Chapter 13

"It seems as if Elizabeth is showing signs of waking up."

Lucky's knees buckled and he instantly sank into a nearby plastic chair, his hands gripping the armrests so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Skye was already seated in the chair next to him and the redhead hesitantly reached a hand over and squeezed Lucky's shoulder.

Reginald was watching Jason very carefully for the first sign of the older man's reaction to the news. They had been waiting for it ever since they first got news that Elizabeth had been hit. The two women were all that the inhabitants of Room 124 had prayed for during the last few days. Emily was already back; now it was Elizabeth's turn.

But Jason remained standing tall in place, refusing to collapse from the weight of the news as Lucky had. Instead, he placed one hand on the wall behind him and slowly lent against it, his head bowed.

Reginald wasn't too surprised at Jason's refusal to carry on with the hysterics as his younger counterparts had. After all, according to the enforcer's own standards, he had shown enough already. And that wasn't something he did – emotion implied weakness, and Jason couldn't afford to be thought of as weak.

And yet he had. He had broken down in Edward's arms, something that Reginald had expected to happen only when polar bears had snowball fights in Hell. He had cried later in that same room when AJ had told Emily the news about Elizabeth. And that wasn't behavior that came naturally to the hardened enforcer. Reginald knew it had nothing to do with the fact that Jason was weak and everything to do with how much he cared for the girl.

Jason's soft sigh echoed around the room, and his voice when he spoke was strained. "And now we wait."

"Mr. Quartermaine, I have some business to discuss with you. You may know me as Lorenzo Alcazar."

AJ's dark brown eyes widened at the name. Lorenzo Alcazar? The Lorenzo Alcazar? Drug-Lord-cum-Psycho-Luis' brother, Lorenzo? Holy shit. What did an arms dealer like the Spaniard want with him?

"I don't see how we-"

"Mr. Quartermaine, I advise you to listen fully and carefully to my proposal before you make any…rash decisions. Does this seem suitable?"

There it was – that voice. The silky, smooth, charming voice that would be calling for his head on a platter if AJ didn't do exactly what he said. He had heard of Mr. Lorenzo Alcazar before, had heard of the mob boss' long list of illegal activities. Somehow, he didn't think that offing a wealthy black sheep would be too much of a moral dilemma for the mobster.

"I'm listening."

"You, Mr. Quartermaine, are indirectly in possession of something that I want. Do you know that which I am referring to?"

"Mr. Alcazar, I don't have-"

"Ah, Mr. Quartermaine, you didn't listen. Simple answers will do. Now, you and your family have something that I have been coveting since I first set sights on Port Charles. Do you know what commodity you possess that I desire?"

"No."

"It is true, is it not, that your family owns property on the waterfront?"

AJ swallowed. Alcazar already knew the answer to that. "Yes."

"This property lies a short distance from Pier 52 near the old shipping yard."

"Yes."

"Mr. Quartermaine, I have had my eye on that piece of property for a while now. I have decided that the time has come for me to relieve you of it."

"My family would never-"

"I am not concerned with your family, Mr. Quartermaine. I am concerned only with you."

"What makes you think I would help you?" AJ fought to keep his voice from shaking as he answered back to the mobster for the first time during the unexpected and rather frightening conversation. "I know what you do for a living, Mr. Alcazar, and I have no intention of getting involved-"

The Spaniard's mood swing was apparent in the lethal tone his voice now adopted. "Ah, but you are involved, Mr. Quartermaine. Far deeper than you know. You see, you have something that I want. And I have some information that you want hidden."

AJ's heart skipped a beat as he froze in his seat, almost failing to slam on the brake when the car in front of him slowed down. Cursing, he flicked on his turn signal and pulled onto the shoulder, stopping the car and throwing it in park before slowly replying back. "What do you have?"

Alcazar laughed. "Yes, that got your attention, didn't it?"

It wasn't possible – he couldn't know. No one knew. No one except him and Courtney. She had escaped and he had stowed the car away in one of ELQ's abandoned warehouses. There was no trace of it otherwise – how the hell could anyone else know?

"You don't have anything."

"Don't I?"

"No. You're bluffing."

"Careful, Mr. Quartermaine. What did I tell you about making rash decisions?"

AJ hesitated, watching the other cars on the road whip by him. He wished he was in one of those instead of his. He wished he was going where any of those other people were, instead of stuck here on the phone with a mobster.

"I don't think you have anything."

"Of course I don't. I don't know anything, Mr. Quartermaine. I don't know that your sister is in the hospital, and that her friend joined her there this morning. I don't know that her friend, one by the name of…Elizabeth Webber was in a car accident. Hit and run – but then again, I don't know that. I also am oblivious to the fact that you were the first person on the scene and not ten minutes later, a Mercedes Benz sedan with a heavily dented front bumper pulled into the gas station on Roosevelt."

"Stop."

"Convinced of my ignorance, Mr. Quartermaine?"

"What do you want from me?"

"I already told you – I want the waterfront."

"I can't give that to you." AJ's voice was desperate as he pleaded with the mobster to understand his position. "It's owned by the family – they'd know."

"I'm sure you'll think of something, Mr. Quartermaine," the smooth voice on the other end of the line assured him. "I'm sure you'll come up with a creative solution. Because if not, then I'm the one who will have to get creative. Now, if one were to tell a hitman that his estranged brother allowed the woman who nearly killed his old friend to escape, how do you think one would go about it? Should I send a card? A personalized telegram? Hire a skywriter? Or maybe I should just retrieve the car from the warehouse where you stashed it, disassemble it, and then have my men reassemble it in Mr. Morgan's living room. That's always a hit."

"OK, OK," AJ cut in, his head swimming with the recent developments. God damn. This couldn't be happening. How the hell did he get in so deep with this? "I'll do what I can."

"See that you do, Mr. Quartermaine. I'll be in touch."

The Spaniard hung up and a deafening dial tone was the only sound in the silent car as AJ slumped over the wheel, wondering how the hell he had gotten himself into this mess and how the hell he was going to get himself out.

John Mulrow stared at the charts in his hand. The patient was waking up, slowly but surely, and that meant extensive testing awaited them both. Elizabeth Webber's body and mind alike had suffered a great ordeal in the recent accident, and it was his job to figure out just what happened and what to do to help her. The Drs. Quartermaine were pacing around outside the room, and John didn't blame them. He understood what the two of them must have been going through and did his best to keep them from getting involved.

Elizabeth's lashes fluttered. Her other vitals had improved steadily; now the only thing left for her to do was open her eyes and open her mouth and show him just what she could do. John waited with baited breath as her brows furrowed and her lips twisted into a frown.

And then her eyes opened.

The nurse next to him tensed, unsure of how Elizabeth would react to waking up in unfamiliar surroundings. John shared her thoughts and the two of them drew back slightly and adopted a less threatening stance as the young woman blinked and tried to look around the room.

"W-W-"

John's heart leaped to his throat – she was talking. His fingers clenched around the clipboard in his hand as he rooted her on, cheered for her to ask the first of undoubtedly many questions.

"Where…am I?"

Her words were slow and slightly slow, but John had no way of telling if that was a direct effect of the repercussions of her accident. They'd know for sure as soon as they got her into testing. But first, the hard part – they had to talk to her.

"You're at the hospital." He did his best to keep his voice warm and friendly, and not threatening or imposing in the least. Two deep blue eyes flew to meet his, and he wasn't surprised when the younger woman cringed as much as her weakened body would allow her to.

"W-Who are y-you?"

He forced himself to loosen his grip on the clipboard and let it hang loosely from his fingers. There was no need for her to see his tension. "My name is John Mulrow, and I'm a doctor."

Her brows furrowed and she peered back at him suspiciously from two deep sapphire orbs. She looked as if she were trying to form a word, but just then the door slowly opened and Monica hesitantly stuck her head in.

The joy in the doctor's eyes was unmistakable when she saw that the pale young woman in the hospital bed was awake. She immediately looked up at John, a wide grin on her face, and dragged Alan into the room. Despite their hasty entrance, their steps slowed as soon as they set foot in the room. Both of them moved slowly, almost shyly, as they approached her, taking great care not to scare her.

Elizabeth darted a glance at John before frowning again. John watched her body shrink back, and it was almost as if she were trying to burrow as far back into the bed as she could.

"And w-who are you?"

Alan and Monica looked at each other and then at Elizabeth, and the light in their eyes dimmed slightly when they realized that she was referring to them. Even though they had prepared themselves for this, John could still see the sadness on their faces.

Elizabeth, however, was growing uneasy from the lack of answers and looked up at him again. "Who a-are they?"

He let out a slow breath, his gaze meeting Monica's steadily as he spoke. "They're Alan and Monica Quartermaine. They're doctors, too."

Elizabeth digested the information slowly, her dark eyes darting from Alan to his wife. "Oh."

A heavy silence descended upon the room, and John shuffled his feet nervously. Alan and Monica looked at each other again, unsure of what to say but certain that they should try to say something. After all, Elizabeth had just woken up after a terrible accident. It was simply no good to just stand there and stare at her as if she were some sort of alien. But their frantic quest to find something – anything – to say was ended when Elizabeth spoke.

"W-Who am I?"

Courtney Matthews was enjoying a nice, hot bubble bath and watching a rerun of Melrose Place when the telephone rang. Sighing, she reached one soapy arm out of the tub and scrounged around on the floor, searching for the cordless phone. Finally finding it, she clicked it on and held it to her ear.

"Hell-o?"

"Court."

A frown distorted the blonde's thin lips. "AJ? What do you want?"

"We have to talk."

She sighed with the weight of the world and sank down in the tub until the water had settled above her wide shoulders. "I can't talk right now – I'm really busy. I have to go."

"Yeah, I don't buy that for a minute. We have to talk."

Courtney huffed angrily into the phone. "Fine. But Jason's going to be really pissed when he finds out that you called. He and Sonny check the phone records, you know."

"Let me deal with my brother. Don't worry about that."

The blonde frowned. AJ never referred to Jason as my brother. It was always Jason, or the hitman, or the golden boy or any other similar derogatory title. Never my brother. "What do you want?"

"Someone knows."

"Knows what?"

"About what you – what we – did."

Courtney's eyes nearly bugged out of her head and the blonde sat up straight in the tub, all thoughts of Melrose Place gone. "What?"

"Someone knows."

"Oh, my God."

There was a long pause and AJ let Courtney absorb the information. But soon enough, she was back on the line and screeching in his ear.

"You idiot! How could you let that happen! Oh, son of a bitch-"

"Woah, woah, woah. You're getting mad at me? Listen, you little whore, you're the one that drove into her while you were high as a kite – don't go blaming me for anything."

"Oh, I should have known you'd screw this up!" she railed on. "You screwed up everything you were ever given! Why should this be any different?"

"Why don't I just call the guy's bluff and let him tell Jason what you did to Elizabeth?"

That shut his ex-wife up and forced her to reevaluate her attitude. It was a few minutes before Courtney had regained her composure enough to carry on a civilized conversation with her former husband.

"Fine. How much do they know?"

"From what I got, everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"Do they know I was…wasn't feeling well?"

AJ snorted. "If that's what you want to call it. I have no idea – but what they do know is bad enough." What AJ didn't realize was that one of Alcazar's men had been in the same gas station as she had earlier, and after listening to her erratic mood swings and slightly slurred words, he had put two and two together and had figured out that Courtney was indeed intoxicated. Though the mob boss didn't exactly know what Courtney was intoxicated from, that information wasn't hard to obtain.

"Who knows, AJ? Who are we dealing with here?"

"Lorenzo Alcazar."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah."

"What does he want?"

"The Quartermaines' waterfront property."

"Give it to him."

"What? Courtney, it's not that easy-"

"I don't care – give it to him. Then he'll leave us alone. I don't care what you have to do, just do it. I don't want him bothering me anymore."

AJ rolled his eyes at her stupidity. "You do realize, you little twit, that it's not going to stop there, right?"

"What?" she asked, desperation and panic apparent in her chuckle. "What do you mean? Of course it is. He's going to get what he wants and we'll be in the clear."

"Courtney? You know that space between your ears? There's something in there. Use it." AJ shook his head and leaned back in the drivers' seat. Everyone would probably be wondering where he was, but he didn't give a damn right now. He had more important things to worry about than a couple of soggy sandwiches. "Lorenzo Alcazar knows you were the one that did it. And he's trying to bring Sonny down. Do you really think that he's going to stop with the waterfront? That's just the beginning, Stripperella. He's going to come to you next, and you'll have to do whatever he says."

"We'll-We'll call the cops!" Courtney knew it was a stupid suggestion before the words even left her mouth.

"You're high again, aren't you?"

"Look, there's a chance that he'll leave us alone after he gets the waterfront, right?"

"What I can't figure out is why he'd want it – ELQ doesn't even use it."

"Who cares? He wants it, he'll get it. And then maybe, just maybe, he will let us off the hook. What did you do with the car?"

"I had it locked up in an old ELQ warehouse."

"Get rid of it."

"What?"

"You heard me, get rid of it. Without the car, there's no evidence."

AJ shook his head again at her sheer ignorance. "No good, dipstick. They already know where the car is, meaning that I can't get to it and destroy it."

Courtney smoothed a hand over her golden hair and leaned forward, hugging her knees. She wanted to cry. "Just give him whatever he wants, AJ. Please. Jason will hate me if he ever finds out."

"Well, look at it this way – he couldn't hate you more than I did when I found out you fucked my brother in our bed while we were married. So what are you worried about?"

Courtney scowled into the phone. "I'm hanging up, AJ."

"You're not going to hang up on me and we both know it. So cut the act already, because you don't fool me anymore."

"Please, AJ, give him whatever he's asking for."

"This isn't going to go away, Courtney. I think we should tell everyone what really happened."

"NO!" Her shrill yell echoed through the bathroom. "No, we can't do that! I'll be arrested for driving under the influence!"

"So? Where's the bad?"

Courtney wanted to hurl the phone into the wall and watch it shatter into a million itty bitty pieces. "Sonny and Jason are going to kill me."

"Again, I ask, where's the bad?"

She scoffed into the phone. This was so like him. "Do you think I'm the only one that's going to go down, AJ? You'll be lucky if Jason lets you live. At least I know Jason wouldn't ever use violence against me; you, on the other hand, are a different case. He loves me – he's stuck with you. And you can kiss any prayer of every getting even partial custody of Michael back if you take this to the cops."

Damn. For all her moronic arguments, she had a point. He would burn for this just as badly as she would.

"Give him whatever he wants, AJ. And don't call me here again. Use my cell."

Without saying goodbye, she clicked the phone off and left AJ with the dial tone. He let the cell slip from his hand and clatter against the wooden dash panel in his car. The sharp noise echoed through the cramped compartment, just like the migraine that was now pulsing through AJ's head.

She was right. He had no choice.

He had to go along with whatever Alcazar's demands were, and number one on that list was the waterfront property. He had to deliver. But more importantly, he was now forced by something other than his own will to keep the truth about Elizabeth's accident to himself.

Every which way he looked about it, he was fucked.