Sophie’s POV
They crash to the floor.
The impact is violent, bone-shaking. Bellamy hits the ground hard with Adrian on top of him, fist already drawing back for another punch.
"Stop!" I scream. "Adrian, stop!"
But he doesn't stop.
They're fighting—really, violently fighting. Not a scuffle or a confrontation but brutal, desperate violence. Adrian lands another punch to Bellamy's face, then another. Blood sprays across the hardwood floor.
Bellamy tries to get his arms up to defend himself but Adrian is relentless. Driven by over a month of rage and fear and desperate searching, every punch carries the weight of everything he's been through.
"Adrian!" I can’t believe my eyes when Ayden flees into the apartment and tries to pull Adrian back, grabbing his shoulders. "Adrian, enough!"
“Ayden?..” I say in disbelief while Ayden’s too busy pushing Adrian away from Bellamy. Adrian shrugs him off, stays on top of Bellamy, keeps hitting him.
And Bellamy—Bellamy doesn't even fight back properly. He takes the hits. Turns his head to absorb the impact. Protects his face with his arms but doesn't strike back. Doesn't try to flip Adrian off him. Doesn't use any of the training I know he has.
He just takes it like he thinks he deserves it. Like this is penance.
"Adrian, please!" I'm moving before I can think, before I can consider whether this is smart or safe or the right thing to do.
I throw myself between them, literally cover Bellamy's body with my own, my back to Adrian, my arms spread to shield Bellamy from the next blow.
Adrian's fist stops inches from my head.
He freezes, stares at me—at Sophie, his Sophie. The woman he's been searching for over a month, the woman he just risked everything to find and rescue.
Protecting her captor. Shielding the man who stole her from their wedding day with her own body.
The betrayal on his face destroys me. It's not anger anymore, it's something worse—hurt, confusion. The look of someone whose entire world just tilted sideways in a way he can't comprehend.
"Move." His voice is deadly quiet. More terrifying than the shouting. More dangerous than the violence.
"No."
"Sophie." My name is a warning and a command. "Get away from him. Now."
"I can't let you kill him." My voice is shaking but firm. "Adrian, please. Listen to me."
"I’ll ask gently one more time—move." He says it again, each word precise and final.
"No."
We stare at each other: me protecting Bellamy, Adrian's fist still clenched and ready. Ayden hovering nearby, uncertain whether to intervene.
Behind me, I feel Bellamy slowly getting up. Pushing himself off the floor, spitting blood onto the hardwood.
"You should’ve listened to her first," Bellamy says, his voice thick and wet from the blood in his mouth. "I was taking her home. Today."
Adrian's eyes don't leave my face. "You expect me to believe that?"
"I don't expect anything."
Bellamy wipes blood from his split lip.
"But it's true—I was done, letting her go. The suitcase on the bed—that's her stuff. I was packing to take her to the airport this morning. Put her on a plane back to New York. Back to you and Amelia."
Adrian finally looks away from me. Looks at Bellamy, then past him to the half-packed suitcase on the bed. The clothes folded neatly. The stuffed lamb on the floor where it fell.
Then back to me. "Is that true?"
I nod frantically.
"Yes. He told me this morning that today was the day. He was going to take Noah to Marie's house, then drive me to the airport. He was letting me go, Adrian. He realized it was wrong. He was bringing me back to you, to Amelia."
Adrian looks between us. At Bellamy's defeated expression, blood running down his face, no fight left in him. At my desperate face, tears streaming, still positioned protectively even though Bellamy is standing now.
I can see him processing it. Trying to reconcile what he thought was happening with what we're telling him.
Slowly, understanding dawns.
The rage that's been driving him for over a month—the white-hot fury that propelled his fist into Bellamy's face—starts to drain away.
Replaced by confusion, exhaustion, the crushing weight of too many emotions happening at once.
He looks at me, really looks at me for the first time since bursting through that door. Not at Bellamy. Not at the suitcase. Just me.
His eyes scan my face, looking for something, searching for answers to questions he can't quite ask.
"Did he hurt you?" His voice is rough, barely controlled.
"No." The answer comes immediately, honest. "Never."
"Did he..." Adrian's jaw works. He can't finish the question but I know what he's asking.
The fear that's been underneath everything. The nightmare scenario he's been dreading but hasn't been able to voice. That Bellamy didn't just kidnap me. That he...
"No." I say it firmly, clearly. Meeting his eyes so he can see the truth. "Nothing like that. He never touched me that way, never threatened to, never even suggested it. He wanted... he wanted something else. A fantasy of a family. But no, not that. Never that."
Something shifts in Adrian's face—not quite relief, not quite acceptance, but something close. Like one weight has been lifted even as others remain.
His fists slowly unclench. The violence that was coiled in his body—ready to spring, to destroy, to obliterate the man who took me—begins to drain away.
He takes a step back. Then another.
"Where's the kid?" he asks Bellamy.
"With his nanny. She has him for the morning."
Bellamy's voice is still thick with blood.
"I was going to drop him there before taking Sophie to the airport. He doesn't know anything about this. He thinks Sophie is a friend visiting."
Adrian nods slowly, processing.
Ayden who’s been silent this whole time finally speaks. "We should go. Now. Before things get more complicated."
Adrian ignores him, still looking at me.
"Are you okay?" he asks quietly.
The question almost breaks me.
Am I okay? After over a month of captivity? After being trapped here long enough that I just threw myself between my kidnapper and my fiancé without thinking?
After surviving isolation, manipulation, and the constant fear that I'd never see Amelia again? After my mind found ways to cope that I'm not even sure I understand yet?
"I'm alive," I say. Because that's the most honest answer I can give. "I'm here. I survived."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know." Tears are running down my face freely now. "I don't know if I'm okay, Adrian. I don't know what okay even means anymore. But I'm alive. I want to…" My voice breaks, and suddenly I’m unable to even form basic words.
Something in Adrian's face crumbles. All the rage and violence and desperate searching—all of it gives way to something more fundamental.
Relief. Bone-deep, overwhelming relief that I'm alive. That I'm here. That he found me.
"Okay." His voice is gentle now, so different from moments ago. “Okay.”