Even now, Julian still didn’t know exactly what had happened to Niamh.
All he knew was that tomorrow was supposed to be his wedding day, but the thought of it left him restless and unable to sleep.
He tossed and turned in bed, mind racing, until suddenly his phone buzzed with an unfamiliar multimedia message—a sharp jolt that snapped him fully awake.
The message was just a single photo.
The background was an abandoned pier at night, and in the center of the image sat a cell phone.
Julian might not have recognized anything else, but that phone was unmistakably familiar.
It was Niamh’s phone.
At first, he wondered who would send him such a photo and for what reason. Then he left his room, tried calling Niamh but couldn’t reach her, and overheard that a fugitive from Aldenville had escaped to Blackspire, kidnapping Marina and demanding ransom from Jonathan.
All of it left Julian shaken and deeply unsettled.
He quickly studied the photo again, searching for clues to the pier’s location. Against all odds, he actually managed to find the abandoned dock—and, lying there, he saw Niamh.
She was soaked to the bone, looking as if she’d just crawled out of the sea, dragging her exhausted body step by step and leaving a clear trail of water behind her.
But eventually, her strength failed, and she collapsed.
Her phone lay beside her.
Oddly, the phone wasn’t broken, nor was it wet.
Julian felt something was off.
Clearly, something had happened to Niamh.
And whoever had sent him that photo must have wanted him to find her.
But why?
Everyone attending his wedding to Susy knew that Niamh was Jonathan’s wife.
So why contact Julian instead of Jonathan?
He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being used for someone else’s plan.
Still, whatever the sender’s motives, they’d done him a huge favor.
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