Chapter 3 - Belle
I wake up screaming.
The sound rips from my throat before I'm fully conscious, before I remember where I am, before I can process that the hands around my neck are just a dream. Just another nightmare from the endless collection Nathan's given me over the past two years.
The door slams open, and suddenly there's a figure in the darkness. Tall, broad-shouldered, moving fast, and I scramble backward on the bed, tangling myself in the expensive sheets.
"Belle. Belle, it's me. You're safe."
Richard's voice cuts through the panic, low and achingly familiar. He stops just inside the doorway, hands raised like he's approaching a wounded animal. Which isn't far from the truth, I realize distantly. I'm shaking so hard the bed is vibrating.
"Lights," he says, and the room illuminates gradually, soft enough that it doesn't hurt my eyes. He's wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt, his hair mussed like he was sleeping. Like I woke him up with my screaming. "You had a nightmare."
"I'm sorry." The words come out broken, stuttered. "I didn't mean to… I'm sorry, I'll be quiet, I promise—"
"Stop." He takes one step closer. "Belle, stop apologizing. You have nothing to be sorry for."
But I do. I have everything to be sorry for. I invaded his space, disrupted his life, and now I'm having screaming nightmares that bring him running in the middle of the night. I should be better than this, stronger than this, not falling apart in his guest room like some pathetic—
"Breathe," Richard says, and I realize I've been holding my breath, my chest tight and aching. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. Like this."
He demonstrates, his chest rising and falling in an exaggerated rhythm, and I try to match it. Try to force air into my lungs that don't want to cooperate.
One breath. Two. Three.
The shaking doesn't stop, but the edge of panic starts to recede.
"Good," he says. "Keep breathing. You're doing fine."
I focus on his voice, let it anchor me. Let it pull me back from wherever my subconscious tried to drag me. After what feels like hours but is probably only minutes, I can breathe normally again. The trembling subsides to a manageable level.
Richard hasn't moved from his spot near the door. Hasn't tried to come closer, touch me, comfort me physically. Some part of me appreciates the distance, the respect for my space after a nightmare about being trapped.
Another part of me wants him closer. Wants to feel his arms around me, solid and safe, proving that I'm really here and Nathan can't reach me.
"What time is it?" I ask, my voice still shaky.
"Just after three." He runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up in a way that's unfairly attractive. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really." I pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.
The sweater I wore to bed, one of the soft ones from the closet that smells like expensive fabric softener and not like Nathan's cologne, has twisted around my body.
I straighten it with trembling fingers. "I'm okay now. You can go back to bed."
He doesn't move. "Belle."
"Really, I'm fine. It was just a dream. I get them sometimes."
All the time, but I don't say it. Every single night since Nathan first put his hands on me in anger.
"How often is sometimes?"
I don't answer, focusing instead on a spot on the wall just past his shoulder. Neutral territory. Safe.
"Belle, look at me."
I do and immediately regret it. His eyes are soft with concern, "How often?" he asks again.
"Every night," I whisper. "For about a year and a half now. They got worse when..." I trail off, not wanting to finish that sentence. When Nathan's violence escalated. When he started choking me. When I realized he might actually kill me one day and make it look like an accident.
Richard's jaw tightens, and I watch him visibly work to control his expression. "Has anyone ever suggested therapy? Professional help for the trauma?"
I almost laugh. "Nathan didn't believe in therapy.
Said it was for weak people who couldn't handle their own problems. And Victoria—" I stop, swallowing hard.
"Victoria said if I was having nightmares, it was probably guilt over something I'd done.
That I should examine my own behavior instead of blaming Nathan. "
"Victoria is a narcissistic bitch who enabled her son's abuse," Richard says flatly. "And Nathan is a sociopath who isolated you from anyone who might actually help. Neither of them has any credibility when it comes to your mental health."
The bluntness of his assessment shocks a surprised laugh out of me. It sounds rusty, out of practice, but it's there.
"I'll set up an appointment with a therapist," he continues, like this is completely normal.
Like arranging mental healthcare for your son's runaway fiancée is just another item on the to-do list. "There's someone in town.
She specializes in trauma. Completely confidential, and she won't ask questions you don't want to answer. "
"I don't have money for—"
"I'm not asking you to pay for it, Belle." He says it gently, but there's steel underneath. "Let me help you. Please."
That word—*please*—coming from Richard Kane's mouth… Men like him don't say please. They command, expect, demand. They don't ask permission to help.
But he's asking. Giving me choice, agency, control over my own treatment.
After two years of having every choice stripped away, it's almost overwhelming.
"Okay," I whisper. "Thank you."
He nods once. "Good. I'll make the call in the morning." He pauses, then adds, "In the meantime, do you think you can sleep? Or would you rather have some company? I can stay, just to talk. Or I can have Mrs. Annie make tea, something to help you relax."
The offer to stay sends warmth flooding through me, dangerous warmth, the kind I shouldn't feel. "You don't have to do that. I've already disrupted your night enough."
"You haven't disrupted anything." He leans against the doorframe, settling in like he has all the time in the world.
Like sitting up at three in the morning with a traumatized woman is perfectly normal for him.
"I don't sleep much anyway. Too many years of working around the clock, I think.
My brain doesn't know how to shut off anymore. "
I study him in the soft light, this man who built an empire, who commands respect and fear in equal measure, who looks at me like I'm something precious instead of broken. "What do you do when you can't sleep?"
"Work, usually. Read. Walk the property, though the security team hates when I do that. Apparently, it 'compromises their perimeter protocols' or some such nonsense." The corner of his mouth quirks up slightly. "Marcus has strong opinions about my tendency to wander."
"Marcus seems very... thorough."
"That's a diplomatic way of putting it." The almost-smile widens slightly.
"He's ex-military, former Secret Service.
Took a job with me five years ago and has been trying to turn this place into Fort Knox ever since.
The security upgrades you saw today? That's him operating at about sixty percent.
If I let him have his way completely, there'd be guard towers and a moat. "
The image makes me laugh again, a real laugh this time, not just a startled exhale. "A moat seems excessive."
"I said the same thing. He gave me a very detailed PowerPoint presentation on historical siege defense and modern threat assessment.
" Richard shakes his head, but there's fondness in his expression.
"I hired him for his expertise, so I try to let him do his job.
Even when it means living in what amounts to a very expensive bunker. "
"Is it because of Nathan?" The question slips out before I can stop it. "The security, I mean. Are you afraid of him?"
Richard's expression shifts, the lightness evaporating. "I'm not afraid of Nathan. I'm cautious about what he might do when he doesn't get his way. There's a difference."
I think about Nathan's rage, the cold calculation in his eyes when he hurt me. The way he always made sure the bruises were hidden, the damage internal. Strategic violence, meant to control without leaving evidence.
"He's going to come looking for me," I say quietly. "You know that, right? He won't just let me go."
"I know." Richard's voice is steady, certain. "And when he does, he'll find every access point blocked, every avenue closed. He won't get near you, Belle. I promise you that."
"He's your son. This is going to make everything worse between you."
"There is no relationship to make worse. That ended the moment he—" Richard stops, jaw working. "The moment I realized what he was. What he's capable of. He's Victoria's son now. Let her deal with the monster she created."
"Do you ever regret it?" I ask instead. "Having him? Or does that sound terrible?"
"It doesn't sound terrible. It sounds honest." Richard is quiet for a moment, and I watch him consider the question.
"I don't regret Nathan's existence. I regret that I couldn't protect him from his mother's influence, couldn't counteract the poison she fed him about me.
I regret the divorce, the custody arrangement, every choice that led to him becoming what he is.
But regret the fact that he exists? No. Even monsters can teach us something about ourselves. "
"What did Nathan teach you?"
His eyes meet mine, and there's something raw in them. Vulnerable. "That I'm capable of hatred. Real, bone-deep hatred for someone who shares my DNA. I didn't think I could feel that way about my own child, but I do. And that terrifies me more than anything he could actually do."
Richard Kane—calculating, always perfectly composed—just confessed something deeply personal. Something that probably keeps him up on the nights when work and reading aren't enough distraction.
"You're not a bad person for feeling that way," I tell him. "Not when he—when he's—"
"When he beats women." Richard says it flatly, no euphemism. "When he isolates them, controls them, treats them like possessions instead of people. You can say it, Belle. What Nathan is."
"An abuser." The word tastes like ash in my mouth. "He's an abuser, and I let him do it for two years."
"You didn't let him do anything." Richard's voice goes hard. "He manipulated you, isolated you, made you dependent on him. That's not permission, that's entrapment. Don't take responsibility for his choices."
I want to believe him. Want to accept that absolution and let go of the guilt that's been eating me alive. But it's not that simple.
"I stayed," I whisper. "You offered to help me eighteen months ago, and I stayed anyway. That's on me."
"You stayed because leaving felt impossible.
Because he'd convinced you that you had nowhere to go, no one who would help, nothing outside of him.
That's what abusers do, Belle. They make their victims believe escape is impossible, and then they punish them for trying.
" He pauses, then adds quietly, "But you did escape.
You made it out. That takes more strength than you're giving yourself credit for. "
Tears prick at my eyes, the good kind, the cathartic kind.
"I was so scared," I admit. "Standing in that bridal suite, looking at myself in the mirror, knowing that if I went through with it, I'd never get away.
That being his wife would make everything legally complicated, give him more control.
I just... I couldn't do it. I couldn't say yes. "
"Thank God you couldn't."
The fervor in his voice surprises me. I look up and find Richard watching me with relief and something else, something far more complicated.
"You have no idea how many nights I lay awake wondering if you'd go through with it," he continues. "Hoping you'd run, terrified you wouldn't. Planning ways to intervene that wouldn't make things worse for you. I had lawyers on standby, money set aside, safe houses researched. Just in case."
"You did all that? For me?"
"Of course I did." He says it like it's obvious. Like preparing an entire escape plan for your son's fiancée is perfectly reasonable behavior. "Did you really think I'd just abandon you to that fate?"
"You barely know me." Even as I say it, I know it's not quite true.
We've had dozens of conversations over the past two years—at family dinners, chance encounters, the few times Richard visited Nathan's house before he was banned.
Brief moments where we connected over books, art, ideas.
Where he looked at me like I was intelligent and interesting instead of just decorative.
"I know enough," Richard says. "I know you're smart and kind and far too good for anyone in my family.
I know you love Italian Renaissance art and hate coffee but drink it anyway because Nathan insisted.
I know you wanted to finish your art history degree before your parents died and you had to choose between education and health insurance.
I know you deserve so much better than what you've been given. "
He knows all that. He remembered all that. Details I mentioned in passing, throwaway comments, things Nathan never bothered to retain.
"How?" I whisper. "How do you remember all those things?"
"I pay attention."
"To me specifically, or is this just how you are with everyone?"
The silence that follows is answer enough. He's looking at me like a man who's been caught at something, like he's revealed more than he intended.
"Belle—" he starts, but I interrupt.
"Why?" The question comes out smaller than I mean it to. "Why pay attention to me? Why help me? Why any of this?"
He's quiet for a long moment, and I watch him wage some internal battle. Finally, he says, "Because someone should have. Because you deserved to have someone in your corner, and no one else was stepping up. Because—" He stops, shakes his head. "Because it was the right thing to do."
It's not the whole truth. I can see that in the way he's not quite meeting my eyes, the tension in his shoulders. But it's all he's willing to give me right now, and I don't push.
"Thank you," I say instead. "For all of it. For remembering, for caring, for letting me invade your fortress in the middle of the night."
"You're not invading anything. This is—" He gestures vaguely at the room, the house, maybe the entire property. "This is yours, as long as you need it. No expectations, no timeline. Just safety."