Title: The Road Less Traveled
Author: Christy AKA FallenAngel AKA Girlfearless
Disclaimer: Don't own it! Never will! Wish I did!
"Where the hell have you been?"
"God," Emily blew out a breath and reached out to steady herself on the wall next to her. "You scared me."
"Where were you?"
"I told you I—"
"Don't lie to me," Sonny whispered harshly, trying not to yell because he didn't want to wake up Bella and have her hear them fighting. He'd been woken up to loud voices too many times in his childhood and the fact that he remembered even his mother and Mike yelling told him that violence didn't need to follow for it to scar a child for life.
"I'm trying to tell you if you'd calm down. I was on my way to Luke's, but…"
Sonny walked across the room quickly and grabbed her shoulders before saying, "I said, don't fucking lie to me."
"And I said," she pulled back and shoved at him. "Calm down. And don't put your fucking hands on me, I don't like it."
"Really," Sonny stalked away, trying to regain control of his emotions before touching her again, "that's not what you said last night or this morning."
"Fuck you!"
He reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her around to face him, as she started to walk past him and up the stairs, "You did that too, now tell me where you were and don't you dare lie to me again."
"Fine," she stepped closer to him, her nose almost touching his, "I'll tell you. I was at Wyndemere. I needed to talk with Stefan."
"About what?"
Her nerves were still on edge from all she'd learned and she wasn't sure she was going to be able to get it all out, not when she was still processing it all herself, but she figured she had to try. She took a deep breath and said, "If you really wanted to know I would have told you. Jesus, it wasn't like I was out screwing some guy or something, I was talking to Stefan Cassadine."
Sonny pulled away, and moved to sit on the couch, after he realized he was holding her arm tight enough to bruise. For a second he thought she was actually going to tell him the truth, but just as quickly she reverted back to yelling at him for something he had very little control over. Where the hell was he supposed to think she was?
"Shit," Emily rubbed her right hand down her face and groaned at the back of his head. "Is that what you thought? That I left the funeral of a good friend and lied to you for a quick fuck?"
"It's been a few hours, not exactly quick." He knew he shouldn't have said it, he didn't really believe it. But after Lucky called him earlier and asked where she was he'd spent every second worrying and wondering.
"Screw you. If I wanted to hop into bed with another guy I wouldn't lie about it."
"I know that!" He stood up and turned to her. "The question is what would you lie about?"
"How about things that aren't my secrets to tell or maybe they are now…I don't know…" she rubbed her forehead again and walked around to the front of the couch. When she was standing in front of him she took his hands and sat down on the coffee table in front of him, relieved when he follow suit and sat back down on the couch.
His anger turned almost automatically back to worry as she rubbed her forehead. He put his hand on her knee and massaged her thigh as she let her hair fall over her face and cover her eyes.
"I was gonna tell you," she said as she pushed her hair back and stared into his eyes. "I swear."
"Well, tell me now." He kept his right hand on her thigh and used his left to help her push her hair back from her face.
"You know Sam McCall," he nodded and she shook her head. "Obviously you know her. Well…she's Alexis' daughter with Luis Alcazar. I guess that would make her my cousin." She laughed coldly and proceeded to tell him the rest of what she'd learned from Stefan. He didn't interrupt once or ask her to clarify anything, which she was thankful for, he just sat back and listened.
"Jesus," Sonny groaned when she finished.
"Jesus is right."
"C'mere." He locked his hands in her hair and kissed her on the forehead. "Are you okay?"
She leaned her head against his, happy for the first time that night to really be able to rest her brain and her heart. "I don't know. I can't figure all of this out. I mean I've been thinking about it and I figure, yeah, Luis saw it as my mother's fault that he couldn't be with Alexis or his child, but why didn't my mother tell Lorenzo? Why did she let it get so far?"
"Maybe she was scared."
"Of what?"
"What are you scared of?"
"Finding out things I don't want to know," she answered without thinking.
"Like what?"
"I don't know. That just came out," she said as she looked up into his deep, brown eyes. "I shouldn't have lied to you, but I knew if I told you then you'd want to go with me and I couldn't let you."
"Why?"
"I asked how Daniel died," she answered and paused long enough to see the question in his eyes. "I didn't ask if he knew why my mom lied about my age."
"Do you think those two things are directly connected?"
"Maybe," she shrugged. "I think my mother took away a year of my life and I don't know why. I, uh, I ask Stefan how long Faison had been working on a way to screw with people's memories and emotions before Lucky. He said a while."
"You think she knew him?"
"Maybe, or maybe she knew someone who knew him or maybe Andrejs did. I just don't know. But why would she take a whole year? What would make you steal a year of your child's life? Why not a week, a month, two months, six months? What happened in that year?"
"Maybe she needed time. Maybe she needed you to feel like you hadn't missed even a day."
"Wouldn't I have grown at that age? Changed?"
"If they could mess with your memories then they could change your perception of yourself…that's not so big."
"But that's what scares me."
"They couldn't change who you are—in your heart."
"But could they suppress it? Could they make a bad person believe they were good until they needed them to be bad? I see the way you all look at me sometimes, like I'm not the girl you knew before. Well maybe this is who I really always was."
"Would that be bad?"
She smiled, "You tell me."
Sonny grinned as she leaned back into the couch and crooked a finger at her.
She smiled as she moved from the coffee table, without ever completely standing, to straddle his lap, "Hello Mr. Corinthos."
"Hello Miss Quartermaine." He began unbuttoning her shirt as she smiled at her.
"Or is that Miss Wilson," she kissed him softly on the lips and shook her head, surprised. Had they really just gone from fighting, to her bearing her soul, to getting ready to make out—and probably a little more—on his couch? Interesting.
"Or Alcazar," he parted her unbuttoned shirt.
"Or, God help us all, Nikolai." She leaned back and smiled at him. "Or…"
"Or?"
"Nevermind," she shook her head.
"Or Corinthos?"
"Grandfather would love that."
"Which one," Sonny laughed as he started to reach around and unhook the clasp on her bra. He had the first one unsnapped when he heard the knock on the front door.
"Mr. Corinthos," Max started from the other side of the door as both Emily and Sonny groaned.
"What?"
"Mr. Alcazar is here and Lucky is next door getting Mr. Morgan—they say it's important."
Sonny looked down at Emily, who was still in his arms, and noticed the skin on her neck and chest suddenly getting very red, "You're blushing."
She pushed up off of him and buttoned her shirt back up, "I was just about to have sex with you, with my biological father standing outside the door."
"We could tell him to go away."
"Sonny!"
He laughed as he stood up, wrapped his arms around her waist, and moved her hair to the side so he could kiss her neck.
"Quit it," she nearly moaned as she tried to shove away from him. "Jason will be here too."
Sonny just grinned and asked, "Are you ready for this?"
She ignored the emotion shimmering in his eyes and said, "I guess I have to be."
"Let him in," Sonny yelled through the door after he nodded at her determination.
Lorenzo Alcazar walked through the door and Max closed it carefully behind him.
"Mr. Corinthos. Miss Quartermaine."
"Mr. Alcazar," Sonny stepped forward, taking the lead. "What can we do for you?"
"I don't know," Lorenzo answered, ignoring his daughters messed up hair and flushed skin. Apparently he'd interrupted…Good. "Mr. Spencer told me I needed to come with him. I happened to be outside of his father's club when he was leaving to come over here."
"They were having a private party," Emily said defensively. The last thing Alexis needed was an Alcazar making her life harder after she'd buried Tommy.
"Yes, I know." He also knew that she'd spoken with Stefan and had been given the quick and ugly version of what had gone on between the group of friends. "I was speaking with Alexis Davis."
"Oh," Emily stepped back as she realized that he knew exactly what was going on. If he'd been speaking to Alexis then there was no way he hadn't figured out that she would have gone to Stefan. Damn.
"Yes. Oh."
"Do you know what Lucky wanted," Sonny asked stepping in front of Emily and giving her time to realize that she wasn't going to be able to hold off her little family reunion anymore. Lorenzo Alcazar not only knew that he was her father, but he knew that she knew.
"I believe he has information on Joseph Sorel."
When Lucky and Jason came through the penthouse door they were met by Sonny, Emily, and Alcazar all standing quietly. Emily was starring, intently, at the door waiting for Jason and Lucky to arrive, Alcazar was staring at Emily trying to figure out her relationship with Sonny, and Sonny was staring at Alcazar trying to decide if he trusted him with Emily or not.
"What's up," Emily asked Lucky, jumping at the chance to break the silence.
Lucky looked to Jason to get his nod of approval to talk and then told them, "I got a call from one of my guys inside Sorel's organization, and they say he's terrified. Apparently he thinks we're gonna go after him for Tommy's murder. He's telling anyone who will listen that it wasn't his fault and he was betrayed by Nikolai."
"Does he know why Tommy was killed," Emily asked.
"Not that he's said out loud, but my guy says he thinks so."
"Do we know where Sorel is now?" Emily grabbed her jacket and began walked towards the door.
"At home."
"Alone?"
"With guards, no family."
"We need to get over there," Emily turned to Sonny before starting out the door. She'd forgotten for a second that he was the one in charge, not her.
Sonny looked over at Jason, gave him a nod, and said, "Milo will stay at your place with the kids and the girls, Max and Johnny are with us…"
"Johnny, Max, and the four of us are enough for now," Emily interrupted and pressed forward before anyone could argue. "If he's this worried then his guards know we're coming, they won't be too loyal since he just gave his territory to the guy who betrayed him. Anyway, Sorel knows we're gonna get to him anyway—he'll want to plead his case in person."
"She's right," Jason told Sonny. "He's got ten guards, seven of them have made contact with us since he gave his territory to Nikolai, and the other three can be handled if they need to be."
"Alright," Sonny looked between them. "Max will drive Emily and me, you two are with Johnny, and I want you there ahead of us to handle any guards that need it and you…"
"I came here with Mr. Spencer," Lorenzo said as Sonny turned to him. He wasn't about to give away too much information, but he was taking part in this conversation with Sorel, whether Sonny Corinthos wanted him to or not.
"Fine, you're with me and Emily," Sonny turned to Jason and said, "Go. We'll be behind you."
After Jason and Lucky left the penthouse there was once again silence among the occupants, as a matter of fact no one had spoken from the time they were alone until now, when they were in the backseat of Sonny's limo heading towards Joseph Sorel's home.
Emily looked between Sonny and Lorenzo; she was sitting to the right of Sonny and across from Lorenzo and decided she couldn't take the silence anymore. She looked at her biological father and said, "What were you talking to Alexis about?"
"Her daughter, my niece."
"Oh, I didn't know you…" she trailed off, not sure what to say. She hadn't considered that Sam was his niece; she hadn't really considered much of anything since she's spoken with Stefan.
"I gave Thomas Marks the information that he had concerning her biological parents."
"He told me he didn't know who gave it to him."
"I asked him to say that."
"Why?" She spit the word out almost like a curse and held his gaze for a few seconds. Tommy was supposed to be one of the few people who always told her the truth; she was realizing that the more information she found out about her family, the more the people she had come to trust were becoming less and less trustworthy.
"For many reasons: my parents do not know about her, I was still coming to terms with her existence, and I like my privacy."
"Well don't we all," Emily commented, annoyed.
"He tried to allow you to keep yours."
"I see that he did."
Sonny had been quiet up to that point, realizing that the two of them needed to work out their issues, but the more angry Emily became the more worried he was that she wasn't going to be able to pull in her emotions before they reached Sorel's home. "Emily…"
"Let me ask you something Mr. Alcazar," Emily started, ignoring the warning in Sonny's voice. "Why would a woman who is supposedly happily married, who supposedly feels safe and loved and protected, fake her own death and the death of her child and put her trust in a man she hates and fears?"
"I don't know," Lorenzo answered, willing to give her a little leeway. She had more than enough reason to hate him and anyone involved in the lies that had been told to her for years.
"Could it be because her husband couldn't really protect her at all? Could it be that he wasn't as strong as he led her to believe he was?"
"No." The annoyance that he'd been keeping in check was threatening to make itself known as her comments became more and more venomous.
"Then why," she asked, unsure of where her anger was coming from or even if it was directed at the right person.
"Maybe because she valued family above all and she didn't want her husband to lose his brother; maybe because she was desperate to protect her child, especially since she'd already had a miscarriage once; or maybe because she was too kind and too sweet and blamed herself for tragedy's that weren't her fault. You tell me something, Miss Quartermaine, why does a woman judge a man she doesn't know?"
"Maybe because she feels she should know him. Maybe because she's angry. Or maybe, just maybe, because she just doesn't know what else to do anymore."
Lorenzo nodded and decided to give her an inch, even if it meant she would take a mile, "I believe your mother made the decisions she made to protect the lives of those she loved."
Emily sat silently for a second, allowing that answer to root around in her heard before she looked up at him and said, "She miscarried?"
"Yes, a boy, before you were born."
Another big brother, Emily thought and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I never knew."
"She would have been happy that you have older brothers."
"I know, she was."
They spent the rest of the drive in silence with Lorenzo staring at Emily once again and Emily once again looking anywhere and everywhere but at him. She stared out the window and held onto Sonny's hand as though it was the only thing keeping her alive. They arrived at the gates of the Sorel estate and were waived in by Johnny and Max who each had one of Sorel's dead guards at their feet.
"Guess someone put up a fight," Emily murmured and earned herself a concerned look from Alcazar.
"Is he in there?" Sonny asked Jason as he walked around the car and opened the door for Emily.
"Lucky's with him," Jason answered nodding.
"Good," Emily marched ahead of the three men and into the house. The first thing she saw was Joseph Sorel tied to a chair in the foyer with Lucky sitting next to him tapping a gun on his knee. She looked around slowly and admired the size of the house. The opening to her right was, what she assumed, the family room and to the left was the dinning room with its crystal chandelier hanging over a glass table. There were matching stair cases on either side of the foyer that lead to the second floor and met in the middle of the house. The opening straight in front of her—behind where Joseph Sorel was tied to his chair—led to the back of the house where she assumed the kitchen and downstairs bathroom were. Everything was decorated in tacky gold's and creams that screamed, new money and no taste. She figured Sorel's wife had chosen the décor. "Nice place," she said, smiling sarcastically.
"I've very glad you approve," Sorel responded as he pulled against his bindings.
She shot him a look, shook her head, and said, "Let's examine the situation here. I have four men with me in the house and two outside, all of yours are either dead or they have betrayed you and left you to us. I am free to move around, you are tied to a chair. I am pissed off; you are tied to a chair. I could probably find more than enough instruments in this house to torture you with and you are tied to a chair. Oh," she turned around and walked over to the picture of his wife, sitting in the same chair he was now in, hanging on the wall, "and did I mention you are tied to a fucking chair! So you may not want to get an attitude with me."
"Are the four of you just gonna stand there and let this woman handle your business," Sorel asked as he diverted his attention from the very pissed of woman in front of him.
"Scared?" Lucky smiled as he leaned over and nudged Sorel. "I would be too, I've seen her pissed off and it ain't pretty. At all."
Sonny just looked at the three of them before stepping further in to the foyer and asking, "Why did you kill Thomas Marks?"
Emily whipped her head around and shot him an annoyed look, but Sonny just shook his head and waited for the answer.
"I didn't, I swear. I was with my wife when he was murdered. We were at her family's house."
Sonny nodded, not at all surprised. "Not great as alibis go, but we'll try this another way. Why did you have him killed?"
"I didn't."
"Then you've lost control of your territory?"
"You know it's no longer mine."
"So you're saying that Nikolai had him killed?"
"No. Yes. I don't know."
"You don't seem to know much of anything, maybe Jason can help you remember."
Jason made a move towards Sorel's chair and was rewarded with an outburst from the man.
"No, no, no," Sorel chanted and then looked over at Lorenzo. "You're a civilized man, are you going to let them torture me?"
Lorenzo made no move to answer, only stared across the room at the other man waiting for him to continue on with his pleading.
"Wait, I can help you," Sorel's eyes brightened as he looked towards Lorenzo. "I've heard Nikolai say things. He told me you have a daughter, if you stop them I may be able to get him to tell me where she is."
Emily smiled over at Sonny and nodded her head at the opening behind Sorel, none of the men commented as she walked around him and out of the foyer to wander around the house.
Lorenzo shook his head and pretended to be worried as he watched her leave, "What has he said about her? Where is she?"
Sorel sat up as far as he could in the chair and shot Sonny a victorious look believing that he'd finally found an ally in the room, "I can find out, you just have to protect me from them."
"He's lying," Sonny said, realizing that they needed to know exactly what Sorel know about Emily and everyone else.
"No, I'm not. I know she's somewhere in Port Charles and that her mother faked their deaths."
"Does he have her," Lorenzo asked.
"He didn't the last time we talked, but he could by now. If he does, I know where."
"Where?"
"Untie me."
"No," Jason said coldly and took another step towards the man. "Tell him where."
"Fine, fine," Sorel nodded. "He has a place near the edge of town, but the basement has tunnels in case he needs to escape, there are also hidden rooms. She'll be there."
"No," Emily said as she walked out of the kitchen and placed a couple of small steak and peeling knives on the marble table in front of him. "I'm here. Nice kitchen."
"But, but I just told you…"
"Nothing," she interrupted. "I'm his daughter and I'm right here. Tell me about Tommy."
Lorenzo didn't have time to be surprised that she's just brought knives out of the kitchen to torture a man, not when she's just called herself his daughter. He wasn't sure who it said more about that the first swell of fatherly prided he'd felt for his daughter came when she was holding a steak knife to a trembling mans neck.
"I don't…" Sorel tried to lean back away from the knife, but only succeeded in tipping the chair and having to pull himself that much closer to it so that he could rebalance.
"There was a war in Algeria," Emily said conversationally as she pulled the knife away and sat it on the table before she moved to stand directly in front of him. "It happened in the sixties, it was essentially France's version of Vietnam. Well, after they left Vietnam, but that's not the point. The point is that there was something very important about this war. Do you know what it was?" She hopped up onto the table as he shook his head. She nodded in response, not surprised. "Yeah, I figured. Well, I'll tell you. It was torture. You see it was during this war that they found out that prisoners would tell them just about anything to make the pain of torture stop. Truth. Lies. It didn't matter, anything to make the pain go away.
"They were doing it wrong," she kicked her feet out and lightly touched his knees. "The soldiers. You see they found out that in most situations the threat of torture is enough to get people to talk, you just have to give it time, let them think of the most horrible things that you could do to them. But," she drawled the word out and reached behind her to pick of one of the knives, "any good mobster knows that a threat is worthless without follow through. So what were they to do? Torture doesn't work, threats without torture are useless. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. No way out, right? Wrong. You see about a decade later a few nice, older Sicilian gentlemen let the world in on their secret. You just have to torture one. You do things so heinous, so terrible, to just one person that no one else will even risk telling you a lie. What do you think about that?"
"You need t know that what I am saying is the truth, you can't torture me."
"That's a good point," she nodded her head in his general direction. "Unless I've already decided you don't know anything and I am just doing this so the next guy tells the truth. So the question becomes: Who's smarter? Me or you. I say me, Lucky," she turned to her friend, "what do you think?"
"I don't know," Lucky drawled, "he is tied up. But maybe you shouldn't hurt him; he may be able to help us."
"What is this," Sorel looked between them. "Good cop, bad goop with little kids?"
Lucky leaned over to stare him in the face and said, his voice a mixture of coldness and congeniality, "What makes you think I'm the good cop?"
"Better yet," Emily smiled and twisted the knife in her hand. "What makes you think I'm the bad one?" She hopped off the table, walked over to Jason, handed him the knife and whispered in his ear without ever looking at Sorel again.
Jason took the knife out of her hand and walked over to Sorel. He stopped and stood in front of the man, looking down at him with cold eyes before pulling up his leg and kicking Sorel's left hand with the tip of his steel toed boot.
Sorel yelled out in pain as blood swelled up on his knuckles and dripped down his fingers and onto the floor. Emily had time to think that the drip was an interesting opposition to Sorel's high pitched screams before he calmed himself and yelled, "You fucking son of a bitch!"
"Hey," Emily smiled as she looked over at him, "that's my mother and my brother you're talking about, you better watch it."
"Fucking bitch," Sorel gritted out before Jason, without warning, reach over and bent back the middle finger on the hand that was already bleeding until it snapped.
"Don't talk to her that way," he was so calm when he said it that it would have been easy for anyone to believe that he hadn't actually done any harm—easy to believe if Sorel wasn't, once again, screaming out in pain, that is.
"Okay, enough," Sonny stepped in front of Emily realizing that if Sorel wasn't going to talk to her before he certainly wouldn't now. "Tell us about Thomas Marks."
"I don't know why Andrejs had him killed," Sorel said as the breath heaved from his body and tears streamed down his face.
"But you know it was him," Sonny asked.
"Yes. I heard him talk about it with that psycho Simon, but it sounded like a favor for someone else."
"Who? Why?"
"I don't know, they said he was getting too close to the truth too soon. I don't think it had anything to do with either of the girls they talked about."
"Either?"
"Yeah, he said this Thomas guy had information on you," he nodded to Emily, finally realizing she was Alcazar's daughter, "and your cousin. Luis Alcazar's daughter."
Emily turned to Lorenzo and simply said, "Sam."
"Whatever," Sorel continued, "he wasn't worried about that. It was the other thing."
"What other thing?"
"I don't know."
Sonny nodded to Lucky and said, "Put a gag on him."
As Sonny turned around to talk with Emily the door to Sorel's home flew open and Max walked in, out of breath and worried, "Sir, we have a problem."
Everyone turned to look at the woman who walked in after him. Emily stared at her long, black hair and petite stature for a second before she realized who she was staring at, "Hello Mrs. Sorel."
"Oh God," the woman stepped back and cowered against the door, "please don't hurt me."
"We'll handle this," Sonny told Max, an annoyed look crossing his face. "Go back outside."
The woman watched Max walk out the door like he was the last sip of water there was and she was in the middle of the desert, like he was her last hope.
"Are you going to kill me? Dios mío. Please. I have children; I won't speak of what I've seen here."
Emily stepped a little closer to the woman and noticed the shadow peeking out from under her big sunglasses, "Mrs. Sorel, could you please take your glasses off?"
Pilar Sorel nodded as she reached up and removed the glasses from her face.
Emily groaned inwardly as she saw the bruise covering the woman's left eye and part of her cheek, "We won't hurt you. You begged for your life for the sake of your children. Why not his?" She asked pointing toward Sorel.
She looked at her husband and then back to Emily before answering, "My boys need a mother."
"Not a father?"
The woman looked around quietly, confused as the how relevant the question was and what she needed to say. Before she could speak again Emily took another step forward and reached out the touch the bruise on her cheek, all of the men, with the exception of Sorel who was groaning and struggling in his seat, stood completely quiet.
"Did he do that to you?"
"I, he, no—"
"You don't have to lie; he's tied to a chair."
"He may get united."
"Not with us here."
"You will leave."
"Yes, and we were going to handle him before we left, but I'm not sure we can since you have seen us. Maybe, maybe there is someplace else you could be and if you were there then we never would have seen you and you never would have seen us."
Joseph Sorel's wife turned to watch him struggling in the chair, staring up at her with fear in his eyes, and then she touched her own finger to the bruise under her eye before saying, "Yes, I could be at my mother's."
"And she will remember you being there? You can tell her you will be safe, no one will come after you ever again, I promise."
"You are sure," the woman asked as she inched carefully toward the door.
Emily took another step forward and looked the woman in the eye, "You have my word."
"Thank you."
"No, thank you." Emily barely got the words out before Pilar Sorel was opening the door to her home and leaving, never turning back to look at her husband struggling and groaning in the chair he was tied to.
"Can we trust her not to call anyone," Jason asked.
"She never asked if he was okay, never cared. That, along with the bruise…yeah we can trust her. Have someone follow her for a few days then leave her alone," Emily turned to Sonny. "Okay with you?"
"Fine."
"Good, so what are we gonna do with him," she asked, speaking just low enough that their captive couldn't hear her.
"We have to kill him now," Jason answered. "We can't risk him coming after us or his wife."
"Yeah, but how do we do it?"
"We don't," Jason said pointedly. "Lucky and I will handle it."
"But…"
"He's right," Sonny interrupted before she could work herself up to yelling and screaming and not hearing a word they said. "It's not your problem. We all trust you here, but when all this is done if you want to choose another path we're not messing that up for you now."
"But I've already…"
"What you've done in the past as Corey doesn't matter. Here you are Emily and right here, right now, we aren't gonna let you kill a man in cold blood. No arguments."
"Okay," she nodded, realizing that whether what he said was true or not did matter, they needed to believe it and she needed to let them.
"Good," Sonny turned to Lorenzo and said, "You have to go with her, the Commission can't know you were here. Jason, walk them out and let them take the car you came in. Max and Johnny will stay here."
Emily stared at him without speaking and tried her best to ignore the clinching of her stomach at how sexy he was when he was taking command, instead of standing there and giving herself away she walked out with Lorenzo and Jason and as they were walking toward the car stopped and said to her father, "You go ahead, I need to talk with Jason really quick."
"Are you okay," Jason asked as Lorenzo nodded and walked away.
"Yeah. Great. Fine. What do I say to him," she asked pointing to Lorenzo as he climbed into the passenger's seat.
"Don't say anything."
"I'm not you," Emily laughed, "I can't sit in a car and not talk to someone."
"Try." He shrugged.
She shoved him back a step and groaned, "Come on."
"What? I don't know what you should say to him."
"You are so not helpful." She started to walk away and then turned back to him, "Hey!"
"What," Jason groaned.
"The other person, the one Sorel says he doesn't know about, he could be the one who hid the body in the shipment the night of the meeting. You should ask him about that."
Jason nodded and started to walk away when she called him again.
"About telling you to kick Sorel…"
"It's fine."
"Yeah? We're alright?"
Jason walked back and wrapped his arms around her neck, pulling her close and resting his head in her hair, "Always."
"Good."
Emily held her breath as Jason walked to the house and gave her a final wave before going in. Now or never, she said to herself as she pulled open the door to the car. Now or never.
"So where am I taking you?"
"Port Charles Hotel," Lorenzo answered.
Emily rolled her eyes and groaned, "Figures."
"Problem?"
"No. It's just my family owns that hotel," she rubbed her forehead. "Maybe no one will recognize me in this car."
Lorenzo only stared at her as she started the car and when she looked over and noticed the confused look on his face she heaved out a breath, "Listen, they can be…overbearing. My relationship with Sonny is bad enough, knowing about you will probably bring on a fake heart attack from grandfather…"
"I see," he interrupted and continued staring at her.
"Doubtful," she laughed and pulled out of the driveway, "but whatever."
"Are they so horrible?"
"Horrible? No. Ridiculously overprotective? Yes."
"They believe you are in a relationship with a much older, dangerous man," Lorenzo said, confused at why she wouldn't expect them to be overprotective.
"I am in a relationship with a much older, dangerous man."
"Your friend Thomas said it was for business purposes."
"It was," Emily responded, emphasizing the past tense. "What else did Tommy tell you?"
He sat quietly and she grinned out the window.
"Oh don't get quiet now," she said, turning the wheel, as he leaned back into his seat. "How long were you two meeting behind my back? Since we got the Port Charles? Before that…God, I feel like a jealous girlfriend."
"After you were shot I called my father," Lorenzo answered, ignoring her last comment, "my mother came on the phone while I was speaking with him, she's been ill since my brother's death, and she told me that she found the perfect woman for me. She'd found a picture and she said that you looked like Sophie and I was to protect you. I realized you did bear a striking resemblance to my dead wife, whose middle name was Paige, and after that I contacted Thomas Marks."
"Oh." Emily nodded. "Uh, sorry about your mother. What's wrong with her?"
"The doctors aren't quite sure." His only response to her sudden laughter was to raise his eyebrows in her general direction.
"I'm sorry, really. It's just that whenever my grandfather, or sometimes my grandmother for that matter, gets sick and the doctors don't know what's wrong with him we assume he's planning something. I guess it's not like that with your family."
"Your family."
"Yeah, about that—listen, I've had two mothers, varying levels of fathers, brothers that hate each other and, I guess, a long lost cousin. I'm gonna need to go slow with this. Very slow."
"Alright," he answered then slid comfortably into the silence that seemed perfectly natural to her for about two minutes before saying, "Can I ask you something?"
"I guess. What?"
"How did you know about Algeria?"
"I was an honor student in high school," she laughed. "I liked history. Plus Nikolas Cassadine is one of my best friends and as I'm sure you know, that family is a fountain of historic information."
"Yes they are."
"So did Stefan always have a huge stick shoved up his ass?"
"He was always…stoic, but I believe he got worse after Nikolas was born. I can't be sure."
"What about Alexis?"
"She doesn't much like sticks," he answered quickly and surprised her by laughing enthusiastically. "I believe that she may have been born a lawyer, that girl would tell you the sky was yellow and make a good argument for it. She and Luis would go at it for hours."
"I bet they would," she said, laughing.
He turned and gave her a look that she couldn't describe as anything but scolding and it took all her power to hold the laugh that came bubbling out of her for as long as she could.
"Okay, okay," she heaved out a breath and rested her head on the steering while, when they stopped at a red light, trying to regain her composure. "What about you? Stefan said you always wanted to be a professor. Is that true?"
"Yes. History."
"Why?"
"I suppose for the same reason that the Cassadine are so versed in it. You can find the answer to any question you want if you look far enough back into the past."
"Paige used to say that the answers to all life's questions were in pop music and romance novels."
Lorenzo smiled and said, "You call her Paige."
"Yeah, you know…I just…"
"I'm not upset, I understand."
"My family loves me. It's hard enough for them to have to share me with Jason and my friends…I just don't want to hurt them."
"I understand."
"I don't want to hurt you either," she inclined her head toward him as she made a right-hand turn.
"I understand that too."
"Yeah, maybe you do."
He stared at her profile for a minute, amazed at how much she looked like the Sophie that he remembered, and said, "Would you like me to tell you about your mother when she was younger?"
"No," Emily answered quickly and then let out a breath. "Not just yet. Okay?"
"Alright. You said you were an honor roll student in high school."
"Yeah, shockingly."
"Shockingly?"
"I'm not sure if that was a question or a dig at my grammar. But let's just say my teen years were very…adventurous. I seem to attract trouble."
"I believe you may get that from my side of the family."
"That," she smiled, "on top of being a Quartermaine, Jason Morgan's sister, Lucky and Nikolas' best friend. I guess I'm lucky to be alive."
"Maybe. Would you mind me asking you another question?"
"I guess not," she answered giving him a look out of the corner of her eye. He sure had a lot of them for someone who hadn't known he had a daughter a month before.
"Are you happy?"
"In comparison to who," she responded, taken aback.
"To you six years ago."
"I'm not sure I can answer that. Six years ago I didn't know half of what I know now. I was a kid six years ago. I'll say this, most days the good outweighs the bad. Is that good enough?"
"For now," he answered and they spent the rest of the ride to the Port Charles Hotel in silence, father and daughter both staring out their respective windows trying to figure each other out.
Back at Joseph Sorel's house
When Jason came back into the house, Sonny was standing at the door waiting for him and Lucky was standing guard over Sorel, not that anyone really needed to.
"How is everything?"
Jason nodded his head, he heard the underlying question; How is Emily? "Fine. Johnny and Max are getting the car ready. We'll set it up to look like he went off a cliff."
"Cops'll know it's staged."
"Do we care?"
"No."
"I had Johnny call for another car, it'll be here soon."
"Good. Anything else?"
"Something Em said," Jason answered as he looked over at Sorel and Sonny raised his eyebrows. "She mentioned that we should ask him about the body in the shipment."
"She thinks Sorel did it?"
"No," Jason shook his head, "The guy who needed Marks dead. She thinks Sorel may know more about him."
"Could be why Tommy asked Em to meet him in Sorel's territory the night he died. He knew Sorel wasn't a threat anymore, but someone else was. She did say he'd been on edge about something and he wanted to talk to her. I think she assumed it had to do with the Alcazar's or the Cassadine's…maybe not."
"Maybe he found out who the other threat is."
Sonny nodded in Sorel's direction. "Let's see."
They both walked over to where Sorel was tied to the chair and Sonny motioned for Lucky to remove the other man's gag.
"What do you want now? What did you do with my wife?"
"Interesting order," Lucky said shaking his head. "Would you like to be told what we want before or after you hear the fate of your wife?"
Sorel looked at the three men standing in front of him and realized his misstep, they all allowed themselves to be guided by the needs of women, "Where is she?"
"Probably on her way to her mother's house. Women have an odd way of not giving a fuck about men who beat them. Go figure."
"I never…" He didn't even finish the lie. By the time he got the words out of his mouth he realized that the three pairs of eyes staring back at him belonged to men who didn't give a damn what he had to say, not about that anyway. "What are you going to do with me?"
"With you and to you are two separate things. Which do you think is more important?"
"Enough," Sonny stepped between Lucky and Sorel. "What do you know about the body we found in my shipment?"
"What body?"
"You don't want to play stupid with me, especially not with Lucky all but begging to kill you."
"I don't know who the body was."
"What about who put it there?"
"He'll kill me."
"So will I."
"His name is Lansing," Sorel said, lifting his eyes from the floor and staring Sonny in the face.
"Why would the DA put a body in my shipment," Sonny asked, more to himself than anyone else.
"No. Not him, his father. Trevor Lansing."
"Why?"
"You don't know?" Sorel shook his head. "Neither do I. All I know is that he meets with Nikolai at a club sometimes and he hates you."
"What club?" Sonny waited while Sorel searched the tiny database that was his brain and then gave him the name of the club. "Anything else?"
"No," Sorel answered and his head shot up hopefully when Johnny walked through the door.
"Boss. Car's ready."
Sonny nodded in Sorel's general direction, "Take him."
Johnny walked across the room and untied Sorel so that he could drag him across the room and out the door. When they were gone Sonny looked to Lucky and Jason and asked, "Have either of you ever heard of Trevor Lansing?"
After they both shook their heads, Lucky said, "This seems to be personal though. Em said that his son had a real hate on for you already."
"Why?" Jason looked at both Sonny and Lucky and realized they were all in the same situation with no clue as to who the hell Trevor and Ric Lansing were and what they had to do with Sonny.
"I've never heard of either of them."
"Maybe you have and don't know it," Lucky guessed. "I mean people hold grudges for lots of shit, maybe you kicked his son's ass in high school or…"
"Or what," Sonny turned to look when Lucky's guessing game dropped off.
"Maybe it's not you. If this is a father, son thing then maybe it's something Mike did."
"Alright, we'll have Stan look into it and see what he can find."
"Maybe we should ask Alcazar," Jason broached the topic carefully; he knew that Sonny would not be very interested in trusting the other man, even if he was Emily's biological father. "If Lansing is connected to Nikolai then maybe his family has heard of the guy."
"We'll ask."
All three men turned their heads as Max opened the door to the house and said, "The cleaning crew is here."
"Good," Sonny started walked towards the door with Jason and Lucky following closely behind. "Make sure they wipe down the kitchen too, Emily was in there."
Max agreed and watched as his three bosses, because more and more Lucky was becoming more a boss than a guard or an errand boy, left the house.
Timeline: (ending with August 2006)--sorry, this is the best I could get it to format with the damn edit/preview thingy!
2006, August—Sam McCall (26) comes to Port Charles
July—Bella (9) comes to Port Charles
June—The Road Less Traveled begins
2004, September 12—Jason and Brenda marry
2002, June—Emily (19, 20) disappears from Port Charles
1997, February 7—Bella is born
1996, December 29—Michael is born
1995,Emily, believed to be 12 years old (actually 13), adopted by the Quartermaines
1983, January 17—When Emily believed she was born
1982, January 17—When Emily as actually born
1981, January—Sophie miscarries first child
November 5—Nikolas Cassadine Born
1980, March 23—Sam McCall (Cassadine) Born
January 10—Sophie and Lorenzo get married; the Cassadines are cut-off from the Alcazars
1979, November 29—Alexander Nikolai dies
October 20—Sophie and Lorenzo's engagement announced
1977, June—Sophie, Alexis, and Stefan meet up with Lorenzo and Luis for the first time
May—Alexander Nikolai married Andrejs' mother
1976, July—First meeting with Sophie (16) and Alexis (13); Stefan is also 16
1963, January 8—Alexis Davis (AKA Natasha Cassadine, AKA Corey) Born
1962, Andrejs Nikolai Born
Simon Morris Born
1960, January 3—Sophie Paige Nikolai (AKA Paige Bowen, AKA Sam) Born
June 13—Stefan Cassadine Born
1959, March—Stavros Cassadine Born
March 18—Lorenzo Alcazar Born
1957, March 7—Luis Alcazar Born
You know the drill, Loke!, click that pretty little review button at the bottom of the page, Loke!, and let me know what you're thinking, Loke!! :)