Read Chapter 15: Return to the Stage

The Almeida’s rehearsal room smelled of dust, rosin, and ambition. Evelyn stood at the center of the bare wooden stage, script in hand, while the director—a wiry woman named Cecily with grey-streaked hair and a voice like cracked ice—circled her like a predator.

“Again,” Cecily said. “From ‘I have seen the devil’s work.’”

Evelyn inhaled. The line belonged to her character, a Victorian widow uncovering her husband’s betrayal. But the words scraped against something raw in her chest. She delivered them with a tremor she hadn’t planned, and Cecily’s eyes narrowed with interest.

“Good. Keep that. The fracture. Don’t heal it.”

Evelyn nodded, but her gaze flickered to the wings—to the shadow leaning against the brick wall with arms crossed. Marcus wore a charcoal suit that did nothing to soften his frame. His eyes moved constantly: over the lighting rig, along the fire exits, past the windows that looked onto a narrow London alley. He was a man perpetually scanning for threats in rooms where everyone else saw only art.

And he was impossible to ignore.

The stage manager, a young man with a clipboard and anxious energy, approached her during a water break. “Evelyn? Oliver’s here. He’d like to say hello before the read-through.”

She turned. A tall, sandy-haired man in a linen shirt loped toward her, easy smile already in place. Oliver Vance. She’d read his name in the cast list—a rising star from the RSC, known for his matinee-idol looks and his ability to charm press rooms into silence. He extended a hand she took automatically.

“Evelyn Hart.” His voice was warm, dipped in the kind of confidence that came from years of easy applause. “I’ve admired your work for ages. The *Hedda* at the National? Devastating.”

“Thank you.” She offered a polite smile, stepping back half a foot. Old instincts. A woman alone with a too-charming man—that had once been the prelude to a stalker’s first letter.

Oliver didn’t seem to notice her withdrawal. Or if he did, he ignored it, stepping closer and brushing her elbow with his fingertips. “I can’t wait to work with you. Cecily says we have some intense scenes together. I hope you’ll be patient with me.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“I’ll need guidance, though.” His grin widened. “Maybe dinner after rehearsal? To go over the script?”

“I have plans.” She said it too quickly, and she saw the flicker in his eyes—curiosity, not hurt. He was reading her, the way actors always read each other, searching for truth beneath the line. “Another time, perhaps.”

He nodded, unbothered, and moved off to greet the other cast members.

Across the room, Marcus had shifted. He was no longer against the wall. He stood at the edge of the stage, spine straight, jaw tight, watching Oliver with an intensity that had nothing to do with fire exits.

Rehearsal ran three hours. By the end, Evelyn’s voice was raw and her muscles ached from pacing the stage. She sat on the edge of the platform, letting her head fall forward, breath coming in short bursts. The character had clawed her way into Evelyn’s throat, and now she had to find the exit.

“You’re pushing too hard.”

She looked up. Marcus stood above her, holding a bottle of water he must have fetched from the green room. She took it gratefully, drinking deep.

“Cecily wants the fracture,” she said.

“She wants you to break a little. Not shatter.” He paused. “You almost lost it on the third act.”

“I was finding my way.”

“You were bleeding on the floor.”

She stiffened. He wasn’t an actor. He didn’t understand the porous border between self and role—how you had to let the character in to let the truth out. But his concern didn’t feel clinical. It felt personal, swathed in a ragged edge he kept hidden behind his stoic mask.

“Is that a professional observation?” she asked, testing him.

His jaw worked. “It’s a human one.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. In the weeks since the safe house, they’d traded histories and silences, but moments like this still caught her off guard—when the bodyguard cracked open long enough to remind her he was also a man who’d lost people.

“Evelyn!” Oliver approached, towel slung over his shoulder, hair damp at the temples. “Great work today. You’ve already made me raise my game. I was thinking—”

“She’s tired.” Marcus’s voice cut through the air flat and cool.

Oliver blinked, finally registering the bodyguard’s presence. He looked between them, a slow understanding spreading across his features. “Ah. Right. Security.” He offered a wry smile. “I was just going to suggest dinner for the cast—not a date, Evelyn, I promise. Group ritual. Build chemistry. You know how it works.”

Evelyn hesitated. A group dinner was standard practice. And isolating herself had already cost her a career once. But she’d barely managed the rehearsal room; the idea of a crowded restaurant with eyes on her—

“She’ll pass,” Marcus said.

Oliver raised an eyebrow. “I was asking Evelyn.”

“And I’m telling you she won’t attend.” A muscle in Marcus’s jaw twitched. “Her schedule is full.”

Evelyn stood, pressing a hand to Marcus’s forearm—a small gesture meant to uncoil him. “Oliver, I appreciate the invitation. Truly. But tonight’s not good. Rain check?”

Oliver’s gaze lingered on her hand where it touched Marcus, and something flickered in his face—a calculation too quick to read. “Course. Another time.”

He turned, and the actors began to disperse, gathering bags and murmuring goodbyes. Evelyn waited until they were alone before she rounded on Marcus, keeping her voice low.

“That was unnecessary.”

“He was crowding you.”

“He was being friendly. There’s a difference.”

“And you can’t tell which is which.” Marcus’s eyes were dark, unreadable. “That’s the problem.”

It cut because it was true. The stalker had once been charming too, weaving himself into her orbit with compliments and careful attention until the letters began appearing—first at the theater, then at her home, then tucked into her belongings where no one but an obsessive could have placed them.

“I know the difference,” she said quietly. “I’ve had practice.”

Marcus opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

“I’m not trying to run your life, Evelyn. I’m trying to keep you alive. Oliver’s background check came back clean, but that doesn’t mean he’s safe. People who want to get close to you don’t always have red flags. They just have patience.”

“You sound like you speak from experience.”

He went still. For a moment, she saw something raw pass through his eyes—grief, or guilt, or both. Then it was gone, replaced by the mask.

“I’ve seen patience weaponized,” he said.

The words hung between them. Evelyn studied him, aware of the shift in the room’s atmosphere—the smell of dust and sweat, the fading light through the high windows, the way Marcus’s hand hung close to her arm, not quite touching, but near. Protective.

She was tired of being protected from a ghost. And she was tired of watching him watch her with that careful distance that felt less and less like professionalism.

“You were jealous,” she said.

Marcus’s head snapped toward her. “What?”

“Just now. With Oliver. That wasn’t threat assessment. That was something else.”

He stared at her, and for a beat, she thought he’d deny it. Then his shoulders loosened, and a humorless breath escaped him.

“I’m not jealous of a man who’s never had to sweep your flat for listening devices,” he said. “I’m frustrated you don’t see how vulnerable you are.”

“Is that why you pushed him away? Because you’re frustrated?”

He didn’t answer. But he didn’t look away either, and the silence between them grew thick as late-summer heat.

“We should go,” he finally said. “It’s nearly dark.”

She gathered her bag. But as she moved past him toward the exit, she felt his gaze on her back, burning like a stage light. What she’d mistaken for professional concern suddenly seemed like something heavier—something that could either keep her safe or get them both destroyed.

At the door, she paused.

“Marcus?”

“Yes?”

“When you find the man who sent those letters,” she said, not looking at him, “will you be able to tell me why you were chosen? The real reason, not the ones you’ve been feeding me?”

The silence stretched long enough that she turned. He stood in the middle of the empty stage, half-shadowed by the dying light. His face was unreadable, but in his pocket, his hand had curled into a fist around what she knew was his phone—the same phone that held Hendricks’s number, the call that had brought him to her door.

“I’ll tell you everything,” he said. “When you’re ready to hear it.”

It was not a promise. It was a warning. And as Evelyn stepped into the London evening, she realized the stalker wasn’t the only man whose secrets could unravel her.