CHAPTER 13

Sonny is seated behind his desk, his hands folded on the hard wooden surface. His eyes are focused on his folded hands. He has a look on his face that is a mixture of anger, confusion, and worry. He is silent and breathing more heavily than normal.

Alexis barges into his office, irritated at the inconvenience of Sonny demanding to see her, "Okay, Sonny, I'm here! Why on earth have you summoned me this time?"

Sonny remains silent; he doesn't even look up. His focus is still down, and his expression is unchanged. He doesn't seem to have noticed Alexis entering the room.

"Sonny?" Alexis walks closer toward Sonny and bends to an angle where she can see his face. "What's going on?" she asks quizzically, "Why are you so quiet?" Her voice now has worry in it.

Sonny looks up slowly, still not saying a word. He takes a deep breath and exhales. Alexis stands up straight and watches Sonny as he silently stands up and walks around to the front of his desk, where he leans with his hands resting on the edge on either side of him. Alexis stares at him, trying to figure out what he is thinking.

"You're too quiet, Sonny. You're scaring me. What's going on?"

"Have a seat, Alexis," Sonny finally says in a monotone voice. He looks up at her, "Do you want a drink?"

Alexis scrunches her eyebrows. "No, I want to know what's going on, that's what I want, Sonny," she tells him calmly.

"You're going to want a drink, Alexis."

Alexis continues to stare at Sonny with a questioning face, and he's staring at her with a blank expression. Sonny stands up and walks toward her.

He takes another deep breath. "At least sit down, Alexis." He motions to the chair sitting there in the center of his office.

"No, I don't want to sit, Sonny. Tell me what is going on!" Alexis is now getting impatient with Sonny.

Sonny turns around and pours himself a glass of scotch. As he does so, he says to her, raising his voice a little, "Have a seat, Alexis! You're going to want to sit for this!"

He turns back around, glass in hand, to face Alexis. Alexis, out of patience, says, "Sonny, I don't want to sit down, I'd rather stand. Tell me what is going on!"

"Sit down!" Sonny demands.

Alexis' facial expression changes from worry, to frighten. She suddenly plops herself down into the chair, never moving her stare from Sonny. Sonny slowly walks back around his desk and sits back down in his chair slowly. Alexis' gaze is continuously focused on Sonny as he moves. He places his glass on the desk and rubs his mouth with his hand.

After a long silence, he finally looks up at Alexis and asks, "Have you noticed anything different about Kristina?"

"Different? How? What do you mean 'different'?" Alexis replies, thinking the question odd.

"Is she sneaking out of the house; is she avoiding you?"

"Um…no," Alexis responds, as she's thinking. "Why? What's going on, Sonny?"

"Kristina…," Sonny starts and then stops; a look of disgust comes over his face.

"Kristina what, Sonny?" Alexis has a bit of anger in her voice now.

Sonny looks to the side, he can't stand to look at Alexis when he says it, "Kristina is pregnant." He says the last word in almost a whisper, with some sadness in his voice.

Alexis squints her eyes and thinks about what Sonny has just said. No words come to her mouth; she can't register what he has just told her.

"Did you hear me, Alexis?" Sonny says, raising his voice a little as he looks back at her.

Alexis remains silent for a moment longer as Sonny stares at her, and then finally—she laughs. She doesn't believe that her daughter is actually pregnant; she thinks that Sonny must have misunderstood something or has been fed wrong information.

Sonny is surprised and a bit angry at Alexis' response. "What—what are you doing? I just told you that our 17-year-old daughter is pregnant and you're laughing!"

Alexis continues to laugh, maybe a bit nervously. "Sonny, come on. That's ridiculous. Kristina's not pregnant!"

Sonny can't believe that Alexis doesn't believe him. He called her into his office to have a serious conversation about their daughter, and she's making a joke out of it. He throws his hands in the air and shrugs.

"Come on, Sonny, really. Really? Do you really believe she's pregnant?"

"Well, yeah!" Sonny says angrily.

"Okay, why do you think she's pregnant?"

"Because she told me."

"Oh, okay," Alexis says with a laugh. "So, she just walked up to you and said, 'Dad, I'm pregnant.' Come on. I don't believe that. She won't even talk to you most days, why on earth would she tell you something like that. I think you're delusional, Sonny. You know, that's what you are. Have you been taking your medication? Maybe you need some new medication. Maybe you're not just bipolar; maybe you're schizophrenic. Yeah, you're something if you think that Kristina told you she's pregnant."

"Alexis, that's not how it happened," Sonny replies angrily through clinched teeth. "Kristina didn't just tell me."

"Okay, then how did it happen?"

"Well, she was kind of forced into telling me I guess," Sonny says slowly.

"Forced? What do you mean 'forced,' Sonny? How was Kristina forced into telling you? What…did you have a gun to her head?"

Sonny looks matter-of-factly at Alexis, "No—I had a gun to Johnny's head."

The look on Alexis' face becomes one of disappointment. She never likes hearing about someone Sonny tried to kill. Being the mobster he is, he is always "getting rid" of people. This is not the first time he's tried to kill Johnny, for various reasons. She's always hopeful that Sonny will change, but she honestly doesn't see that happening any time soon.

Alexis takes a deep breath. "Okay, Sonny. Start from the top."

"Olivia came to me and said that I had to 'do something' about Johnny. I asked her why, and she said because she heard Johnny and Kristina talking in the park. She heard them saying that they slept together."

"Wait. Johnny and Kristina slept together?" Alexis is surprised at this revelation.

She is now more interested in what Sonny is saying, and she gets a little more worried. She intently listens to the words coming out of his mouth and is trying to follow.

Sonny continues, "Yeah, so, I had Max and Milo bring Johnny down to Baker Street. I had a gun on him and I was about to pull the trigger…."

Alexis shakes her head and puts up her hand to stop him, "Sonny, Sonny, I don't want details."

"Kristina came running in from nowhere and got between Johnny and the gun!"

"What!" Alexis gasps, and then rolls her head.

"We argue a bit, Kristina and I, same old, same old. She loves Johnny; I say he's too old, too dangerous. Max and Milo move her to the side of the street."

Alexis is even more worried and anxious now as she's listening to Sonny speak.

"So, I have the gun on Johnny, right. Kristina's on the side of the street crying and screaming. I'm about to pull the trigger and what does Kristina do?"

Alexis shakes her head silently.

"She yells, 'I'm pregnant'!"

Alexis pulls her head back a bit in surprise of the word and gasps. She continues to stare at him, thinking and trying to register the story he has just told her.

After thinking about everything she has heard for a moment, Alexis says, "Well, you know why she said that don't you?"

Sonny looks at Alexis, wondering where she's going with this, and says slowly, "Yeah, because she didn't want me to kill Johnny."

"Yeah, exactly. So, you can't take what she said seriously. She only told you that she was pregnant because she knew that that was the only way you wouldn't kill Johnny."

"So, you don't think she's really pregnant. You think she only said that to save Johnny's life."

"Yeah, of course. Kristina's not pregnant. I would know, I'm her mother!"

"Come on, Alexis. Yeah, you're her mother, that's exactly why you wouldn't know! Kristina's not going to tell her mother that she's pregnant if she can hide it!"

"Sonny, I don't buy it. Kristina only said she was pregnant to save Johnny's life. She's not really pregnant, Sonny."

Sonny starts to raise his voice again, "You weren't there, Alexis. You didn't see her: the look on her face, how she was crying. She was serious. She was telling the truth, Alexis."

Alexis shakes her head. "No. I don't believe it. No. I refuse to believe it, Sonny! Kristina has lied a lot in the last few months, and this is just another lie of hers. She's not pregnant."

"No, Alexis. She was serious, I'm telling you. She was so serious!"

Alexis sighs and sits back in her chair, tired of arguing with Sonny. Her look becomes more relaxed, while his is still intense as he glares at her.

After a moment of silence, Alexis says more calmly, "Okay, Sonny, say that she is pregnant—which she's not—but say that she is. She's 17, Sonny, which is the legal age of consent in the State of New York. Legally, she is an adult and we can't do anything about it." Sonny is staring blankly at Alexis, thinking. For him, the reality of the situation—the fact that Kristina is pregnant and legally an adult—is sinking in. Alexis continues, "I know she's young. I know to us, her parents, she's a child. But legally, she's an adult and can make her own decisions. Look, Sonny, I'm an attorney, I know, I cannot legally do anything. What am I supposed to do about it, Sonny?"

"That's what I've been trying to figure out. I don't know what we're going to do."

"Sonny, honestly, I don't know why we're so surprised that she would get pregnant. She's been so messed up ever since she started dating Keifer. Between Keifer, then having that crush on Ethan and trying to seduce him, and then Johnny—I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm a little surprised it didn't happen sooner. Then there's that old saying—something about repeating your parents' mistakes. Look who Kristina has for parents. I had Sam when I was 16, and Olivia had Dante when she was 16, Sonny. Kristina didn't stand a chance! Both her parents had kids when they were teenagers, Sonny!"

"Oh," Sonny dismisses Alexis' theory. "Just because you had Sam when you were a teenager and Dante was born when Olivia and I were teenagers—that doesn't mean our daughter is going to have a kid when she's a teenager, Alexis!"

"I know, but if she is pregnant like yousay she is, then it could have something to do with it. Parents influence their kids, Sonny, even if they don't mean to or realize it. And—history repeats itself."

"That's ridiculous, Alexis."

"Okay, maybe. But look at it this way: Kristina is 17. At least she's older than both I and Olivia were when we got pregnant! And, she's almost 18. She'll be 18 by the time the baby's born! If there really is a baby."

"It's not so much that she's pregnant, as the fact that Johnny's the father! He's using her! He hurts people, he kills people, Alexis!"

"You better look in a mirror when you say that, Sonny. You just described yourself." Alexis thrusts her finger toward Sonny.

Sonny rolls his eyes, tired of going around and around in circles through the differences between him and Johnny.

Alexis continues, "Sonny, you use women. You use women to get what you want, whether it's Claire Walsh, the federal prosecutor, to try and get her to back off investigating you; or Claudia to try and broker a truce between the families. You use women, Sonny. And don't even try to deny that you hurt people, or kill people, Sonny, because we both know that you definitely do that."

"Don't even compare me to Johnny, Alexis. We're not the same!"

"Why, because you think he's doing it to your daughter? It's okay for you to do things to other people's daughters, but when someone does it to yours, it's wrong?"

"I'm not having this fight with you again, Alexis. We've been through this. Johnny is no good for Kristina. She's going to get hurt. Why are you defending the guy?"

"Oh, I'm not defending Johnny; I'm simply saying that you're no better than he is, Sonny! And that gives you no room to judge him yourself."

Sonny glares at Alexis, extremely irritated that no one can see that he is better than Johnny.

"You have absolutely no room to judge in this situation, Sonny. Kristina is 17 and Johnny may have gotten her pregnant. Olivia was 15—15—and you got her pregnant with Dante! Johnny is a gangster; you were a gangster—still are."

"Alexis, don't compare Kristina and Johnny to me and Olivia. It's totally different!"

"Oh, really? How so? The only difference I see is that Kristina is 17, she's legally an adult. Olivia, on the other hand, she was only 15—15—Sonny! Olivia was a child! At least Kristina is an adult."

"It's totally different, Alexis." Sonny shakes his head as he speaks.

"How?"

"I wasn't 15 years older than Olivia! Johnny is 15 years older than Kristina! That's sick!"

"Well, at least Kristina is an adult; Olivia was just a kid."

Sonny continues to shake his head, disagreeing.

"What, so you're okay with Kristina being pregnant. Is that it? Is that why you're going on about me and Olivia?"

"No, no, Sonny. I don't believe that Kristina is pregnant. I'm just saying that if she were, you'd have no room to judge."

Alexis stands from her chair, turns, and walks out the door. Sonny remains silent, thinking, with his hands folded on his desk. He shakes his head in disgust.