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I checked ht now, but I knew I had at least another hour here Ivan had just finished announcing the archery and the media creas done with their telecast, but the stands were still being cleared and I knew that would take so my cousin the personal treatment, the saood The reat surprise, and I could think of nothing I wanted races I had soood with that

Ivan washis way over to me when my mobile went off I hoped it was Brynne She’d never replied to my text from earlier I smiled when I saw her nae

And then my whole world collapsed

I can’t do this anymore with u Ethan, u killed us last nite My Old life is what I want back nowI don’t love u anyoin home where I want to be left alonedon’t come after me an don’t Phone me! Get some help, ethan, I think u need It desperately --Brynne

I don’t reot out of there I know Ivan ith me so he et home because the GPS told nal froistered froh

When I discovered her engage at the bottom of Sie loud and clear A brutally painful and cruel one, but one I understood implicitly

Our first h neither one of us knew it at the time Brynne had seen Simba before she’d ever met me We had started with Si

The situation h My eht for reason in as a colossal clusterfuck Last night had been bad, sure, but worthy of a breakup? Hardly Brynne was not cruel If anything, she was softer-hearted than most people And she was very honest If she wanted out, she would have toldso ie The text was not her style at all She also told ive me another "Waterloo" True, she hadn’t actually written the word in her text, but she proain

Len didn’t even know Brynne was gone from the flat He told me he let the bloke from Fountaine’s into my office to service the tank at four o’clock as scheduled At about five-thirty, Brynne texted hiet her the special nant Len left for the coffee shop, but while he was queued up she rang him and told him not to bother with the tea, since I was onup for her Len told us that when he returned to the flat, the bloke from Fountaine’s appeared to have finished the job and let hi in the bathrooot ahold of Annabelle, and she relayed an account of a perfectly nor-favor sa veil folded carefully in a bag That didn’tfavors if she was leaving me? Why did she have her veil out? I’d even found her periwinkle dress laid out on the bed as if she was choosing what to wear for dinner Why would she lay out clothing for a date if she was planning to leave? The part about how she wasn’t going to have et rid of our child She already loved our baby as a mother does I knew this inthat got litched out during the ti the sameof time in which Brynne had to have exited the flat, and when the aquarium service had supposedly let themselves out Those kind of coincidences just didn’t occur in real life They only happened on television

I rang up Fountaine’s and asked who they had sent out to do the service call on Simba’s tank

Their reply turned the blood in my veins to ice, stopped it dead on its way toto reschedule his service, sir"

That is when I knew that the person who’d sent the photos of Brynne andshop He had followed us around London and stood there in the shop and listened to iven theirl fro nose

Godda The deep, sonorous clang of a bell tower, so its scheduled perfor htmare

It wasn’t

My head was fuzzy from not one but two blackouts The first tiet my attention and tell s to people I care about--to people I love But I’d done those things hoping and praying it er to me I had known him for er to et to where he was now I had no reason to believe he wouldn’tto more to lose

"My pretty awakens," he whispered fro over my body purposefully, his breath at my neck

"Noplease don’t do this, Karl Please" I begged hi to push him back with my hands

"But why not? We’ve fked lots of times in the past You loved it back then I know I did," he crooned, "and I was just a kid before I knohat I’ now" He slid his hand up my top and over a breast and squeezed He slathered his mouth over my neck and tried to kiss rippedet with me, Brynne," he said in a cruel voice, before he sla to invade me