Thank you ever so much for the reviews. It is no little thing and means the world to me. If I could hug all of you who take the time to share your thoughts, I really, really would! My grandfather is doing a bit better, grumpy that he isn't allowed to resume all activities but, at 92, I think I'd be disgruntled if told I couldn't do what I wanted as well. My dad's doing…better-ish, hopefully these new tests he has to have done show he's doing okay. Thank you for your thoughts and well wishes!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
"You need to stop going out! Every time you do, you risk being recognized and honestly, with how much this whole thing has been screwed up, we can't take the chance. I want my revenge, you want…something…until our tech guy gets us all the details, I don't see why you keep sneaking out, to do whatever the hell it is you are doing." He said bitterly. Once upon a time, he was a good and honorable man but he wasn't that man anymore, maybe, whispered his inner mind, you only thought you were good. Deciding to not give that line of thinking a moment's thought, he quickly squashed it all.
"I don't need to stop; it isn't like I spent a lot of time in this shit hole before. Some people may remember, briefly but who cares, our hands are clean…well, you know what I mean. She doesn't know us, he couldn't suspect us, and the Webber's are too idiotic to pin this on us, so why are you sweating it? I am a free spirit and listening to your Nancy whining, does more to drive me out there than most anything else." He huffed.
Before the escalating tension could reach eruption point, his phone rang. "Ya?" He lazily barks into the phone.
"Why hasn't my little lamb been secured?" The digitally altered voice asks malevolently.
"Because it has the strongest Eastern seaboard gangster watching out for it. This isn't a simple little thing, while I think nothing of the man, his man is problematic. One doesn't just dive in and hope for results. A smart person doesn't go swimming with sharks when he's a proverbially chum in the water." He said a little snidely, like he was explaining first grade math to a toddler.
"Well, if you hadn't let your perversions get the best of you and hired competent help, we wouldn't be in this situation now would we? I expect you to handle this; I want my package by the end of the week. Kill them all if you have to." The voice said before the line went dead.
"Way to go asshat, provoke the one person who is going to make sure I get my revenge."
"I wasn't provoking, simply stating. What do you care, in a week or less, you'll have your revenge and can finally put this behind you. It would be nice to speak to you without the constant whining."
It was an old argument, each picking at the festering wounds, neither willing to bend to the other's will. Before tempers could flare any higher, he stomped from the room, discreetly checking his back pocket, satisfied that his little treasure was still there.
XxXxXxX
Questions, hundreds of them spiraled through his mind. When he had come upon this…setting, this was not what he had expected. He watched the other man with a do or don't look flashing across his face every few seconds. He wondered briefly if he himself had the same look.
What was the protocol to something like this he asked himself silently? His daughter was in the bathroom, naked, with a hitman…
It wasn't until his daughter claimed he had the worst timing that he finally couldn't hold his feet back any longer. He walked with quick strides straight into the room and pivoted on his heel when he realized Elizabeth was barely covered by a towel. Cursing himself for forgetting the whole naked comment from before. "Can you get your grubby paws off my baby girl!?" Mac said through strained lips.
"Argghhhhh…" He heard screamed from behind him.
Unable to stop, he quickly turned back, beginning to feel like a dreidel being spun into the floor. If he had the thread of a screw on his feet, he'd be planted three feet into the floor.
"Mac…dad…" He heard in stereo.
Knowing it wasn't his place but unable to keep his lips closed, Mac scowled at the both of them. "What do you think you are doing? You do not get to defile my innocent, traumatized daughter, you big…lug…" Mac spat out, quickly running out of steam.
"Innocent, traumatized…oh lord…dad, this isn't what it looks like and even if it was, I'm sorry but I am a grown woman, you don't get to dictate who gets to defile me, if I want to be defiled then that is my right, come on, this isn't the bronze age, you aren't not the lord overseer of my maiden hood, and for that matter, how do you even know if I have anything to be defiled…Geeze, I need less testosterone in my life." Elizabeth sulked.
"Excuse me?" Was all but shouted from three different directions.
Elizabeth had been riding a rollercoaster of emotion for too long, as she stomped up to Johnny, she poked him in the chest, "Not my father, brother, uncle, boyfriend, husband." Emphasizing her words with a poke after each. Her point made she spun back to her father, "You may be my father but this ain't going to fly, you want to be a part of my life, then keep your thoughts on my sex life, to yourself. I didn't ask about your sex life, and I plan on keeping it like that." After making sure she poked extra hard, she turned to Jason, "You are not my father, brother, uncle, husband, the fact that you have the potential to be my boyfriend, doesn't mean you get to dictate, well, anything. You either want me for me or not at all, got it mister!" Elizabeth said, poking him a little softer than the others.
And wanting to make sure that everyone was on the same page, Elizabeth took pity on the man who had just saved her life and quickly placed a gentle but very, very promising kiss to his lips before flouncing out of the room, leaving the men in a stunned stupor. Smiling like the cat that had eaten the canary. 'Misogynistic asses!' Her mind thought snarkily.
XxXxXxX
Two of the three men were staring at their feet, unwilling to be the one to break the silence. Jason…he just had a brilliant smile resting on his face. He was liable to be an idiot fairly often where in came to Elizabeth but was thankful that this wasn't really one of those moments.
"I can hear you smiling Morgan, stop it!" Mac said without looking up.
Rolling his eyes, but deciding to throw the man a bone...he said, "Listen, I don't know what you think you walked in on but Elizabeth was having a panic attack, be glad I got here when I did, she could have died from asphyxiation or when she lost consciousness from lack of oxygen and brained herself. I get you may not like me or my profession but you will be cutting your nose off to spite your face if you can't get a handle on all of this. I am not trying to hurt your daughter, I don't want to defile…"
Hearing the older man's snort caused Jason to pause and admit, only within his own mind, that okay, yes, he wanted to do lots of naughty things with the woman but it wasn't like he was going to admit it to the man. "I mean…" He huffed under his breath, "That all I want to do…I want to make sure she is safe, protected, loved…I understand you are at a disadvantage, that your instincts are probably demanding you coddle her and lock her away but, sadly, you are coming in late to the game, you can't force anything. What you become with her will be on her terms." With that said, he walked out of the room.
Mac looked at the guard wondering what he would have to say. "Anything to add?"
Johnny wondered if there really was anything else to say. "Listen, you are a good man but I'd like to point out that the man, who just walked out of here, is also. After everything she has been through, all any of us want to do is wrap her up in cotton to make sure she has a wonderful life. I know, she won't stand for that and honestly, she shouldn't have to, her entire life has been dictated in some form or another. Be her dad, but remember, she is an adult. Love her that is all she needs."
Scrubbing a hand down his face, he said, "Everything about this is so hard. I do want to wrap her in cotton, I want to teach her to ride a bike, drive...I want to be daddy and kiss her boo-boo's away but someone decided that they got to play God with not only her life but mine too, how…I am finding it very hard to reconcile that all those moments that should have been documented and treasured have been stolen from me, from her and the most I could probably hope for, is a cordial relationship."
"Nah, she may be stubborn as a horse's ass, but she'd never hold you so far away. You have to understand, her life has been turned upside down. What she knew last week isn't the same as what she knows this week. It may take months or years for a relationship to happen but she has an amazing heart, in the short time I have known her, I have seen that. Don't despair; I think you will be pleasantly surprised in the end." Johnny said while clapping the man on his shoulder before leaving the room. Today had just been too eventful, even for a guard used to shootouts, especially since and that spoke volumes.
XxXxXxX
Left alone to his thoughts, Mac kind of just stared around the still overly warm room, wondering what he should do now. Soft, almost baby-like words finally pulled him from his statue like state, following the lilting cadence to a closed door; Mac slowly raised his hand and knocked.
"Come in."
He'd barely breached the threshold before he heard a screeching meow reach his ears.
"Never you mind furball; I am the master, not you. You minion, me master." Elizabeth said while gently stroking the cat.
Noticing that her dad looked like he didn't know if he was welcome or not, she beckoned him with a small hand wave. "Dad…this is Cleo, Cleo this is my dad."
Unsure what he was supposed to say, he went with the easiest, "Hi Cleo…"
In the blink of an eye, the cat vaulted off his daughters lap and into his.
"You'll end up regretting that. It's weird, before we moved here; she didn't want anything to do with anyone but me. She put up with Piph because she sometimes fed her but look at her, broadening her horizons with new people. Maybe with so many new people in her life, she won't think I need to be woken numerous times a night, she can spread it around." Elizabeth laughed.
"Did you just introduce me to your cat because you are looking for more time to sleep?" Mac asked, slightly affronted.
"I would nev…yeah, totally. You don't know what it sounds like to have her in your ear, screaming at all times of night." Elizabeth could see the smile on his face and decided she needed to be forthcoming. "Look, I know you are having a hard time adjusting, so am I, I don't always know how to act or what to say and really, why should either of us. This is all so new. I appreciate the sentiment in the bathroom but while you may be my dad, you don't get to dictate who I get to see, if I chose to."
"But…" Mac said trailing off.
"No…if you think about it, my whole life has been about control, I don't need more of that now. Yes, I am in danger, yes I will listen, within reason but I don't want to be scared anymore, I want to trust. I haven't had a lot of that in my life, if you want to love me, then please do so, I can never have too much love in my life and while I may not know the Corinthos/Morgan men very well, I still know them a little better than you. I am naive and I will probably screw up and a hundred other things but that is my right. What you need to see, understand, I feel safe with that man. I have never had that before. Sure, around the guards, I am slowly loosening up but with Jason…it's more…a hundred thousand times more. Don't take that away from."
"Am I allowed to worry?" Mac asked softly. His sentence was barely finished before his daughter was in his arms, holding on with a fierceness he wasn't used to.
"Of course!" Elizabeth breathed into his neck.
His arms contracted pulling her tighter, unwilling to let her leave his arms. How could he explain what was going through his heart and mind. That moment up at Vista Point might have been the beginning of it but having her in his arms, her warm breath wafting across his skin; it was like his whole world suddenly had so much more clarity. Mumbling under his breath, he said, "I feel like a dad."
His heart beat faster as he felt the first tears whisper across his neck, "No, hush sweetie, I love you. I know…this isn't ideal, nothing ever is, but don't you ever doubt this, you are mine. You are my beautiful little girl and I am so proud of you. We may have been robbed but we have the rest of our lives. I love you. I love you." He kept repeating.
For long minutes, crying against each other, for the past, for the future, they just held on.
Elizabeth wasn't ready to speak about her love, seeing as how those words had never passed her lips but she felt deep affection. Hugging him just a little tighter, she hoped her actions could convey that. They had a long way to go but she was ready to face it, together.
"Did you have to pick Jason though?" Mac asked.
Elizabeth couldn't help the bubble of laughter from spilling over. "Yes." She said in all sincerity.
"Damnit…"
Elizabeth continued laughter the only response.
XxXxXxX
