That night, while snow pressed against the hospital windows and Ethan slept against my heart, my phone buzzed again.
Another blocked message.
This time, there was no threat.
Only a photo.
It showed Ryan sitting in a dim room, his wrists tied to a chair, his face bruised, his eyes wide with terror.
Beneath it was a message.
He finally knows what it feels like to beg.
PART 5 — The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
Ryan looked out from the photograph like a man who had finally been introduced to the consequences he had always believed belonged to someone else. His hair was messy. His lip was split open. His hands were tied with something that looked like electrical cord.
But his eyes were what held me frozen.
Not guilt.
Not regret.
Fear.
Pure, animal fear.
Nathan took the phone from my trembling hand.
“Bennett. Now.”
Daniel was already calling her.
Within minutes, my hospital room turned into a command center again. Officers arrived. My phone was sealed in an evidence bag. The photo was sent to forensic technicians. Detective Bennett came in with her coat only half-buttoned, her expression colder than I had ever seen it.
“Emma,” she said, “did the message include anything else?”
“No.”
“Any sound? Any location tag?”
“No.”
Nathan paced the room like a wolf trapped behind bars. “Find him before whoever has him kills him.”
I looked at my brother, surprised.
He caught my expression and stopped.
“I hate him,” Nathan said. “God forgive me, I hate him. But if he dies, Emma has to carry that too. And Ethan grows up with a ghost instead of a conviction.”
That sentence stayed inside me.
A ghost instead of a conviction.
Ryan’s death would not set me free.
It would leave questions behind.
It would leave myths behind.
It would allow some people to say he had already suffered enough.
No.
I did not want Ryan dead.
I wanted him alive long enough to tell the truth.
By dawn, police had traced the photo’s metadata to a warehouse area outside Aurora. By sunrise, they had located the building.
But Ryan was gone.
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