Chapter 8

Evelyn's POV

I stayed on the floor longer than I should have. My back pressed against the door. My hands finally stopped shaking, but I could still taste metal on my tongue—fear mixed with rage. I'd come so close to breaking Catherine's wrist. So close to showing everyone what five years in Russia had turned me into.

The thought made me sick.

I forced myself to stand and looked around the room. Everything was exactly the same. The cream silk bedding. The antique vanity by the window. Even the wedding photo on the nightstand—Arthur and me, both wearing fake smiles.

I picked up the frame. The girl in that photo was eighteen. Terrified. Grateful. She'd thought Arthur saved her.

She'd been stupid.

I set the frame face-down and caught my reflection in the full-length mirror. The woman staring back wasn't the same person. Same face, same eyes. But everything else had changed. My body was harder now. Leaner. My shoulders were broader. Even the way I stood was different—coiled tight, ready to strike.

I looked dangerous.

The wake started in three hours. I had three hours to stop looking like a killer and start looking like a widow. Three hours to bury Wraith under silk and pearls and practiced tears.

I could do this. I'd done harder things. Infiltrated secure buildings. Eliminated targets surrounded by guards. Survived interrogations that broke other people.

But standing there, staring at myself, something cracked inside my chest. Because I didn't know anymore. Which one was real? Was Evelyn the mask hiding Wraith? Or was Wraith the mask protecting what was left of the girl who'd loved Adrian?

I turned away from the mirror before that thought could destroy me.

Focus. Mission parameters. Arthur's wake required a specific look: sad but strong, elegant but not flashy. The kind of widow people would feel sorry for, not suspicious of.

I opened the closet. Most of these clothes wouldn't fit—my body had changed too much. But in the back, I found what I needed. A black Valentino dress from five years ago. High neck, long sleeves, silk velvet falling to mid-calf. It would hide everything. The knife scar on my shoulder. The bullet graze on my ribs. The burn marks Viktor had given me during "training."

I laid the dress on the bed with black heels and stockings. Then I grabbed underwear from the drawer—expensive lace that Arthur used to buy me. As if dressing me up could make me forget I was just another thing he owned.

The bitterness hit me hard. I'd thought I'd made peace with what Arthur did. With the deal that saved my life. But standing here, about to pretend to mourn him, I realized something.

I'd never forgiven him.

Not for saving me. For making me think I owed him everything.

I grabbed my clothes and headed to the bathroom. I needed a shower. Needed to wash off the airport, the confrontation with Catherine, all of it.

But when I reached for the faucet, my hand froze.

The bathroom was huge. White marble, gold fixtures, a separate shower and tub. It used to feel luxurious. Now it felt like a trap. Too open. No corners to hide in. No way out if—

Stop it.

I forced myself to breathe. This wasn't a safe house. There were no cameras, no enemies. I was in Arthur's mansion. I was safe.

The lie felt hollow.

I turned on the shower anyway. Made it hot enough that steam filled the room. Stripped off my travel clothes and stepped under the spray.

It lasted maybe thirty seconds before everything went wrong.

The water sound changed. Became the roar of the hose they'd used during interrogation training. The steam thickened, pressing against my throat like hands trying to strangle me. Suddenly I wasn't in Arthur's marble bathroom anymore.

I was back in Vorkuta. Strapped to the metal chair in the concrete room. The hose spraying ice water directly into my face until I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, could only choke and drown and beg—

No. No, I never begged. They'd trained that out of me.

But my body didn't remember that. My lungs seized. My vision tunneled. The tile under my hands became the metal armrests I'd gripped until my fingers bled. The water beating against my skin became the pressure designed to break ribs, rupture eardrums, shatter will.

Pain is just information, Viktor's voice echoed in my head. Suffering is what happens when you give that information meaning.

I tried to count. One. Two. Three—

But the numbers dissolved. My knees buckled. I hit the shower floor hard, curling into a ball as water pounded down on me. Too much. Too loud. Too cold even though I knew it was hot. My teeth chattered. My whole body shook.

Can't breathe. Can't—

Breathe, you stupid girl. You think the enemy will give you time to panic? You think they'll stop because you're scared?

Viktor's voice. Always Viktor's voice in my head during the worst moments.

I forced my eyes open. Focused on the drain. Water spiraling down. Following the pattern. Clockwise. Steady. Predictable. Not random. Not violent. Just water. Just physics.

My right hand found the tile again. Traced the grout lines. One. Two. Three. Four squares across. Turn. One. Two. Three. Four squares down. A grid. A pattern. Something I could control.

The pressure in my chest eased slightly. Enough to drag in half a breath. Then another.

I was in New York. Arthur's house. The shower. Safe.

But my body didn't believe it. My heart still hammered against my ribs. My skin felt too tight, like it belonged to someone else. The water kept coming and part of me was still in that chair, still drowning, still waiting for Viktor to decide I'd had enough.

You want it to stop? Make it stop. You have the power. Use it.

That's what he'd said. Every time. Until I'd learned that the only way to end the torture was to stop reacting. To let my mind float away somewhere else while my body endured. To separate pain from suffering, sensation from emotion, until I became nothing but a machine that processed input and produced the correct output.

I'd gotten so good at it. Could take a beating without flinching. Could have bones broken and reset and keep my face blank. Could kill without hesitation because I'd learned to disconnect the act from any meaning.

But here, now, with water that was supposed to be comforting, that disconnection was killing me.

I couldn't float away. Couldn't separate. Because this wasn't torture. This was just a shower. And my inability to tell the difference meant Vorkuta had broken something in me that might never heal.

The thought sent a fresh wave of panic through my chest.

I slammed my palm against the tile. Hard. The sharp sting of pain cut through the fog. Real. Present. Now.

I did it again. And again. Until my palm was red and throbbing and the sensation anchored me back in my body.