Page 54 of Echos and Empires
For a moment, neither man moved, locked in a silent battle of wills across the crowded waiting room. Chris kept his expression carefully blank, refusing to give even an inch. But beneath the surface, his mind raced, frantically calculating odds and angles.
“Bet you’re pretty excited to get out of work to play dad.” Darius snickered when Emma went to check herself in.
What did Darius know? Was this a coincidence, or had he somehow gotten wind of Chris’s activities? The possibilities spun out in a dizzying spiral, each more dire than the last.
The moment stretched, taut and brittle, until finally the nurse called Emma’s name. Chris rose smoothly to his feet, never taking his eyes off Darius as he followed Emma back to the exam room.
Chris tried to focus on the doctor’s words, on Emma’s soft voice as she answered questions about her symptoms and concerns. Time seemed to slip away into nothingness, stealing one of the most important moments of his life.
He stared at the grainy black-and-white image on the ultrasound screen, his heart pounding in his chest as he tried to make sense of the fuzzy shapes and shadows. At first, it just looked like abstract static, a meaningless swirl of light and dark. But then the doctor pointed to a small, pulsing form, and suddenly everything snapped into focus with startling clarity.
“There’s the first heartbeat,” Doctor Larsen said, a smile in her voice. “And right here...” She shifted the wand slightly. “There’s the second one. Congratulations, you two. The twins are perfectly healthy. And probably why the developing cells looked so big in that first scan I took.”
Suddenly, all the air had been sucked out of the room. Twins. He was going to be a father to not one, but two tiny, helpless babies. Two precious lives that would depend on him for everything.
He already knew that, but still, seeing them on screen, watching as she moved the wand from spot to spot on Emma’s stomach sent a dizzying mix of emotions swelling within him—awe, wonder, love so fierce it stole his breath. And then, hard on its heels, a bolt of pure, unadulterated terror.
The full weight of his responsibility came crashing down on him like an avalanche. It wasn’t just Emma he had to protect anymore. It was their children, these two miracles currently nestled safe and oblivious beneath her heart. And the knowledge that he might fail them, that Victor and his twisted regime could snuff out their bright futures before they even began, was enough to bring him to his knees.
Chris’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, his fingers pressing into his palms as a cold, implacable rage began to crystallize in his gut. Victor had already taken so much from him, from all of them. Had ground their lives and their hopes beneath his boot heel until they were little more than hollow shells, going through the motions of living.
But this... this was a line in the sand. A declaration of war. Because Chris knew, with a bone-deep certainty that shook him to his core, that he would burn the whole damn island to ash before he let that sadistic bastard lay a finger on his family.
The doctor was still talking, pointing out features on the ultrasound, but her words faded into meaningless background noise as the contours of a plan began to take shape in Chris’s mind. He needed to end this, and he needed to end it now. No more half-measures, no more biding his time and playing Victor’s games.
It was time to bring the resistance out of the shadows and into the light. To rally every soul on this godforsaken rock who still had an ounce of defiance left in them, and storm Victor’s stronghold like the fury of the gods unleashed.
Even if it meant painting the streets red with his blood, or sacrificing everything he was, everything he’d ever been, Chris would see this through. For Emma, for their unborn children, for the chance to build a life and a future free from the specter of what life had been.
When the exam was over and they stepped back out into the hallway, Chris’s heart sank.
“Okay, Emma, you know this part. Dad, you’ll wait here. There are special tests and we can’t have you in the way for and some wellbeing checks.”
He couldn’t even thrill in the idea of “dad” applying to him.
“I’ll be waiting,” he tried to put on his calmest voice but the twitch from the scar on his cheek told him he bit down too hard. “Take too long and I will come back there.”
If the nurse who met Emma at the door heard the threat, she ignored him and took Emma back through a door that he heard lock with a beep when they were through it.
Darius was waiting, leaning against the wall with a casualness that was anything but.
“Christopher,” he drawled, pushing off the wall to stand in their path. “Fancy meeting you here. I didn’t realize you had such a keen interest in prenatal care.”
“Foolish of you to think anything less knowing that I came here to protect that very woman’s life,” he said evenly. “As I’m sure you can understand.”
Darius’s smile was razor-sharp. “Of course. Family is everything, isn’t it? I’m sure you’d do whatever it takes to keep them safe.”
The implication was clear, the threat barely veiled. A cold fury rose up in him, a rage that burned away the fear and left only icy clarity in its wake.
He took a step forward, putting himself between Darius and the wall. When he spoke, his voice was low and deadly calm.
“Let me make one thing very clear,” he said softly. “If you or anyone else lays a finger on my wife, if you so much as breathe in her direction...there is no hole deep enough, no shadow dark enough to hide from what I will do to you. Do we understand each other?”
For a heartbeat, Darius’s mask slipped, a flicker of something that might have been fear crossing his face. Then it was gone, replaced by a mocking smirk.
“Perfectly,” he purred. “So long as you understand the consequences of crossing the wrong people. Give my best to Emma.”
With that, Darius turned and sauntered away, leaving Chris vibrating with impotent rage.
