Disclaimer: see chapter 1

Zach sat in the chair, staring at the man across the room from him. "What IS it with men from this town that just have problems staying dead?" he whispered to himself. Elizabeth threw her purse at him and he glared back at her. "Will you just hear the man out, Zach?" Zach nodded and leaned back in the chair, watching Leo as he launched into his story.

He didn't remember a lot of that night. The last thing he remembers, all these years later, was throwing diamond after diamond off the cliff as his mother held Greenlee hostage. The next thing he knew, he was lying in a bed in small, rural hospital, unable to remember anything about himself. As he got better, a nice family – the Devers – has a farm near the hospital and agreed to take him in, calling him Lane. For years, he worked the farm with them, keeping to himself for the most part. He always felt like part of him was missing and he tried, for years, to remember who had been before waking up in that hospital bed.

About a year ago, Mr. Devers died of a heart attack and Mrs. Devers decided to sell the farm, giving Lane part of the money so that he could get on with his life. He decided to head out of the states, finally landing in Rome. It was during a tour of the Vatican Museum one afternoon that he met Elizabeth Slater. She was so nice to him from the start that a friendship quickly formed. When she decided to head back to the states, he decided to join her. She left him in Maine, where he worked for a fishing company. He was just coming in from working when he stopped at the local diner to eat dinner. There, he saw footage of the explosion at the Mardi Gras ball. When they flashed Erica Kane's face on screen, all the memories came rushing back to him and it all hit him like a ton of bricks. He raced home and jumped on the computer, researching everything he could find. It didn't take him long to come across his face and for him to find out who he was – Leo DuPres, presumed dead. He read all the stories about his fall over the cliffs, how he took his mother with him and how her body had been recovered the next day but his had been presumed swept out to sea. He saw a picture of Greenlee and remembered her fondly until he found the release that she had married Ryan Lavery, who in turn faked his death. The more he read about what Ryan had done to Greenlee and others, the more upset and angry he became. He spent most of the next few days brooding, mad and drunk, trying to put the pieces together in his head. When Elizabeth called, all the information and feelings that he had been storing up for the last few days had come pouring out. He offered to help Elizabeth if she needed him, and she promised to call if she did. When she called and told her what she wanted to do, he was immediately on board, wanting nothing more than retribution.

"So, why are you here?" Zach asked.

Leo sat down on the bed, leaning forward on his knees. "Ryan Lavery has caused a lot of hurt and pain, inflicted a lot of damage across the board. He hurt the one woman I have ever really loved more than life. He deserves whatever I can impose on him. That's why I'm here." Zach just nodded, seeing this man knew who the real Ryan Lavery was.

Elizabeth grabbed a file of the table and handed it to Zach. "Read this." Zach grabbed the file from her and started to read. The further he got through the document, the more his face lit up.

Zach looked over the file at Leo. "Where did you get this?"

Leo just shrugged. "Let's just say I know some people and leave it at that." Zach just nodded.

"So, what do we do with this?"

"We put it out there at the most conspicuous time" Elizabeth said, grinning wildly. "And how, dear sister, do we do that?" Zach asked, seeing the glee on her face.

"You give Lavery what he wants – a full shareholder meeting with all the media present. Once he gets up on his high horse, we bring him right back down."

TBC…