Bellamy’s POV
My day off lasts exactly four hours.
I'm on the floor of my apartment, building block towers with Noah, when my phone rings. The sound cuts through his delighted babbling, and I glance at the screen already knowing what I'll see.
Adrian.
I consider ignoring it. Let it ring out, let voicemail catch whatever urgent demand he's decided can't wait.
I'm sitting cross-legged on a carpet that desperately needs vacuuming, watching my son's face light up every time he knocks down the tower I've built, and for one selfish moment I want to pretend the outside world doesn't exist.
Then I remember I can't. I answer on the fourth ring.
"Bellamy." Adrian's voice is clipped, urgent. No greeting, no pretense of politeness. "Sophie's gone. She walked out of the café twenty minutes ago and she won't answer her phone. I need you to find her."
"It's my day off." I keep my voice flat, watching Noah reach for another block. "I'm with my son."
"I'm aware of your schedule. I'm also aware that we have an agreement." A pause, heavy with meaning. "You owe me. No objections."
The line goes dead before I can respond.
I stare at my phone, fury coiling in my chest like a snake preparing to strike. The audacity of it—the cold assumption that I'll drop everything, that my time with Noah means nothing compared to whatever crisis Sophie has created by doing exactly what anyone with sense would have predicted.
But Adrian's right. The debt stands and it always will.
I push myself off the floor, and Noah looks up at me with those big eyes—Olivia's eyes—confused by the sudden change in our game.
"Sorry, buddy." I scoop him up, pressing a kiss to his curls. "Daddy has to go to work."
I bundle him into his jacket, the tiny arms flailing as I try to thread them through the sleeves. He's at that age where getting dressed is a full-contact sport, but I've had two years of practice.
The jacket goes on, the shoes follow. The diaper bag gets slung over my shoulder.
After Olivia died, Noah became my entire world—the only thing that mattered, the only thing worth protecting. He goes where I go. Always.
The GPS in Sophie's phone—Adrian’s idea—leads me to a lake on the city's outskirts.
It's a quiet spot—the kind of place people come to think, or grieve, or escape from lives that have become unbearable. A walking path circles the water, mostly empty in the late afternoon chill. Bare trees line the shore, their branches reaching toward a gray sky that threatens rain.
Sophie sits on a bench near the water's edge, shoulders hunched, staring at the lake like it might hold answers to questions she hasn't figured out how to ask. She doesn't look up when I approach, my footsteps crunching on the gravel path.
"Nice choice for scenic depression." I stop a few feet away, Noah balanced on my hip. "Very dramatic. The gray sky is a nice touch."
Nothing. No sharp comeback, no fire in her eyes, no indication she's heard me at all. She just keeps staring at the water, and something in her stillness makes my chest tighten.
I shift tactics.
I lower myself onto the bench beside her, keeping space between us. Noah squirms in my lap, reaching for a stick on the ground, making the nonsense sounds that pass for conversation at his age.
I don't speak, don't push—just sit there, letting the silence stretch, giving her room to breathe.
Noah breaks the standoff.
He lets out a string of babbling sounds, his attention suddenly fixed on Sophie. His chubby fingers reach toward her, grasping at the air, that universal toddler gesture that demands acknowledgment.
Sophie turns.
Something cracks open in her expression—the walls she's been holding up crumbling at the sight of my son's outstretched hands. I see it happen, the way her face softens, the way her eyes fill with tears she's been fighting to suppress.
Her vulnerability to anything involving children. I should have predicted it. She's carrying one herself, after all.
"Can I...?" She doesn't finish the question, but I understand.
I pass Noah to her carefully, watching as she cradles him against her chest. He's not shy—never has been—and he immediately starts tugging at her hair, fascinated by the dark strands that fall around her face.
Sophie laughs. It's a broken sound, tangled with tears, but it's real.
"He's beautiful." Her voice comes out rough. "He looks like you."
"He looks like his mother."
The words slip out before I can stop them. Sophie's eyes meet mine, and I see the question forming—the same question she asked in the hallway, the one I couldn't answer.
This time, I don't retreat.
"Her name was Olivia."
I watch Noah grab at Sophie's necklace, his attention span shifting with typical toddler speed.
"We met through work—she was a paralegal, I was... something else. She was the first person in years who made me feel like I could be more than what I'd become."
Sophie listens without interrupting. Noah babbles contentedly in her arms, oblivious to the weight of the conversation happening above his head.
"The pregnancy was complicated. High-risk from the start." I keep my voice even, clinical. It's the only way I can tell this story without breaking. "The delivery was worse. She didn't survive it."
"Bellamy..." Sophie's voice is thick with tears that aren't just for herself anymore.
"I buried her on a Tuesday. Became a single father on a Wednesday." I shrug, a gesture that feels hollow. "Noah's the only good thing that came out of any of it. The only thing that matters."
We sit in silence for a moment, the weight of shared grief settling between us. Noah has found a button on Sophie's coat and is examining it with the intense focus only toddlers possess.
"What about Adrian?" Sophie asks quietly. "Your history with him. The debt he keeps mentioning. What ties you together?"
I consider deflecting. Consider shutting down the way I always do, building walls to keep her out. But something has shifted between us—sitting here with Noah in her arms, tears drying on her cheeks, both of us broken in ways we don't fully understand.
"That's not my story to tell." The words come out gentler than I intend. "You should ask Adrian."
Sophie nods slowly, but I see the truth in her eyes. She won't ask. She already has, probably multiple times, and Adrian has shut her out the same way he shuts everyone out.
And Adrian won't answer. Because Adrian never answers questions about the past—not fully, not honestly. He parcels out fragments and expects people to be satisfied with crumbs.
I see something else in Sophie's expression too. Something that looks like resolve hardening beneath the grief.
She's not letting this go.
Whatever Adrian is hiding, whatever secrets he's protecting with his silence and his walls—Sophie is going to find out. She'll dig until she unearths everything, consequences be damned.
Surprisingly, I don't want to warn Adrian.
I should. Loyalty demands it—the debt, the agreement, the years of history that bind us together. Adrian saved my life once. I owe him everything.
But sitting here, watching Sophie cradle my son with gentle hands, watching her process grief and emerge with determination instead of defeat...
I'll think about why later.
For now, I just sit beside her on the bench, letting Noah babble and reach for her hair, letting the silence between us become something almost comfortable.
We stay until the gray sky finally makes good on its threat, and the first drops of rain send us back to the car.