Chapter 17
Julian's POV
I wasn't supposed to be at The Abyss tonight.
Hell, I wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the Lower East Side. I had a perfectly good penthouse in Midtown, and about six different security briefs that needed my attention before tomorrow's board meeting.
But Isabella had dragged me to that godforsaken Winthrop fundraiser earlier, and after three hours of watching Manhattan's elite pretend to give a shit about art education while really just measuring each other's net worth, I needed a drink somewhere that didn't serve champagne in crystal flutes.
So here I was. Slumming it in a club where the trust fund kids came to pretend they were dangerous.
The Abyss lived up to its name. Red and purple lights cut through smoke thick enough to choke on. Electronic music hammered against my skull. The crowd was exactly what you'd expect—art students trying too hard, models trying not hard enough, and enough cocaine changing hands to make the DEA weep.
I found a spot at the end of the bar where I could see both exits and the main floor. Old habits. The bartender was young, Latino, looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. I ordered Macallan neat and settled in to watch the circus.
That's when I saw her.
At first, I thought I was hallucinating. Because there was no fucking way Evelyn Valentine—grieving widow, Upper East Side ice queen, the woman who'd slapped a socialite at her own husband's funeral—was sitting alone at a dive bar in the Lower East Side at two in the morning, drinking what looked like her fourth martini.
But it was her.
She'd traded the designer mourning clothes for a black slip dress and leather jacket. Her hair was down, falling around her shoulders instead of pulled back in that severe style she'd worn at the funeral. She looked younger. Vulnerable. Human.
She also looked like she was trying to drink herself into oblivion.
I watched her for a while. Couldn't help myself. There was something mesmerizing about seeing the mask slip, watching her shoulders hunch forward over her glass, seeing the way her fingers trembled slightly when she lifted it to her lips.
This wasn't the woman who'd faced down Arthur Winthrop's funeral with her head held high. This was someone drowning.
And then Blake Morrison walked in.
I recognized him immediately. Old money. Newer scandal. The kind of guy who thought his trust fund made him untouchable. I'd seen him at enough society functions to know his type—predatory smile, wandering hands, the kind of bastard who saw women as conquests and consequences as things that happened to other people.
I watched him spot Evelyn. Watched his eyes light up like a shark smelling blood.
He moved toward her with the confidence of a man who'd never been told no in his life. Slid onto the stool next to her like he had every right to be there. Started talking.
I couldn't hear what he was saying over the music, but I could read body language. Evelyn's shoulders went rigid. Her hand tightened around her glass. She turned away from him.
Morrison didn't take the hint.
He leaned closer. Put his hand on her arm. Kept talking.
I should have stayed where I was. Should have minded my own business. Evelyn Valentine was a grown woman who could handle herself. She'd proven that at the funeral when she'd put Scarlett Ashford in her place with the kind of cold precision that had made my instincts sit up and take notice.
But something about the way Morrison was crowding her, the way his hand was moving up her arm toward her shoulder, made my jaw clench.
I was halfway off my stool when Evelyn did something that stopped me cold.
She smiled at him.
Not the careful, practiced smile I'd seen at the funeral. Something softer. More inviting. She leaned toward Morrison instead of away. Let her hand drift to his wrist.
What the hell?
Morrison's expression shifted from predatory to triumphant. His body language opened up, guard dropping. He said something that made Evelyn laugh—a low, intimate sound I could barely hear over the music.
Then they stood up together.
Morrison's hand went to Evelyn's waist, possessive and entitled. She didn't pull away. Just let him guide her toward the back of the club, toward the door marked EXIT in flickering neon.
Every instinct I'd honed over years in the field was screaming at me.
Something was wrong.
I'd seen enough honey traps to recognize the setup. I'd run enough operations to know when someone was playing a role. And Evelyn Valentine—grieving widow, society darling, the woman who'd stood at Arthur Winthrop's grave like she was carved from ice—was playing one now.
I gave them thirty seconds. Then I followed.
The back door opened onto an alley that reeked of garbage and piss. Dumpsters lined one side. The other side was brick wall. No cameras. No witnesses. The kind of place where bad things happened and nobody asked questions.
I slipped out silently, letting the door close behind me with barely a whisper. Found a shadow near a dumpster and went still.
Morrison had Evelyn against the wall already.
His hands were on her waist, her hips, moving with the kind of entitled confidence that made my vision narrow. His mouth found her neck. She stood perfectly still, her hands at her sides, her face turned toward the brick.
"God, you're even better than I imagined," Morrison muttered against her skin. "All that ice queen bullshit—I knew there was fire underneath."
His hand slid higher. Started pushing up her dress.
I was moving before I'd consciously decided to move, my hand already reaching for Morrison's collar, already calculating the angle I'd need to throw him face-first into the dumpster—
Then Evelyn moved.
It happened faster than thought.
One moment Morrison's hands were on her. The next moment he was on his knees, his arm twisted behind his back at an angle that made my own shoulder ache in sympathy. Evelyn's boots was planted between his shoulder blades, pinning him to the ground with the kind of precise force that spoke of serious training.
Her free hand had Morrison's head pressed against the filthy concrete. Her knee was braced against his spine. Her entire body position was textbook—efficient, controlled, designed to immobilize without excessive force.
This wasn't self-defense.
This was combat training.
"Listen carefully," Evelyn said, her voice so cold it could have frozen the East River. "You're going to walk away from here. You're going to forget you ever saw me tonight. And if I ever hear that you've touched another woman without her consent, I will find you. Do you understand?"
Morrison made a choking sound that might have been agreement.
Evelyn leaned down, her lips close to his ear. I couldn't hear what she whispered, but whatever it was made Morrison go rigid with genuine fear.
Then she released him with a contemptuous shove that sent him sprawling.
Morrison scrambled to his feet like a dog that had been kicked, his expensive suit covered in filth, his face pale with terror. He took one look at Evelyn—standing perfectly still, perfectly controlled, her dress back in place as if nothing had happened—and ran.
Actually ran. Stumbling over his own feet in his haste to get away from her.
Evelyn Valentine stood in the alley for a long moment, her chest rising and falling with controlled breaths. Her hands unclenched slowly, fingers flexing like she was forcing herself to stand down from combat readiness.
Then she turned.
Her gaze swept the alley with systematic precision, checking corners and shadows with the kind of tactical awareness that confirmed everything I'd just realized. When her eyes found me in the darkness near the dumpster, they locked on with an intensity that felt like touching a live wire.
We stared at each other across the filthy alley.