Read Chapter 26: A Reckoning

The warehouse district reeked of coal smoke and rotting fish, the Thames a black ribbon somewhere beyond the stacked crates. Evelyn’s boots slipped on wet cobblestones as Ashworth pulled her into the shadow of a loading dock, his hand clamped over her mouth before she could gasp.

"Quiet," he breathed against her ear. "They're here."

She nodded against his palm and he released her, drawing his service revolver from beneath his coat. The fog curled around them like a living thing, muffling the footsteps that echoed somewhere ahead—three, maybe four men, moving with purpose.

"He went to ground in the Limehouse cell," Ashworth whispered. "Edward wouldn't risk the usual routes. Not after we took Thomas."

"And you know this how?"

"Because I'd have done the same." His jaw tightened. "The German networks know the East End better than Scotland Yard. They have safe houses along the docks, places the war office pretends don't exist."

They moved forward, hugging the walls. Evelyn’s heart hammered against her ribs, but her hands were steady. She had learned that much—fear lived in the body, but the mind could rise above it if given a task.

"There." Ashworth pointed to a narrow doorway, painted black, its windows boarded. A single lamp burned behind a curtain on the upper floor.

The door was unlocked.

Evelyn exchanged a look with Ashworth. Too easy. He read her thought and gave a grim smile, then pushed the door open with the barrel of his revolver, stepping through into darkness.

The room beyond was a shipping office gone to seed—desks buried under ledgers, a telephone with its cord cut, maps of the Channel pinned to the walls. The stairs at the back creaked as someone shifted weight above.

Ashworth gestured. She circled left, he took the right. The dust on the floorboards showed fresh tracks, leading not to the stairs but toward a false wall behind a stack of tea crates.

Before she could warn him, the crates exploded outward.

Hands seized her from behind—thick arms pinning hers, a sack thrown over her head. She heard Ashworth grunt, the scuffle of boots, the clatter of his revolver skittering across the floor. Then a voice, smooth and familiar, cut through the chaos.

"Captain Ashworth. Miss Hartley. How predictable of you both."

The sack was ripped away. Evelyn blinked against lamplight, finding herself in a cellar—brick walls glistening with damp, a single bulb swinging overhead, casting swaying shadows. Edward stood before them, immaculate despite the surroundings, his dark eyes bright with amusement. Behind him, two men held Ashworth in a brutal grip.

"Brotherly rescue gone awry," Edward said, circling them. "You should have left well enough alone. But sentiment always was your weakness, wasn't it, Evelyn? Or is that just Thomas's?"

"Where is he?" Evelyn demanded.

"Safe, for now. Your doctors at the military hospital are quite competent, I'm told." Edward's smile thinned. "A pity he won't remember anything useful once they're done with him. The physical damage heals. The mind..." He tapped his temple. "That takes longer."

Ashworth strained against his captors. "You're finished, Krueger. The network is exposed. Every agent you placed is being rolled up as we speak."

Edward laughed—a genuine sound, warm and terrible. "Dear Captain. You think my network was the prize? The five names you chased? Decoys." He stepped closer to Ashworth, tilting his head. "The real operation was never about agents in the field. It was about the identities you'd trust. The names in your ledgers."

Evelyn felt the floor drop beneath her. "The clerk. Alistair."

Edward's eyes flashed with something like approval. "Clever girl. Yes, your little clerk who went missing under suspicious circumstances—he wasn't one of mine. He was Berlin's. A plant so deep in your records office he had access to every name, every alias, every dispatch. And when I needed to disappear, I didn't run to Limehouse. I ran through his files."

"Where is he?" Ashworth's voice was low, dangerous.

"Gone. With a full manifest of your agents in Germany." Edward produced a leather folder from his coat, fanning the pages. "Forty-seven names. Their covers. Their families. I could sell this to Berlin tonight and end the intelligence war in a stroke."

Evelyn's mind raced. Forty-seven agents. Families. The words on the page blurred as she strained against the rope around her wrists. "You won't sell it," she said.

Edward raised an eyebrow. "Won't I?"

"If you sell it, you lose leverage. You need those agents alive to barter for your brother. For you." She forced calm into her voice. "You haven't left London. You're still here, aren't you? Waiting for the right moment."

Edward studied her, then laughed again, softer this time. "Thomas was right about you. He said you saw through the words to the spaces between." He tucked the folder back into his coat. "But knowing why I'm here doesn't stop me from giving the order now."

He nodded to the men holding Ashworth. "Shoot them both. Make it clean."

The men shifted, drawing pistols. Evelyn's breath caught as cold metal pressed against the nape of her neck. She met Ashworth's eyes across the cellar—dark, steady, apologetic.

"Now," he said.

The cellar door exploded inward.

Smoke and the deafening crack of gunfire filled the room. Edward's men spun, firing wildly. Ashworth wrenched free of his captor's grip, launching himself across the space, his body colliding with Evelyn's, driving her to the ground as a shot rang out. They hit the damp brick together, his weight crushing her, and she heard him grunt—a sound too sharp, too human.

"Ashworth?"

He didn't answer. Above them, boots pounded as Edward's men scattered, and Edward himself vanished through a rear passage, the leather folder clutched to his chest. Shadows poured through the shattered doorway—uniformed men, military police, someone shouting commands.

More shots. A man screamed.

Evelyn pushed at Ashworth's shoulders, felt warmth spreading beneath her fingers, sticky and slick. His face was pale in the swinging lamplight, his eyes glazed.

"Stay with me," she said, her voice too high. "Captain. Stay with me."

His lips moved, but no sound came. His hand found hers, pressed something into her palm—a photograph, damp with blood. She didn't look at it. Not yet. Around them, the chaos faded as the military police secured the room, and someone was calling for a medic.

"Ashworth." Her voice cracked. "You idiot. You absolute idiot."

His mouth curved, just barely. "Reinforcements," he whispered. "Told you I expected them."

Then his eyes closed, and his weight went slack against her.

The photograph was a portrait of Thomas—younger, in civilian clothes, standing before a building she didn't recognize. On the back, in a German clerk's precise handwriting, was a date and a location: *Le Touquet, 1916. Subject under observation.*

And beneath it, a name she knew but hadn't expected to see.

*Alistair Reed.*

Evelyn clutched the photograph as the medics lifted Ashworth onto a stretcher, her mind reeling. Alistair had double-crossed Edward. The folder in Edward's coat—the forty-seven names—might not have been the real manifest at all. It could have been bait, a forgery, something Alistair had planted to make Edward a target.

If that was true, then Alistair had the real names. And he was still out there, walking free.