Silence filled the room. Ryan read it all, every falsified text, every insinuation, every moment Brenda had crafted to destroy what he had barely allowed himself to believe in. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t rage. He simply absorbed the truth like ice takes shape, clean, hard cut. She hadn’t just wanted to hurt Anna. She wanted to dismantle him. She wanted him stripped, isolated, vulnerable. And she had nearly succeeded. Then the second file opened, a digital trail someone not only capable but terrified had built. Brenda’s search history, her encrypted messages to certain black-market information brokers, her frantic attempts to uncover one name.
Ryan Gill.
Of course. The moment she found out. The exact day she resurfaced in his life lined up perfectly with the timestamp of her inquiries a
