Chapter 6 - A Cold Truce
Elena looked down at Adrian, her hand trembling as it rested on her stomach.
For three years, she had watched this man command boardrooms and intimidate dangerous syndicates with a single flick of his wrist. Seeing him kneeling before her, weeping openly in a small clinic room, fractured the protective wall she had built around her heart.
"You broke something between us, Adrian," she said, her voice shaking violently.
"When you looked at me across that desk this morning, you didn't look at me like your wife. You looked at me like an enemy asset."
"Because I am a coward," Adrian confessed, tears spilling freely down his stubbled jaw.
"I spent my entire childhood watching my father get betrayed by people he trusted. I convinced myself that if I struck first, I could never be hurt."
Daniel cleared his throat softly, stepping toward the ultrasound monitor on the counter.
"If you two are going to argue, you need to do it after we check on the heartbeats. Elena’s pulse is racing, and we need to verify the gestational sacks."
Adrian stood slowly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, hesitating at the edge of the examination bed.
"May I stay?" he asked Elena, his voice so small it sounded like that of a stranger.
Elena looked at him for five long seconds before closing her eyes and nodding once. "Only if you stay quiet."
Daniel squeezed warm blue gel onto Elena's lower abdomen, picking up the small plastic transducer and pressing it gently against her skin.
The room fell dead silent except for the rhythmic whoosh of static from the machine's speakers.
Then, filling the small room with impossible power, two distinct, galloping rhythms filled the air—thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
Adrian stopped breathing, his eyes widening in pure wonder as two small, glowing crescents appeared on the grainy black-and-white screen.
"There they are," Daniel smiled, pointing with the tip of his pen. "Baby A, one hundred and fifty-two beats per minute. Baby B, one hundred and fifty-six. Strong, steady, and fighting hard."
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Adrian reached out involuntarily, his rough, scarred fingers brushing against Elena's cold hand where it lay flat on the sheet.
This time, she did not pull away. Her fingers slowly curled around his wrist, gripping him with the fierce, desperate strength of a mother who refused to let her children drown in anger.
