Bellamy’s POV
Sophie's words haunt me for days.
‘What's your endgame here, Bellamy?’
‘Eventually you'll have to make a choice.’
‘Adrian will never stop looking.’
‘You could let me go and face the consequences like an adult.’
I try to push them away, try to deny them. Try to convince myself that she's wrong, that she just needs more time, that eventually she'll see what I see.
But they've lodged in my mind like splinters. Small and sharp and impossible to ignore.
I catch myself checking my phone obsessively, looking out the windows, jumping at sounds in the hallway. Like I'm waiting for something inevitable to happen. Like I know the walls are closing in.
Late one night—three AM, maybe four—I can't sleep. Noah is with Marie for the week, Sophie is asleep in her room. The apartment is quiet except for the ambient sounds of the city outside.
I sit on the couch in the darkness and pull up my phone.
Open the photos app, scroll back. Past recent shots of Noah. Past images of Geneva. All the way back to the folder I haven't opened in months.
Olivia.
I click on the first photo. Her on our wedding day, that smile that used to light up my whole world. Dark hair falling over her shoulders, eyes full of life and love and hope for our future.
I scroll through more. Olivia pregnant with Noah. Olivia laughing at something I said. Olivia asleep on the couch. Olivia, Olivia, Olivia.
I've looked at these photos a thousand times over the years. Used them to remember, to hold onto what I lost, to keep her alive in some way even though she's gone.
But tonight, for the first time in months, maybe for the first time ever, I really look at them. Not at what I lost, but at who she was. Who we were, what we actually had.
Olivia was kind, patient. She called me on my bullshit when I needed it. She loved me but she never let me get away with being less than I could be.
She would be horrified by what I've done. Not disappointed, not sad—horrified.
I think about the kidnapping.
The moment I put that cloth over Sophie's face on what should have been her wedding day. The justifications I made—that I was saving her from Adrian's control, that she'd be happier with me, that this was somehow right.
The fantasy I built, the delusion I've been living in for over a month.
Sophie cooking breakfast with me. Sophie laughing over card games. Sophie wearing my shirt. Sophie looking almost peaceful in the park.
I convinced myself those moments meant something. That she was softening, that eventually she'd choose this. Choose me, choose the life I was offering.
But she was just surviving, making the best of an impossible situation.
That's not love, that's Stockholm syndrome. That's trauma response, a captive doing what she needs to do to stay sane.
Sophie doesn't love me. She never will.
Not because she's with Adrian. Not because she loves him more than she could ever love me. Not because I'm not good enough or attractive enough or worthy enough.
But because you can't love someone who took your freedom.
You can sympathize with them. You can understand them. You can even have moments of genuine connection with them.
But you can't love them, not really. Not the way love should be.
The realization breaks something inside me. Something that's been held together by denial and justification and desperate hope. Something that finally cracks under the weight of the truth I've been avoiding.
I look at Olivia's photo again, try to remember what it felt like to be loved by her. Really loved—freely, openly, without coercion or captivity or force.
It was nothing like what I have with Sophie.
Sophie smiles at me sometimes but there's always guardedness behind it. Sophie talks to me but I can feel her measuring every word. Sophie exists in my space but she's always looking for exits.
That's not love. And Olivia would be absolutely devastated that I confused the two. That I justified kidnapping by telling myself Sophie would eventually fall for me. That I held someone against their will and called it rescue.
My wife was better than that. She deserved better than being used as justification for this.
Because that's what I've been doing, isn't it? Using her memory to rationalize my choices. Telling myself I was creating the family she would have wanted for Noah. Telling myself she'd understand why I needed Sophie.
But Olivia wouldn't understand. She'd be disgusted.
She'd look at what I've done—stealing Sophie from her wedding, separating her from her infant daughter, holding her captive for weeks—and she wouldn't recognize me.
She'd see a stranger, someone who became exactly what he always feared.
My father—the man who took what he wanted without caring who he hurt. Who justified his choices with twisted logic. Who never questioned whether he was wrong.
I've become him, the person I swore I'd never be. And Sophie was right. She's been right all along.
I haven't been trying to move forward. I've been trying to resurrect the past. Trying to fill the Olivia-shaped void in my life with someone else. Using Sophie as a replacement for what I lost.
Avoiding grief by creating a new fantasy instead of facing the old pain.
That's not healing. That's not healthy. That's not fair to anyone involved.
Not to Sophie, who's been held captive by my inability to process loss properly.
Not to Noah, who's been building fantasies about a family that can never exist.
Not to Olivia's memory, which I've been twisting to serve my own broken needs.
And not to myself, because this was never going to work. This was never going to make me whole again.
I need to let her go. The thought terrifies me, because it means facing all the things I've been running from.
The grief. The loneliness. The fear that I'll never feel whole again. The reality that Olivia is gone and no amount of fantasy or force or desperate grasping will bring her back.
It means facing consequences. Legal ones. Social ones. Knowing that everyone will see me as the monster I've become.
It means losing Sophie before I ever really had her. Losing the fantasy I've been clinging to. Losing the illusion that I could fix everything by creating a new family.
It means admitting I was wrong. Completely, catastrophically, unforgivably wrong.
But Sophie was right about that too. The only options are run forever or face what comes next.
And I'm tired of running. I'm tired of justifying. Tired of rationalizing. Tired of pretending this was ever okay.
I'm just tired.
I look at Olivia's photo one more time. Try to imagine what she'd say if she could see me now. I think she'd tell me to do the right thing. Even if it's hard. Even if it destroys me. Even if I'm not ready.
Because keeping Sophie here longer won't make me any more ready. It'll just make everything worse.
For everyone.
I put my phone down. Sit in the darkness. Let the truth settle into my bones.
I need to let her go.
Tomorrow. Or the day after. Soon.
Before Adrian finds us. Before the police show up. Before I do any more damage.
I need to give Sophie back her freedom. Her daughter. Her life.
And then I need to face what I've done.