There were so many things to say, so many words left unspoken. Ever since Daniel came home from school things had been tense and Victoria Grayson had tried to mother him in a new way that turned out horribly wrong. She had tried to subtly control him and in that tornado she had forgotten about Charlotte who needed more help than Daniel ever did. Both Grayson children had problems with substance abuse. While Charlotte took comfort in prescription pills, Daniel took comfort in alcohol. It had gotten him into trouble a few times before and Tyler Barrol was never a supportive good role model for the tall dark and handsome man with the eyes of a puppy. The Grayson family kept too many secrets and didn't talk about much of anything besides their money, art, how the weather was and when they would gossip about other people. This kind of talk didn't bring them closer. It was no surprise that both Victoria and Conrad had cheated on each other multiple times.

It was no surprise that everyone was in a mess of their own, especially the leaders of the Grayson clan.

Daniel looked over at his mother who looked weaker and a bit frail, her blue jumpsuit baggy on her and making her look smaller. She didn't seem so intimidating anymore but he knew that under that horrid blue outfit was a bitter and broken soul. He was pissed at her, for everything she had done but she had been begging him to see her, pleading from behind bars. She wasn't one to plea, but prison was wearing her down. He wondered if it could break her and if she would be a better person after she was broken down completely. Would she see things from a different perspective?

"I'm sorry to hear about Emily Daniel. That is some news…" she said in a quiet voice. "Are you going to keep it?"

Daniel eyed his mother and crossed his arms, leaning back ever so slightly. "That's really not up to me is it…."

Victoria shrugged "Her body but you should talk about it, have you even talked to her about it Daniel? You'd think if you were married to someone for almost five years that talking wouldn't be an issue, although she's not really the person you thought you married so I see where that might be a problem."

"Don't rub it in Victoria…."

"What did you just call me?" she asked in an angry almost motherly voice which surprised him and came out of the blue. Who was she to act like a mother now?

"You'll earn the title of mother when you start acting like one," he said with an attitude.

"Daniel that is no way to talk to me. How am I supposed to prove myself to you and Charlotte behind bars?" she asked as she flipped her graying hair over her shoulders.

"Help me then, tell me what to do. What the hell do I say to her? Sorry my parents destroyed your father and ruined your life, better luck next time," he said as he leaned into her.

"Don't be so overdramatic Daniel, we didn't ruin her life," she said in a cool tone.

"OH so what do you call it then? You take away her only parent and put her through foster care; she gets molested by her foster father and arrested for fighting back. That's not ruining someone's life?" he asked, knowing more about Amanda than Victoria ever would have guessed.

"Molested?" she asked. Victoria didn't really know what Amanda had been through, nor did she ever bother to. All she cared about was getting rid of her.

"You left her like she was nothing and you let these vultures feed on her. She was just a little girl. She needed guidance and you took that away from her. You took away her innocence," Daniel barked as he glared into her eyes.

"I didn't know Daniel and if I had I wouldn't have stood idly by," she said as she let it slide off of her.

"Would you have? Because last I remember you just throw sexual abuse out the window like Mardi Gras beads at a parade. You told me David Clarke raped you, who knows what you would do these days? You're disgusting…" he said with a vile tone to his voice, angry but also like bile was shooting through his stomach and into his esophagus.

Victoria's face went blank and she bit the inside of her lip, nearly tasting copper. She had gone too far and things were beginning to weigh on her.

"What? No witty comeback?" her son asked as he heard a television blaring in the background.

Victoria eyed him and held back her tears, eyes glassy nonetheless. "Daniel stop it," she said only once as he began to not pay attention, choosing to listen to the television instead. "I just wanted to keep my family together."

"Well you did a great job," he murmured as he stopped paying attention to her. She didn't deserve his attention and respect; she was no longer worthy of it.

Watching the news he saw Ashley Davenport on screen giving an interview. Standing, he approached it trying to get a better glimpse of it. He read the screen saying Victoria and Conrad Grayson would go to trial once again. (Breaking News) it said and then Ashley spoke.

~~~~"They're saying that Victoria and Conrad Grayson are the Hamptons' version of Bonnie and Clyde. Well I say to you that that's entirely impossible without a third party working as a middle man between the two. Someone else is involved and that someone else must have been the anonymous caller who brought attention to the fact that Conrad and Victoria had been planning the assassination attempt on Amanda Clarke. I believe this was either a set up or a manipulation, perhaps a big misunderstanding. I personally have worked for Conrad Grayson and Victoria Grayson in the past and they never would have gone that far with their need for vengeance. I think that they're all about money. It wouldn't have surprised me if they had wanted to bankrupt Amanda Clarke but to kill, no; they were never out for blood."

The interviewer asked Ashley another question, hindrance in his voice, "If they were able to pin acts of terrorism on David Clarke, don't you think they would have been able to kill his daughter?"

"I think they might have thought her being dead was easier for them and since she was the one to put them in prison in the first place, sure, but I still think they're the type of people who might use another way to get back at her. They'd want her to suffer the way they suffer as we speak…but I could be wrong, I apparently don't know who I used to work for…"

Ashley left the podium "That will be all…" and Daniel had an out of body experience, blood like fire in his veins and bubbling to the surface. He couldn't control himself any longer.~~~~~

Lunging for Victoria he gripped at her throat, squeezing hard and not caring if she lived or died at the moment, all he could think of was Emily in pain and near death and he realized he still loved her. He realized his child could have died that night by the hands of his parents. Victoria gasped for air as she struggled with her son, hands clawing at his face, body almost in shock.

The guards seemed to wait a little long to pull him off. At least that was how it seemed from Victoria's perspective.

"What did you do?" Daniel asked in a loud booming voice that echoed throughout the prison. He could not physically hold back any longer and it served her right, she had slapped him across the face more times than he could count.

The guards pulled him off of Victoria and she sputtered for air, letting it fill her lungs once more.

"Don't you ever speak to me again! You're dead to me…" he hissed, the sound coming from him like thunder even through a dangerous whisper as they pulled him out of the room.

"DEAD"


The sun was bursting through the walls of his glass house and it filled it with light, something he needed since he was feeling rather gloomy as of late. Urn in hand he thought himself crazy for he had been speaking to his dead Aunt the entire ride home. He also found himself listening to pop music that had forcibly gotten stuck in his head, a lot of it being Katy Perry.

Placing his Aunt Carole's ashes down on the table he plopped on the couch, tired from driving. He really should have gotten Big Ed to pick him up but he didn't want to bother him and make him drive out of his way to pick him up with a different car and then have to get that car shipped later. Nolan just drove slowly on the way home. He had been listening to the radio on the way home and it was revealed what the Grayson's were planning and how they had failed. Amanda Clarke was also revealed to be Emily Thorne, something she had been hiding from the public. He imagined she was a very busy girl at the moment with no time for him.

Walking into his office Nolan gasped, shocked to find Marjorie Blaisson sitting there, her red hair like flames and her eyes a bright blue. She actually reminded him a lot of Joan Holloway from Mad Men but he didn't know who the hell she was and why she had broken into his house.

"Who the hell are you?"

Marjorie spun around in his chair and smiled softly "Before you pick up that little smart phone of yours you should listen to me. I have some wonderful things to say Mr. Ross."

Nolan let his phone rest in his pocket but he was not afraid to use it, he let her know that with his eyes.

"Go on…" he murmured, his voice always lingering in the air.

Sitting across from her, now at her level and on the same playing field he took in a breath before she told her side of the story.

"I'm the one that broke into your home, on behalf of Daniel Grayson," she said as she looked at him, with steely eyes.

"Oh, really…well that makes things easier. I want back what was taken from me,"

"Oh you're little whale cam? I don't think Daniel would like that plan but you're lucky I don't work for him anymore. If you want to get it back you have to go to the source."

"Daniel doesn't owe me anything although he is a thief and a former jail bird so maybe he will feel inclined since he knows I could put him back in Rikers with a snap of my fingers."

Marjorie smiled and bit her nails. "I like your enthusiasm Mr. Ross… I'm here to let you know that my loyalties are...flexible." she purred, her head slightly cocked and her lips slightly parted.

Nolan did not buy into her flirting, he had seen more subtly on an escort.

"Good to know. How did you get into my house? It's got security through the roof," he muttered in a hostile tone.

"All things can be broken into, especially when you're me…" she said in a sly and slick voice, her body language confident but darkness behind her eyes just the same.

"You look familiar," he said as he made a face, trying to place her.

"I used to work for Conrad and Victoria Grayson, and countless others in their inner circle," she murmured as she got up to move her fingers over his physical files, things he didn't keep on drives. All of it was Nolcorp stuff anyway, things she weren't interested in. "You must have seen me a few times at gatherings and galas. I was always the best dressed besides you of course."

"Why would you work for those despicable people?" he asked as he joined her on his feet, watching her carefully and trying not to make any sudden moves.

She moved like a shark, smiled like a piranha and could bite like a lioness protecting its cubs. "I didn't have a choice, I was born into The Initiative," she said as she eyed him, her face turning a sallow color.

"Born into…"

She cut him off, knowing she had some explaining to do. "My mother worked for a company opposed to Grayson Global's shall we say "Exports". When certain employees were pulled into the fold to join The Initiative my mother went undercover and Victoria and Conrad Grayson took her under their wing. Much like they had with Amanda Clarke's mother. Amanda Clarke wasn't the first person that was negatively affected by the Grayson family and the Initiative. I was too."

Nolan put his hand to his mouth and shook his head. "How am I supposed to believe you?"

Marjorie Blaisson zipped down her dress to reveal old bullet wounds and scars near her navel, years old by now. She was a bit older but The Initiative had been decades old.

"Believe this, believe I too want to make sure that the remaining members of the tribe are taken down which included the Grayson family. They were pawns on a chess board stretching miles wide but they were part of so much damage. If Emily Thorne couldn't put them down like dogs for good, I sure as hell was going to do something about it."

Nolan carefully approached her and admired the scars, leaning in and she let him, not afraid. She was done being scared. "How did you get these?" He asked as he looked up at her, on his knees before her like she was an altar.

It made her feel like a sacrifice and maybe that was what she was.

"How do you think?" she said rhetorically, not needing to spell it out for him. "I got too close to something," she said, a pain in her stomach where she remembered getting shot years ago.

"Why haven't they killed you?" he asked as he sauntered toward her once more, trying to comfort the stranger. No matter who it was, he always wanted to help and he now could see the same pain he did in Amanda's eyes when he met her outside of Allenwood all those years ago.

"Death is on my heels Mr. Ross; I haven't a clue why they're keeping me alive…some part of me thinks it's because they're sadistic. They like toying with people like us. We're the mice and they're the cats. We're toys to them…"

"We're?" he asked as he pulled back, her dress zipped back into place, no longer exposed to him.

"You don't think Amanda and I are the only ones do you? They're many of us scattered across this earth. There are men and women everywhere who have been ruined by this company. It's like…it's like a world divided."

Nolan bit his lip, listening to her story. He had no idea it stretched this far and wide, no one had seen that coming.

"There were seven devils around us but I've just taken care of two hence why I came here but there are five more. Five much harder agents to kill," she said as she looked at him, Nolan trying to take everything in.

"Do you have a plan?" he asked as she looked out the window, always a bit shifty and panicked underneath all that confidence. After coming so close to death she didn't fear it anymore, the only thing she feared was failure.

"I need your help Nolan; you have more power than you even know…" she said as she turned to him. "But first…"

Nolan smiled softly, the smile more a nervous, overwhelmed one.

"Yes?" he asked her as he grabbed his laptop, ready to take notes even though he was dead tired.

"But first, I need a drink."