Chapter 14: Broken Trust

About twenty minutes later the hotel room door opened again and Adam nearly fell back inside because he had been leaning against it while pleading for Celine to open so they could talk.

She remained motionless for a long breath, then folded her arms and returned to the couch, sitting as if distance would harden her into something safe.

Adam came in softly and closed the door, his shoulders low as though every inch of the room weighed on him.

He stood a moment, hands by his sides, then moved forward and knelt before her. “Celine,” he said, voice thin and raw, “I am sorry. I am sorry for neglecting you, for not standing up when you needed me. I should have defended you.”

His words trembled because each one carried the weight of error. He reached toward her and she shifted away, but he spoke on, “I will find out who sent that thug. I will find them. I will not let it rest.”

Celine looked at him, her face both exhausted and furious. The memory of being beaten, the sight of blood, the silence of the hospital and the loss of their child had left scorch marks on her heart.

“So what now?” she asked. “Do I return with you and pretend everything is forgiven? Do I walk into a house where my shame was celebrated by your mother and that hypocrite of a friend?” She said the words like thrown knives.

Adam closed his eyes for a moment, taking them in as if he could gather courage from the air.

“No,” he said at last. “I don’t want us to go back there. I have other apartments. We can move into one. Just the two of us. No Evelyn. No Barbra. I will make sure she cannot interfere.”

He took her hand when she did not pull away, holding it like a promise.

Celine felt a warmth she had missed, but fear lived in the same chest. “Words were easy once,” she said lightly. “They still are. I’ve seen them tie up guilt and set it on fire.”

Her voice softened. “I need more than words.”

Adam rose, a steadiness building in him. “Wait here. I will go now and get things ready. I will come back with keys. I will take you to our new place.”

He moved towards the door, pausing once as if to carve the moment into his memory, then left.

He left the room with a promise he thought might heal; even promises are fragile, and wounds sometimes take longer to believe.

He drove home with the radio off and a hard knot in his stomach. The house stood the same stone pillars, trimmed hedges, polite lanterns—but the house had its own rules.

When he stepped inside the living room he found his mother and Barbra sitting as if waiting on a verdict. Their faces were carefully composed, iron in their smiles.

“Where are you coming from?” Evelyn demanded before he could speak.

Adam tried to speak, but Evelyn didn't let him. She reached for an envelope and thrust it at him. “Open it.”

He did. The first page he pulled out was a printout of banking transactions. His throat tightened as he read numbers and dates. They were transactions showing movement of funds from the company to an unknown account for the past six months.

Celine’s name appeared among the entries; the sight of it made his stomach hollow.

Evelyn’s voice cut in calmly. “Check the next paper.”

He found a medical report. The words were clinical, blunt and final: abortion, complications, loss of womb. The doctor’s stamp and signature sealed the statement.

Adam’s knees went weak. The room tilted and the air thinned around him. He gripped the back of a chair until his fingers ached.

“How did you get these?” he asked, his voice small.

Adam felt a fracture inside him open wider. “You watched her medical records? You knew she had an abortion and you still—” He could not finish; the words would not hold.

Silence fell heavy.

For a moment he thought of Celine alone in the hotel, waiting for him as he had promised. He imagined the paper with the doctor’s name being used as a blade between them.

The house, once a shelter, felt like a courtroom where the verdict had already been written.

Evelyn’s eyes were steady, unreadable.

Barbra’s face was pale with a satisfaction that made Adam sick.

He tried to gather himself, to call Celine, to drive back and knock the truth out of the world, but his hands shook and his phone felt like a stone.

He had promised to return with keys, to move them out into a life he would build for both of them.

Instead he stood in a room where the proof of what may or may not be true was stacked like evidence and aimed at a future he could no longer see.