Savage Gentleman: 9. The Return of the Gentleman

The rain did not stop for three days.

It fell like a curtain drawn over the world, sealing Evelyn in a haze of gray roads and whispers. She moved constantly—never sleeping in the same town twice, never trusting the faces that met her eyes too easily. Every reflection in every window looked like someone else’s ghost.

She learned how to disappear.

The satchel stayed close to her body, hidden beneath her coat, its weight both anchor and curse. Inside, the encrypted files that had once been her family’s power now pulsed with danger. She could almost feel the eyes of the world’s underbelly turning toward it—and toward her.

By the fourth night, exhaustion forced her into a border train bound for Vienna. She sat alone, hood drawn low, fingers clasped around a cup of coffee gone cold. The train clattered through endless dark fields, the rhythm steady and almost hypnotic.

Then she saw him.

Reflected in the window first: a figure at the far end of the carriage, mo