Belle's POV
"Ma'am, please fasten your seatbelt!"
The flight attendant's sharp voice cut through my thoughts as the private jet shook with turbulence. I clicked the belt without looking up from my phone, where Noah's desperate texts kept flooding in.
"Belle, please answer me. I love you. This was all a mistake."
I hit delete. Then blocked his number totally.
The plane rose higher into the dark sky, and with every mile that passed beneath us, I felt the old me dying. The naive girl who believed in love. The fool who gave up everything for a man who threw it all away.
She was gone forever.
"Would you like something to drink, Miss Whitmore?" the waitress asked softly.
Miss Whitmore. The name felt strange after four years of just being Belle. But I was going to have to get used to it again.
"Water," I said. My voice sounded different. Colder.
As she walked away, I opened my laptop and stared at the screen. Four years ago, I'd run away from this life. From the board meetings and charity events and endless duties of being a Whitmore heir.
Now I was running back to it.
But this time, I wasn't running scared. I was running angry.
I pulled up everything I could find online about Noah Blake and Talia Monroe. Social media accounts, work histories, anything that might give me clues about how long they'd been planning this.
What I found made my blood boil.
Talia had been posting pictures with Noah for months. Months. While I was working three jobs to support him, he was taking her to places I couldn't afford. Movies I'd wanted to see but never had time for.
And in every picture, they looked... happy.
I scrolled deeper into Talia's Instagram. Something was bothering me about her posts. They were too beautiful. Too expensive for someone who claimed to be suffering like me.
Designer clothes. Professional nails. Fancy coffee shops.
Where was Talia getting money for all this?
I did a reverse image search on one of her shots. The results made me drop my phone.
The picture wasn't taken in our city. It was taken in New York. At a place that cost more for one meal than I made in a week.
But according to Talia, she'd never left our small town. She'd told me she couldn't afford to travel anywhere.
Another lie.
I picked up my phone and called the one person who could get me answers fast.
"Marcus Chen Investigations," a tired voice answered.
"Marcus, it's Belle Whitmore."
There was a pause. "Belle? I thought you were... I mean, your father said you were living under a different name."
Marcus had worked for our family for years. He was the best private detective money could buy.
"I need you to run a full background check on two people. Tonight."
"Of course. What are the names?"
I gave him Noah and Talia's information. "I need to know everything. Where they grew up, where they went to school, who they work for, who's paying them."
"Paying them? Miss Whitmore, is there something you're not telling me?"
I thought about Talia's expensive living. About how she'd always seemed to know exactly what to say to hurt me the most. About the time of everything.
"I think someone hired them to get close to me," I said.
"I'll have preliminary results in two hours," Marcus said. "But Belle... if someone's been targeting you, you need to be careful. Are you somewhere safe?"
I looked around the expensive private jet. "I'm on my way home."
"Good. Your father's been worried sick."
After I hung up, I stared out the window at the lights below. Somewhere down there, Noah was probably realizing that I wasn't coming back. That the girl he'd been using for four years was actually worth more money than he'd ever dreamed of.
I hoped it hurt.
My machine pinged with an email. The sender's name made my heart race.
J. Vale.
Jasper Vale. My close friend. The boy I'd left behind when I ran away.
I opened the email with shaking hands.
"Belle,
Your father told me you're coming home. I know this must be hard for you. I know you probably don't want to see me after all these years.
But there are things you need to know before you get here. Things about why you really had to come back.
It's not safe to put everything in an email. But Belle... be careful who you trust. The people who hurt you might not be done yet.
I'm sorry about what happened to you. You deserved better.
Always yours, Jasper
P.S. - There's someone here who's been waiting to meet you. Someone very special." Someone special? What did that mean?
Before I could think about it too much, my phone rang. Marcus.
"That was fast," I answered.
"Belle, you need to sit down."
"I'm already sitting. What did you find?"
"Talia Monroe doesn't exist."
My blood went cold. "What do you mean?"
"The social security number she's been using belongs to a girl who died in a car accident five years ago. The real Talia Monroe never made it to her eighteenth birthday."
The plane suddenly felt too small. Too hot. I couldn't move.
"Then who is she?"
"I'm still working on that. But Belle, there's more. The place she's been living in? It's paid for by a fake company. And that shell company is owned by..."
"Who?" I whispered.
"Blackwood Industries."
The Blackwoods. Our family's biggest enemy. The guys who'd been trying to destroy our company for decades. " Marcus, are you telling me that the Blackwoods put a fake person in my life?"
"It looks that way. But Belle, if they went to this much trouble to get close to you, it means they want something big. Something worth years of planning."
I thought about all the talks I'd had with fake Talia. All the times she'd asked about my family. About my past. About whether I ever missed being rich.
She'd been gathering facts. For four years.
"There's one more thing," Marcus said. "I ran Noah Blake's background too. He's clean, as far as I can tell. I don't think he knew who Talia really was."
So Noah was just a handy idiot. A way for fake Talia to get closer to me and make me trust her totally.
It had worked brilliantly.
"Belle? Are you still there?"
"Yeah. Marcus, I need you to find out what the Blackwoods are planning. And I need to know tonight."
"I'll do my best. But Belle... be extra careful when you land. If they've been watching you for four years, they know you're coming home."
The line went dead.
I sat in the silence of the plane, my mind running. The Blackwoods had ruined my relationship, broken my heart, and sent me running home. But why? What did they gain from getting me back to New York?
Unless... Unless they didn't want me to come home at all.
What if this was all meant to keep me away permanently? What if they thought I'd be so crushed that I'd never want to face my family again?
But then why had my father sounded so worried about my safety?
My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
"Welcome home, Belle. Hope you liked the show. Act two is about to begin."
My hands started shaking. Someone was watching me. Someone knew I was on this plane.
I looked around the empty house. The flight attendant was nowhere to be seen. The pilot's door was closed.
Was I really alone up here?
I got up and walked toward the back of the plane, my heart racing. Something felt wrong. Really wrong.
That's when I saw it.
A small device attached under one of the seats. Blinking red.
A tracker.
Someone wasn't just watching me. They were following me.
And they wanted me to know it.
The plane suddenly dropped altitude so fast my ears popped. Through the window, I could see we were descending toward a small, private airstrip.
But this wasn't where we were supposed to land.
I ran toward the cockpit and banged on the door.
"Hey! This isn't the right airport!"
No answer.
I tried the handle. Locked.
The plane touched down on a runway I didn't know. Through the window, I could see black cars waiting.
Cars that definitely weren't from my father.
My phone had no service.
The engines went quiet.
And I realized with cold fear that I wasn't going home at all.
I was going exactly where someone else wanted me to go.