I grimaced at the scene in front of me. Elliot was lying on the hard concrete outside of a latin bar. Christian was standing over him, holding his collar fisted in one hand as he continued to deliver punch after punch over Elliot's body. Two men, obviously the bouncers of the bar, were standing watching, but obviously not getting involved.

"Shit!" I exclaimed, jumping out of Gwen's car and running over to Christian. I grabbed Christian's arm, knowing he'd swing at me with the other one, but I was ready and ducked.

"Jesus, Anastasia!" he yelled, his face a mask of complete and utter fury. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

I stepped back and held my hands up. "Gwen told me Elliot was going after the Cartel. And I knew you would try and kill him yourself. You've stopped him."

Christian shrugged me off, dropping Elliot back onto the concrete. "Get up, Elliot."

I quickly stepped in between Christian and his brother. "Go home, Elliot."

He staggered back into his car, wiping the blood from his nose with the white sleeve of his shirt.

Christian exhaled heavily before climbing back into the black Audi and speeding away.

"Well that was interesting," I said, climbing back into Gwen's car. "Want to grab lunch?"

"You read my mind!" she said, pulling back into traffic. We didn't speak much. There was nothing that could be said about this situation. Either Christian was going to end up killing his brother if he didn't accept his place or Elliot was going to antagonize the Cartel enough so they would be the ones to put a bullet in his head.

We stopped quickly and Gwen caught my wrist before I could jump out of the car.

"Anastasia, you did the right thing. Elliot needs to be put in place, but he doesn't have to die at the hands of his brother. Christian may be angry now, but the anger if he had actually hurt Elliot would be much worse."

I nodded and hopped out of the car, trying to focus on choosing my lunch rather than the vicious pummeling I had just witnessed.

I was skimming through emails and munching on a salad when the door of Gwen's office burst open. Ros stuck her head in.

"Gwen we've got a personnel crisis on the fifth floor!"

Gwen nodded. "You can take a break, Ana. This is more of an HR thing anyway."

I nodded and held onto my salad as I stood. "I'm going to go and check in with Christian."

Ros smirked. "He is positively furious. He looks like he could beat someone black and blue."

My mouth dropped open and Ros chuckled as she took Gwen's hand and strolled towards the elevator. Shaking my head at her bluntness, I turned back towards Christian's office before Andrea waved me inside.

Christian's chair was turned towards the large floor to ceiling window in his office. I cleared my throat, hoping that he would turn around as he hadn't bothered to greet me when I opened the door.

"Every time I think I'm close to getting out, something else happens that derails all of my plans," he said softly, still not turning around. "This time it was you."

I frowned. "Are you really blaming me for not letting you kill Elliot? For not letting you kill you brother?"

He sighed. "Elliot is a nuisance."

"He's your family! How can you possibly say that? You'd hate yourself if you had killed him!"

"He's not really my brother."

"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard you say, Christian. Elliot is preventing you from taking over, but right now you need to push this aside and focus on the real enemy," I said, hoping that I was distracting him from his anger.

"And who do you believe is the real enemy?" he asked, turning his chair around.

"Elena," I said evenly. His furious steel eyes met mine. I refused to break eye contact, no matter how forceful his gaze. I wasn't a submissive and I would not yield to him on this. He needed to understand.

"What do you propose we do? Please, tell me Anastasia. You seem to know what's best."

I sighed and ignored his dig. "You've already taken care of the first step. We gave guns to the Cartel. We need to give them the contact in the Philippines. As for Elena's ex-husband, his guns will need to go somewhere else too. I know you mentioned the IRA, but why not kill two birds with one stone."

He raised an eyebrow. "How? Linc is protected. Virtually untouchable and sitting in his compound in South Africa."

"We order a large shipment. You store them at one of the salons. Then call the cops. On her way to prison, we call in a favor with the Cartel and the transport van explodes."

He pursed his lips together, eyes narrowing as he regarded me. "What about the pictures? She had copies and backups in place if she was ever arrested."

"This is a risk, but I'm willing to bet that she ordered the release of the pictures if she was arrested for charges against you. This is arms dealing, gun trafficking. Like I said, it's a risk that you might have to take."

He frowned. "I'm not comfortable with that."

I sat down in one of the chairs opposite his desk. "Christian, you've managed to build an incredible, legitimate company. It's clean and has never been rocked by scandal. You've got a brilliant PR department. In fact, I'm willing to bet again that after the mess dies down if the photos are released, and that's a big if, that it will be forgotten. don't forget how many cyber attacks Welch manages to derail everyday with people attempting to find dirt on you. Once you're out of the business, this is the only dirt you have to worry about."

He leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. "Call Gwen. I want you leading this. She will be leaving halfway through this mess and I want to get her out of the line of fire."

I nodded. "I'm going to go and update Barney. Then we need a plan for your parents. I think that Linc will obviously have people after us here, especially as we are cutting off his last pipeline back to the States. You cannot officially take control yet. Not until Linc forces your parents to relinquish their power."

Christian sighed. "My father will come after me. He'll figure all of this out, Anastasia."

I shrugged. "Then we run. Just for a little, until the dust clears. After that, we'll come back and fight."

"No, that's not an option," Christian said. "They need to be eliminated."

"Christian…" I whispered.

He shut his eyes and his voice sounded vulnerable. "They stopped being my parents when they forced me to kill before I left high school."

"We could talk to Barney," I suggested frantically, trying to prevent him from making this tragic decision.

He shook his head. "It's me or them. And I have to choose me. I've never been able to before."

I got up and walked around his desk and perched on his lap. I draped my arms lightly around his shoulders and squeezed. He tucked his head into my neck and I felt the slight vibrations in his breathing as he tried to breathe through his sobs. I ran my fingers through his hair, stroking and hoping that I was providing even a semblance of comfort.

There was noting I could say. There was no way to sugarcoat it, or convince him that his parents were in fact monsters.

He pulled back after a while and kissed my neck lightly. "Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me, Christian."

"Yes I do. You saved my life and now you're helping me to be able to live my life the way I want."

I kissed him lightly on the lips, pulling away regardless of how much I wanted to glue myself to him. "Well, there's work to be done."

"Do you want to call the Joses or should I?" I asked, sensing that Christian was ready to put his emotional release behind him.

He stood, commanding his office with his familiar confidence. No one would ever know that Christian had spent the better part of an hour mourning his parents' impending demise. He pushed the intercom button on his desk.

"Andrea, please have Jose Rodriguez Sr. and his son over for a meeting as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir."

Christian turned to me. "We have to take care of someone else too. That's what we can do for now."

I felt my lips quirk up at his deadly smirk. "Flynn?"

He nodded. "We may not have to kill him. But I think you would enjoy having a persuasive conversation with him. I know I find it strangely cathartic."

He kept that killer smirk on his face as he took my hand and buttoning his suit jacket with the other. "Let's go."

Hi! It's been way too long. I'd be surprised if anyoneactually ends up reading this chapter. Yes, it's short. But it's the beginning of the end for these two. This story won't remain unfinishedforever.

I've had an incredibly rough year, but all ofthe shit that has prevented me from writinghas finally be taken care of.

Thank you to those of you who continued to try and review even though I wasn't able to post. This chapter is for you.