Evelyn sat on the edge of her bed, the cold, anonymous weight of the burner phone in her hand. One month. Thirty days to achieve the impossible while trapped inside the most secure private residence in Denver. A direct assault on Damien's server was suicide. A direct plea to her family for a more realistic goal was pointless. They saw her as a key, and they didn't care if the key broke in the lock.
She realized with chilling clarity that her first move couldn't be against Damien's server; it had to be against his suspicion. She was being watched—if not by Damien, then by Thorne, or both. She had to give the watchers a story, a simple, compelling, and ultimately harmless narrative to explain her secrecy.
Men like Damien Blackwood and Marcus Thorne, for all their power, were creatures of grim imagination. They understood corporate espionage, betrayal, and violence. Those were threats they knew how to counter. But a woman's heart? To them, that was a simpler, more primitive weakness. A secret love affair was a narrative they could comprehend. It was emotional, messy, and predictable. It was a vulnerability they would think they could control. And so, Evelyn decided, she would build them a secret lover from scratch.
Her first act was to craft the digital ghost. She began sending messages from the burner phone to a dead, untraceable number. The texts were masterpieces of ambiguity, each one a brushstroke in her fabricated portrait of longing.
"The cage is beautiful, but I miss the sky."
"Patience. He suspects nothing. Soon."
"Saw a painting today that reminded me of our time in Florence. It feels like a lifetime ago. Be safe."
The mention of Florence was a deliberate flourish, a specific, unprovable detail that lent a false sense of history. She knew this traffic would likely be intercepted. The content was the poison she was carefully injecting into the veins of their surveillance.
Next came the financial trail. She couldn't simply withdraw cash. She needed to create a plausible reason for acquiring it. Using the platinum credit card Ms. Jennings had provided, she made an extravagant online purchase: a limited-edition handbag from a Parisian designer, a bauble so expensive it was almost obscene.
When it arrived in its opulent box, she summoned Sofia to her room.
"I've made a terrible mistake," Evelyn said, her voice a perfect blend of embarrassment and conspiracy. She held up the bag. "I bought this on impulse, and it's… just not me. And honestly, I can't let Damien know I spent so much on something so frivolous. He'd be furious."
Sofia's eyes widened at the bag, then filled with sympathy for Evelyn's apparent plight.
"Is there… a discreet way to sell something like this?" Evelyn asked, lowering her voice. "For cash? I would, of course, be grateful for your help."
The implication of a generous commission hung in the air. Sofia, eager to please the kind woman who actually spoke to her and no doubt tempted by the money, agreed without hesitation. Two days later, Sofia returned from her day off with a thick envelope of cash, the designer bag having found a new home through a high-end consignment shop that asked no questions.
Now, Evelyn had the untraceable funds. Her research led her to a struggling local artist, a painter named Julian Croft who lived in a rundown studio downtown and sold his work on a small, obscure website. He was the perfect candidate: talented, poor, and utterly unconnected to her world. Using a pre-paid debit card purchased with the cash, she hired a bonded courier service to deliver a package to his studio. Inside was the bulk of the money from the sale and a simple, typed note: "For your talent. From an admirer who believes in you."
The final piece was the physical clue, the sentimental anchor for her story. Among a new delivery of art history books, she found what she was looking for: a small, black-and-white photograph tucked inside as a promotional bookmark. It showed a handsome, intense-looking man from the 1950s, his hair unkempt, standing beside a woman who was not Evelyn. It was perfect.
She placed the photo so it was just peeking out from a book of poetry on her nightstand. The next day, as Sofia was doing the daily cleaning, Evelyn called her over on the pretext of asking her opinion on a dress. As Sofia entered, Evelyn excused herself for a moment to take a call in the bathroom. It was just long enough. When she returned, she saw Sofia straightening the books on the nightstand, her movements suddenly stiff. Sofia had seen the photo. Their eyes met for a fleeting, powerful second—a silent exchange of a shared secret—before Sofia looked away, a faint blush on her cheeks. Evelyn now had a witness, an unwitting accomplice to the existence of her phantom lover.
The results of her masterful performance arrived almost simultaneously, in two different cities, viewed on two different screens.
In his London club, Marcus Thorne read the summary from his investigator. "Subject confirmed to be engaged in clandestine communication with an unknown party, likely a lover. She recently liquidated a gift from Blackwood for cash, which was then funneled to a local artist, Julian Croft. Conclusion: she is not a corporate operative. She is a common gold-digger and an adulteress. A significant liability to Blackwood's judgment, but not a direct strategic threat."
Thorne permitted himself a thin, cruel smile. The girl was a simpleton after all.
In the sterile dark of his Denver office, Damien Blackwood stared at the report from Arthur Vance. The language was cold, clinical, but the meaning was the same.
Subject initiated communication with an unknown party via a secondary device. Language suggests a clandestine romantic relationship. Subject also liquidated a high-value asset for untraceable cash. Funds were then delivered to a Mr. Julian Croft, a local artist. Recommend shifting investigation focus from corporate espionage to personal compromise.
Damien's face was an unreadable mask of stone. The room was silent, the only movement the slow swirl of data on the screen. He had been looking for a spy, a strategist, a queen from a rival army. The evidence, however, pointed to something far more mundane and, to him, far more insulting.
He leaned back in his chair, the leather groaning in protest. Evelyn had successfully diverted the attack, but in doing so, she had aimed it squarely at the pride of a man who did not tolerate betrayal of any kind. A single muscle began to twitch in his jaw, a storm gathering behind the mask.