Chapter 6:

The DVD player clicked and the TV screen faded to black as it switched to sleep mode.

There wasn't a single sound in the entire world that would have been strong enough to break the silence that settled over the living room. Alexis gripped the remote, her knuckles white and the veins of her wrist pulsing in bulges as her heart pounded against her rib cage. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't blink. Her lungs were screaming at her, her eyes dry, but she couldn't do anything about it.

Jason, on the other hand, was livid. He couldn't contain himself, and hated Alexis for being so silent. He hated Manny, wanted to rip him limb from limb. He hated himself for leaving Sam in danger. He hated almost everything, Alexis's coffee table receiving just a small glimpse of his rage as he took told of the edge and flipped it over on itself. The papers, books, coffee mugs and decorative ornaments met there fates as they crashed to the floor.

The only thing he didn't hate was Sam. That made everything a thousand times worse.

Alexis found her gaze shift to Jason as he vandalized her house, her eyes hazy and distant. Two daughters were in the hands of a mad man. Her husband had been attacked, nearly beaten to death, and was lying unconscious in a hospital bed, his room flanked by guards that, on any other day, Alexis would have been happy to put behind bars. The young woman that babysat her children was under strict surveillance and protection, effectively jailed in her own home. Molly was with her, because Alexis was too much of a danger to be allowed to care for her last child.

This was not the life she wanted to live. It was all happening so fast. When it had just been Kristina things had been bad. Sonny was at that time the biggest mob boss around, a man with a target on his back. His child was just another dead body to anyone who wanted to hurt him. She had done everything she could to keep her away from the life, and through some terrible times had somehow managed to succeed. At least enough to be comfortable.

When Molly was born it was like a fresh new start for all of them. Her father was a man of the law. True, the connection to Sonny was still there but it was more removed. Ric was the perfect father. Sweet, honest and intelligent. He knew how to take care of both his own daughter and the one he adopted by marrying Alexis. There was a rhythm to their lives, like a heartbeat, a pulse that dictated their lives and drove them towards the peace that she had always wanted.

Then Sam, in a blur of chaos and tears, appeared in their lives. Her long lost daughter, the child she gave up for adoption when she was teenager. A woman of twenty six who was headstrong and driven, an adult who knew what she wanted and did what she needed to get it. Every bit as articulate and stubborn as her mother, a connection that was staring them in the face so plainly that neither noticed. It was too absurd.

"I pick Kristina," Alexis heard herself saying, silent tears slipping down her cheeks. Her body was shaking uncontrollably. She fixed her eyes on Jason, suddenly fully aware of her surroundings, the shock of being pulled from her dream world numbing.

Jason turned on her, his foot on the leg of the table he just massacred, "What?"

"If he was serious… if he asks me to pick a daughter. I have to pick Kristina. Sam would want me to, and-"

"I don't need you to justify leaving Sam to that monster," Jason moved to her. She recoiled, getting up from the sofa and holding onto the remote like it was some sort of weapon. Jason raised his hands submissively, expertly storing his anger for the right time. All he wanted to do right now was convince the mother of the woman he loved to not abandon her eldest daughter, "If Manny wants to kill them he will. You won't have a say. Play along with him and they both die: and probably you too. I'm sending this DVD to Stan to have him analyze it. Find out where they are."

"And then what? Burst in there, guns blazing? She's a child Jason. She doesn't understand what guns are, or why that mean man with all the pictures on his body took her from her Daddy. She doesn't deserve this."

"And Sam does?" Jason roared, eyes flashing mutinously. Alexis stopped cold, her blood running like ice through her stiff limbs. Tears sprang to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She collapsed to her knees, dropping the remote and covering her face with her hands. Jason watched as she broke down before him, her body wracked with agonizing sobs.

"I don't know!" She cried between gasps for air, her throat constricting and her voice labored. She dropped her arms and hugged her stomach as if she had been stabbed, her forehead almost on the floor. Tears ran over the bridge of her nose, creating an almost perfect circle on the rug. Jason stood in front of her, looking down at her. He felt like condescension personified. He made no move to comfort her.

It seemed as if Alexis's body was tearing itself apart. The rational part of her mind, the lawyer and the woman she prided herself on being, told her she was making the right choice. It was unfair, universally selfish, and ultimately made her a terrible person, but she had to be honest with herself. She didn't really like Sam, on a personal level. And Sam had admitted to hating Alexis on more than one occasion.

But that didn't matter. None of it. Her maternal instinct told her that trading one child for another was inexcusable. She couldn't let herself do it. But what did that mean? What if her daughters both ended up dead? Just because she didn't have the constitution to make the most terrible decision of her life.

She didn't know what to do. And that killed her.

Jason kneeled beside her, putting his hand on her shoulder lightly. He couldn't comfort her, didn't really want to, but he couldn't leave her in this condition. The common thought about him was that he was a heartless monster. That wasn't true. Sam made him realize that.

"We'll save them both," He said softly, almost apologetically, "Kristina and Sam. You don't have to make a choice. I'll get them back."

Alexis looked up at him, covering her mouth with her frail, trembling hand and frowned in an effort to steady herself. She swallowed hard, still unable to draw a complete breath, "how can you be so calm?"

"One of us has to."

She shook her head, sitting back on her legs. Jason moved closer to her, keeping his hand on her shoulder and taking a seat near her on the floor. He watched her carefully, looking for some reflection of her the daughter she failed to raise. There was nothing Sam in Alexis. Not that he could see, anyway.

Alexis was seized with a terrible sob, her resolve visibly breaking in her eyes as she let herself cry once more. She clung to Jason's shirt, pulling him close and crying against his shoulder. He moved the hand on her shoulder around her back, hugging her to him in an uncomfortable effort to sooth her pain.

Jason was righteously angry, ready to kill Manny and anyone who got in his way in cold blood to save the woman he loved, yet he was here, in the house of his mother in law, comforting the woman he couldn't stand. He felt strange playing the Bigger Person role, putting aside his personal feelings to help get them both through this in one piece.

"This is my fault," Alexis said, drawing in a deep breath and pulling away from him, getting to her feet slowly. She folded her arms over her chest and walked away from him, to the wreckage of the table. The shattered mugs and coffee stains were brief, meaningless distractions, "I let him out, and now he's playing with me."

"Manny would have gotten out and come after you if he was put away," Jason sighed, standing. He saw his leather jacket hanging over the back of her sofa and was compelled to grab it and go. It wasn't wrong of him to want to stop this useless misery and do something productive, yet he made no move. Alexis wiped her cheeks with her palm, sniffling in a desperate effort to calm herself.

"I just want my daughters back. Jason, I'm not the DA right now. I'm a woman terrified for the safety of her children. A woman willing to do, or help you do anything." Her voice was suddenly steely, a completely different attitude than anything Jason had seen from her yet. He nodded at her back, respect bristling in the air.

"Good." He went to the DVD player and ejected the unmarked disk, slipping it into a protective sleeve. He grabbed his jacket and pulled it around his broad, muscular shoulders, then went to the door. "Come on. We've got work to do."