His eyes flicked, just once, toward the far end of the ballroom where Sidarov held court among a small cluster of dignitaries. The glance was fast, but not fast enough.
“You’re not even supposed to know about that. We don’t say things like that,” he murmured. “Not even to each other.”
“Then say something else,” Norah demanded, the dam cracking. “Tell me I misunderstood. Tell me you didn’t standthere and watch him die and think, ‘Well, at least my balance sheet looks cleaner now.’”
His face hardened. He looked past her for a moment, to the crowd, as if weighing how much time he could afford to spend indulging this conversation. When he refocused on her, his expression had settled into something more careful. Not quite the genial mentor. Not yet the man who had watched an execution without blinking. Somewhere in between.
“What do you want from me, Norah?” he asked, genuinely curious. “An apology? A confession? An assurance I’m still the man who hired you straight out of grad school because you made a better model than an entire consulting team?”
“I want the truth,” she said. “I want to know what I am to you. To them. I want to know what you expect from me from here.”
“Your job,” he said simply. “The same job you’ve always done. See the patterns. Flag the risks. Help us navigate them.”
“By hiding them,” she said. “By making sure no one ever finds what I found in NorthBridge again.”
His silence was answer enough.
Her throat tightened. “I don’t want to be part of that.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Annoyance, maybe, or regret. “You already are.”
“I didn’t choose this,” she said.
“You did,” he replied, not unkindly. “The moment you walked into my office two weeks ago and told me you’d found anomalies none of our peers had caught. You could have shoved it in a drawer and pretended not to see. That’s what most people do. You brought it to me.”
“Because I thought you’d care,” she shot back. “Because I thought integrity still meant something to you. The words on our lobby wall?—”
“Are for clients,” he said dryly. “You’re too smart to be quoting slogans at me.”
Pain flared, quick and hot. “So that’s it? Integrity is branding. Ethics are negotiable. As long as the right people win.”
He gave a small, almost sympathetic smile. “Welcome to the top floor.”
Her stomach rolled. “I can’t do it.”
“Can’t,” he repeated, tasting the word. “Or won’t?”
“Both,” she said. “I won’t help you launder influence through fake transparency. I won’t bury things that should see daylight. And I can’t pretend what happened to Harrington was anything but murder.”
For the first time all evening, his expression went blank.
Not angry. Not indulgent. Not disappointed.
Empty.
“I had hoped,” he said quietly, “that you would be able to see the bigger picture.”
“I do,” she whispered. “That’s what scares me.”
He studied her, eyes tracing every line of her face like he was recalibrating a projection he’d counted on. The warmth drained from his posture, molecule by molecule, leaving something cooler, more remote.
“You’re tired,” he said at last. “It’s been an intense evening. New environment, high stakes, emotional pressure. I think you’re...overwhelmed.”
“Don’t do that.” Her voice shook, and she hated it. “Don’t pat me on the head and suggest I get some sleep. You’re better than that. Or you were.”
He let out a breath, the faintest sign of impatience. “What exactly are you proposing, Norah? That you walk away? That you go back to neat little regression analyses and pretend you don’t know who funds half the people writing national policy?”
She swallowed. This was the part she hadn’t fully thought through on the balcony, the part that required more hope than she had any business spending.
