Chapter 8: The Interrogation Proposal
A week. Seven days of agonizing over ring boxes he kept in his sock drawer like a fugitive, and Eric still couldn't find the right moment. He'd rehearsed speeches in the shower, in the car, at three in the morning while Sophia slept beside him, her dark hair fanned across the pillow. Every version sounded like a greeting card written by a committee of nervous accountants. He wanted something remarkable, something that matched the remarkable woman she'd become, and every idea he conjured felt either too corny or not enough.
The ring sat in his pocket now, a small velvet box with a princess-cut stone he'd spent a staggering amount of his savings on. The waiter refilled his water glass and Eric muttered thanks without looking up. Across the table, Sophia was mid-sentence about a new exhibition at the Rothschild, her hands sketching shapes in the air.
"So I told the director, you cannot hang a de Kooning next to a Pollock and call it a dialogue, it's a duel. He looked at me like I'd suggested lighting the canvas on fire."
Eric laughed, because she was luminous when she talked about art, and because he'd learned that if he just smiled at the right intervals she'd keep going. The risotto in front of him had gone cold. He'd barely touched it. The ring box was a solid weight against his thigh, and he kept thinking about how Sophia packed his lunch every morning now, how she'd started doing that thing where she checked the exits of every room they entered. How she'd said, last night, that she'd found a trainer who taught Krav Maga and did he think that was a good idea?
"Eric." Sophia's voice sharpened. "You're not listening."
"I am. De Kooning. Dialogue. Duel."
"That was two minutes ago." She tilted her head, emerald eyes narrowing with fond suspicion. "You've been weird all week. What's going on?"
The moment opened in front of him like a door. The restaurant was crowded, warm with chatter and clinking glass. The light caught her face in a way that made his chest ache. He could do it now. Right here, cliché as it was, over cold risotto in a room full of strangers. He reached for his pocket.
And Sophia's eyes flicked past his shoulder. Her whole posture changed, going still and alert, the way a cat's does when it hears something you can't. The playful warmth drained out of her face.
"Don't turn around," she said quietly.
"Sophia, what—"
"Walker and Doyle. The Oversight agents. They just walked in."
Eric's stomach dropped. He kept his eyes on her, but his peripheral vision caught shapes moving at the edges of the restaurant: broad shoulders in dark suits, stationed at every exit like furniture that had suddenly grown guns. A waiter tried to move past one of them and was gently, firmly redirected.
"Okay," Eric said, his voice thin. "Okay. Maybe they're just here for dinner."
"They're not here for dinner." Sophia smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "They've got handheld radios, Eric. They're coordinating."
The room felt different now. Every laugh from a nearby table sounded too loud, every clink of cutlery like a warning bell. Eric's fingers closed around the ring box in his pocket and he left it there.
Doyle reached them first. The small, wiry man wore an apologetic expression, the kind you put on when you're about to do something deeply unpleasant to someone you've shared biscuits with. Walker came up behind him like a shadow given mass, grey crew cut stark under the restaurant's warm lighting.
"Sophia," Doyle said, and his voice was genuinely sad. "Eric. I'm sorry about this."
"About what?" Sophia's tone was bright, innocent, the same voice she'd used on the detectives after the gallery. "We were just finishing our dinner. Eric was about to tell me something important, weren't you, darling?"
"We need you to come with us quietly," Walker said. It wasn't a request. He'd taken off his sunglasses, and his bare eyes were flat and unreadable. "There's been a development. The Chief wants to talk to you both."
"This is a restaurant," Eric said. "There are innocent people here. You can't just—"
"Which is precisely why we're asking you to come quietly," Doyle cut in, gentle as a scalpel. "Don't make a scene. Too many civilians about."
Sophia's hand found his under the table. Her grip was strong, steady. She looked at him, and for a moment she wasn't Agent Velvet Lullaby or the playful woman who'd dragged him to bed after arguments. She was just Sophia, scared and determined and utterly sure of what to do next.
"Stay calm," she murmured. "Whatever happens, keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking."
They walked out of the restaurant between the two agents, past tables of oblivious diners, past a waiter who started to ask if everything was okay and then thought better of it when he saw Walker's face. The night air hit Eric's cheeks, cool and damp. A black SUV idled at the curb, engine running. Two more men in suits flanked the rear doors.
It was absurd, how normal it looked. How quickly the world could tilt sideways without anyone noticing.
"Mr. Aldrich is waiting," Walker said, and opened the door.
The ride was silent. The Agency's headquarters had a sublevel parking garage that Eric had never seen in his months of working there; his security clearance had never extended past the fourth floor where the analysts lived. Now the SUV glided past guard stations and blast doors, deeper and deeper, until it stopped in a corridor that looked like every spy movie had ever been set in. Polished concrete, fluorescent lights, doors with keypads and no windows.
They were escorted to an office at the end of the hall. A plaque beside the door read: CARL ALDRICH, STATION CHIEF. Eric's boss. The man who'd suspended him with all the warmth of a filing cabinet fire.
The door opened. The office inside was exactly what Eric expected: cold light off polished steel, stacks of classified dossiers on a heavy desk, and behind it, Carl Aldrich, immaculate in a grey suit, glasses gleaming with that blank white reflection that turned his eyes into mirrors.
"Sit," Aldrich said.
They sat.
The door closed behind them with a sound like a lock turning, and Eric felt the ring box press against his thigh like a secret that was about to get him killed.
The silence in Aldrich's office was the kind that made you want to confess to things you hadn't done. Eric's palms were damp against his thighs. Beside him, Sophia sat with her spine perfectly straight, her face a pleasant mask of cooperative confusion.
Aldrich let the quiet stretch. Then he leaned forward, folded his hands on the desk, and fixed his blank white gaze on Sophia.
"Let's start with the art heist," he said.
Sophia blinked. "The robbery at the Calthorpe Gallery? I gave your agents a full statement two weeks ago."
"People change their stories," Aldrich said. "Especially when they've had time to rehearse." He touched a keypad on his desk. The wall behind him lit up, a wall of monitors showing surveillance photos. Eric's throat tightened.
There they were: snapshots of Eric and Sophia at a gallery opening, laughing at something off-camera. A photo of Sophia in a new blazer, sharp and tailored, caught mid-stride on a city street. Selfies of the two of them at the gym, flushed and grinning. A picture of Sophia's kitchen, taken from the window, showing a knife block on the counter.
"Where did you meet?" Aldrich asked.
"A gallery opening," Sophia said easily. "Eric spilled red wine on a Rothko. Well, on the rope in front of the Rothko. He was very apologetic."
"You hit on her while ruining a million-dollar painting?"
"I was charming," Eric said, and heard how thin his voice sounded.
"How did you meet, for the record, is what I'm asking," Aldrich said. "Not the version you give at dinner parties. The truth."
"That is the truth," Sophia said, and there was steel in her voice now. "We met, he was clumsy, I thought he was cute, and he asked me out before the wine stain was dry. What exactly are you accusing us of, Mr. Aldrich?"
Aldrich ignored the question. He cycled the monitors: a receipt from a boutique, itemized. A gym membership record. A screenshot of Sophia's bank account statement. Eric watched her spend a small fortune on clothing over the past months, everything tailored, elegant, practical in ways that suggested a wardrobe designed for movement.
"Interesting spending habits," Aldrich said. "You've been upgrading your look, Ms. Rossi. Training at a combat gym. Changing your personal habits. Learning Krav Maga." He let that hang. "You were preparing for something."
"I was preparing for my forties," Sophia said sweetly. "I'm told violence helps with the back pain."
Aldrich's lips didn't move. The monitors shifted again, and Eric felt the air leave the room. Family photos. Sophia's parents at a dinner table. Eric's brother at a birthday party. Two people caught mid-laugh at a picnic, sunlight in their hair, arms around each other like they didn't know anyone was watching.
"Who among these people knows the truth about you?" Aldrich asked, and his voice was soft now, almost gentle, which was infinitely worse. "Not the truth you tell yourselves. The real truth."
"Mr. Aldrich, I don't know what—"
"Sophia Rossi," Aldrich said, "foils an armed robbery with moves that would make a spec-ops instructor weep. She's a civilian. She's never held a weapon. She's had no military training. Yet she disarmed four armed men and led children to safety, all without breaking a nail. Why?"
The restaurant had been the arrest. This was the interrogation. And Eric, who had spent seven days rehearsing speeches, was silently, desperately recalculating everything.
"Because they were going to hurt people," Sophia said. "Because I was scared and angry and I did what anyone would do."
"We both know that's not true."
The monitors flickered. A new image appeared: a photograph of Sophia, taken the day of the heist, standing in front of the gallery with a streak of blood across her cheek and a smile that was pure adrenaline. Dark hair wild. Emerald eyes blazing. She looked like she'd been born for it.
Aldrich's voice dropped to a near-whisper. "The day of the heist, a text message was sent from a burn phone. It was received by Eric Jones's personal phone." He tapped the keypad. On the central monitor, a single line appeared in stark white text:
>IT'S FINE V.L
Sophia went very still.
Aldrich turned his head toward Eric, the blank gleam of his glasses catching the light. "Who is V.L., Jones?"
Eric's mouth went dry. He could feel Sophia's gaze on him, sharp and confused. He could feel the ring box in his pocket, a small square of terrible hope. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"V.L.," he said, and his voice cracked, "is my fiancée, if she'll have me"
He pulled the box from his pocket and set it on the desk between them.
The silence that followed was the loudest thing Eric had ever heard.
Aldrich looked at the box. Then at Eric. Then, very slowly, he stood, walked to the door, and opened it. He didn't look back. The door clicked shut, and they were alone with the wall of monitors and the small velvet box on the polished steel desk.
Sophia didn't move. Her hands were folded in her lap, knuckles white.
"A burner phone," she said, her voice very small. "You tracked my burner phone."
"I didn't track anything. Aldrich did. Or, well." Eric swallowed. "He helped me set this up. The whole thing. The arrest. The interrogation. Walker and Doyle were in on it."
Sophia stared at him. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"You faked an arrest," she said. "To propose to me."
"I tried for a week," Eric said, and the words came out in a rush, raw and honest. "I had speeches. I had plans. I wanted something remarkable, something that matched you, but everything I thought of was either too corny or not enough. And I realized there isn't a perfect moment for you, Sophia. You'd see it coming. The moment would be spoiled. I needed something you'd never see coming."
Sophia's eyes were wet. She was trying very hard not to laugh, or cry, or both.
"You had your boss arrest me," she said.
"He wasn't my boss anymore. He was just a guy in a suit helping me with a magic trick." Eric stood, walked around the desk, and picked up the ring box. He got down on one knee on the cold polished floor. "Every magician knows the secret: you make them look at one hand while the other does the work. You were looking at all the surveillance and the questions. You weren't looking at me."
He opened the box. The stone caught the light and scattered it, bright and clean.
"Sophia Rossi. I have no idea who you're going to be in ten years. Neither do you, I think. But I know I want to find out. I want to be the one you come home to. I want to be the one who makes you coffee and watches you check the exits of every restaurant we eat at. I want to be your partner in whatever this wild thing is that we're becoming."
Her hand came up to her mouth. A tear slipped down her cheek.
He held the ring out to her. "So, Sophia. Will you marry me?"
She cried. She nodded, and cried harder, and held out her left hand with only the faintest tremor. Eric slid the ring onto her finger. It caught the light, and she looked at it like it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
"Yes," she said. "Yes, you beautiful, ridiculous man. I'm going to give you so many babies."
"That's a lot of babies."
"I have plans." She pulled him up and kissed him, hard, her hand fisted in his collar. "We're going to need a bigger apartment. And a mission board. And a hidden safe. And maybe a cat."
Through the door, very faintly, Eric heard what sounded like Doyle's voice, followed by Walker's low laugh. They'd been listening. Of course they'd been listening.
The door opened a crack. Doyle's head appeared, eyes bright.
"We'll, uh, leave you two alone," he said. "But the Chief wants you to know you're still suspended, Jones. So is the fiancée, technically. Congratulations, by the way."
The door closed again. Sophia looked at the ring on her finger, then at Eric, and her smile was the brightest thing in the room.
"Walk me through this trick again," she said. "Because I have a feeling I'm going to be telling this story for the rest of my life."
Eric sat down beside her and started explaining, and the monitors behind them still glowed with the photos of their life.