Read Chapter 1: The Crowd Parts

The corridor smelled of bleach and old plaster. Evelyn Hart stood with her back to the wall, arms crossed, watching a security guard with a earpiece argue into a crackling radio. The roar of the crowd—her crowd, her name on their lips—bled through the fire door like a distant tide. She pressed her palm flat against the cool brick and counted her breaths the way her therapist taught her. One. Two. Three.

“You’re bleeding.”

The voice cut through the hum. She looked up. The man Fiona had sent—Marcus Cole—stood a few feet away, his eyes on her hand. She hadn’t noticed the scrape across her knuckles. She pulled the hand away, tucked it under her arm.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You’re shaking.”

She hated how easily he saw it. She lifted her chin, summoned the mask she’d worn across red carpets and late-night sofas. “I’m cold. The corridor.”

He didn’t argue. He just watched her, still as a figure in a painting. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a suit that fit like it had been tailored for someone else’s funeral. His face gave nothing away—not boredom, not sympathy, not even impatience. She found that more unsettling than the crowd outside.

A shout echoed through the fire door, muffled but eager. *Evelyn! Evelyn, we love you!* She flinched before she could stop herself.

“You said the side entrance would be clear,” she said, hearing the snap in her own voice, the actress’s edge she used when she wanted to cut someone. “You said we’d be in and out in twenty minutes.”

“I said we’d attempt it.” His tone was flat, unrepentant. “The estate leaked your schedule.”

“Fiona is the only one who—“

“Fiona didn’t leak it. Someone on the venue staff did. We’ll find them. But right now, we need to move.” He gestured down the corridor with a slight tilt of his head. “There’s a service exit three hundred meters that way. Truck’s already waiting.”

Evelyn didn’t move. She studied him—the faint scar cutting through his left eyebrow, the way his hands hung loose at his sides, not tense but ready. He wasn’t looking at her like she was a prize or a problem. He was looking at her like she was a package to be delivered.

“I don’t know you,” she said. “I don’t know anything about you. And you expect me to follow you down a dark corridor?”

Something flickered in his eyes—not irritation, she thought, but maybe the ghost of amusement. “You don’t have to follow me,” he said. “You can walk back through that door and let the crowd swallow you again. But if you want to get out of this building without someone grabbing your arm or worse, the corridor is the way.”

The fire door shuddered behind her. Someone had pushed against it. The guard with the radio shouted into it, bracing his shoulder. A voice on the other side cried out her name, high and desperate. *Evelyn, I just want to talk to you!* The words were the same ones she heard in her sleep.

She pushed off the wall. “Fine. Lead.”

He moved without a word, his footsteps silent against the concrete. She followed, half-walking, half-jogging to keep up with his long stride. The corridor was lined with pipes and cables, the ceiling low enough that even she had to duck under a hanging valve. Her heels clicked too loud; she cursed herself for wearing them.

“Slow down,” she said.

He didn’t slow down.

“I said—“

A sound behind them. A door slamming open. The guard’s voice, sharp with panic: “Oi! You can’t be back here!”

Evelyn turned. A young man—no more than twenty, she guessed, with wide eyes and a phone in his hand—had shoved past the guard. He was breathing hard, his face flushed. He saw her, and his whole expression lit up like a firework.

“Evelyn! Oh God, Evelyn, it’s you, it’s really you—“

Marcus was already moving. Not running, exactly, but closing the distance with a speed that made the air feel wrong. He put himself between Evelyn and the fan, one arm extended, palm out. His voice, when it came, was low and calm.

“Step back. Now.”

The fan didn’t stop. He took another step forward, holding up his phone. “I just want one picture. One. Please. I’ve been following your work for years, I was at the premiere when—“

“You’re too close,” Marcus said. “Step back.”

The fan’s eyes flicked to Marcus, and something in his posture changed. His shoulders bunched. His jaw tightened. “I’m not a threat. I’m just a fan. Why won’t you let me talk to her?”

He lunged.

It happened fast—so fast Evelyn’s mind couldn’t catch up. Marcus’s arm swept out, catching the fan’s wrist, twisting it. The phone clattered to the floor. The fan let out a pained gasp, and then Marcus had him turned around, one arm pinned behind his back, his cheek pressed against the wall.

“You’re going to walk out the way you came,” Marcus said, his voice still flat, still calm. “And you’re going to tell all your friends that there was nothing to see here. Do you understand?”

The fan whimpered. Marcus released him, stepped back. The fan stumbled, grabbed his phone, and retreated down the corridor with a last, hurt glance at Evelyn. The guard appeared, sheepish, and escorted him out through the far door.

Evelyn stood frozen. Her heart pounded against her ribs. She could feel the panic rising—the familiar wave of heat, the tightness in her chest. She clamped her teeth together and forced it down.

Marcus turned back to her. He smoothed his jacket, adjusted his cuffs. Not a hair out of place. Not a breath out of rhythm.

“We need to move faster,” he said.

“You hurt him.”

“I stopped him.”

“He was just a kid. He wanted a photo.”

Marcus’s gaze met hers, steady and unblinking. For the first time, she saw something beneath the surface—not warmth, but maybe a crack in the ice. “He was holding your arm. He grabbed you. If you want a bodyguard who waits until a threat becomes a tragedy, that’s not me.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but the words died. He was right. She hated that he was right. The fan had grabbed her—she felt the ghost of his fingers on her forearm, the possessive squeeze before Marcus intervened. And that was the mild version. The letters on her kitchen table were worse. The voicemails. The photos taken through her window at night, showing the light on in her bedroom, proving he knew she was home.

Her therapist called it an anxiety spiral. Evelyn called it Tuesday.

“The truck,” she said. “Let’s go.”

He nodded once and turned, continuing down the corridor. She followed, this time keeping pace, refusing to fall behind. The silence stretched between them, thick and awkward. She hated silence. She filled it with chatter, with laughter, with anything that kept the dark thoughts at bay. But with Marcus, the silence felt different. It wasn’t empty. It was watchful.

They reached the service exit. A black SUV idled at the curb, engine running. Marcus opened the back door for her. She climbed in, and he shut it with a solid thunk before getting into the passenger seat. The driver—a burly man with a shaved head—glanced in the rearview mirror.

“All right, Ms. Hart?”

“Peachy,” she said, and immediately regretted the word. She sounded like her character from last season’s crime drama. The one who got murdered in episode three.

The SUV pulled away. London slid past the tinted windows—grey streets, grey sky, a city that had once felt like a stage and now felt like a cage. Evelyn pulled out her phone. Fourteen missed calls. Nine from Fiona. Two from her publicist. One from an unknown number.

She opened the voice message. A man’s voice, low and slow, like he was savoring the words.

“I saw you tonight, Evelyn. You looked scared. Don’t be. I’d never hurt you. I just want to be close to you. I’m always nearby. You just don’t see me yet.”

She deleted it. Then she deleted the entire thread. Then she put the phone face-down on the seat beside her and stared out the window.

“Who leaves a voicemail?” she said, half to herself.

“What?” Marcus turned slightly in his seat.

“Nothing. Just—Fiona’s going to lose her mind over tonight. She’ll want to talk about damage control, about the venue, about whether I should have canceled the appearance altogether.” She laughed, short and hollow. “As if I have the luxury of canceling. If I hide too long, they forget you. And if they forget you, you’re done.”

“You didn’t hide tonight,” Marcus said. “You walked into a building full of strangers who knew where you were going to be, and you did the thing you were afraid of. That takes more guts than most people in my line of work ever show.”

She turned to look at him. He was facing forward, watching the road. The compliment—if it was a compliment—had been delivered with the same flat tone as everything else, like he was reading a weather report.

“Guts,” she repeated. “Is that what you call a panic attack in a corridor?”

“I call it breathing when your body wants to stop. Most people don’t make it that far.”

She didn’t have a response to that. She turned back to the window. The city slid by, indifferent. Somewhere out there, a man was driving home with her phone in his pocket, the photo he’d managed to take before Marcus stopped him—her face, pale and startled, caught in the fluorescent light.

“We’re deviating from the plan,” Marcus said. “I was cleared to take you home, but the route’s compromised. I’m bringing you to a safe location first. Couple hours, then we reassess.”

“A safe location?” She raised an eyebrow. “Where?”

He didn’t answer. The SUV turned down a narrow street, past a row of shuttered shops, and pulled into an underground garage that smelled of oil and damp concrete. The gate rattled shut behind them, sealing out the light.

Evelyn’s heart stuttered. She gripped the door handle.

“I don’t know you,” she said again.

Marcus met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “I know.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be honest.” He opened his door, stepped out, and held it for her. “I’ll get you home in two hours. Then you can tell Fiona I’m not the one you want, and we never have to see each other again.”

She climbed out of the SUV, her heels echoing off the concrete. The garage was empty except for a single other car—a silver sedan with its lights off. The air was cold and still.

For the first time since he’d appeared, Marcus was looking at her—really looking, not scanning for threats but waiting for something. Her answer. Her decision.

“Two hours,” she said. “And then you’re gone.”

He nodded. “And then I’m gone.”

She believed him. That was the worst part.