Page 43 of Crown of Ash

Marcus went still. His eyes narrowed, and for a moment, the room held its breath.

"The what?"

Nobody answered right away. Cass looked at Andre instead of Marcus, a question in his face that wasn't really a question. Bell's eyebrows climbed.

"Oh, sugar." Bell's voice was somewhere between delighted and appalled. "You didn't know?"

"Know what?"

"Darlin', you gotta be kiddin me." Bell looked around the table like he was checking for witnesses to how absurd this was. "How did you not know that? Everyone else in this room knew that."

Andre, for his part, hadn't moved from where he sat. When Marcus finally looked at him, he just looked back, steady, almost gentle about it, like he'd decided a long time ago that this moment would come eventually and had already made his peace with it.

"It's not just Drummond Street," Andre said quietly. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. "There's been a few. Over the years. Things I found that would've hurt you, or your crew, and I made sure they never made it into a file."

"How many?"

"I stopped counting a while ago." The corner of Andre's mouth curved, gentler and sadder than a real smile would have been. "Didn't seem like the kind of number a man keeps score of."

The table had gone quiet to give the two men the minute they clearly need.

"We'll finish this part after," Sovereign said, already standing, already reaching for Cass's shoulder to steer him toward the door with the particular ease of men who'd worked rooms like this together before. "Bell. Walk with me."

"Don't have to tell me twice, precious." Bell rose, smoothed his jacket, and paused just long enough at Marcus's shoulder to murmur, low enough that it wasn't really for the room anymore. "For what it's worth, darlin', a man who buries that much for you and never once asks you to notice is the best kind there is. Go tell him."

He was gone before Marcus could answer him.

The door clicked shut behind Sovereign, leaving a silence that echoed in the room like a verdict. The air seemed to grow denser, the walls closing in as the reality of their solitude settled. It was just the two of them now.

Andre hadn't moved from his chair. He sat there, a statue in the dim light, his face unreadable. Marcus crossed the room, his boots echoing on the cold floor. He didn't sit, just stood in front of Andre, close enough that he could see the faint lines etched around his eyes. So close that Andre had to tip his head back to keep looking at him.

"Drummond Street," Marcus said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"That was the DNA off the knife. Three years ago." Andre's voice was steady, matter-of-fact, as if he were discussing the weather. His eyes never left Marcus's, holding his gaze with an intensity that was almost palpable. "Would've put Zain away for the rest of his life for a man who had it coming. I lost the chain of custody on purpose. Told my lieutenant it was a lab error."

"And the others?"

"A gun once. A set of financials Ghost would've wanted burned anyway. A witness statement that named Nate by description, close enough to matter." Andre shrugged, a small, almost imperceptible movement that belied the gravity of his words. "A few more I'm not proud enough to list."

Marcus sat down on the edge of the table, close enough that their knees almost touched. He could feel the heat radiating from Andre's body, a stark contrast to the chill in the room.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because the first time I did it, we weren't speaking. And the second time, and the third." Andre's mouth twitched, a ghost of a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "By the time we were speaking again, it wasn't a confession anymore. It was just what I did. Like breathing."

"You could have gone to prison for any one of those."

"I know."

"You could have lost your badge."

"I know that too." Andre finally reached out, his fingers curling loosely around Marcus's wrist. His touch was warm, grounding. "I wasn't doing math on the risk, Marcus. I was doing math on you. Every time, it came out the same."

Marcus looked down at Andre's hand on his wrist, his heart pounding in his chest. He thought about every case over six years that had closed cleaner than it should have. Every piece of evidence that had simply failed to exist when Ghost went looking for it in old files, the gaps he'd chalked up to luck or Ghost's own thoroughness and never once questioned past that. He thought about how many times he must have benefited from something he never knew was a choice someone else made for him, quietly, at real cost, without once asking to be thanked.

"I know," Marcus said, his voice barely audible.

Andre went still. "You know what?"