Page 9 of Captive Bride

"Tristan," she said, her voice low and even. There was no need for her to finish the sentence. Her eyes communicated the rest:you don't have to pretend with me.

Except I did, because we were in the middle of nowhere, with no support system, and a rapidly approaching twin birth.

But I could drop the act a little.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, releasing some of the tension that knotted my shoulders. For Adriana, I could afford to drop the facade. Just a little. In this quiet Delaware haven, far from the Callahan Domain's gilded cage, I found a rare space where I could be vulnerable. A privilege I never took lightly.

"Hey, Ade," I replied, the informal term of endearment slipping out with practiced ease. "Just taking things one step at a time." My attempt at levity fell flat, lost in the gravity of the situation.

But she smiled, a small upturn of her lips that didn't quite reach her observant eyes. In that gesture, I found a fragment of solace. Not enough to dispel the shadow of what lay ahead, but sufficient to remind me why I endured—why I would continue to fight through pain, doubt, and the fear of an uncertain future.

When my wheelchair was finally on level ground again, I heaved a sigh. I allowed myself to collapse into it, exhaustion pooling in every fiber of my being, dragging my eyelids down. They felt heavy, suddenly, as if I'd been awake for days on end. Despite the aches that radiated from my overused muscles, there was a sense of victory that hung in the air. Small as it may be, I had won this battle.

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I glanced up to see Adriana watching me, her arms still wrapped protectively around our unborn children. Her eyes held a mixture of emotions — pride, concern, love — braided together in the complex tapestry that was our existence.

"See," I said, forcing a smile onto my face even though it felt more like a grimace. "Nothing I can't handle."

Adriana crossed the room to me, her movements lithe and graceful despite the added weight she carried. I looked up at her, taking in the concern etched deeply in her hazel eyes. She was a fortress, my Adriana—unyielding in her support for me, yet soft enough to cushion my hardest falls.

Her hand lowered to rest atop mine on the armrest, a silent pledge of shared burdens and quiet strength.

“You did good today,” she murmured, squeezing my hand gently, and I held on as if she were my lifeline—which in all honesty she was.

I met her gaze squarely. "I'll do better tomorrow," I promised with all the stubborn tenacity that clung to my name like a badge of honor.

“You don’t have to. I mean, are you okay?”

I opened my eyes to meet hers. "Yeah, Ade, I'm okay." The words came out more forcefully than I intended. I needed her to believe them, needed to believe them myself.

"Okay" was a relative term these days. And as I looked into her eyes—eyes that carried the weight of our shared future—I knew that she saw right through the façade. She always did.

I didn’t know if the feeling in my legs would ever come back. The doctors had said maybe; the stab wound was deep but not necessarily permanent. The nerve damage was still healing, they'd told me, but the rest was up to my body, my will.

Their assurances felt hollow—like promises made on borrowed time—but I clung to them nonetheless. Because the alternative was a future I wasn't ready to face.

Adriana's fingers tightened around mine, a silent affirmation of her unwavering faith in me. The look in her eyes echoed what she had said earlier: you don't have to pretend with me.

And for a fleeting moment, I didn't. I let the mask slip, let her see the fear lurking beneath the surface. Her gaze softened, and she pulled our entwined fingers up to her lips, pressing a soft kiss against my knuckles.

“Now that I’m kneeling down,” she said. “I can think of something else I can do for you.”

“I thought your gag reflex was really bad with the pregnancy,” I said.

Laughing, she shook her head. "Not that, you perv." She held my gaze, her hazel eyes glowing with warmth despite her jest. "I meant, I can help. With your physical therapy or... anything else."

I felt a lump forming in my throat, the emotional weight of her words overwhelming. I forced myself to swallow down the rush of sentimentality threatening to consume me. I was Tristan Callahan. Emotional breakdowns were not allowed.

But before I could say anything else, the doorbell sounded.

And for what felt like the first time in a while, I was afraid.

Chapter Four: Adriana

As I walked to the door, I noticed the moving truck in the house immediately across from us.

The moving truck had parked across the street, its side emblazoned with some generic logo that promised a new start. Boxes were being shuffled from the back by a pair of burly men whose shouts to each other formed a sort of working-man's banter that I couldn't help but smile at.

"New neighbors," I murmured to myself, the words spilling out into the room where only the ticking of a clock answered back.

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