The corner of Ross’s mouth tightened, almost imperceptibly. If the person watching wasn’t an expert interrogator.
“I want to say yes. But we both know Ryder’s past. There are a lot of skeletons in that closet. And if Fiona was at risk? I think he’d burn the whole world down to protect her. Including Black Tower.”
Marshall couldn’t argue with that. Ryder’s moral compass hadn’t always pointed due north, but that man was as honorable as they came now that he’d found Christ. Ross must be seriously spooked if he was even considering Ryder as a suspect.
“Can I ask what makes you so sure you can trust Will and me?” Not that he couldn’t, but Marshall was curious how he ended up on the—very short—list of trusted operatives.
“Will is as black and white as they come. He won’t clock out fifteen minutes early without coming in thirty minutes early the next day to make up for it. There’s a reason his handle is Square. And you?” Ross smirked. “Marshall, you’re the most stubbornly loyal operative I’ve ever met. Even when you’re ordered to stand down, you don’t quit. You don’t walk away from people you care about, even when it costs you. You’ve bled for this team. You’ve nearly died for this team. And if someone put a knife to your throat and demanded you betray Black Tower?”
Ross shrugged. “You’d tell them to take a hike, and you’d face the consequences head on.”
The words landed heavier than praise—because they weren’t flattery. They were the truth. Ross didn’t offer compliments. He made assessments. And Marshall felt that distinction settle under his skin like armor tightening into place.
“You know who you’d bleed for. And you know exactly how far you’d go to protect them.”
Marshall’s pulse thudded once, hard. Norah’s face flashed unbidden in his mind.
Marshall swallowed. Something old and familiar and uncomfortable twisted in his chest.
Ross continued, quieter, “I’ve only met a handful of people like that in my life. Men whose integrity wasn’t a rule they followed—it was who they were when everything else got stripped away.”
Marshall let himself consider his boss’s assessment. Did he let his integrity—his duty—become his identity?
“That kind of loyalty has a price,” Ross added, quieter now. “Most people can fake it until it hurts. You’re not one of them.That’swhy you’re on the list.”
Marshall swallowed once, the only outward sign the statement meant anything to him. “Thanks.”
Ross shook his head. “I should be thanking you,” he said with a slight chuckle. “Black Tower wouldn’t be what it is without someone like you behind the scenes.”
Marshall dipped his head in acknowledgment. “So, who is threatening our team?”
Ross exhaled, rubbing his thumb against the scar on his knuckle — a habit he had when he was weighing his words. “I’ll be blunt. There are only a few people with direct access to the intel files that were compromised on the Chicago op. Connor. Joey. Will.” He hesitated.
Marshall waited.
“And Jackson.”
His pulse dropped. And his gut was now somewhere on the grungy bar floor.
Ross held his gaze. “I’m not accusing him. But the data...it lines up more closely to his operational footprint than anyone else’s.”
Marshall’s voice was even, but the steel was unmistakable. “Jackson wouldn’t.”
“Probably not,” Ross said. “But I can’t operate on probably.”
A muscle jumped in Marshall’s jaw. He forced his hands to remain loose on the table. “Tell me exactly what you see.”
“The Syndicate shouldn’t have known where our teams were setting up. They shouldn’t have known when we were shifting surveillance patterns. They shouldn’t have known which safehouse we were using for that Chicago extraction.” He paused. “But they did. Every time.”
“So a leak,” Marshall said.
“A pattern,” Ross corrected. “Nothing blatant. Nothing recorded. But someone with clearance is either talking, being tapped, or being imitated.”
Marshall felt that coil tighten at the base of his spine. “Where does Jackson come in?”
Ross didn’t flinch. “Two of those compromised ops happened during windows when Jackson had legitimate access to the briefs—briefs the Syndicate later reacted to. That doesn’t mean he leaked them. It means the leak happened in a window where his clearance was active.”
“That’s not proof.” Surely there was someone else who had the same access at the same times as Jackson.
