It hadn’t mattered.
She’d seen him with the phone, put the wrong pieces together, and Hale had been right there, whispering a narrative into the cracks.
And Marshall had walked away.
Just like last time.
He swore under his breath, low and vicious, and checked his mirrors out of reflex. No tails. No threats. Just his own reflection staring back at him—hard eyes, clenched jaw, bowtie tugged loose, looking like someone who’d lost a fight without ever throwing a punch.
Fifteen years ago, he’d boarded a plane because she had said, “You should go.”
What he’d heard was rejection. A closed door.
What she’d meant had been more complicated. More fragile. He knew that now, in a way he hadn’t had the emotional vocabulary for at twenty.
Tonight, she’d said, “Leave.”
He’d heard the same thing.
And he’d obeyed. Again. Because it was easier than standing in the hallway and watching her choose someone else. Easier than holding the line in front of a woman who stared at him like he was the one holding the knife.
The city lights were thinning now, the skyline opening up to the long stretch of highway and the dark river off his left. The SUV’s cabin was a box of shadows and dashboard glow. The GPS screen threw pale blue light over his hands.
He’d done this before, too.
Put distance between himself and the thing that hurt. Call it tactical retreat. Pretend the hollow in his chest was just fatigue.
Ross would agree it was tactical.
Ryder would call him a coward.
And God—if He was listening—probably had His own thoughts on the matter.
Marshall exhaled slowly and leaned back in the seat, letting the road roll under him while his mind replayed the last hour on a loop.
Norah’s laugh on the dance floor. The warmth of her hand in his when she’d let herself relax for half a verse.
The way her body had gone stiff when security appeared. The shock when Hale turned the conversation and painted Marshall as the threat. The horror when she put the pieces together wrong.
The way she’d stepped closer to Hale.
That part played in slow motion, every time.
Her shifting weight. The small, unconscious move of her shoulder brushing Hale’s arm instead of his. The choice written in the angle of her spine.
It felt like the exact moment Afghanistan had taught him what it meant to lose a teammate—part disbelief, part freefall, part excruciating clarity about how little control he really had.
He flexed his hands on the wheel again.
He thought of what he’d told Norah in her apartment, the night they’d prayed—awkward, raw, him stumbling through words he hadn’t strung together since before the Army.
He thought faith meant control. That if he held everything tight enough, he could keep it from breaking.
That wasn’t faith.
This wasn’t, either.
This was fear.
