Chapter 19
Evelyn's POV
My voice came out colder than I'd intended. Stripped of the soft grief I'd been performing for three days.
Julian's smile shifted into something sharper. More genuine.
"There she is," he murmured. Almost appreciatively. "The real Evelyn Valentine."
He paused.
"Or is it Valentine? I've been wondering. The name sounds American enough. But there's something about the way you carry yourself. The slight preference for your left side when you walk. The way your eyes scan a room in a tactical pattern. The fact that you can drink most men under the table and still move like a professional fighter."
The silence stretched between us like a blade.
When he spoke again, his voice had lost all traces of amusement.
"I ran your background after the funeral. Very thorough work, I have to say. The paper trail is immaculate. Birth certificate, school records, even social media posts from your supposed time at Moscow State University."
His eyes narrowed.
"But it's all a little too perfect, isn't it? No awkward photos. No embarrassing posts. No digital footprint that suggests you actually lived those five years. Just a carefully curated fiction designed to explain where Arthur Winthrop's young wife disappeared to."
My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat.
But I kept my expression neutral.
This was worse than I'd feared. Julian hadn't just noticed my fighting skills. He'd actively investigated me. Had access to resources that could unravel everything Nikolai's people had built.
"You're reaching," I said.
We both knew it was a lie.
"Am I?" Julian moved closer still. Only a few feet separated us now.
This close, I could see the faint scars on his knuckles. The calluses on his palms that spoke of weapons training and hand-to-hand combat.
"Here's what I think, Mrs. Winthrop. I think you're not who you claim to be. I think those five years in Russia weren't spent getting a graduate degree. I think Arthur Winthrop knew exactly what you were when he married you."
His eyes bored into mine.
"And I think whatever arrangement you had with him just got a lot more complicated now that he's dead."
The vodka made it hard to think. Hard to maintain the careful distance I needed.
Part of me wanted to tell him everything. About Vorkuta. About Nikolai. About the impossible choice I'd made at eighteen between slavery and survival.
Another part wanted to eliminate the threat he represented. To ensure his silence the only way I knew how.
But Julian Russell wasn't some corrupt businessman I could disappear in a warehouse fire.
He was the CEO of Titan Security. A man with resources that rivaled Kholod's network. Killing him would bring down more scrutiny than I could survive. Would unravel everything before I could complete the Red Sparrow operation.
"You don't know anything," I said.
Even to my own ears, the denial sounded hollow.
Julian's expression softened slightly. Though his eyes remained watchful.
"Maybe not everything," he conceded. "But I know enough to be dangerous. And I know you're in trouble, Evelyn. The kind of trouble that follows you home from dark alleys and waits in the shadows until you make a mistake."
He reached into his jacket pocket.
My body tensed automatically. Ready to defend or attack.
But instead of a weapon, he pulled out a small tin of mints. Popped one into his mouth. Offered the tin to me.
The gesture was so casual, so deliberately unthreatening, that it threw me off balance.
"Here's what's going to happen," Julian said. His voice took on a businesslike quality that somehow felt more dangerous than his earlier accusations.
"You're going to take one of these mints to cover up the vodka smell. Then you're going to walk out of this alley like nothing happened. Tomorrow, you're going to call the number on the card I gave you at the funeral. And we're going to have a conversation about what comes next."
"And if I don't?"
The question came out before I could stop it. Driven by the same self-destructive impulse that had led me to this alley in the first place.
Julian's smile returned. But this time it held no warmth.
"Then I make a phone call to some very interested parties about the mysterious widow who can take down trained fighters while drunk. I'm sure they'd love to know what you were really doing in Russia all those years."
He leaned in slightly.
"I'm sure Adrian would love to know what his father's young wife is capable of when she thinks no one's watching."
The threat was clear. Deliberate. Designed to corner me into compliance.
But what unsettled me more than the blackmail was the way Julian was looking at me. Not with disgust or fear. But with something that looked almost like admiration.
As if seeing the monster beneath my skin only made me more interesting to him.
I took the mint tin from his hand. Careful not to let our fingers touch. Extracted one of the small white tablets.
The peppermint was sharp and cold on my tongue. It cut through the lingering taste of vodka.
When I handed the tin back, Julian's fingers brushed against mine deliberately.
I instinctively pulled back from the contact.
"You don't like being touched," he observed quietly. "Not by strangers, anyway. Morrison probably thought he was going to get lucky tonight. But you were leading him somewhere private so you could hurt him without witnesses."
His head tilted.
"The question is—why? What did he do to deserve your attention?"