She pictured Melissa’s kitchen again—purple handprints on the wall, two kids clamoring for attention, a husband leaning against the counter with an easy grin. That had been the dreamonce. Notexactly—Marshall had wanted the Midwest, she’d wanted the city—but the bones of it. Laughter in a kitchen, someone to share the quiet with.
Was he married now? Probably. Maybe kids by now too. The thought ached like a bruise being pressed too hard.
Cleo leapt down from the couch, landing with a soft thud and brushing against Norah’s leg. She scooped the cat up, burying her face in fur that smelled faintly of dust and sunlight.
Melissa’s warning echoed in her head.Don’t pursue this.
But the numbers still burned behind her eyes, jagged and wrong.
She carried Cleo to the window, pressing her forehead lightly against the cool glass. Georgetown’s streets glowed below, headlights threading along the dark. Somewhere across the river, the Capitol dome gleamed—a promise of order, authority, justice. The very things she leaned on as a foundation.
Numbers. Rules. Institutions. They were supposed to hold. They had to.
And yet . . .
Her reflection stared back, eyes too sharp, mouth tight. She didn’t pray. She didn’t even whisper her usual reassurance. Instead, she let the silence thicken, her pulse marking time in the hollow of her throat.
If Melissa was right, the system wasn’t safe.
Which meant Norah was standing on her own. And Summit was in danger of falling into this mass of corruption. She couldn’t let that happen to her firm.
She let Cleo go and watched the cat stalk away, tail flicking. She thought about making tea, about pulling up the NorthBridge files again, about calling Richard in the morning. Instead she sat on the edge of the couch, hands clasped tight, and made herself a promise.
Not to pray. Not to hope.
She made a promise to dig deeper and bring this corruption to the light.
CHAPTER 4
MARSHALL
The marble lobbyof Summit Capital was designed to make men like him feel underdressed. Miranda had made sure he wasn’t. Navy suit, white shirt, muted tie—everything chosen by his logistics expert to make him look like he had money that knew how to be quiet. He moved past the glass sculpture pretending to be art and accepted the visitor badge the receptionist printed without questions.
Joey had built him a backstory with three LLCs and a Cayman feeder fund. Miranda had drilled the schedule into him. He had fifteen minutes with a mid-tier partner who thought Marshall was there to discuss shifting his considerable assets to Summit for management.
That was the pretext.
The truth was different. They’d been digging into Summit. Yesterday, Ross said a friend from the SEC tipped him off that someone inside Summit was digging around something that would get themselves painted with a target.
All Marshall had was an office number and the knowledge that the trail led here. Someone inside Summit was digging. A potential ally?
Joey and Stephen had spent several hours trying to determine which projects at Summit would upset the Syndicate if someone looked too closely. Only one popped bright red on Joey’s Syndicate web. Summit’s venture capital division was vetting NorthBridge Energy. NorthBridge was currently owned by Trip Harrington’s best client. A greedy Texas billionaire with a big hat and far too many cattle. If by cattle you meant oil rigs.
And if Summit was vetting NorthBridge and had connections to Harrington? It meant there was probably far more already on their books. They needed eyes inside the Summit internal servers. Much to Joey’s chagrin, the Summit cybersecurity team was actually competent, and she couldn’t get in from the outside. She needed a physical port. Enter Marshall on recon.
He stepped into the elevator and watched his reflection settle into neutrality. Nothing to see. Just a man with capital to deploy. Just a man hoping he wouldn’t findheron this floor. A man hoping to find five minutes to disappear into a server room without someone calling building security.
On the twenty-sixth floor, the doors parted to reveal a small reception area guarding a corridor of glass offices. He took in the layout—corner offices angled for the river view, bullpen tucked behind frosted dividers, cameras at each corner. He cataloged faces without looking like he was cataloging faces. Ten years in Army intelligence had taught him that long before Black Tower made it second nature.
“Mr. Simmons will be right with you,” the assistant said, gesturing toward a seating area. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Sparkling water?”
“Still water is fine,” he said, because pretentious people who saidstill waterbelonged in buildings like this.
The assistant disappeared, leaving Marshall in the waiting room with the leather chairs. On a side table, financial magazines were carefully fanned next to an orchid so pristine ithad to be real. He sat with body balanced forward, his posture relaxed but ready.
The assistant brought him water in a glass bottle with a twist cap. He thanked her politely and opened it. Then, he waited.
He should have been thinking about his pitch to Simmons. Instead, his thoughts edged back to the tip. Someone inside Summit had been digging into something. That was more than curiosity. It meant motive. It meant courage—or recklessness. Joey hadn’t been able to trace the access cleanly, not without leaving footprints. All they’d been able to narrow down was an office number. Which made this meeting the best excuse Marshall had to sniff around.
