“ETHAN!” I shouted, feeling renewed strength.
I wasn’t alone.
Scrambling to stand, dizziness washed over me but I fought through it, just as Bryce raised the gun.
“Your love turned me into a monster!” he declared just as the door burst open and the gun went off.
I flinched, grabbing my stomach as his blood splattered all over me.
Bryce had pulled the gun up to his chin in the last moment and blew his own head off. I grasped at my stomach, still in disbelief that he’d shot himself and not me.
My knees went weak as Ethan hurdled the bed and swam into view.
“Are you okay?” He looked back at Bryce’s crumpled body and then stood before me, covering the bloody show from my view.
Sobs wracked my body, sirens blaring in the distance.
“Are you bleeding?” Ethan was running his hands all over me, checking my belly for wounds, then my neck, my arms.
I couldn’t speak. I was in shock. Words weren’t forming.
I just kept saying, “Oh my God, oh my God,” over and over again as I sobbed.
“It’s okay. I called the police when you didn’t show to work. I had two trackers put on his car and he only found one.”
Ethan pulled me from the room. We stood outside as half a dozen police cars pulled up, guns out.
Looking behind me, at Bryce’s crumpled form, I thought that maybe he did really love me. At least in his own sick way. He loved me enough to kill himself and end my torture, and for that I was grateful.
I was strapped to a gurney; lights were flashed in my eyes. The word “shock” kept getting used; sirens, hospital, doctors, policemen. Through it all, one person never left my side, never let go of my hand.
Ethan.
Ethan was going to be there to help me pick up the pieces of my life. That was the only thing I was clinging to right now.
Ethan stroked my hair as I lay on his chest in the hospital room. “Shhh, you’re safe now. You never have to worry about him again.”
I was free of Bryce Conner. Free to live life on my terms without looking over my shoulder. With that final thought, I drifted off to sleep. My fingers intertwined with Ethan’s.
OceanofPDF.com
Epilogue
Ipulled a piece of lint off my graduation cap and handed the hat to Angela so she could pin it into my hair.
Her eyes were misty. “Girl, I’m so proud of you. First one of my friends to graduate college.”
I smiled. “You’ve been a huge help to me this year. I seriously owe you everything.”
The media had a field day with Bryce’s kidnapping-turned-suicide-but-almost-murder. Rich boy kidnaps ex-wife charity case and takes her to seedy motel. It was all over the news for months. Angela would storm the news people who showed up to Mickey’s or while we were out. She went on such foul-mouthed tirades that they couldn’t put it on the air. Ethan was more methodical in his approach to dealing with the press. He bought a bunch of Super Soaker water guns and would soak the newswoman, her camera equipment, and anything else he could if they showed up at his shop.
I rubbed Angela’s big pregnant belly. “I can’t believe you’re knocked up again,” I laughed, because we’d been laughing about that oopsie for four months.
She held a bobby pin between her fingers. “Girl, I can’t believe I’m knocked up again either. By the time you and Ethan are on your first kid, I’ll be on my tenth.”
A grin pulled at my lips. Cody had the shock of his life when she’d peed on the test and it was positive. But he’d come around and now they were excited for the baby. The thought of having babies with Ethan one day appealed to me. We were getting ready to celebrate our two-year anniversary together. We didn’t of course count that little bit of time apart. His motorcycle shop was doing so well that he had decided to open a location in Tucson, near UofA, and hire a manager to run it. Things were going great.
I pulled out my phone and instinctively checked the app that managed his blood sugar.
