Okay?
Sure. Instead of answering, Marshall tore the earpiece out and tossed it into the cup holder. The sudden silence was worse. It left too much room for the sound of Norah’s voice in his head.
He finally put the SUV in reverse, maneuvering out of the garage with crisp, controlled movements. Muscle memory kept him steady as he drove. He hit the ramp. The garage spit him out into the DC night. He crossed the circle in front of the hotel.Turned east. Hit the main boulevard. Kept going. Street after street. Block after block. DC glittered past in streaks of gold and blue, reflected in windows.
Another standard-issue evening in the capital. Somewhere above all this, people were drinking champagne and applauding a senator who wanted to set the world on fire and call it progress.
His grip tightened.
Left at the light. Merge with traffic. Right toward the river. He knew these streets. They’d been burned into his muscle memory. Every turn, every choke point, every alley that could serve as an escape route.
Tonight, he wasn’t looking for escape.
He was just.. .leaving. Norah had made her choice. He’d told her more about the Syndicate than he should have. She knew who they were, and she’d picked the wrong side.
He replayed everything. Hale’s sanctimonious tone, the guards pulling their weapons. Norah’s sharp inhale of horror. Her hand rising—not to reach for him, but to stop him.
The way she’d stepped toward Hale for protection.
He turned another corner too sharply, tires whispering against the pavement.
She chose Hale. Every logical part of him knew that wasn’t fair. Knew she’d been blindsided. Knew she was scared and angry and operating on half-information. But logic didn’t stand a chance against the heat that surged through him.
His jaw locked until it hurt. He’d put himself between her and a man who would probably have her killed without blinking...and she’d sided with him.
He could still hear her voice—tight, sharp, cutting him clean.
“Leave.”
The SUV felt too small. The air, suffocating.
Anger rolled through him, hot and humiliating.
He’d risked everything for her. Ignored orders to maintain distance. Bent protocol. Got himself nearly shot in a ballroom hallway. All because the thought of her standing beside Hale unsupervised had made something savage coil under his ribs.
And she’d looked at him likehewas the weapon in the room. His anger spiked again. She’d betrayed him.
But as he hit the far side of the bridge, the anger began to change shape. The fury didn’t fade. It sank deeper, turning heavy, weighted with something worse. The anger was easier. Anger he knew what to do with. But beneath it, quieter and far more dangerous, was the truth—he was hurt.
He hadn’t expected it to hit this hard. Not after so many years of telling himself he was over her. Not after convincing himself that he’d let go. He thought he’d armored that part of himself long ago, welded it shut with discipline and distance.
But seeing her eyes fill with hatred? Hearing her choose Hale’s word over his? Feeling her recoil like he’d become the monster she feared?
That cut straight through fifteen years of steel.
The farther he got, the more the truth gnawed at him.
She’d chosen Hale. His anger blurred with exhaustion, with disappointment and the brutal knowledge that he’d somehow pushed her toward the very danger he meant to shield her from.
For the last ten years, that son of a gun had burrowed his way so deep into Norah’s psyche that she couldn’t comprehend that he was the bad guy.
He’d seen monsters like that before. Men who wrapped their brutality in charm and called it necessity. He knew how to handle them. Sometimes unpleasant measures must be taken.
What he didn’t know how to handle was the look on Norah’s face when those monsters told her he was the threat.
You lied to me.
He hadn’t. Not in the ways that mattered. He’d kept operational details from her, sure. Shielded her from the worst of it. He’d gone after Hale’s phone without briefing her first because every instinct he had screamed that giving her plausible deniability was the only way to keep her on the right side of this when the dust settled.
