PREGNANT

PREGNANT
ISABELLA HART - POV
I can't stop screaming.
Vincent's face on that screen. Alive. Smiling like he knew. Like he planned every moment leading to this. Like I'm just another variable in his endless equation.
"Isabella." Marco's voice cuts through the noise in my head. Steady. Grounding. "Breathe."
Can't. Everything's tilting. The room. Reality. My understanding of what's real versus what's manipulation.
Nico's hands find my shoulders. Gentle pressure. Warm. "You're okay. We've got you."
But I'm not okay. Vincent's alive. Building an enhanced army. Calling my unborn child his grandchild like this baby belongs to him somehow. Like I'm just a vessel carrying out his design.
"I need to know." My voice comes out raw. Broken. "If Sophia's telling the truth. About being pregnant."
Dante closes Vincent's message. Opens files Sophia left. "Medical equipment in the back room. Ultrasound. Basic diagnostics. She probably anticipated this."
Of course she did. Sophia thinks ten moves ahead. Like Marco. Like Vincent.
Like everyone except me.
Marco wheels toward the hallway without asking. "I'll set it up."
"Wait." My hands won't stop shaking. "What if she's lying? What if this is just Vincent's psychological warfare? Making us think..."
"Then we confirm." Marco. Logic cutting through panic. "Either way, we need to know."
He's right. I know he's right. But part of me wants to stay here in this moment of uncertainty. Before confirmation makes it impossible to deny.
Too late.
I follow them down the hallway. Back room set up like a small clinic. Examination table. Ultrasound machine. Monitoring equipment. IV stands. Everything sterile and prepared.
Sophia knew. She knew I'd need this.
"Lie down." Marco positions the ultrasound. His hands shake slightly on the controls. First time I've seen him uncertain about anything.
I climb onto the table. Cold vinyl under my back. Fluorescent lights too bright overhead.
My hands rest on my stomach automatically. Still flat. No sign. But something's there now that I'm paying attention. Warmth deeper than skin. Energy humming underneath.
Oh god. This is real.
"I don't know how to work this." Marco staring at the machine controls like they're written in another language.
"I do." I sit up. Nursing training engaging. Autopilot. Safer than thinking. "I've assisted with ultrasounds during clinicals."
My hands move without thought. Power button. Settings adjusted. Gel cold on my exposed stomach making me flinch. Wand positioned.
The screen flickers. Gray static resolving into shapes.
There.
Small. Barely more than a cluster of cells. But there.
My breath stops.
"Is that..." Nico. Voice quiet. Awed. Scared.
"Yes." Can barely form the word.
Six weeks along judging by size. Timeline matches. The bonding ritual was six weeks ago. When our consciousnesses merged. When life forces combined. When something impossible happened.
But the image looks wrong. Fetal signature displaying markers I've never seen in normal ultrasounds during training.
I adjust settings. Try to get clearer data.
Genetic signature appears. Coded information I learned to read studying my father's enhanced research.
Multiple paternal markers. Not one.
Four.
My vision blurs. Can't be seeing this right.
"What does that mean?" Dante reading over my shoulder. Understanding before I can say it.
"The baby has genetic material from all four of you." Words come out flat. Clinical. Only way I can say them without breaking. "Marco. Dante. Luca. Nico."
Silence crashes over the room.
Luca. Gone. Dead. Sacrificed himself to save us.
But part of him lives here. In this impossible child.
Tears burn hot down my face. Can't stop them. Can't breathe through the grief and wonder tangled together.
"How?" Nico asks.
"The bonding ritual merged more than consciousness." I'm guessing. Theorizing. Trying to make sense of impossible biology. "Life forces combined. Genetic material too apparently. All four of you contributing simultaneously during conception."
"That violates every biological law." Dante. Analytical mind rejecting data that doesn't fit known science.
"So do I." My amplified abilities. Enhanced genetics. None of it should exist. "But here we are."
Marco's hand finds mine. Warm. Steady. Shaking slightly. "What do you want to do?"
The question sits between us like a live wire.
What do I want?
This morning I woke up legally dead. Running from enhanced armies. Mourning Luca. Just trying to survive one more day.
Now I'm pregnant with a child carrying genetic material from four fathers. Growing inside me while Vincent builds his army and calls this baby his grandchild. Part of his plan. His design.
Am I a person? Or just a breeding program with delusions of free will?
"I need more information." Forcing focus. Professional distance between me and terror. "Enhanced pregnancies develop differently. I need to see growth rate. Power signatures. Development patterns."
I adjust the ultrasound. Go deeper. Checking parameters I learned during advanced training with enhanced subjects.
Fetal power signature appears on screen. Energy readings. Bioelectric patterns pulsing.
My heart stops beating.
"What?" Marco. Sensing my reaction immediately. "Isabella, what's wrong?"
"Power signature." I stare at the screen. Can't look away. "It's already active."
"Six weeks." Nico. Disbelief. "Enhanced abilities don't manifest until..."
"Second trimester at earliest." I finish. Training says this is impossible. "Sometimes not until after birth. But the signature's clear. Active. Strong."
Stronger than mine was at comparable development according to my father's research notes. Stronger than any enhanced fetus on record.
"Vincent planned this." Dante putting pieces together. "The bonding ritual. Consciousness merger. He engineered this outcome."
"Second generation enhanced individual." Marco. Strategic mind working through implications. "More powerful than Isabella. Perfect successor to his vision."
The words hit like physical blows. Vincent manipulated everything. My father's research. My abilities. The Romano brothers. Our bonding ritual. All roads leading here. To this pregnancy. This child.
I'm not a person making choices. I'm a program executing code someone else wrote.
"No." Nico. Fierce. Moving closer. "That's not what this is. Vincent doesn't control what our child becomes."
Our child. The possessive lands different. Real. Terrifying.
"How do we know?" Voice small. Vulnerable. Hating how weak I sound. "How do I know anything I feel is real? The bonding ritual. My feelings for you. What if he programmed all of it?"
Silence. Because they don't know either. Can't know. Our relationship started with kidnapping. Coercion. Captivity.
How much is Stockholm syndrome versus genuine connection?
"Isabella." Dante. Psychological insight engaged. "Look at me."
I do. His eyes serious. Honest in ways he rarely shows.
"Vincent manipulates circumstances. Applies pressure. Creates environments." Dante's voice steady. Certain. "But he can't manufacture authentic emotion. Can't program real connection. I've spent my life reading people. Controlling them. I know the difference between coerced behavior and genuine feeling."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure." Simple. Direct. True.
I want to believe him. Need to believe something about us is real.
"The pregnancy." Safer ground. "What do we do?"
"What do you want?" Marco asks again. Putting choice in my hands.
I look at the ultrasound screen. Tiny cluster of cells. Already enhanced. Already part of Vincent's grand design.
But also part of me. Part of them. Part of Luca who died giving us this chance.
"I want more information." I adjust settings again. "Full diagnostic. Everything."
The machine processes. Compiling data. Then the screen updates.
My breath catches.
Two shapes. Not one.
Two separate fetal signatures.
"Twins." Dante. Voice strangled.
Twins. Boy and girl according to early genetic markers.
But that's not what makes my hands shake on the ultrasound wand.
The power signatures. Both active. Both strong. But more than that.
Synchronized. Pulsing in perfect rhythm together. Like they're connected somehow beyond just sharing space in my womb.
"What are they doing?" Nico. Quiet. Watching the screen like it might have answers.
"I don't know." Honest. Terrified. "The bioelectric patterns are synchronized. Communicating maybe."
"Six weeks." Marco. Flat disbelief. "Impossible."
I check brain development markers. The readings make my medical training scream warnings.
"Brain activity equivalent to six month development." Voice shaking. Can't control it. "Six weeks and they already have consciousness patterns that shouldn't form until second trimester."
The twins' power signatures pulse again. Together. Purposeful.
They're aware. Already. Impossibly.
"Sophia said twelve weeks total." I remember. "Accelerated development. Enhanced biology."
"You're halfway through." Marco calculating. Always calculating. "Six weeks pregnant. Six weeks until birth."
Six weeks. Not nine months. Six weeks until these impossible children are born.
"We can't fight an enhanced army while you're pregnant." Practical. Logical. Terrifying. "You'll be vulnerable. They'll be targets."
"So we hide." Marco. Strategic option. "Disappear. Protect you until they're born. Deal with Vincent and Elena after."
"Six weeks hiding while they build an army?" Dante. Skeptical. "Then fight them with newborn twins?"
No good options. Every path leads through danger.
I'm staring at the ultrasound when my amplified senses suddenly scream warning. Not physical. Not from the room.
From inside. From them.
The twins' power signatures spike. Sharp. Urgent. Fear.
Not my fear. Theirs.
"Something's wrong." I sit up fast. "They're scared."
"Isabella..." Marco starts.
"No. Listen." I press my hand to my stomach. "I can feel them. They're warning us. Danger. Coming."
Dante moves to the window before I finish speaking. Looks out. Goes rigid.
"Black SUVs. Six vehicles. Military grade. Coming up the drive fast."
"How did they find us?" Nico. "Sophia's security was..."
"Compromised." Dante. "Or they tracked something. Doesn't matter now."
Marco's already moving. "We go. Back door. Thirty seconds."
But I'm frozen. Hand on my stomach. Feeling my twins' fear mixing with my own.
Six weeks old and already aware enough to sense danger. To warn me.
What did Vincent create?
What am I carrying?
The safe house alarm starts blaring. Motion sensors. Multiple contacts. Approaching.
"Isabella." Marco. Urgent. "Now."
I move. Follow them. Running from yet another threat.
But this time I'm not just running for myself.
I'm running for three.