Page 70 of Captive Bride

"Sometimes, vulnerability can be our greatest strength," I replied, my hand still on his face, asking him to believe not just in me, but in us. "We need more than what we have within these walls if we're going to last." My heart thudded with the weight of every word, knowing that this was the foundation we needed—or the crack that could split everything apart.

“But Ade…”

He trailed off.

"Look," I started, feeling his muscles tense beneath my touch, "we can't keep pretending that what we have is enough to deal with everything thrown at us."

He caught my hand, bringing it to his lips in a gesture that was both tender and fraught with tension. "Ade, you're asking for something that goes against every instinct I have to protect us."

"Protection isn't just about physical safety." My voice held a conviction that echoed off the walls of his fortress-like home. "It's about safeguarding our relationship too."

His gaze softened, the blue in his eyes like twilight—darkening but still holding onto the last threads of light. He released a long breath, his chest rising and falling under my palm. "Okay, let's say we do this counseling thing...what are we looking at here? What does success even look like?"

"Success looks like understanding each other better, like learning how to communicate without it turning into a turf war." I watched him closely, the man who could navigate mafia politics with ease yet grappled with the idea of laying bare our marital struggles to a stranger.

"Adriana," he said after a moment, "I'm worried. These people, they don't understand our life, our responsibilities. How can they guide us without truly knowing us?"

"Because sometimes, an outsider's perspective is what illuminates the things we're too close to see." I paused, biting my lip. "I fear losing you, not to the dangers of our world, but to the silence between us. You’ve already done a lot of weird shit because of who your Dad was.”

He looked offended for a second. Then he laughed, just a little.

Tristan's laugh softened the tension in the room, and I felt my own lips curve into a smile. It was a rare sound, his laughter, and I treasured each instance.

I propped myself up on an elbow, looking down at him. The moonlight filtering through the curtains cast shadows across hisface, highlighting the sharp angles of his cheekbones. "I just want us to have a fighting chance, Tristan. Against all the odds stacked against us."

He thought about it for a second.

"Okay," he whispered, the word a surrender to my unwavering stipulation. His arms tightened around me, a silent vow that sealed our tentative accord. I felt the tension drain from the room like water through clasped fingers, leaving in its wake a gentle calm—a fragile hope that glinted in the semidarkness, as tenuous and precious as the bond we were mending.

"Thank you," I murmured into his chest, the rhythmic beat of his heart beneath my ear a testament to the life we shared, to the family we were raising together. Our twins, slumbering under the watchful gaze of nursery lights, remained oblivious to the crucible their parents had just endured.

Tristan exhaled, a long, slow breath that seemed to carry away the remnants of his hesitation. "Anything for you, Ade. For them."

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

I didn’t know how to tell him that was exactly what I was afraid of.

Chapter Thirty: Tristan

Bellamy didn’t kill us.

He stayed quiet. He pretended we were friends.

He took the DNA test news–there was no need to fake anything, I was 99.99% Malachy Callahan’s son, just like Kieran–relatively well.

He welcomed me back. He tried to get close to the twins.

He swore he would get the person who had hurt me back. But we were just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but we were biding our time. The wedding was coming and we had agreed that the best way to protect ourselves, and each other, was to be as public as possible.

If the Callahan twins were dear to people in our community, they were less likely to grab them for Bellamy, even if they didn’t particularly like me or Adriana.

And getting closer to the Orsinis had been a good idea. It had happened naturally since Alessia and Silvio loved the twins, but it also sent a message: the deal my father had worked for was still going through, and the Callahan-Orsini family was going to rule over Boston.

For a brief moment, silence hung over the Orsini mansion's dining room like a thick winter fog, despite the clatter of silverware and the occasional murmur of conversation. I scanned the table, my crutches propped against my chair—a reminder of progress, of not needing wheels to move through the world anymore.

"They’re so cute. I can’t believe they're almost crawling now," Carmen mentioned, breaking into my thoughts with a tender note in her voice that seemed to soften the edges of the tension around us.

"Changed so much in just a few months," Adriana added, her eyes lighting up for a moment before returning to their usual guarded state. It was a brief respite in the undercurrent of unease that always seemed to accompany our gatherings.

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