Chapter 60: Fury
ADRIAN’S P.O.V.
The moment Teresa and her little ones set foot on my estate, it was like someone had cracked open a window in a room that had been locked up for years. The air changed. Warmer, lighter, and just a little too bright for someone like me. I wasn’t used to this kind of... vibe. My world was all shadows, silence, and cold, and here they were—bringing noise, warmth, and a level of chaos I wasn’t sure I’d signed up for.
The twins were a force of nature. Their laughter bounced off the walls like a melody I didn’t realize I’d been missing. Not that I’d admit it, of course. The first time they zoomed past me in the hallway, giggling like a couple of tiny gremlins, I nearly dropped my glass. And Teresa? Sweet, skittish Teresa. She floated around the house like a butterfly that had wandered into a lion’s den—delicate, fluttery, and completely unaware of the emotional hurricane she’d stirred up.
Oh, I noticed the way she reacted whenever I walked into the room. Her heart would stutter, her eyes would go wide, and she’d clutch the twins like I was about to whisk them away to some dark lair. It was almost funny. Almost. For the first few days, I couldn’t decide if I should laugh or be offended. Was I that terrifying?
Apparently, the answer was yes and it was so clear now that she had seen me feed that night even though she denied remembering anything.
She didn’t say it outright—she wasn’t the type—but her actions were loud enough. The way she avoided looking me in the eye for more than two seconds, the stiff little nods, the way her voice would drop to a whisper when she said, "Yes, Adrian," as though I might implode if she spoke above a murmur. It was like watching someone tiptoe around a sleeping bear, except the bear in question had no intention of waking up and mauling anyone. If only she knew.
I could hear her heart thudding away every time I got too close, and I wanted to say, Teresa, calm down. If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. Honestly, you’d never see it coming. But that felt a bit too on the nose, so I didn’t. Instead, I let her keep pretending. Pretending I was just some eccentric rich guy with a flair for brooding and a suspicious lack of mirrors in my home. She was terrible at it, but I let it slide. Playing along was easier than confronting the truth neither of us wanted to deal with. The bitter truth that she was afraid of me. For her, I’d pretend I was normal forever.
The part that really got to me? She never fought back. Never argued when I gave her instructions, never raised her voice or said no. She just... agreed, unlike the Teresa before that night. She didn’t agree out of trust or respect. No, this wasn’t one of those heartfelt "trust your captor" situations. This was fear. Plain, raw fear. I saw it in the way her hands would tremble slightly, in the hesitant way she moved, as if every step might set me off.
It stung so bad, I won’t lie. I’m not made of stone. Well, maybe I am mostly stone, but even rocks have cracks, don’t they? And if keeping her and the twins here meant swallowing that bitter pill of her fear, then fine. I’d take it. Because somewhere between the chaos and her whispered "Yes, Adrian," I realized something that unsettled me more than anything else: I never ever wanted to see them leave this walls.