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Summary
Chapter 15—Lucca Marino: Six Years Ago
Chapter 15: Present Day
At home, Evie contemplates whether Mr. Smith orchestrated James and Lucca’s deaths. It seems unlikely that Lucca completed her mission, especially given the extensive preparation involved in assuming her identity. Evie recalls telling Matt that she intended to reclaim her identity as Lucca Marino and live a quiet life in a house with a garden.
Using a fake Instagram account, Evie posts a coded message to Devon, signaling she wants to meet. After six years of working together, they’ve perfected their system and formed a friendship. Evie meets Devon, who confirms that the woman in the morgue is indeed Lucca and promises to cross-reference her dental records. He doubts the deaths were accidental, suspecting Lucca screwed up and Mr. Smith had her killed.
Evie tells Devon about confronting the woman posing as Lucca and admits that the police now know her alias, Evie Porter. For the first time, Devon suggests abandoning the mission, even though he’s never recommended pulling out before—not even when success seemed unlikely. But Evie feels trapped; with Lucca Marino officially dead, she has nowhere else to go and insists they must stay the course.
Devon shares details about Ryan’s next shipment, and Evie reveals that she deliberately altered parts of the information from her second delivery to give Ryan a chance to protect his business. She plans to do the same with the next set of intel. As she prepares to leave, she mentions stopping by the mailbox on her way home. Devon reminds her that it’s not her home.
Chapter 16
The next day, Ryan heads off to help plan James’s funeral while Evie goes to work, intending to meet up with Devon. Ryan is visibly upset, so Evie stays to comfort him, even as notifications appear on her phone. When she finally checks them in the car, she sees a 911 message from Devon—his signal to get out immediately—but it’s too late. Ryan looks grim, assuming the authorities are coming for him, but instead, they take Evie in as a material witness in the death of Amy Holder, her last mark. Evie Porter was never supposed to be connected to her former identity, meaning she’s been compromised—and this is likely part of Mr. Smith’s plan.
At the police station, she is placed in an interrogation room. Refusing to answer any questions, she requests a lawyer: Rachel, who has already been called by Ryan.
Rachel arrives, calm and composed, bringing an agreement that allows them to speak in confidence. She informs Evie that the police have a photo of her at the crime scene. Evie is initially reluctant to explain everything, but Rachel insists she needs the full truth, so Evie admits that she used to be Regina Hale when she knew Amy Holder—and that Evie Porter is just one of many false identities.
To Evie’s shock, Rachel reveals that the police have collected evidence linking her to several aliases, all identified as Evelyn Porter. Mr. Smith has apparently been constructing an overarching identity for her without her knowledge. Overwhelmed, Evie asks Rachel for a few days to figure things out. She writes down a name and instructs Rachel to call him, telling him to say that her client was at Hilton Head in June 2017, and to arrange her immediate release.
Afterward, Ryan enters the room and embraces her. With the mics and cameras back on, Evie carefully chooses her words, insisting she doesn’t understand why the police think she knows anything. Once Ryan leaves, Rachel pulls Evie aside to talk privately. She asks if Evie plans to tell Ryan the truth, but Evie replies that she hired Rachel to handle her professional matters—not her personal life.
Lucca Marino: Six Years Ago
After the Hilton Head incident, Evie heads to the AAA building to confront Matt, who is furious that she cut his video feed and that the woman he hired couldn’t find Andrew all weekend. Evie counters that his plan was flawed, and she improved it. When Matt refuses to put Mr. Smith on the phone, she threatens to walk away. Once connected with Mr. Smith, she explains that the original plan would never have worked and that she secured compromising footage of Senator Nelson, a prominent family-values politician with influence on key committees. She asks where to send the flash drive, deliberately cutting Matt out of the loop.
What she doesn’t disclose to Mr. Smith is that she also earned a favor from Andrew Marshall. After a conversation warning him not to trust anyone blindly, Andrew realized she had saved him from being set up, and he offered his help if she ever wants to leave the criminal world behind.
Mr. Smith dismisses Matt from the room and asks Evie to take him off speaker. After probing her about how she pulled off the new plan so quickly, he agrees to let her report directly to him, though he warns her that it remains to be seen whether she’s a pleasant surprise or a problem. He assigns her a new mission in Florida, but Evie reveals to the reader that she held back critical information: several other politicians were compromised at the Hilton Head party, and she now holds leverage over them for her own use. She gives Matt an origami swan to remember her by and sends the compromising photos in origami swans to all of her targets.
Analysis
These chapters explore the consequences of Evie’s emotional entanglements and the fragile balance between control and vulnerability. Her growing attachment to Ryan compromises her carefully constructed identity and puts her mission in jeopardy. Had she not stayed to comfort him, she might have avoided being caught by the police—a stark reminder that any deviation from her usual detachment exposes her to danger. Evie’s hesitation reflects the conflict between her professional instincts and the emotional ties she knows she cannot afford but can’t seem to sever.
At the police station, the toll of living under multiple identities becomes fully apparent. Evie’s experience juggling personas has taught her to control her body language and words, but the revelation that Mr. Smith has been creating a singular identity for her—“Evelyn Porter”—shatters her sense of autonomy. She believed she was navigating her identities independently, but in reality, Mr. Smith was shaping and consolidating a new identity for her all along. This realization forces Evie to confront the fragility of identity, exposing how easily the identities she wears can be dismantled and redefined by external forces.
The origami swans, which recur throughout these chapters, symbolize both control and defiance. Her mother once taught her how to fold delicate paper into swans—a seemingly gentle craft that becomes a personal symbol of mastery and hidden strength. The swans represent Evie’s ability to create order and beauty, but they also reflect the layers she builds to protect herself, much like the identities she constructs. In this scene, the swan serves as a subtle act of rebellion: by handing one to Matt and using them to deliver compromising photos to her targets, Evie turns the delicate symbol of childhood into a weapon of manipulation and power.
