Chapter 24
As a young woman, you’re raised to be aware of your surroundings. Never take a drink from a stranger. Only accept one straight from the bartender. Don’t walk alone at night – and if you have to, call someone. Keep your keys threaded between your fingers, aim for the eyes, don’t hesitate.
The moment you’re old enough, you’re handed pepper spray, maybe a taser, because needing protection is far more likely than never needing it at all. What no one teaches you is how to prepare for the man you love to be the danger.
For the person who was supposed to protect you to become the very thing you were raised to fear. When that happens, everything you were taught… every instinct to fight back… falls apart.
And suddenly, you’re defenseless in ways no one ever warned you about.
I wake up choking on pain. My head throbs in sharp, uneven pulses, and something wet trails down my temple, sticky and warm. Blood. I can’t see anything, just thick, crushing darkness.
My hands are tied. Behind my back. Tight.
No, no, no.
What happened? Where am I? How long have I been gone?
Breathe. Don’t panic. Panicking wastes air.
Everything they ever taught you floods in at once, loud and useless and overlapping. Be aware. Listen. Stay calm. Survive. I go still, forcing myself to breathe through my nose, straining past the pounding in my ears. Then I hear it – the distant rush of cars, tires humming over pavement. Traffic.
A trunk. I’m in the trunk.
My stomach twists hard.
I try to move my legs, test the space, but I’m folded wrong, cramped and boxed in. I can’t get leverage. Can’t kick. Can’t reach a headlight. That option dies quickly, and I shove the thought away before it can spiral.
Think.
My wrists burn as I shift, the bindings biting into my skin. I grit my teeth and twist my shoulders, inch by inch, forcing my arms forward. Every movement feels too big, too loud. My breath stutters. Stop. Slow.
Pain flashes white as I contort my body, muscles screaming, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop.
Survival narrows my world down to one thing: get my hands in front of me.
Nothing else matters.
A small, sharp thought cuts through the panic.
My watch. I’m still wearing my Apple Watch.
My fingers fumble, clumsy and shaking as I work it off my wrist and slide it down to my ankle, hiding it beneath the fabric of my yoga pants. I mute it… no sound, no vibrations. Silent. Invisible. A lifeline I don’t let myself hope too hard for.
I freeze again, listening.
No voices. No music. Just the steady rush of the road and the occasional vibration of the car beneath me. Whoever’s in the front isn’t talking. That feels worse somehow.
Then it hits me.
A smell. Clean. Familiar. Cologne.
My chest tightens as recognition settles in, heavy and cold. I know that scent. I’ve pressed my face into it. I bought it for him. I’ve felt safe wrapped in it.
My stomach drops.
Liam.
The questions come fast, piling on top of each other until I can barely tell where one ends and the next begins.
Why did he kidnap me? Didn’t he already have everything he wanted?If it was me, if it was always me, why not just take me back to the beach house?
That would’ve been easier. Familiar. Quiet.
Somewhere no one would question why I was there.
Which means this isn’t about convenience.
The thought settles heavy in my chest. If he didn’t take me there, then wherever we’re going is somewhere I wouldn’t go willingly.
Somewhere he couldn’t risk being recognized. Somewhere planned.
My pulse starts racing again, each beat loud in my ears. I replay every conversation, every argument, every moment I might’ve missed something. Was there a warning? A shift? A look I ignored because loving him made me feel safe?
Traffic hums on. The car doesn’t slow.
Beach house rules out witnesses. This rules out mercy.
I swallow hard, my throat dry, my body cold despite the tight space. Wherever he’s taking me, it isn’t a place meant for coming back from.
Gosh, my head hurts so bad.
The car slows.
Then stops.
Silence crashes down so suddenly it makes my ears ring. A door opens. Shuts. Footsteps…measured, unhurried.
My heart slams against my ribs. This is it.
Light explodes as the trunk pops open, blinding after the dark. I suck in a sharp breath, squinting, every muscle locking in place.
Liam stands there. For a split second, he looks almost human again… eyes wide, breath hitching as he takes me in. Awake. Watching him. My hands pulled around to the front. Shock flickers across his face. Real shock.
“You’re awake,” he says, like he didn’t plan for this. Like this wasn’t supposed to go off-script.
His gaze drops to my wrists, the restraints stretched and awkward, proof that I fought.
That I didn’t stay where he left me. Something dark replaces the surprise.
Calculation. Control snapping back into place.
I don’t scream. I don’t beg. I just meet his eyes, my pulse screaming where my mouth won’t.
Because this, this is the moment everything changes.
He isn’t the man I loved standing over me.
He’s the reason I have to survive.
“Liam, what are you doing?” My voice shakes despite my effort to steady it. “Please, can you untie me? It’s pulling at my stitches. I promise I won’t run.”
I’m terrified.
He exhales like I’ve inconvenienced him. “Don’t worry, Bella. We’re just going camping… back where we had our first date. I wanted to surprise you.”
His hands work at the restraints as he talks, casual, almost gentle. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
When he kisses my forehead, my skin crawls. Cold floods my chest, sharp and immediate, like my body knows something my mind is still catching up to.
I raise my hands to my face and pull them back slick with red.
“Liam,” I whisper, panic rising, “did you…. hit me?”
“I had to,” he says, like it’s obvious. “So you wouldn’t fight me. After our last conversation, I knew you wouldn’t come willingly. But it’s going to be okay… I promise.”
He grabs a towel from the trunk and wipes my face, too rough, too impatient. It barely helps. I feel the blood start to run again, warm against my skin.
“Liam… where are my friends?”
The air shifts. His jaw tightens, eyes darkening, but not with concern, with irritation. He’s angry that I’m thinking about them. Angry that I’m not thinking about him.
“They’re fine,” he snaps. “All they ever did was put ideas in your head. Tried to break us up. They didn’t want us together.”
My stomach drops, dread curling tight and heavy.
“Liam,” I plead, my voice breaking, “what did you do to them?”
I search his face for any sign, any hint, that they’re okay. That they’re safer than I am.
“I threw in a flash bang, just something small you can buy on the internet” he says calmly, like he’s talking about a minor inconvenience. “By the time they come around, you’ll be gone. They won’t know where we are. And we can finally be together in peace, to fix us, Bella.”
His eyes search my face, hungry for agreement.
“Isn’t that what you want?” he asks softly. “Don’t you want to be with me?”
Fear rips through me, cold and fast, settling deep in my bones. Surely he won’t kill me. He wants me alive. He wants me forever.
The thought twists in my chest. Forever doesn’t always mean long, if he picks up that I don’t want this… I’m a goner.
Please, I think desperately. Somebody find me.
I swallow, forcing my breathing to slow, forcing my face into something that looks like understanding. Compliance. Survival.
“What about Jessica?” I ask carefully. “And the –our– baby?” I watch him closely, choosing each word like it might detonate. “I thought you wanted a family…with me”
The lie tastes bitter, but I cling to it anyway.
If he believes I still belong to him, if he thinks I still fit into the future he’s built in his head, maybe I stay alive a little longer.
“Honestly, Isabel, I don’t even think that baby is mine,” he says flatly. “Jessica gets around, so I’m not convinced. When the baby’s born, I’ll do a DNA test and we’ll go from there.”
Then he smiles, slow, satisfied. “But I liked how you said our baby. I knew you just needed time to accept it.”
My stomach turns, but I keep my face still. Agreeable. Quiet. Alive.
He reaches into the back of the car and pulls out a bag, slinging it over his shoulder like this is some planned weekend getaway. His hand closes around mine, fingers tight, possessive. Not guiding… claiming.
We walk.
The forest thickens around us, trees pressing in, the light thinning until everything feels green and dim and endless. Time stretches, bends. My legs ache. My head throbs with every step. I focus on the ground, on breathing, on not stumbling, on not giving him a reason to get angry.
Hours pass. Or minutes. I can’t tell anymore.
Finally, the trees open up.
A river cuts through the clearing, water moving slow and steady, reflecting the sky in soft flashes of light. A tent is already set up on the bank… neat, intentional, waiting.
It’s beautiful. Peaceful. Almost perfect.
The kind of place you’d choose if you wanted no one to hear you scream.
I swallow hard.
If Liam hadn’t completely lost his mind, this might have felt like a dream.
“Liam, I need to lie down,” I murmur. “I don’t feel good.”
He softens instantly, like he’s been waiting for me to say the right thing. “Okay. I’ll start a fire. There’s an air mattress set up so you’ll be more comfortable.”
He leans down, brushing his lips against my hair. “I love you, Isabel.”
The words land wrong. Heavy. Misplaced. But I don’t react. I can’t.
I just smile in response, as I walk into the tent.
I sink onto the mattress, the air thick and wet, humidity clinging to my skin. The ground smells like damp earth and river water. My head throbs in slow, brutal waves, each pulse reminding me of the blow, the blood, the surgery my body hasn’t recovered from yet.
Exhaustion swallows me whole. The kind that drags you under whether you want it to or not.
My eyes slip closed before I can stop them.
Somewhere nearby, I hear him moving, metal clinking, wood shifting, the scrape of a lighter. The sounds blur together, distant and muffled, like they’re happening underwater.
If he’s going to kill me, I think dimly, hazily, then he can wait until tomorrow.
Or maybe… Maybe he’ll do it while I’m asleep.
The thought doesn’t even scare me the way it should. It just feels… quiet.
Darkness takes me before I can decide which is worse.
I wake to pitch black.
For a split second, I don’t remember where I am – then everything slams back into place. The river. The forest. Him. I peer out of the tent. Liam is slumped in a lawn chair by the dying fire, head tipped back, mouth slightly open. An empty bottle of whiskey rests near his hand.
Relief and terror crash together in my chest.
He won’t hear me.
This is it.
I slowly unzip the tent, every tiny sound feeling impossibly loud.
The zipper finishes its soft whisper and…
nothing. He doesn’t move. I step out barefoot, heart hammering so hard I’m sure it has to be audible.
I don’t look back. I don’t hesitate. I start down the narrow trail he carved through the trees, careful at first, placing each step, forcing myself not to run yet.
Branches scrape my arms. Roots threaten to trip me. My lungs burn. Then I hit sand.
And I run.