Chapter 29
Evelyn's POV
The encrypted phone felt like lead in my palm as I locked the first-class lavatory door. The fluorescent lighting was harsh against my exhausted face in the mirror. Three AM, somewhere over Pennsylvania, and I was about to explain to Viktor why I'd failed.
I dialed the number and switched to Russian the moment he answered. "You didn't tell me the security level would be this high," I said, keeping my voice low and controlled. "Titan Security's involvement was completely outside your parameters."
Viktor's response came in that glacial tone I'd learned to associate with the organization's complete indifference. Though I caught something that might have been acknowledgment buried beneath the ice. "I admit, their security protocols were more sophisticated than our intelligence suggested. Titan was contracted at the last moment—our network failed to capture that development."
He paused. When he spoke again, the temperature in his voice had dropped several degrees. "More importantly—were you compromised?"
Julian's face flashed through my mind. The weight of his body against mine in the ballroom. The way his breath had stirred my hair as he'd whispered reassurance while the crowd surged around us. Emily Clarke, are you alright?
But my cover had been perfect. The wig, the contacts, the carefully constructed mannerisms of a nervous nonprofit employee—there was no way he'd connected Emily Clarke to Evelyn Valentine. If anyone in this world could have seen through my masks, it would have been my mother. And she'd been dead for seven years.
I inhaled slowly, forcing certainty into my voice. "No. My cover held perfectly. No one identified me."
Viktor's slight exhalation suggested relief. "Good. You still have time before the two-week deadline expires. Caldwell will be in New York for the next several days—I'll arrange new opportunities for approach."
He paused. "Remember, Wraith, this is your thirtieth contract. Your only path to freedom. Don't let emotion compromise your judgment."
My fingers tightened around the phone until the plastic creaked. "I understand."
"One more thing." Viktor's voice took on a warning note. "Be careful with Titan Security. Julian Russell isn't an ordinary mercenary commander—his intelligence network rivals our own. If you appear on his radar in any capacity, the consequences will be severe."
The phone went dead. I stared at my reflection in the cramped lavatory mirror.
I splashed cold water on my face. Watched rivulets run down skin that Vorkuta had taught to show nothing, to feel nothing except what served the mission. But my hands were shaking as I dried them.
No amount of training could erase the memory of Julian's arms around me. The strange safety I'd felt even as professional instinct screamed that he was dangerous.
---
The Winthrop estate was dark when I slipped through the service entrance at three-forty-five AM. My footsteps were silent on marble floors that had witnessed a century of family secrets. Each one buried beneath layers of propriety and carefully maintained appearances.
I'd taken a cab only as far as three blocks away. Walked the rest of the distance through shadows that felt safer than the exposure of arriving at the front gate. Where security cameras would record my return. Where questions might be asked about business trips that left no paper trail.
My room welcomed me with the austere elegance Arthur had insisted upon. Cream silk wallpaper, antique furniture that belonged in a museum. Everything beautiful and cold and utterly impersonal except for the few items I'd claimed as mine.
I locked the door. Stripped off the wig and contacts. Scrubbed away Emily Clarke's forgettable face until only Evelyn Valentine remained.
That's when muscle memory sent my hand reaching for the pocket where the necklace should have been.
Nothing.
For a moment I simply stood there. My fingers closing on empty fabric. My mind refusing to process the absence even as professional training began systematic analysis. I checked every pocket of the dress I'd worn. Dumped out my clutch onto the bed. Tore through my coat with increasing desperation.
The memory came with crystalline clarity. Julian's body pressed against mine in the ballroom chaos. His hand at my waist. His breath warm against my temple as he'd murmured reassurance while the crowd surged around us. That moment when his fingers had brushed my hip. So brief I'd dismissed it as accidental contact.
He'd taken it.
That bastard had pickpocketed Emily Clarke. Had stolen from a woman he'd just met at a charity gala. What kind of sick pervert does that? Flirts with a stranger, pretends to protect her, then rifles through her pockets like some common thief?
The rage that flooded through me was white-hot and ancient. Not just because he'd stolen my mother's necklace—he didn't know what it meant, couldn't have known it was the only piece of her I had left.
No, what made my blood boil was the sheer violation of it. The calculated manipulation of using a moment of vulnerability to commit theft.
I'd never worn that necklace in public as Evelyn Valentine. Never displayed it at any Winthrop family function or society event.
It lived in my pocket during missions, a talisman I could touch when the weight of what I'd become threatened to crush me.
Julian Russell had no idea he'd stolen from a grieving daughter. He just thought he'd scored some trinket off a nervous nonprofit employee.
Which made him both a thief and a predator. The kind of man who saw opportunity in chaos and exploited it without hesitation.
I grabbed the decorative pillow from my bed and hurled it against the wall. Hard enough to leave a dent in the silk wallpaper. Biting back the Russian curses that wanted to tear from my throat.
Because even here, even in my own room, I couldn't afford to let the mask slip completely.