A/N:  Text in *asterisks* denotes Chinese.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – RELEASE

Vaughn couldn't respond to Jie's question.  It was as if his tongue had become disconnected from his brain… although, his brain wasn't doing much to help the situation, either.  He blinked hard and swallowed, not able to move his head to avert his gaze.

"Erik?" Jie asked again from her kneeling position before him, this time with a trace of desperation in her tone.

Several thoughts raced through Vaughn's head at once.  He could deny it.  Use the charm that had proved so successful on her this past year and attempt to convince Jie that her father was lying.  However, En Kai had proof… he had Sydney's CIA file, his own picture, and probably the tapes from Sydney's holding cell as well.  He could, instead, admit his mission to infiltrate the organization, but convince Jie that he had truly fallen for her.  Take a page from Irina Derevko's book? he wondered with distaste.  No.  He couldn't sink to that level.  So that left only one option…

He opened his eyes and met her stare honestly, for the first time since he had known her.  Her eyes widened, immediately noticing the change.  He allowed all the regret and guilt he carried for deceiving her to play out fully across his worn features.  As her soft eyes began to fill with tears and her hands started trembling, he finally whispered, "I'm so sorry."

"No!" came her shocked reply, as she abruptly stood and moved across the room.  The three were now positioned in a triangle, Jie trusting neither enough to be near them.  She began mumbling softly to herself, and the two men did not know how to respond.  After several minutes, Vaughn softly called out, "Jie?"

She immediately whirled to face him, confusion and hysteria melding into white-hot rage.  "Shut up!  You do not get to speak to me anymore.  I do not even know who has been sharing my bed!"  Her entire body shook with the force of her words, her eyes boring holes into his own, "What is your name?"

"Michael," he answered slowly, afraid not to respond, "Michael Vaughn."

She repeated his words softly to herself before continuing, "Why are you here?"

Vaughn took a deep breath, his answer confirming everything that En Kai had suspected.  "I am an American CIA agent, sent to infiltrate your father's organization.  He's part of the Triad, Jie, and involved in an abundance of illegal and dangerous activities.  The CIA gave me orders to meet and marry you, giving me a way into your father's employ."

She sucked in a sharp breath and turned to her father, who nodded his head in defeated concurrence.  He had never wanted Jie to know what his business involved, but there was no way around it now.  He only hoped she could learn to forgive him… in time.

Jie began pacing the room, mulling over the weight of what Erik… no, Michael Vaughn… had just told her.  The Triad?  She had, of course, heard of the infamous organization, but had no idea that it and her father's enigmatic business were one and the same.  Blood money.  She had been living on blood money her entire life, and now it was coming back to haunt her.

She turned and surveyed the man she had believed to be the love of her life.  He was battered and bloody, looking worse than she had ever seen.  She needed to ask him one more question… the answer he would give was the most important of her life.

"Michael, do you love me?"

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Sydney and Jack had been in Florence for over an hour.  They had sailed through customs, as did most of the Americans on their flight, and climbed into a cab.  Jack had explained to the driver where they needed to go, and then went silent.

The road to Fiesole was still familiar to him.  It had, after all, only been a few days since he was last there.  He watched his daughter as she stared out the side window.  She was eerily calm, and had been since she first decided on this mission.  He would have been worried, but she seemed more like her old self than any other time since he had found her.

The cab pulled into the gravel driveway of the villa.  After he paid the driver and watched the car leave, Jack turned and surveyed the house, marveling at how different it appeared by the light of day.  What had seemed overbearing and sinister after sundown was actually bright and airy… very much in the style of central Italy and very much an odd place for Sloane's life to end.

Jack shook himself from his reverie when he realized that Sydney was nowhere to be seen.  He jogged up to the house and entered, this time through the front door.  He looked around, but did not see his daughter.  "Sydney?"

"Back here!"  Her reply came from the back of the house.  Jack walked into the kitchen to find her kneeling next to the trap door, trying her best to wedge her fingers between the wood slats.  He also kneeled and tried to help, but the changing weather had apparently swollen the floorboards, shrinking the cracks around the door so there were almost non-existent. 

Thinking quickly, Jack instructed, "Wait here."

She sat back on her heels, inspecting the kitchen, until Jack returned carrying a crowbar.  "Renovations," was his only explanation, and she nodded, stepping back so he could make use of the tool.  He grunted as he pressed down, putting all his weight into the effort before the door was finally pried from the floor with a loud crack.

Father and daughter looked at each other for a moment, each waiting for the other to make a move.  Jack reached into his back pocket, pulling out a small flashlight and handing it to Sydney.  "Are you sure you want to do this?" he finally asked her.

Sydney looked her father in the eye and nodded decisively once, "I have to.  She said it would be here.  It needs to be finished."  She took the flashlight, and with one last glance at her father, descended the steep, creaking staircase.  She was still surveying the small cellar when Jack's light beam joined her own, pointing the way.

"The wine is here," he stated as he moved in front of Sydney.  When he reached the middle barrel, Jack set his flashlight on the ground and ran his hands over the large wooden container.  It was resting on a separate wooden stand with four legs.  After pushing the barrel to test its weight, Jack motioned for Sydney to join him.  They both bent down, each grabbing the leg nearest to themselves, and pulled hard.

Slowly, the stand, with the barrel full of wine on top of it, allowed itself to be moved away from the wall.  When there was an opening of a foot on each side of the barrel, they stopped pulling and pointed their flashlights at the wall, revealing what they had just uncovered.

What had been perfectly concealed behind the large round barrel was a narrow tunnel, about three feet in diameter, starting about four feet from the floor.  Jack shot Sydney a "Be careful" look as she squeezed between the barrels, placed her flashlight between her teeth, and climbed into the tunnel. 

It wasn't a long crawl before Sydney found herself entering another chamber carved out of the dirt.  She was brushing loose dust off of her hands when Jack crawled out of the opening behind her.  She swung her light around the walls, and found something this chamber had that the previous one had not.  Noticing where her eyes had rested, Jack walked over to the metal switchbox and flipped on the main power.  After a couple seconds, several large florescent lights around the floor blinked on.

"Sloane must have built this room himself," Jack commented, gesturing to the digging tools leaning against the wall beneath the power switch.  He turned to face Sydney, who was frozen in place, staring at the very thing that she had come for… the thing that had caused her so much pain.

Il Dire.  It was rather smaller than Jack had expected something so important to be, but it stood merely six feet by around four feet… a mishmash of metal, glass, wood and wire.  He noticed a glass tube that extended from the right side, and shuddered softly.

"Sydney?" he inquired gently.

The only response was a loud, guttural moan, almost a keen, from Sydney.  Before he had a chance to move to take her in his arms, she had swiveled on her heel, heading directly for him.  The fiery wrath she was radiating startled him, causing Jack to take two subconscious steps back.

Sydney stepped around her father, reaching her hand to grab the nearest object.  She closed her fist on the handle to a pickaxe, lifted it, and stalked across the room, holding the tool with both hands.  She did not stop as she reached the machine.  Instead, she used her entire body weight, combined with the forward momentum of her arms carrying the heavy tool, and began tearing the machine to pieces.

She was screaming loudly with each heavy blow, but was unaware of the sounds she was making.  Sydney's thoughts were only on the agony that this machine had caused… her directly, and her family and friends indirectly.  She brought the pickaxe down from above her head, over and over.  Every blow had a name… Francie… Emily… Will… Danny… Mom… Dad... 

And when she had ripped pieces from the machine for each piece of her life Rambaldi had ripped from her, there was one left… Vaughn.

Sydney kept swinging the axe, even though her arm muscles were screaming in pain.  The physical was nothing compared to the emotional torture she was releasing.  For having lost moments which could have been spent with him, that were instead spent hiding from Sloane… For almost losing him in Tai Pei, and then again just weeks later… For making him mourn her… For taking two of their best years… For forcing her to wonder if she'd ever see him alive again…

And then there was nothing left.  Centuries of priceless works… destroyed in mere minutes. 

Sydney suddenly became very still, dropping her hands to her sides and the pickaxe to the floor.  Her face was soaked with dirty tears, but she did not wipe them away.  The numbness was beginning to recede and she could feel Jack moving up behind her.  As he laid a tentative hand on her elbow, she spoke to him without turning,

"It's done.  I've finished it.  Let's go home."

Jack nodded, pulling her to him for a moment.  Her outburst had scared him, but not surprised him.  She had been needing that release since the day she found Danny's body.

"Okay, Sydney.  Let's go home."

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"Jie, there were times…" Vaughn began, trying to explain his complicated feelings for her, but she cut him of with a hand.

"No!  Michael, I asked you a simple question that should only require an answer, not an explanation."  She repeated her question very slowly, "Do you love me?"

Vaughn took a deep breath, then resolutely answered his wife, "No."

The look of anguish on Jie's face was almost more than either of the men watching could bear.  Vaughn had grown to care for her, and had even wanted to protect her innocence, but it was far too late for that now.  The only thing that he could do was wait to find out how she would react. 

En Kai reacted first, standing up from the sofa and walking over to his daughter.  "*Jie, please go to your mother's house and let me finish with him.*" 

At first Jie said nothing, prompting Vaughn to begin to panic in earnest.  But what she did next showed that she had inherited at least one valuable trait from her father… pride.

"Do you know why I am here, Baba?" she asked her father.  When he had no response, she continued, "My husband and I had a beautiful morning together, and I once we got to the airport, I decided that I didn't want to be away from him this week."  She turned to face Vaughn, "I came back because I am in love with you, whoever you are."

Looking at her father, she held out her hand and demanded, "*Knife.*"  En Kai complied, pulling one out of his back pocket.

Jie moved to where Vaughn was tied to the chair.  One by one she cut through all his bonds until the only one left was the rope around his chest.  When she stopped, Vaughn and En Kai looked at her quizzically.

"I love you, my husband," she continued, "but I also love my father.  So, here is what will be done: Michael, you will go.  Go back to America or wherever is your home and do not ever come back.  Baba, you will release him, and no more harm will come to him.  Michael, you will leave us alone… me and my father.  The CIA has interfered in our lives enough."

En Kai opened his mouth to object, but Jie cut him off, "Baba, if Michael is hurt or killed, you will never see me again."  Her firmly set features told him that his daughter was not lying.  He nodded, turning his eyes to Vaughn.

"Deal," Vaughn whispered softly.

Jie walked over and cut his final restraint.  She then pulled out her cell phone, dialed a number, and held it out to him.  "Taxi," she explained before turning and walking through the kitchen door, En Kai following silently behind her.

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Thanks, again, to everyone who has so kindly reviewed my fic.  I know that there is a plethora of great stories for you to choose from every time you come to this site, and the fact that you spend any of your time reading mine flatters me more than I can say!  Thank you!