MARCUS'S POV
In fifteen years of security work, Marcus Reid had run operations on four continents, in conditions ranging from corporate boardrooms to active conflict zones. He'd coordinated extractions, investigations, counter-surveillance, and three situations that had never been written down anywhere because writing them down would have been inadvisable for everyone involved.
He had never run anything that felt like this.
Because this wasn't a client. This was Aria.
He'd known her for the better part of a year....had watched her arrive in his boss's life like a grenade with the pin already pulled, had watched his employer become someone different in the best possible way because of her. Had watched her navigate the most complicated situation imaginable with intelligence and courage and a specific kind of stubbornness that he privately found both exasperating and deeply admirable.
