Page 61 of Savage Games

Run… you don’t belong in his world.

I had seen enough action movies to know what that dot meant. It was the laser pointer on a sniper rifle. Someone was targeting Richard.

The next photo was a photo of me… with my face scratched off. Over the photo was the text He’s mine with a heart emoji.

The next screen was a video. It was Richard pacing in front of the abbey, dressed in his bespoke Henry Poole tuxedo… taken this morning. This time there were three laser pointers over his heart.

Oh, God, I was going to be sick.

The next was another video. This time a music video, Garbage’s ‘#1 Crush.’ The creepy strains of the song about obsessive love filled the small antechamber. As the lyrics wormed their way into my brain, I realized they reflected my own obsessive feelings for Richard as much as hers. The idea that I shared empathetic feelings with the woman who obviously wanted me and Richard dead was disturbing and macabre.

Not wanting to hear any more of the song, I flipped to the next photo.

It was Richard again with a large red target. There was another text overlay.

Anytime.

Anywhere.

He’s dead.

Leave now… and he lives.

Tell anyone… he dies.

The message was clear. Despite his added security, despite the guards and armored vehicles, this crazy bitch (and I was certain it was the mysterious woman Richard refused to discuss with me) could get at him… and kill him.

The last photo was a picture of the icy blonde I recognized from before at the dressmakers, wearing my wedding dress with the blood-smeared bodice with another text overlay.

If I can’t have him… no one will.

Dropping the phone, I pulled at my bodice. I couldn’t breathe.

Richard.

My Richard.

My Mr. Darcy.

Intense, intelligent, bigger-than-life, sexy-as-hell Richard.

Dead.

It was too much to even contemplate. This was all too much.

The wedding.

The threats.

Everything… it was too much.

I could feel the panic take hold as my head spun.

I had to get out of here.

Technically, it wasn’t running away, not this time. This time I was doing it to save Richard. Whoever this woman was, she had made it clear she would kill Richard if I went through with the wedding. I couldn’t let that happen.

I felt lightheaded as I spun in circles in the small anteroom, uncertain what to do next. I had arrived at Westminster already in my wedding gown. I didn’t have any other clothes and unlike the time I fled to Paris, I didn’t even have a purse with cash to bribe my way across the border.

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