Read Chapter 4: Rules of Engagement

The morning light crept through the heavy curtains of the Mayfair flat, casting pale stripes across the marble floor. Evelyn stood at the window, wrapped in a silk robe, watching Marcus pace the perimeter of the terrace below. He moved like a man measuring distances, cataloguing exits, filing away sightlines. She found the habit both impressive and exhausting.

When he finally came inside, he found her waiting at the kitchen island with a cup of tea, her expression carefully neutral.

"We need to establish ground rules," he said, setting his phone on the counter between them. His voice carried the same flat efficiency she was beginning to recognize. Not cold—controlled. Like a door kept deliberately shut.

"I'm not a dog, Marcus. I don't need training."

"Nobody's training you. I'm keeping you alive." He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and smoothed it flat. Three bullet points in crisp handwriting. "First: no unplanned outings. You tell me before you leave anywhere. Even for milk. Even for air."

Evelyn glanced at the list without reading it. "And second?"

"No social media. No location tags. No posting photos from inside your home. Your accounts go private, or they go dormant."

"I haven't posted in weeks. Since—" She stopped, the weight of the threat letter pressing against her ribs. "Since the theatre."

"Good. Keep it that way." His finger moved to the third line. "Any meeting you schedule, I approve first. Actors, directors, friends, family—I need to know who, where, and why before you walk in the door."

She laughed, but it came out brittle. "Fiona gets access to my calendar. My therapist gets access to my childhood. Now my bodyguard wants access to my entire social life?"

"Your stalker already has access to it," Marcus said quietly. "That's the problem."

The words landed like a slap of cold water. Evelyn set down her cup, the porcelain clicking against the saucer. She wanted to argue, to push back against the neat little prison he was constructing around her. But the photograph from the theatre flashed in her mind—her own face caught mid-panic, captured by someone who shouldn't have been close enough to take it.

"Fine," she said, the word tasting like surrender. "Rules of engagement. I'll play by them."

Marcus nodded, retrieving the paper. "I'll have a secure line set up for you. New number. Only Fiona and I will have it."

"What about my director? The revival is pending."

"Then you'll call him from my phone, and I'll listen."

Evelyn's jaw tightened. But she said nothing.

---

For three days, she followed the rules. She stayed inside the Mayfair flat while Marcus coordinated with the building's security team. She let him review her schedule, cancel two public appearances, and reroute a meeting with her costumer through a third-party location. She even let him sit beside her in the backseat of the black sedan when she visited her physiotherapist, watching the streets with an unreadable intensity.

But on the fourth morning, when Marcus stepped out to take a call from a contact about the leaked venue list, Evelyn found herself staring at her phone. A message glowed on the screen—from Lena, her old drama school classmate, now running an underground acting workshop in a converted warehouse in Shoreditch.

*We're doing a scene study on betrayal tonight. Small group. Off the record. You in? You look like you need to stretch something other than your publicist's patience.*

Evelyn's thumb hovered over the reply. Marcus would never approve this. An unvetted location, an unregulated crowd, no advance notice. It was exactly the kind of risk he'd spent three days building walls against.

But she'd spent three days inside those walls, and the silence was beginning to itch beneath her skin like a second scar. She was an actress. She was built to be seen, to feel the electricity of an audience's attention. To hide was to disappear.

*I'm in,* she typed. *Don't tell anyone I'm coming.*

---

The warehouse was everything the Mayfair flat was not—raw brick, exposed pipes, and the smell of dust and ambition. A dozen actors warmed up in loose circles, their voices rising and falling in a chaotic symphony. Evelyn slipped in through the side entrance Lena had left unlocked, pulling a hoodie over her hair and keeping her face angled toward the floor.

For two hours she lost herself. The scene was brutal—a woman confronting her husband's betrayals in a kitchen that no longer felt like home—and Evelyn poured herself into it, letting the old muscles flex and burn. The fear of being watched, the constant low hum of threat that had followed her since the theatre, dissolved into the sharp, clean focus of performance.

She was mid-monologue when she saw him.

Not Marcus—though a flicker of that thought crossed her mind. No, this was a stranger standing at the back of the warehouse, half-shadowed by a steel beam. He wore a dark cap pulled low, and his posture was wrong—too still, too watchful for someone who'd come to rehearse. When Evelyn locked eyes with him, he smiled. The expression was thin, knowing, and it made the breath catch in her throat.

He took a step forward.

Behind her, the warehouse door slammed open.

Marcus moved like something unleashed. One moment he was a blur at the threshold; the next he was between Evelyn and the stranger, his hand inside his jacket, his voice carrying a low, flat warning.

"Step back. Now."

The stranger stopped, raising both hands with an almost lazy amusement. "Just wanted to say I loved your work," he said, his gaze sliding past Marcus to settle on Evelyn. "The theatre piece. Very moving."

Marcus closed the distance in two strides, and the stranger's posture finally shifted—a crack in the veneer, a quick backward shuffle. "Time to leave," Marcus said. No volume, no aggression. Just an unbreakable line.

The man hesitated. Then he turned and walked out, disappearing through the warehouse's rear exit.

Evelyn's heart hammered against her ribs. Her face was hot, her palms slick. The other actors had frozen mid-scene, watching the confrontation with wide eyes.

Marcus turned to her, and for the first time since she'd met him, his composure cracked—just a fraction, a tightness around his jaw that spoke louder than any shout.

"You told me you'd follow the rules."

"I didn't know about this. It was—"

"You didn't tell me about this." He stepped closer, lowering his voice so the others couldn't hear. "You went dark for two hours. No location. No check-in. I had to triangulate your phone's signal to find you. Do you understand what that means?"

Evelyn swallowed. "You tracked me."

"I used the tools I have to keep you breathing." He glanced toward the rear exit, his eyes narrowing. "That man. You recognized him?"

She shook her head. "I've never seen him before."

"He knew you were here." Marcus's voice dropped further, almost to a murmur. "He knew you were here, in an unlisted location, at an impromptu workshop you told no one about. That's not coincidence, Evelyn. That's pattern recognition."

A cold knot tightened in her stomach. She opened her mouth to argue, to explain that she'd needed this, that she couldn't live inside a cage forever—but the words died when she saw the look in Marcus's eyes. It wasn't anger. It was something worse.

Fear.

"I know you hate this," he said, his voice rough. "I know you're an artist, and I'm asking you to live like a prisoner. But that man isn't a fan. He's not a paparazzo. He's someone who'd have to know your schedule, your habits, your weak points—all the things I've been trying to keep hidden."

He pulled out his phone, his thumb moving across the screen. "I'm going to run his face through a database. And I need you to promise me something."

"What?"

"Next time you want to disappear," he said, meeting her gaze for a long, unguarded moment, "you tell me where you're going. Even if you don't want me there. Even if you hate that I'm asking."

Evelyn looked at him. The rough edges of his silhouette, the strain around his eyes, the way he held himself between her and every exit, a living shield she hadn't asked for but couldn't ignore.

"Okay," she said quietly. "No more vanishing acts."

Marcus nodded, but something flickered behind his eyes—a calculation, a shift in strategy. He pocketed his phone and gestured toward the door.

"We're leaving through the back. Stay close."

As they moved through the warehouse's shadows, Evelyn couldn't shake the feeling that the rules had changed. Not just between her and the stalker.

Between her and Marcus too.