A/N I do not own John McBain or any of the other OLTL characters. All others are my own creation. Please don't sue cause I am broke and have nothing to be sued for anyway.

Chapter 23

Two hours later John stood in front of Shelly's room at the Angel Square Hotel. He was trying to decide whether to knock or pick the lock. It was still early yet and the person at the desk had said that Rex was still here along with Shelly. He knew how he felt about that. He didn't like it one bit. But it was also a good sign that Shelly wasn't dead. If this Rex had killed her he wouldn't have stuck around all night.

Deciding the best way to handle the situation was to knock and get it over with he raised his hand and knocked on the door. He waited but no one answered so he knocked again, a bit louder this time. Still no answer. He was beginning to worry so he took out his lock picking tools and picked the lock. Opening the door carefully he stepped in his gun drawn. Looking around he noticed something out of the corner of his eyes. Turning fully to the sight his eyes widened in anger, "What the hell is going on here?" He demanded in a loud angry voice, pointing his gun.

He had found Shelly all right! She was in bed with Rex! She was hardly wearing any clothing and what she did have on was riding up. Her back was to Rex's chest and he had his arms around her slightly under Shelly's shirt. It was obvious what they had been doing!

Rex was the first to wake. Looking around he noticed 2 things simultaneously first was that Shelly's brother John was in the room looking angry enough to shoot him dead with the gun he was pointing at him and second was that sometime in the night she and shelly had shifted on the bed so that he was holding her with his hand on her stomach, her shirt riding up. It looked bad he had to admit jerking his hand away from Shelly and shifting away from her on the bed. "Uhhh... this isn't..." Rex began as Shelly woke up and looked around.

"What it looks like?" John said finishing Rex's sentence. "Yeah right! I ought to shoot you right there for taking advantage of my sister!" Seeing that Shelly was awake he said, "Get out of that bed Michelle. What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded.

Shelly, unaware of how they had been sleeping, was confused. "What are you talking about? Did you really think I was just going to let something horrible happen and not do anything about it?" Mistaking his anger for anger about how she had snuck off in the middle of the night.

"That's not what I mean and you know it but we will talk about that colossally stupid move in just a minute! Right after I deal with this bastard."

Sitting up on the bed Rex threw his legs over the side and said, "Hey! That's not nice!" He smirked a bit thinking that this was just a little bit funny. Out of all the things he had expected this morning being held at gunpoint by a woman's brother that he had been in bed with was not it! And they hadn't even done anything, not that he hadn't want to but now was definitely not the right place and time for that. Standing up he said, "Look man I know what it looked like but we really didn't do anything."

John wasn't listening at this point. When Rex stood up he just lunged at him, not thinking just doing. Both men went down on the floor and began to roll around as John tried to punch the younger man. Rex avoided the blows and tried to fend John off him.

"Stop it!" Shelly yelled at them. Reaching down and yanking on John's shoulder she tried to pull him off Rex. "What is wrong with you? Nothing happened! We were talking and we fell asleep!" Shelly shouted at him, livid at John's caveman behavior. "John, you hurt him and I will never forgive you!" Shelly shouted at him.

John heard those words and suddenly pushed away from Rex. "Fine." He said glaring at Rex breathing heavily. Standing up he walked over to Shelly and sat down next to her on the bed like nothing had happened. "Now what exactly were you talking about?"

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Natalie pretended to be asleep as the door to her cell, that's what she had come the think of the room, opened. Deeply depressed over the knowledge that Roxy was dead she didn't even turn over to look and see who was coming in, she didn't really care.

Walter Balsom looked at Natalie, his adopted daughter, and smirked. There was so much she didn't know that she thought she knew. He kinda felt sorry for her but not enough to let her go. She had seen his face and heard too much. The boss wanted to kill her right away but Walter had other plans for her.

"What do you want now?" Natalie demanded with out turning around. It didn't matter who it was. They always wanted something. Information, a piece of hair, someone to gloat to; it was always something. "Or are you finally going to tell me why I have been kidnapped in the first place?"

"Well, well, well my dear I am going to do exactly that." Walter told her smugly.

Natalie turned over at those words knowing who the voice belonged to. It was Walter and apparently he wanted to talk. Well she would talk to him if that was what he wanted. The more smug he was the more he might let slip. "Why Are you going to kill me after you tell me?"

"Oh no my dear, you don't understand. I am not going to kill you. I just want to have a friendly chat with my former daughter." Walter said testing her mood. If this plan of his was going to work he had to play this right.

Narrowing her eyes Natalie realized that he was up to something. She might be dirt poor but she had grown up on the streets of Atlantic City and could spot a con when she saw one. She decided to play along; find out what the con was before the opportunity passed. Maybe this was something she could use to get out of this hellhole.

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"Where are Michael and Chris?" Shelly wanted to know.

"In Llanview checking out a lead on this Natalie." John told her. "If you are going to risk your life for this person I figured we might as well help you so you don't get your self killed."

"Oh how nice of you." Shelly said sarcastically then immediately felt bad for her remark. "Sorry," she muttered.

Ignoring her comment John looked at her curiously, "What made you pick Llanview anyway? This is the last place you should be. This place is riddled with Mafia people. You're lucky it was me that found you and not them."

"I heard Michael talking about what a nice place it was when he patched me up." She explained worried now that John had said it had a lot of Mafia guys in residence. Looking at Rex she asked, "Is that true? Are there a lot of bad guys here?"

Rex nodded in agreement with John, "Yes but they never hang out here in this hotel. It's too close to the police station. It is a good thing we are in Llanview anyway." He said intensely. This was right where they needed to be.

"Why?" Both John and Shelly asked. Shelly knew he had recognized the location in the drawing, it was some place called Lions Heart, but he hadn't mentioned its exact location.

"Because my sister is here, in this town." He answered them quietly. He knew where she was but he had no idea how to get her out. Lions Heart was a mansion deep in the woods of Llanview but it was heavily guarded. That was where the Carpelli's did the bulk of their illegal business, and he wasn't high up enough in the family to have access to it.

At first he hadn't believed Shelly about her visions but when she had shown him that picture he had to believe her. There wasn't any other possible explanation for how she could have seen that place. It was one of the best-kept secrets in the family and they didn't allow pictures to be taken...ever. It was scary and kinda cool that she could see the future but this vision she had of his sister, what she would tell him of it anyway, scared him more then anything. She might not have gave him all the details, in fact he was sure she purposely left out a lot, but what she told him was enough for him to know that if they didn't find Natalie soon she would end up dead.

"She is here? In Llanview?" John asked surprised. That would make things easier then. "First you need to tell me everything you know about where she is being held and second we need a plan to get her out."

"Really?" Shelly squealed happily. If John helped that would make this so much easier. She had a plan but it would be a much better plan with him involved.

John sighed hoping that this decision wouldn't get anyone killed but he had to help. This was his job and for some reason he felt that this might be the most important thing he would ever do in his life.