Preg-Not

13

She waited by the reception desk as instructed, eyeing the cameras nervously and wondering if Maksim had already been notified of her presence.

"Hi Raelynn."

She looked up and found a pretty blonde with a clipboard and a coffee. She was pure curves. The flattest part of her were her pursed lips.

Apparently, she wasn't too impressed by what she saw. Raelynn expected this. She didn't graduate college, but was handed a prestigious job on a silver platter. It was only natural for others to disapprove.

The girl looked down at her clipboard that held her resume and professional headshot. "At least I think it's you. You look a bit... different on the file."

Many pounds lighter, less acne on your face, and less oily hair.

"Hi. Yeah, the picture on is a bit old..."

"Right. Well, I'm Amoura. I'm one of the assistants. This is your ID. I'll take you upstairs for a tour. Normally, someone from HR would do this, but something came up."

She tipped her chin up, and Raelynn could swear she saw her arrogant little brain through her pretty nostrils.

"Thank you," Rae said, accepting the ID.

Amoura turned and led the way. "I don't know how much research you've done, so..."

"Oh, I'm all set," Rae blurted, desperate to make a good impression. She might be a dropout, but she wasn't lazy. "I did an analysis of competition using the PFF framework. I prepared a presentation, actually, in case there would be any brainstorming. I noticed the company maintains its competitive advantage through overall differentiation, and I think I found a trend between..."

Amoura turned abrupty, looking annoyed. Rae stumbled and instinctively reached for her stomach. Realizing her mistake, she released herself and straightened.

"You'll be doing photoshop for marketing. Don't worry about anything else."

Raelynn nodded.

She signed paperwork, looked over her work place, got a tour of her floor, and read through a pamphlet of the board of directors. When she came across Maksim's image, her heart did a little flip.

"That's the cafe. You don't have any allergies, right?" Amoura scanned her body. "I'm guessing not," she deadpanned.

Raelynn blinked.

Amoura's sentence was short, but it was loaded. She was obviously making a jab at Raelynn's perceived weight. The insult was so slick, so subtle in the way it screamed, that Raelynn didn't know how to react.

"Uh, no, I don't."

Amoura turned around and finished the tour. Although Raelynn was wearing dress shoes, her soles were already protesting. While her heart loved the extra weight in her belly, her back was grumpy. Supporting the bump kept her constantly aching, but her pride didn't allow her to ask Amoura for a break. She had a sudden, irrational urge to not give the judgmental woman any fuel to burn.

"Alright. That's the end."

"I'll see you tomorrow," Raelynn said. "Thank you for showing me around."

Amoura didn't reply. She spun those long legs of hers and left her in the dust. The second she turned the corner, Raelynn sagged against the wall. At least the building was air-conditioned, or she would have been on her way to become a puddle.

Her pre-paid phone rang, and she dug it out of her bag.

"Hi Viktor."

"Did you make it?"

"I did. Thank you."

She expected him to hang up, but was surprised when he asked, "I need you to send me your latest sonogram as soon as possible."

"What?" she blurted.

"Nevermind. I will get it from your doctor."

"No. I will email it to you. It will be faster."

"Fine. Send it to the email I text you." He hung up without saying goodbye, and Raelynn became so pale that she nearly camouflaged into the white wall.

Why was Viktor suddenly interested in a sonogram? Was he collecting evidence in case Maksim didn't believe him? Whatever the reason was, Raelynn didn't like it. Although she was indebted to Viktor, it made her uneasy to know that her business would be stored in his files, likely between pictures of tortured corpses. Viktor could do anything with the sonogram. He could ruin everything for her and not lose any sleep.

She took the train home, swiping the Metro card incorrectly three times from how much her fingers fidgeted. Her her nervousness made body temperature skyrocket. When she got home, she tore her clothes off, tossing the layers all over the place, and cranked up the air conditioner.

She found Tiffany's laptop and loaded up her latest sonogram. With her lip between her teeth and her fingers in her oily hair, she panicked. She really didn't want Viktor to get his hands on this intimate, compromising image. What choice did she have, though?

She picked up an apple from the kitchen and dug her teeth into it, turning it into a fucked-up version of a stress ball.

With shaky fingers, she loaded up the Adobe Photoshop app.

"Sorry, boys," she sighed. "One of you has to go hide and seek. The less your shady uncle knows, the better."

(a/n: surprise)

She carefully edited any traces of one fetus and the text. The end result was so perfect that it could trick the eye of any professional.

After saving her work, she attached it to an email and added 'let me know if you need anything else' to the body. She could only hope that Viktor didn't do any digging on his own. There was only so much that patient confidentiality could do to protect her. With his dirty money and dirtier intentions, he could stomp on HIPAA and get hold of those official files. Then, there would be no denying the truth– Maksim didn't have one heir to his twisted kingdom, but two.

Raelynn pulled back the original picture and compared it with her edited one. It was disturbing to see one of the twins missing. She got so used to the thought of there being two of them; often joking with Tiffany that they were kickboxing each other inside of her.

After closing Adobe, she opened the internet played Russian folk music. It helped her relax, but not enough to forget about the leering threat that were Viktor and Maksim. Those two Kuznetsov men were danger disguised as docile in suits.

One of the babies kicked her.

"Sorry. I meant four Kuznetsovs, not two."

She cranked up the music and rolled to her side, groaning when the ache in her back intensified.

"You guys are getting too heavy. My back is killing me, so we need to cut back on the ice cream."

There was another kick.

"Okay, no messing with the ice cream. Now please let me nap."