The gun fired once, deafening in the tight corridor, but Hale wasn’t trained. The shot went wide, scorching the air past Marshall’s shoulder.
Marshall slammed into him, knocking the gun free. Hale staggered, tried to swing, but Marshall caught the blow, twisted, and drove his elbow into Hale’s sternum with surgical force.
He collapsed to his knees, gasping. He looked up at Norah, eyes shining with something like heartbreak. “You were mine to protect,” he choked. “And you threw it away.”
Marshall grabbed him by the collar, forcing his gaze back to the fight. “She was never yours.”
Hale’s hand groped blindly for the fallen gun.
Marshall didn’t hesitate.
One swift strike and Hale hit the ground, motionless. The corridor went silent.
Marshall stood over the fallen man for a long, tense beat, chest rising and falling with steady, lethal control. Then he turned back to Norah.
She was pressed against the wall, trembling, her hands shaking violently at her sides.
He crossed the distance in three strides.
“Hey,” he murmured, his voice softening for the first time that night. “Norah. Look at me.”
She lifted her eyes.
And he watched everything hit her at once—fear and relief and guilt and the enormity of what almost happened. A small sound escaped her, nothing like a word, and she reached for him.
He caught her immediately, pulling her in with one arm around her waist, the other at the back of her neck. The contact was instinctive—protective, anchoring. She didn’t collapse, but her knees buckled, and he bore her weight like he’d been built to do it.
“I came back,” he whispered into her hair. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you with them.”
Her fingers curled in his jacket. “Marshall...he—Harrington—Hale didn’t—he let it happen. He let all of it happen.”
“I know,” he said. “I know. And we’re getting you out. Right now.”
She nodded against him, her breath uneven but determined. “It’s too dangerous. Marshall, you don’t understand—Sidarov will?—”
“I’m not afraid of Sidarov,” he said. “I’m afraid of losing you.”
Her breath stuttered.
He pulled back enough to cup her cheek. “Stay with me. We’re leaving.”
He didn’t wait for permission.
He wrapped an arm around her and steered her away from Hale’s body, toward the loading dock.
CHAPTER 28
MARSHALL
Marshall hitthe service corridor at a run, Norah’s hand locked in his.
The door thudded shut behind them, cutting off the last smear of ballroom light. Out here, the hotel’s polished glamour stripped away. Bare concrete floor. Exposed pipes. The hum of industrial fluorescents.
And voices.
He dragged Norah into the shadow of a vending alcove just as two men in dark suits jogged past the intersection ahead, radios clipped to their belts, earpieces tucked in neat, practiced loops.
Norah’s breath shuddered against his shoulder and her dress swayed around his feet. She was still in a gown. Still in heels. Glitter and silk thrown into a war zone.
