stopping the words he knew were coming. “Not tonight,” he said softly. “Tonight we focus on getting you in and out alive. You can tell me whatever you want when you come back out.”
CHAPTER 12
NORAH
Norah swipedher badge at the employee entrance and tried to steady her breathing. The reader blinked green, the lock clicked, and the sound seemed to ricochet off every empty surface. She slipped inside quickly, letting the door whisper shut.
