November 23, 1989
Port Charles, NY
Julian Jerome stood on the dock near Lock 10 watching the sun rise over the Port Charles Harbor. As he sipped his coffee and enjoyed the solitude he thought of his mother, who had introduced him to tranquility of morning dawn break. For years the sunrise had been their time, and he had been her son.
A second son growing up in a culture of patrilineal primogeniture might have felt stifled and stymied. Yet, Julian never had; at least not while Evan had been alive. As long as Evan had been the presumed heir apparent to the Jerome Syndicate, Julian had been free. He had been free to attend Harvard, and then Georgetown. He had been free to fall in love. Basically, he had been free to have a life. Evan's death had ended all of that and, as a result, Julian had mourned his loss of freedom much more than he would ever been able to mourn his brother.
At face value, Julian knew how cold that sounded. On some level he even believed that it was cold. Yet on another level, his brother had been impulsive, misogynistic, callous, and cruel and there had truly been no love lost between them. Evan was everything Julian never wanted to be. His one redeeming quality had been that he was doing that which Julian didn't want to do. Julian had been grateful for that reprieve. Gratitude hadn't been exactly the same as love or respect but it had been all that he and Evan had.
After Evan's death, Julian had buried his soul and upheld his familial responsibilities. He had taken his place, not for his father, but to spare his younger brother, Edgar, his fate. For years he had existed in the murky depths of the abyss rather than living life in the light. His friendship with Duke had brought him back towards the surface of light but it was Alexis's persevering faith in him that had forced him to pierce the surface.
Julian's emergence had been incomplete; or at least full of conflict. Inertia could be hard to overcome. Yet, even as he had floundered and spun his wheels in Port Charles, he had not been able to stop thinking of Alexis. So, he had done the only thing he could do. He had held onto the smallest sliver of hope imaginable that he might find a way. Then, when he had almost reconciled himself to a life without Alexis, he had received a call from a very unexpected potential ally, Joe Scully.
Julian's father had always considered Joe Scully a mutt or a half breed. The Scully family had emigrated from Ireland in the mid-1800s and settled in Chicago and then expanded into Detroit where they came to prominence. When tensions with the Italian families came to a head Jack Scully brokered a bit of a peace accord and arranged for his eldest son, James, to marry into one of the five families.
The only son of that union, Joseph Vincent Scully, had moved up through the ranks in the Camorese family until he returned to Detroit to head the Detroit Partnership in early 1987. In the past year, Scully had successfully brokered a seat at the table for the organization on the commission.
In spite of his criminal enterprises, Scully seemed to have an ethical code and, beyond the avoidance of self-incrimination, a sense of integrity. Perhaps meeting with Scully was the first step to Julian's exit from the Jerome Crime Family. He could only hope that his upcoming trip to Detroit to attend the AICPA Convention would garner him much more than needed continuing education. For the moment, just being able to still cling to his sliver of hope had to be enough.