29. Chapter Twenty-Nine Adriana
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Adriana
T ristan had just asked me to marry him…and I’d said yes.
After the twins were born, all the drama with the wedding, it seemed to stop mattering as much. He was the father of my children. He was, I was pretty sure, the love of my life.
And we were going to get married. Sure, there were advantages, but even without those…this just made sense.
We’d fallen asleep, but now I was ready to talk about it. I could tell he was awake too, so I decided to just go for it then, before the twins interrupted us.
"Tristan," I whispered, breaking the silence that had settled between us like an unspoken agreement. My voice held the tremor of my nerves, betraying the steel I tried to forge it with. "We need to talk about the wedding."
He shifted beneath me, and I could feel the vibration of his voice as he murmured, "What about it?"
I swallowed, choosing my words with care. "I want a church wedding... a real one." The determination in my tone surprised even me. It wasn't just a demand; it was a plea for something concrete amidst the chaos of our lives.
His fingers drew patterns on my back, a silent language of intimacy that had become our secret script. I felt the tension drain from my muscles under his touch, like I was melting into the bed, into him.
"Alright, Ade," Tristan's voice rumbled through the quiet room, resonant and soothing. "A church wedding it is." He exhaled slowly, as if releasing a long-held breath. "My mum would've loved that. The guilt's been gnawing at me anyway."
“Which…guilt?”
“I don’t know. They one they inject into your veins when the priest baptises you.”
“Ah, right, that one.”
“Of course we’ll have a Church wedding.”
I blinked in surprise, turning to study his face. The ambient light caught the sincerity in his expression, and my heart swelled with an unexpected rush of hope. And just like that, a weight lifted off my chest, a weight I hadn't fully realized was there.
"Really?" The word came out as a whisper, laced with the giddiness of a wish granted. It was more than just a wedding—it was belonging, it was tradition, it was us laying down roots.
"Really," he confirmed and sealed the promise with a kiss to my forehead.
Emboldened by the warmth spreading through my veins, I decided to push further, to tackle the elephant that had taken up residence in the room since the twins arrived. "And once the babies are a bit older, I want us to see a marriage counselor."
The words hung between us, a gauntlet thrown down. I held my breath, watching for any sign of the man who preferred to keep the world at arm's length, to protect what was his with fierce privacy.
"Marriage counseling?" His voice didn't betray anything, but I could feel the shift in his body, the stiffening of muscles that were relaxed moments ago.
"Yes," I said firmly, meeting his gaze head-on. "To help us sort through... everything. We're not just Adriana and Tristan anymore; we're parents, partners in this crazily tangled life. We need to be the best versions of ourselves—for each other and for our children. And there’s a lot of history between us. A lot of baggage. If we want to raise our babies in this world, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
He didn’t say anything.
He was silent for a heartbeat too long, and I fought the urge to fill the void with more words, more reasons.
I traced the contours of his tense jawline, feeling the grit beneath my fingertips. "Tristan," I whispered, the stillness of the evening wrapping around us like a secret waiting to be told.
"Adriana, you know how this life works. We keep our affairs within the family. Counselors, they're outsiders," he murmured, the furrow in his brow deepening. Tension hovered in the air, thick enough to slice through.
"Outsiders who are trained to help," I countered, my voice steady as my resolve. "This isn't about secrets or power; it's about us working through the knots in our marriage. It's about being honest and open in a way that we might not manage on our own."
"Openness is a vulnerability," he said, but the edge in his voice had softened just a fraction. His blue eyes, usually so piercing, now reflected an inner turmoil, a war between his guarded nature and the possibility of trust.
"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 his face, 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.