- Chapter Three -
That's Egg On Your Face
No. No. No, no, no.
Breathless as an overly excited child that had been waiting an entire lifetime to meet a long-time idol, the energetic man at the door introduced himself, "I'm Logan. Savage. Crystal's son." Elaborating piece by piece as the ex-con gazed at him with mounting disquiet in his hazel eyes, if one listened closely they could make out the vaguest hint of the old neighborhood in the kid's accent. "I'm looking for Sam Morgan."
Sam Morgan. Now that was a name that he hadn't heard in decades, but for good reason. More concerning than hearing the surname of a dead man long buried and gone, somehow, was not the mystery of who had dug it up but why. Perhaps once the mastermind's intention became clear, the brunette would ask who was behind the curtain, but until then that could wait. Clearly this had to be someone's idea of a sick and sadistic joke, because at this point in time there was only reason to be turning up stones looking for Sam Morgan.
Not for a lack of practice - so much practice - the expert historian had never once in his life been accused of being anyone's father. Not once. Granted there weren't many areas where he fell short, history and experience had proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was just one of the few tasks he wasn't up to. Socially, in nearly all his informal relationships the veteran thief could add follow-up of any variety to the list.
Although seeing the lean man standing before him, it was a hair more than pretty damn difficult to dispute the resemblance. Six foot tall, lanky build, same general hairline, the more that one looked, the more similarities were there to count. In a court of his peers, he'd have to say nay, it just wasn't possible. Yet if seeing was believing and this kid was what he seemed... how many more might there have been? Too dangerous a road to go down, especially at this point in his life, Sam refused to buy it.
When he had learned that Nathan had settled down in the fifteen years they'd been apart, Sam honestly had his doubts that it was going to be serious enough to last, so he never really stopped to fit Elena into the equation of his plans to find Avery's treasure. She was his little brother's problem, so getting caught in the lie was nothing more than a minor upset - the elder Drake had laid too much on the line to let some broad stand in the way. But then he met her, and he started to see why she meant so much to his little brother. Considering the power of her backhand and the ferocious way she fought off Shoreline, if he had to have a sister, he was glad that it was her.
Then they had Cassie. Nathan was so scared at the thought of being a dad that he looked like he was perpetually on the verge of fainting throughout his wife's pregnancy. After the way they had grown up, who could blame him? Somehow though, even in spite of what their family and friends were, those two had done a good job with their little girl. Initially the elder Drake had questioned the decision to name her after their mother - vocally at that - but now that she was growing into her own person, Sam couldn't imagine a better name for her.
Except... As much as he loved his niece (and Elena), he couldn't envision having a kid of his own. In terms of the family tree, he was better being the branch that stood on its own to reach for its own destiny. Baby carriages and Sunday brunch with the old ball and chain were fine for some people, but he hadn't changed his opinion that that sort of thing wasn't for him. Despite the efforts he had started to make with his little girl just before the end, Rafe wasn't cut out for that life either.
Christ, he really could have gone for a cigarette right about then.
Hands shaking behind the wooden portal, the man kept a composed face. If he'd been able to lie to his little brother for as long as he had about the whole Alcázar thing, then there was no way that a stranger would be exempt from his masterful skill. "Sorry pal, name's Drake." Strictly speaking, he wasn't sorry in the slightest to close the door in the kid's face. "You must have the wrong address."
Sharper than the lunkhead Sam had initially taken him for, Logan shook his head as he slipped his toe between the doorway. "I don't think so." The surfer shook his head to punctuate his point. "The P.I. I hired lost your scent in Panama, but he managed to dig up enough dirt to confirm that the two most likely candidates have a younger brother named Nathan."
"Do I need to call up security to remove you for a coincidence? Really?" The gun in his hand was beginning to slip from all the sweat that was coating his palm, so he readjusted his hold on the weapon. Motion creating a soft shuffling noise and light tap against the wood, the blonde gave no indication that he had heard.
Logan wasn't going to be turned away without a fight, that much was clear. "Nathan Drake is quite the legend they say. But there was never any previous mention of a brother, so I thought that maybe it was just a coincidence. Like you said." Inclining his head, Sam noted that the blonde was both expressive and prone to gesticulating with his hands. "I've been searching for so long, I didn't want to admit that this was another dead end - so I hired a second P.I. The day before my wedding," Logan took extreme care to flash the simple golden band on his left hand, "he found you in Eastern Europe with your colleague, Victor Sullivan. Dirty business, wasn't it?"
Not many people had been privy to that information. Not even Nate had known of the excursion, and despite everything his little brother liked to keep tabs on where in the wide world his family roamed. Or maybe it was because of everything that he liked to know, just in case. It seemed to set his mind at peace either way, so when there was no immediate danger of the settled Drake knowing, they usually kept the working father informed on their whereabouts. But not that time.
Repeating himself, Logan could tell that he had finally found what he had spent the better part of his adult life fighting to find. "I've been looking for you for a long time."
Lowering his firearm before it accidentally went off, the world was starting to spin around Sam. Lost in time, it registered (however barely) that the kid had mentioned the name Crystal. Racking his brain during the entire conversation, the brunette could only think of one Crystal that knew him as Sam Morgan. But he didn't want to believe what this man was trying to sell. He couldn't. Yet all the same, everything he knew was flashing before his eyes. Was this what dying felt like? His mind raced back to when he had failed to escape from Panama with Nathan and Rafe, but he honestly couldn't remember anything after the bullets had punctured his abdomen and he fell through the roof.
Only the darkness and the fall...
Fickle in that the body and heart were at odds with one another, Daniella tossed around halfheartedly. Each blow in the war causing the springs of the leather-like sofa to groan, in the struggle to contemplate making herself a smaller target, the teen inadvertently realized that she was weaker from hunger than originally thought. Foolish enough to literally sway with each point her psyche made, it was her own fault that the battle ended with her toppling off the divan with a silence-shattering crash.
Plummeting to the floor in a near-naked heap, the first thing that the heiress noticed about her new position was that her head was ringing from how hard she'd knocked herself on the floor. Give it time, and it would probably develop into a minor headache. Feeding into one another, the second and third things to catch the attention of the most graceful of young women were a hairsbreadth away from being simultaneous. Twisted around and out of the one thing that had been blocking the sight of the rich lass in her intimates from the world, in her rush to reach for cover, the twee teen's wrist throbbed dully from where it had connected with the coffee table.
On edge from the lack of action and eager for any excuse to send the surfer away, the professional thief slammed the door shut without preamble at the commotion in the next room. Division of areas used in the loosest of terms due to the open construction of the hotel, technically the only things separating the antechamber from the sitting room was a double archway with optional shutters and a declining step that promised to be the eventual death of a drunk alone.
In his haste to check on the girl, it slipped his mind to fasten the lock before dashing off.
Finger just itching for an excuse to pull the trigger, Drake was disappointed to find that the only danger present in the room was the teen. She was probably his punishment for wanting one last great adventure before he retired.
"Let me guess, there was a spider?" There weren't many that were fond of the arachnid family, and this girl definitely did not look like an exception. Kept to the point of being called immaculate, Rafe had resided in grandeur that befit his wealth, so it only made sense that his daughter would inhabit a fancy mansion with servants so good at their jobs that the girl had probably never seen a spider in her life.
Difficult to tell as it was from their respective angles, it almost looked like she was trying to leer at him.
Critical as Mama had been, Daniella had gone to public schools during the years her mother deemed to be of less crucial importance, i.e. preschool through kindergarten and all of middle school. When asked about why she had made the decision to separate her daughter's school career in such a fashion, the woman's measured response had been that it was healthier socially to get to understand all sorts. Hedging her bets to be safe, Bai had hired private tutors to pick up the slack of the education system throughout the years, six in all. Seven, if you counted the one that had been fired within the first semester for pushing their own political agenda. But yes, the heiress had seen spiders before.
Questioning if the lack of feedback was due to her being too crushed to muster the strength or if it was because the girl was genuinely hurt from her maybe two foot drop, he holstered his gun at his back and knelt down by her side. Ultimately it would come down to him having to lug her around somewhere, but it remained to be seen where. For now what mattered was making sure she hadn't broken herself before he could collect. Alive was the important thing, but there were some that were frugal enough to reduce the final payout for things like the thinest of scratches.
"Alright, what's the damage?" Kind enough, he averted his gaze from where the lace padding and contoured wires wanted his dark eyes to roam.
Career in the medical field not a viable option on the table in her mind, it was easy enough to guess that she would walk out of this with a bruise or two. Better safe than sorry, the teen had been through enough physicals to know to move her other joints and limbs around to ascertain the extent of the collapse. Bringing her uninjured hand up from her side to hold the shoulder that had absorbed some of the crash, there wasn't so much as a grunt. Hips no more sore from the tumble than they ought to have been, legs bending at the knee, each piggy wiggling of their own accord, spine slowly curling this way and that, everything seemed to be in order.
Each performing their own examination, they both came to the conclusion that this was nothing to worry about. Extra mindful of where exactly he was placing his hands, Sam pumped both elbows - one right after the other - and manually guided the girl as she raised and lowered her shoulders into the air without a peep. Rotating her hips own her own accord and catching the fringes of his attention by making it a full-body examination, the only relevant occurrence was a sharp murmur when he pressed his fingers into an old scar on her wrist. Other than that, neither said a single word the entire time.
Broken arm coming as a bit of shock from someone that looked so refined, he deemed her to be fit by the expressions to swim across her face and the little sounds to escape from her mouth. Rather she earned a clean bill of health from a lack of response, but screw the semantics.
"You'll live."
Counting her blessings that this wasn't anything to cry over (with the possible exception of how rough the stranger was) he was even more disheartened by the outcome. The ex-con didn't want to see the girl suffering per say, it just would have been some consolation at least to have to take her out of there in a hurry. On the bright side, this had gotten him away from that Logan character. The down side there was that he would probably be staking the place out, just waiting for his chance.
Dangerously close to letting out a whimper when he touched the exact spot that had collided with the table leg, the girl merely winced when Sam slung his arm across the expanse of her back to move her into an upright position. Clean bill of health or no, the next step of the transition was to get that plate of food into her belly; Drake meant it when he threatened to force her to eat. After this little accident he figured that she would be more pliable to his demand, but the stock she came from had a long history of being stubborn. Especially where he was involved.
Enjoying the fluffy yellow chunks even more when they had been mixed with the swollen oats swimming in the white porcelain bowl, the heiress nodded at the brunette in gratitude. It turned out that the stranger's cooking warranted compliment, but between the strain and how difficult it had been to convince her to finish the entire portion on her own, it wasn't going to happen. Good manners and years of lectures screaming at her to get over herself and the selfishness of her grief, Daniella truly was tempted...
Or at least she had been, until some of the egg had crumbled off the end of her fork and ended up wedged between her bra. While it was one thing to find herself propped against his chest like a baby so he could work her jaw, there was a whole other level of embarrassment in dribbling food down her front when she wasn't squirming to free herself. Skin still red as a steamed lobster from the first spoonful of oatmeal that had splashed on her thigh, the heiress rued underestimating Sam Drake. Like she knew that he was going to honor his promise!
"Sam..." Practically inaudible due to how raw her throat doubtlessly was from crying all night, the pathetic attempt to manage croaking out even that much was taxing. Despite being inches from second base for the past few minutes, even in her distressed state there was a hesitance in anyone seeing her picking out her bra.
Thought of her mother being gone weighing too much to be self-conscious about hanging around in her skivvies, the truth was that she hadn't even spared a second thought to her state of dress after her downward trip. It probably helped matters that the stranger was more focused on making her eat than anything else. All the same, sprinkling the lukewarm lumps between her skin and the thin colored material was both nasty and a reminder of the fact that she was that exposed. Ladies just did not make those kinds of adjustments, in front of anyone.
Sticking by the heiress like white on rice to be a hundred percent sure that she was a good girl and finished her meal, it did not escape his notice that part of her breakfast had crumbled and missed her mouth. Nor did it elude him where it fell.
Free a word unfamiliar to the pair, the ex-con figured that with so much of the food already cleaned out now was as good a time as ever to spare them both by fetching her an old shirt to barrow. Toying with the idea of keeping a tab ever since piecing together who the girl was - as well as a grand or two (or five, depending on how much she ended up emulating dear old dad) for who she was related to on principle - this made up his mind. Sure there were more than enough old clothes in the dresser to spare, but there was no guarantee they'd be returned in the state he lent them out in. Besides, it would do the girl good to learn that not everything was going to be handed to her in life.
Getting up with more than one protesting pop and grating groan from his bones, the old thief paused when there was another tentative knock at the door. To his credit, the surfer had waited several minutes for the source of the crash to be sorted out, but no one's restraint was limitless. Obviously forgetting that they had had a visitor prior to this experience, she had looked at the man for an answer. It was hardly of importance, so he simply shrugged it off. Just like he shooed away the pesky unwanted thought of what an extraordinary amount of self-control the surfer had displayed, considering who's son he was.
Her royal majesty stated, at least for the moment, Sam peeked over once more at the increasingly assertive second knock. Somewhat distracted by the balls on that tatted-up beach rat, he absently plucked the golden confection from the heiress's person and popped it into his mouth as he ambled around the sofa to the bedroom. Even cold, as he sucked the remaining pieces off his finger and thumb he had to hand it to himself - his cooking skills were pretty damn good.
Written in the last look flashed between the duo, when he disappeared into the room it was with the unspoken expectation that she would be finished by the time he returned. Back to the main entry and heiress chowing down in his peripherals, he ignored the third tap on the door. Pondering to himself how many knocks it took to get to the center of his message, the brunette glanced at the clock on the nightstand. So early and yet already so late into the day. Contemplating how soon after her meal he would turn to the girl for whatever answers she may have to fill in the blanks of the story, he remembered that there was a shotgun tucked neatly in the bottom drawer. Opening the middle section of the dresser first, he grabbed the first thing to cross his path. Removing both the weapon and a stone gray thermal stained brownish crimson up to the elbow on one side, Drake thought to himself that he could kill two birds with one stone.
Alerted once more by the girl screaming - though the sound was almost too raspy to be considered the same as your average shriek - the pickpocket bolted back. Hanging ajar and letting in the mixed smells of rain, lemon-scented cleaning solution, and room service, the front door was open. Praying that it was finally an assassin or some other reason to justify being so heavily armed, instead what he found was the surfer frozen at the sight of the teen. Of course that had to be the case.
This. Day.
Unsure if it was more consternation or chagrin, as he approached the scene Sam noted that the bowl had been thrown across the room at the intruder. Aim a bit anemic but release dynamite, the cheap ceramic had hit the wall and cracked down the middle before making it to the floor. Considering the lean muscle the girl had been hiding the night before underneath feminine crochet, he wasn't surprised in the slightest by the discovery. In fact he was just glad to see that in the event of a threat, she had the fight-or-flight response required to save herself. Naturally he'd do what he could, but there would be times that she'd have to fend for herself.
Once she saw that Sam had returned, the look in her eyes accused him of lying when he told her that the person at the door wasn't anything to concern herself with. As if he had known that the surfer would just stroll in! Women. Even in miniature, they seemed so very fond of blaming him for this or that. Ordinarily he had a fix for that, but somehow the usual tricks didn't seem like they would be the solution this time around.
Tone completely altered from what it had been when standing in the hallway (before he had been assaulted by dish projectiles), Logan followed the teen's example and looked over his back at the other side of the room. Spotting Sam, he nodded sheepishly over at Daniella and shuffled back half a step from the open living room. "Hi. Again. Did I catch you at a bad time?"
No small amount of judgment in his emerald eyes, the younger of the two men was less than enthusiastic about what he had walked in on. Worst case scenario, the man he thought was his father was involved in way worse dealings than he had been led to believe. When it was just smuggling and lifting the odd artifact (which the child in him had thought was pretty damn cool), that was something he could have lived with. But to stumble across an underage Asian girl half-naked on the couch... that was just too far over the line of acceptability. Poor thing probably didn't even speak a lick of English.
Initially when the P.I. had warned Logan that Sam had been couped up in his hotel room for the better part of sixteen hours with a young woman, he had been impressed that someone so old had that kind of stamina. In fact it gave him hope for his own marriage. The current P.I. he was working with was very thorough and obviously worth every penny. Although it would have been nice if he had been better prepared to discover that the "young woman" in question was actually just a teenage girl.
Joking about this in the future aside - if that were possible - Drake kicked around some of the china shards on his way over to the paycheck. Heiress. Whatever the difference was. "Good to see that your made yourself comfortable, Ludwig."
All the glue in the world wouldn't have been enough to repair the devastation, so he assumed that most of the power in her attack had been fueled by fear. Either way, there was the capacity to do what needed to be done lurking inside. I'm almost proud of the kid. Aware of what was probably running through the mind of the blonde, he simply looked at the kid and shrugged. If he wanted to jump to conclusions, that was only going to make him look like the jerk in the end.
The longer that the surfer stared over at the girl, the more that Sam found himself wanting to throw something over her and/or shove her out of the spotlight. At the very least that would have meant something to his little brother. Oblivious to what was going on in the mind of the brunette, the younger man automatically corrected the mistake. "It's Logan."
Logan, as in Logan Savage?! Jaw dropping in sheer surprise, the part of the girl that wasn't terrified to find someone else returning in place of the stranger could have smacked herself for not recognizing the famous surfer. After all, she'd only had his poster hanging in her gym locker for the last two years now, there was no reason she would recognize the man she'd spent five minutes a week admiring. Dumb, dumb, dumb!
"Whatever." Something more than a hint of life sparking behind the sapphire tsunami in her eyes, it was a safe bet to assume that under normal circumstances she would be star-struck. The hell if he cared what the other man's name was, or that the teen seemed to recognize him. Setting the loaded shotgun against the back of the coach as he stood between the two, Samuel was less than thrilled with the both of them. "Right now I just see an intruder."
Gulping nervously at the sight of the gun that he had not previously noticed, as well as the second firearm secured at the other man's belt loop, Logan took another cautious step backwards. "The door wasn't locked, and you were taking so long I was worried that something had happened..."
Trailing off the blonde could barely swallow his own bullshit - anyone need only to take a single look at Sam to know that the man could take care of himself. As for anything drastic taking place behind closed doors, there were no follow-up sounds to indicate that something untoward had transpired. You know, unless you counted the whole cradle robbing thing.
"Whatever you say, Point Break." Tossing the teen the balled-up shirt, he decided in that moment to charge her fifty for this and an additional hundred for the meal. An extra twenty would go towards the broken dinnerware. Or maybe he'd even add in an additional zero to the tally - why stiff himself when the sky was the limit? "As for you, Miss Royal-Pain-In-My-Ass, you have some drool to clean up." She didn't, but that didn't stop him from motioning to his chin.
Raised by a woman that was pretty much running the criminal world, the ex-con would have expected the richest girl in the world to know how to act around a celebrity. Illicit earnings aside, by all logic a girl born into money should know that kind of etiquette. Positive that her father would have disapproved of her fawning as much as he did, Drake could tell that she would have been itching to jump out of her skin as she tip-toed ever closer to the lapse of fear and better judgment. Guess it was a good thing for everyone that she was still borderline catatonic. Not nearly catatonic enough, if she was so easy to read.
Still uncertain of their next move (after getting rid of the surfer bro for good), once they did inevitably get the show on the road, all of that blood was bound to draw attention sooner or later. Still though, it was better than having her wandering the streets in her underwear. That would have drawn too much attention, no matter how old she had been.
Wiping her mouth with the back of her petite little hand, Daniella was already wiggling into the shirt before she noticed the stain on the sleeve. Refusing to even think of what had caused such a mess, or if there was even a remote possibility that she could still end up catching something, the young lady was just relieved to have something that was dry.
"Are you sure that it was drool?" Missing that Sam was just messing with the girl's head and calling her out for the way that she had looked at the surfer, Logan was still conflicted about the teen's presence. The ease in which she had wormed into the top did nothing to assuage his suspicions, and the fact that she paid no heed of the blood on the shirt only made it worse in his head. But he decided that his business with the so-called Drake was more important.
Happy to be covered once more, she inclined her head once more in Sam's direction. Maybe the average person would have seen her as 'normal', but in her head she didn't have the confidence it took to wear a two-piece. From her perspective, the heiress was already another victim of modern media and being insecure over the outcome of living a active lifestyle, so this ordeal had done nothing to help her self-esteem. Mama was flawless and could have been a model if she'd so wished - if you overlooked the fact that she was few inches shy of the six foot mark - but the daughter was nothing like that.
Adolescent stage best described as being an awkward kind of puffy someplace between flabby and muscular, now that she was more developed her shape was even more distorted in her head. An inverted triangle with broad shoulders and arms fashioned by paddling on top, at the bottom she was left with scrawny little legs and surprisingly weak ankles. Don't even get her started on her lack of other curves...