Chapter 2
Evelyn's POV
If Grey Fox left now, he'd disappear. Go to ground. The trail would go cold. I'd have to start over, and Kholod didn't accept failure.
My eyes swept the factory floor, desperate. Then up to the second floor. To the observation platform where I'd waited earlier.
The rusted chain hung from the ceiling, supporting a massive iron hook. Soviet-era equipment, left to rot for decades. I'd noticed it during my first surveillance pass and filed it away as a potential tool. The chain was corroded, barely holding the hook's weight.
If the chain breaks. If the hook falls. If Grey Fox is underneath...
It would look like an accident. Soviet construction failure. No investigation. No trail leading back to Kholod.
I slipped away from the group, murmuring about getting documents from the car. No one paid attention. They were all too focused on leaving this cursed place.
I took the stairs two at a time, silent despite my speed. My hands were steady as I pulled out the multi-tool from my coat pocket. The chain's metal was brittle with rust, flaking under my fingers. I found the weakest links, the ones already half-corroded.
Below, Grey Fox was walking toward the exit. Ten meters from the door. Nine. Eight.
He was going to pass directly under the hook.
Now.
I cut through the last strands of metal, feeling them snap under the blade. Then I grabbed the chain and pulled, adding my weight to gravity's pull.
The hook fell with a whistling sound, like an incoming artillery shell.
Grey Fox must have heard it at the last second. He started to turn, mouth opening to shout.
Then the hook hit him.
The crack of metal on skull echoed through the factory like a gunshot. Grey Fox's head snapped back, body following. He dropped hard, limbs sprawling. Blood spread across the concrete in a dark halo, black in the dim light. It pooled fast, too fast, which meant the skull was shattered.
Someone screamed. The bodyguards spun around, guns raised, searching for threats.
"Jesus Christ," the buyer choked out in German. "The fucking chain broke. Soviet piece of shit—" He was backing toward the door, face pale. "We're leaving. Now. This place isn't safe."
I was already moving down the stairs, sliding back into the panicked group like I'd never left. My heart beat steady and slow. The way it always did after a kill. No spike of adrenaline. No guilt. Just the cold satisfaction of a job completed.
They'd trained that into me in Vorkuta. Turned me into something that could watch a man die and feel nothing.
Outside, the snow was falling harder. I pulled out my phone.
One message waiting. Encrypted.
Well done. 29/30.
I stared at the screen. Snow collected on my shoulders, melting into my hair. One more target. One more death. Then freedom.
The phone buzzed again. Different number. No encryption this time.
[Your husband Arthur Winthrop passed away. Funeral in 3 days. Your presence required. — Winthrop Family Legal Team]
The words didn't make sense at first. I read them twice. Three times.
Arthur was dead.
The man who'd saved me from that dealer's hands. Who'd married me in a cold civil ceremony with no guests. Who'd made me his son's stepmother and then conspired with his family to exile me when that same son fell in love with me.
Dead.
Which meant I had to go back.
Back to New York. Back to Adrian, who I'd loved and left and tried so desperately to forget during five years of Siberian winter. Back to the Winthrop mansion where every room held memories I'd buried so deep I'd almost convinced myself they weren't real. Back to being the widow, the outsider, the woman who would never belong.
I looked at the two messages. Then back at the factory, where Grey Fox's body was already cooling in the Russian winter.
I thought of Katya, safe now with her mother. I thought of Adrian's face the last time I saw him, five years ago in the Winthrop study. Both of us crying. His father standing between us like a wall made of money and power and rules I could never break.
I thought of my mother's silver cross, still in my pocket after all these years. The broken chain, the tarnished pendant—it reminded me why I'd joined Kholod in the first place. Why I'd survived Vorkuta. Why I'd killed twenty-nine people and was about to kill one more.
Revenge. For my mother. For what they'd done to her.
That's what I told myself, anyway.
One more, I told myself, watching my breath fog in the freezing air. Kill one more person, and you're free.
I just had to survive going home first.
And I had no idea which would be harder—the killing, or facing Adrian again.
The cold in Vorkuta was different from anywhere else. It wasn't just cold—it was heavy, like something pressing down on your chest. At minus thirty Celsius, breathing too deep could freeze your lungs. I'd spent five years there learning to move through that cold. Learning to let it into my bones until I couldn't remember warmth anymore.
I stood in the snow outside the command center at four in the morning. My breath turned to ice crystals in the air. Inside my backpack: three changes of clothes, fake identity papers, a folding knife, and one photograph. The edges were worn soft from touching it too many times.
The photo showed me at twenty with Adrian in the Winthrop greenhouse. Sunlight came through the glass roof. He was teaching me about roses. I was looking at him like he was the only thing in the world that mattered. Back then I didn't know that loving someone could destroy you. That wanting something too much gave the world a weapon to use against you.
"Wraith."
Viktor's voice cut through the silence. I turned to face him. The scar across his ruined left eye looked darker in the dim light. He'd lost that eye in Chechnya. Or so people said. I'd learned not to ask questions in this place.
He held out a black waterproof pouch. "Final assignment. Target name: Red Sparrow. Real name: Senator Marcus Caldwell. American politician. He's trying to pass laws that would hurt Winthrop Industries."
I took the pouch. It was heavy enough to hold detailed files but light enough to carry easily. The same way they'd taught us to think about killing—important enough to matter, simple enough not to weigh on your conscience.
"How long do I have?"
"Two weeks. Arthur Winthrop's funeral is in three days." Viktor's mouth twisted. It might have been a smile on someone else. "Good timing, yes? You can mourn your husband. Then you can work."
"Anything else?"
He pulled out an encrypted phone. "The Tsar wanted me to tell you personally. This is your last job. Complete it and you're free. Your file gets destroyed. Your contract ends. Your debt is paid." He paused. Something changed in his expression. Not quite sympathy, but close. "But if you fail, or if you run..."
He didn't need to finish.
We both knew what happened to people who failed Kholod. I'd helped dispose of enough bodies.
