**AXEL**
The idea has been sitting in the back of my head for days, festering in the quiet moments when there is nothing left to chase and no new trail to follow, because that is when the worst thoughts always surface, and this one refuses to let go no matter how hard I try to bury it under logic and hope and restraint.
What if Bella’s father is behind this.
I do not say it out loud at first, because saying it gives it weight, and weight makes it real, but the pattern keeps lining itself up no matter how many times I try to pull it apart. He escaped too cleanly and too quickly, and he knew Bella well enough to anticipate fear and timing and leverage, and he had spent years shaping her reality in ways that made her doubt herself before she ever doubted him.
That kind of man does not dis
