Hey everybody! I'm back with another chapter! Thanks for reading and enjoy the story!

I felt like I was a part of a secret mission watching Jamie assemble his plan over the course of the hour, but sure enough, at the end of the whole fiasco, Alexei was sitting in the backyard with me, but this time on the cozier furniture tucked away in a back corner where mom used to read and hide from the world as a teenager. It was her special spot that only she, the people who installed the furniture, Ms. Chancellor, and my grandfather knew about. Grandma had known too, but she is gone now, so there are only about six or seven people still alive who know how to find this place in the gardens.

Recounting everything that had transpired in the last hour to Alexei had him both bent over in laughter and completely astonished. Noah, Rosie, Megan, and even Lila has assembled in the backyard along with two other girls I had never met before. They seemed to be Megan and Lila's friends. Rosie didn't seem to like them very much. My friends tried to come and talk to me, give me hugs and be there for me, but Jamie kept them on mission and told them they could catch up with me later, but for now I needed space. I appreciated that. He let them down for me.

The plan was pretty simple, each of them would wear a hoodie with the hood up and sunglasses and rush out the front gate at the same time. While the marines tried to keep the press off of them, they would scatter in all sorts of directions and all pretend to be me and avoid the cameras. It all went off without a hitch. The press was distracted chasing all the fake Graces and Alexei had enough time to rush over to the German Embassy where Rosie let him in and they climbed the wall over into the backyard. I was starting to question why Alexei couldn't just have walked over to the German Embassy and had Rosie take him over the wall, but I guess the front gate of the Russian Embassy might have been mobbed too.

I don't know the full story of what's going on yet, but before Jamie gets back, I'm going to know.

"What are they saying about me?" I asked Alexei completely out of the blue once the story of Jamie's plan was finished.

"What?" he suddenly seemed very serious. He'd been sitting with his arm around my shoulder while I leaned comfortable on him and held him tight, but now he was rigid, sitting straight up and holding a shoulder in each hand. He shook me a bit as he spoke, "What are you talking about? Who told you?"

"I figured it out on my own, Alexei, no one told me anything. I know they're making up a bunch of things about me for their trashy gossip columns, but I don't know what exactly. I can take a guess though."

"Gracie, don't-"

"'US Ambassador's Crazy Granddaughter Involved in Another Scandal!' Is that how the headlines read? Or is it more like 'Girl Who Got Away With Matricide Coerces Boys to Commit Murder!' Honestly, both of them sound pretty good, maybe I should be a reporter?"

"That's not funny, Gracie, what are you talking about, matricide? What does that even-"

"It means I shot my mom, Alexei. She didn't die in the fire, I shot her and then she burned and I'm so unstable that afterwards everyone doctored documents and told me lies about her dying in a freak accident so that I could maybe go on living a normal life, but I remembered." I stood after freeing myself of his grasp. The happy mood was ruined once again by my own insanity, "I remembered everything. Now people are lying to me again, so you might as well all just tell me the truth because I'll know sooner or later."

Alexei grabbed me around the legs and sat me down beside him, "Where do you think you are going? We are finishing this conversation right now! You did not kill your mom on purpose, Gracie! It was not your fault!"

"Is that the party line?" I was shocked to hear the same words from him that I did from Jamie, "Did you know too? Is that why you kept trying to stop me from looking into the Scarred Man? You thought I might go even crazier when I found out the truth? Too late, Alexei, I'm already crazy and the whole world knows it!"

"Grace..." he didn't say anything else yet, just held me.

After a while he continued, "I promise, I didn't know anything. Jamie never told me, Ms. Chancellor didn't tell me, no one did. I tried to stop you because I was afraid you were right. If you were right it meant that some man who killed your mother may be coming after you too and I was so scared that one day out of the blue we would lose you too because that man had caught up to you. I don't care what you have gone through, Gracie, I just want to be there and help you."

"Okay." I leaned my forehead against his and he leaned down to kiss my cheek.

"3 seconds to get off my sister, Volkov." Jamie said as he set a tray with more treats and a pitcher of lemonade on it down on the table. I gave him an odd look and he elaborated on why we had more than just the water he'd gone to get. "Ms. Chancellor took the water and gave me this when I was on my way out the door. She says after a week in the hospital we need to get as many calories in you as we can. You were already skin and bones, Gracie, now you just look gaunt."

"I agree," Alexei leaned forward and poured a glass of lemonade before putting it in my hands.

They waited, staring at me until I obliged them, so I took a sip. It was sweet and refreshing with just enough lemon flavor to be lemonade, but not sour enough to be unpleasant.

"Good." Jamie smiled and Alexei took the glass I was holding in my lap and put it on the table. He'd already noticed the slight shake in my hands.

I grabbed Alexei's arm after he put the glass down and decided to try something. We are barely a couple, but I wanted to try being perfect like all the ones you see on TV, even if it's just for a minute. I wrapped it around my shoulders and leaned my head into his side with a hum and a hug around his torso.

I could feel Jamie glaring but I ignored him. It was me who initiated this time, he could try telling Alexei to get off me, but if he did, I'd have free license to chew him out and he doesn't seem up for that today.

"Let's talk." Was Jamie's new idea for getting some distance between us, it didn't work. I just moved my face so I could speak without it getting muffled and stayed right there glued to Alexei.

"I wanted to tell you both what happened while I was gone and why I ended up there as long as I did."

I told them about the rape kit, the interrogation, that I wasn't given any rights, how I was treated in the hospital, how I begged them not to hold me down. Even more hazy bits and pieces of the hospital started to come back to me and I began to remember a time when it was the male nurse sent in and I begged him to leave. At that point I had already been restrained and had no way of defending myself at all if he tried to do something to me and was absolutely petrified of him.

By the end Jamie looked like he wanted to go use their diplomatic immunity to rough up the hospital staff again and Alexei probably wanted to join him, but I couldn't see his face very well, just feel his arm hold me a bit tighter with each new detail.

"What happened to you, guys?" I asked, "I mean after the police separated us, what happened?"

"I was taken to a police station and had questions screamed at me until the Russian Embassy could get them to let me go."

"Same here, but it was our American comrades who came for me. Grandpa went to the station himself. I've never seen him that angry before, even after the bike accident." Jamie laughed a bit, "It seems 'the King will be hearing about this mistreatment of my grandson on my next visit to the palace!' which is as close as the old man will get to cursing."

"And why was the Scar-" I cut myself off, "Dominic. Why was Dominic here this morning? I thought the Prime Minister was in the hospital?"

"The old one is, but the country needs a Prime Minister so the new one, Alexandra Petrovic, who worked closely with the old one became the new Prime Minister." Alexei said, "Though, I do not know why she was here."

I looked to Jamie for an answer.

"She came to say hi to grandpa, like making her rounds to meet the neighbors as the new formal Prime Minister and while she was here we had a chat?"

"A chat?" I raised an eyebrow, "Did this chat have anything to do with the security guard you punched in the face yesterday?"

I wonder if this is how mom felt when she was indirectly scolding us.

"You punched a security guard?" Alexei sounded shocked. I guess he's playing the role of disappointed father.

"Not only that, but he taunted the man, waved his diplomatic immunity in the guy's face before hitting him, and!" I sat up and crossed my arms giving Jamie a look, "he called him Blart the Mall Cop!"

"Okay, I understand all of that, but who is Bart?" Alexei asked and I pressed my pressed my lips together very tightly to try and avoid screaming out laughing, but I couldn't help it and neither could Jamie.

"You've never seen Paul Blart, Mall Cop?" I asked still trying to suppress my laughter.

"No, I do not know who Bart is."

"Alexei!" Jamie laughed and nearly fell off his chair, "How have you gone so many years without seeing that movie? It's Kevin James and-"

"James? Like James Cameron?" Alexei tilted his head like a confused puppy.

"Okay, it's settled, movie night tonight, we're watching it, but that's not the point!" I looked at Jamie with a raised eyebrow, "How much trouble are you in?"

"None. We're just paying his medical expenses to settle so he doesn't try to sue. Prime Minister said so long as we do that the police won't press any charges for assault."

"Okay." I sighed and let myself fall back against Alexei. I was comfortable with Jamie and him around. I felt safe with them.

I was content for now, until not long after when Jamie gave me my phone back. I had lost it somewhere along the way in the chaos, but now that I had it back I decided to check the news sites.

I was not far off with the titles of the stories, but I almost threw up with I saw one photo of me and Jamie leaving the hospital. It wasn't Jamie's jacket I was wearing in the picture. I sat straight up and pulled off the jacket to inspect the arm. Right where it should have read Blakely it read Spencer.