Hello! Welcome back to another chapter :D I'm gonna try to update this story every two weeks this time around, so be on the lookout for that. In this chapter, Amanda enlists the help of some unlikely allies to find Michael while Michael deals with what torment Devin has planned for him.

As always, enjoy, review, blah, blah, blah, and all of that stuff!

He woke up. It could have been a few hours later or a few days later, he wasn't quite sure, but he was sure of one thing: everything hurt. Each labored breath sent pain coursing through every inch of his body. His ribs (at least a couple were smashed, he knew that now) screamed in pain every time he so much as moved and his head was killing him. Michael instinctively tried to move to get up only to find his wrists and ankles tied to a stiff wooden chair.

What the hell happened? he wondered hazily as he struggled against the straps.

Snippets of memories from the night surged through his mind: that phone call with Devin, that threat he'd sent him afterward, that mercenary beating the hell out of him. He remembered a van. Remembered waking up only to be hit in the head with something (A crowbar? A gun, maybe?). Darkness again. And now he was here, wherever that was, tied up with zero fucking clue of what to do.

He took a weary look around, trying to gauge his surroundings. It was an old warehouse, judging by the rusted equipment laying around, and the place seemed eerily silent aside from his own grunts of struggle. The single light bulb dangling right above his head seemed a little cliché, he thought with a lopsided smile. Looking down, he saw splatters of his own blood on the ground and winced. They'd probably had a little fun with him once he got there, too.

Whatever the case was, he needed to get the hell outta there before they came back. He fought hard against the ties around his arms, making a little progress, but not much. Soon enough, his wrists were chafed red and bleeding, the sleeves of his white shirt soon turning red. They'd taken his suit jacket, he'd noticed, leaving him with only the button-up underneath. Bastards.

Michael had just about broken the first strap when he heard the footsteps. He started going faster, frantically trying to set himself free. "C'mon, you piece of…"

He couldn't even finish the rest of his curse before Devin and his Merryweather goons walked in. "Ah, you're awake!" Devin said eagerly, clapping his hands together with an evil glint in his eyes. "Sorry about your head, we had to knock you out for a bit. You woke up during transport and Menendez here can get a little, well, overzealous. Is that the word?"

"If by that you mean that I'll beat the shit out of him, then yeah," one of the mercenaries said with a laugh. Michael recognized him as the guy he'd ran into outside of Ponsonbys and felt brief, misdirected hate flow through him.

"Screw you, asshole," Michael spat out. His head was still ringing-he probably had a concussion on top of the other shit wrong with him-and his lip was bleeding freely, yet he sat up straighter and glared defiantly at his captors.

"Hey, I gave you a fair warning, Michael. Not my fault that your ass was too slow to act on it. Honestly, you should be grateful for this. I was gonna send my guys out for a hit against your wife and daughter, who are both really hot by the way," Devin said with a smirk, making the red mist descend upon Michael. "...but by then they were already at the premiere and you were out in the open by yourself. It was an opportunity that I could not pass up! And who knows? Maybe once this thing's over and you're six feet under, I'll comfort the grieving widow-"

"Fuck you, Devin! You won't lay a goddamn finger on my family!" Michael yelled, throwing himself against the restraints with every last ounce of his strength. Before he himself even knew what was happening, one of the ties around his wrist had snapped and his fist was connecting with Devin's stupidly smug face. He could hear the satisfying crunch of bone underneath his hand as Devin's nose snapped under his punch.

He didn't even have an opportunity to pull his hand back before the other men immediately readied their guns and pointed them at his head. "Give me that, you goddamn idiot!" Devin roared, finally losing his composure as he stole the rifle out of one the mercenaries' hands and stormed over to Michael, who was watching him more out of amusement than anything. It was obvious that the guy had never held a gun in his life; his form was wrong and fucking awful. But, of course, why would the poor little rich boy need to when he could just pay people to do it for him?

His amusement was cut short by Devin pressing the barrel of the gun directly to the center of his forehead. "You won't kill me," Michael said, eerily calm. "Not yet."

"You think I can't do it?" Devin seethed, blood streaming down his face from his no doubt broken nose. His finger edged a little closer to the trigger. "I should've done this the second I saw you…"

"I know you won't," Michael said confidently. "You'll keep me here for a few days, torturin' me in whatever way you can think of, before you leave to go rip somebody else off, and then you'll have one of these fuckin' guys do it," he said, jerking his chin towards the Merryweather agents.

Devin stared at him long and hard for a moment before his gaze faltered and he lowered the gun. "You're right. I'm not gonna kill you," he said with a devilish grin before raising the gun and bringing the stock of it hard down onto Michael's untied hand, instantly snapping the fingers underneath it and making him scream in pain.

Michael looked down at his hand, trying to bite back a pathetic whine, but a strangled groan still escaped his throat once he saw his fingers. Three of them were bent at unnatural angles, each facing a different way from the rest of his hand. "Fuck…" he whimpered through clenched teeth.

With a satisfied laugh, Devin tossed the gun on the ground and started walking away. "I'm not gonna kill you yet, anyway."

"Fuck!" Amanda yelled, pacing through the living room anxiously like she'd been doing for the past two hours. Her and the kids were, thankfully, together, but none of them had any damn clue on what to do next. Michael was always the one to handle this stuff, not her, and, needless to say, they tried to avoid mixing business with marriage.

Frustrated, she crossed over to the coffee table and picked up her husband's lighter and pack of cigarettes, putting one of the Redwoods in between her lips. She brought the small flame up to the cigarette, but her hands were too shaky to even hold the lighter, let alone light the stupid thing.

Tracey glared at the cigarette disapprovingly, knowing full well that Amanda had quit smoking almost ten years ago, but still took the lighter from her hand and lit it up, anyway. "Mom, calm down…" she said nervously.

"Calm down?!" Amanda echoed in disbelief after taking a drag from the cigarette. "Your father's out there, somewhere, hurt and maybe even dead by now and we don't have any idea on what to do! So forgive me if I can't get my fucking shit together!" she said angrily before sitting on the couch and putting her face in her hands, defeated.

All of the anger seemed to drain out of her, revealing the panic and fear beneath. "I...I don't know…" she muttered. "Maybe we're fucked. I'm not like him...I can't just grab a gun and go on some insane rescue mission or killing spree. I'm useless, kids…"

"Hey, you're not useless, Mom," Jimmy said, sitting on the couch next to her. "We still have time, right? We can just-"

"Do what? Sit around hoping that he'll miraculously show up? Wait until he's killed?" Amanda asked bitterly, putting out the cigarette and leaning against the couch with a frustrated sigh.

"I-I don't know," Jimmy stuttered. "We could always call Uncle T-"

"No," Amanda immediately said. "Your father made it very clear to me that they weren't on good terms. Hell, Trevor would probably finish the job himself if he could."

"What about Franklin?" Tracey finally joined in. "You know Dad loves that guy."

Amanda thought about that for a second, thought about the conversation with her husband about him only ten hours ago, which seemed like a thousand now. He's a good kid, Amanda, he'd told her with genuine sincerity. "Yeah…" she said thoughtfully, getting up and dialing her husband's protege and putting him on speaker phone. "Yeah, that could work…"

Franklin answered on the third ring. "Mrs. De Santa, if this is about Michael and Trevor, it's between them-" he started tiredly before she cut him off.

"Franklin, oh thank God you answered," she said shakily. "Listen, I really need your help. It's about Michael."

"What about him? Him and Trevor finally kill each other?" Franklin asked bitterly. She quickly got the feeling that he was tired of constantly being the mediator in their fights. I know just how you feel…

She sighed. "No, it's not that. He's...um, fuck, he didn't show up for the movie premiere and none of us have seen him for hours. Then this rich asshole showed up and basically told me that...that he kidnapped him…" she said, voice breaking. Actually saying it out loud made the reality of the situation that much harsher and before she knew it, tears of mascara were running down her face. "I need your help, Franklin…"

"Shit," Franklin said under his breath. "Did this 'rich asshole' say his name at all? I think I got an idea already…"

"Devin Weston, billionaire investor," Amanda said, her mocking, bitter voice deep in imitation of the man.

"Fuck, man, I shoulda known his ass was shady," Franklin growled. "Here, let me get Trevor on the line, he might help…"

Amanda didn't even have time to protest before none other than Trevor Philips was on the phone. "Franklin! What's up, homie?!" Trevor greeted oddly happily (or drunkenly), apparently unaware that she was on the line, too.

"T, dog, I need your help," Franklin started.

"Ooh, what is it?" Trevor asked a little too eagerly. "We shooting shit up? Spraying some motherfuckers? Doing another drug run?"

"No, dude, what the fuck?" Franklin asked, no doubt a little embarrassed knowing that Amanda and the kids were listening. "It's about Devin and Michael-"

"Oh, fuck them!" Trevor roared at the sound of her husband's name. "Those two deserve each other! I just hope they don't kill each other before I get a chance to do it!"

"Hello to you, too, Trevor," Amanda finally joined in on the conversation, voice tight with annoyance.

"Why, hello there, Amanda. Long time no see," Trevor drawled out. Creepy as always, she thought. "Sorry about that, Mandy, but your husband's a treacherous snake."

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know, you ass," she said, hostility dripping from her voice. The kids shifted uncomfortably next to her. They'd always loved Trevor back in North Yankton, but sometimes the arguments between him and their parents were too much to bear.

Franklin (mercifully) stopped them before it devolved into their age-old screaming matches. "Hey, this ain't the time for this, you two," he said, eerily reminding her of Michael back when he interrupted her and Trevor's disagreements. "Devin pinched Michael's ass, man, and I need your help to track him down."

"Jesus Christ, again?" Trevor asked, annoyed.

Again? Amanda wondered in confusion. Maybe she needed to talk to Michael once they found him. Once she slapped him for scaring the shit out of her, of course...

When she finally tuned back into the conversation, Trevor was still ranting. "...that damn damsel in distress needs to figure out how to save his own ass! If I help him, which I'm not, he's never gonna learn!"

"He isn't gonna be able to learn if he's dead!" Franklin reminded him. "C'mon, bro, this is your best fucking friend-"

"Was," Trevor bitterly interrupted the younger man. "He was. Sorry, kid, but you're on your own for this…"

"Come on, Uncle T!" Jimmy whined, joining in on the adults' conversation. Amanda looked at him in shock, earning a shrug from her son. It can't hurt, it seemed to say. "Can you just do this for us?"

Tracey quickly got the hint and leaned in closer to the phone. "Please, Uncle Trevor. We really need your help," she drawled out in a high-pitched voice like she was the little kid that Trevor had been so fond of back in North Yankton. In a way, she still kind of was.

Trevor let out a long, frustrated sigh on the other end of the phone (along with an angry, muttering string of curses). "Fuck it!" he ended it with. "You're lucky I don't want you kids to be without a father, no matter how much of a pathetic asshole he is…"

"Thank you, Trevor, I guess..." Amanda said, no matter how repulsed saying that made her feel.

"Yeah, whatever," Trevor said dismissively. "Now what?"

"Now we need someone whose ass is smarter than ours on the line," Franklin said with a laugh. "And I think I know just who to call…"

"Nice place you got here," Michael said, looking around the warehouse.

The blood below him had only grown since he'd woken up, and the rope his hands had been tied with had been replaced with real, police-issued handcuffs, but he still smirked at the two mercenaries keeping watch on him. The single, cliché bulb above him was still there, casting the place in a dim yellow light. Guns, knives, and other torture devices laid sprawled out on the tables, making him feel a little uneasy. He half expected some Italian gangster to walk in to fit him with some concrete shoes judging by the look of the place.

The Merryweather agents glared at his comment, furthering Michael's need to irritate them. "No, seriously," he continued, ignoring the way the cold metal of the handcuffs bit into his already raw and bloodied wrists. "Did you buy this off an '80s movie set? I love the whole 'mafia torture chamber' feel. Adds a real touch of authenticity."

"Shut the fuck up," one of the mercenaries snapped, annoyed. "Your little wisecracks are really starting to get on my nerves."

"It's a perfectly good question," Michael said, voice dripping with over the top innocence. "Reminds me of Rum Runner. Great movie, by the way. Have you seen it?"

"No, I have not," the other man snapped before turning to his little friend. "Do you remember what Weston said about this asshole?"

"Well…" the guy said, a Cheshire cat grin spreading across his face as he walked over to the table and grabbed a long, serrated knife from the table. "He said that as long as we don't kill him, he doesn't give a shit what happens to him."

"Perfect," the first one said. "I hold him down and you do your magic. Deal?"

"Deal."

"Hey, come on! It doesn't have to be this way…" Michael said shakily, starting to panic as they got closer him. The handcuffs rattled against the arms of the chair as he struggled, but it was no use. The fist met his stomach first, doubling him over and making him wheeze in pain, before it met his left eye to make sure he didn't struggle any further.

One of the mercenaries grabbed him by the hair and pulled him down so that his back was exposed while the other brought the knife down, slashing through his clothes and skin as if it was as easy as cutting through butter. Michael counted at least four slashes before the pain became too much to bear and clouded every last sense he had. By the time that they were finally finished, his torn shirt was stuck to him with his own blood.

A small groan of pain was his only protest when the one with the bloody knife stepped in front of him and ran the blade along his cheek, a small cut appearing on his skin. The mercenary had just raised the knife again when the doors of the warehouse swung open and the asshole that was responsible for all of this walked in.

"Looks like you had some fun without me!" Devin said, gleefully taking in Michael glaring at him through the one eye of his that wasn't almost swollen shut. A small pang of happiness managed to come through his overwhelming pain when he saw the redness of Devin's broken nose, courtesy of Michael's little outburst, and the bandage around it.

"Oh, don't worry, we didn't have too much fun," the Merryweather goon said, tossing the knife aside with a grin. "He's all yours now, sir."

"Good, that's good," Devin said, trailing off as he walked over to what Michael had nicknamed 'the torture table' and grabbed a baseball bat. "Now, I'm more of a golf guy myself, but for you, Slick, I'll make an exception."

Oh, how kind of you, Michael thought bitterly, silently anticipating the hit that was coming. No amount of bracing himself for it could have helped, though. The bat met his side, his ribs crunching under the sheer amount of force, nearly knocking him out from the pain on the spot.

"Home run!" Devin called out with a laugh, rearing back and swinging the bat again.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Crunch.

By the time that he was done, Michael was teetering in and out of consciousness. Stars of pain danced behind his eyelids, threatening to drown out what vision he had left. Every inch of his body felt like it was on fire, from his bruised face to his slashed back to his shattered ribs, but before he could mercifully succumb to the darkness, he could hear Devin say, "Wake his ass up."

A hand tugged roughly at his hair, reopening the gash on the side of his forehead and sending blood running down the side of his face. Soon enough, his hair was slick with it and the beads of blood trailing down his face and neck became too annoying to ignore. He opened his eyes to the sight of Devin, who was still holding that damn bat in his hand.

"Just do it already," Michael weakly said, defeated. "Just fuckin' do it. Shoot me."

Devin glared at him suspiciously. "You're betting I won't-"

"I don't care! Just get it over with!" Michael yelled hoarsely, looking at his captors almost pleadingly.

"Not yet, Michael," Devin said teasingly, setting the bat down and swapping it out for a copy of the day's newspaper. "You see, here's the thing about you: you expect everything to be easy. Your job, your little family issues, and even the way you die. I'm not gonna give that little privilege to you."

"Says the rich guy who's probably never had to work a day in his life," Michael scoffed. "Fuckin' hypocrite…"

"I wouldn't be lecturing anyone on hypocrisy if I were you, Michael," Devin warned him as if he were treading on thin ice. He handed off the newspaper to one of the mercenaries, who walked over to him and held the copy up next to Michael. Devin brought out his phone (the newest and most expensive iFruit, of course) and held up the camera. "Say cheese…"

Trevor was the first one to show up. Amanda had instantly known it was him judging by the sound of his tires peeling into the driveway and the creakiness that his truck made whenever it so much as moved. She sighed in between in her cigarette (her third of the night) and mentally braced herself for what was to come.

Just my luck, she thought tiredly as she got up to open the door, revealing the always lovely sight Trevor Philips (and yes, she did mean that with maximum sarcasm). "Trevor. Always a pleasure," Amanda said completely deadpan as she gestured for him to come in.

"Ah, Amanda Townley. Totally not passive aggressive at all," Trevor greeted, eyes roaming up and down the dress she still had on. She was too tired and too upset to say that it was De Santa now or to keep his eyes on her face if he knew what was good for him. "You know smoking is bad for you, right?"

She rolled her eyes dismissively. "Sorry if my husband being kidnapped gets me a little stressed out," she said, taking another drag for good measure.

Without another word, she led him into the living room, where Tracey and Jimmy sat anxiously. They looked about as exhausted as she did at this point, and she felt a little pang of guilt that she hadn't comforted them as much as she should've.

"Hey there, kids," Trevor said to them gently and softly, a rare sight for him. "I'm...ah...I'm sorry about your dad. But I'm telling you right now that we're gonna get him out of there and we're gonna make those bastards pay, okay?"

"Okay…" Tracey said shakily, tears forming at the edges of her eyes. "Thanks, Trevor…"

"Yeah, I... we're really glad you're here, Uncle T," Jimmy said, smiling hesitantly. Unlike his sister, he didn't show that he was breaking down, but the signs were still here.

Amanda leaned against the doorway, smiling sadly as she watched the kids and her husband's best friend. Trevor may have been a lot of things (psychotic, creepy, and terrifying for starters), but he'd always loved the kids as if he really was their uncle.

She was jarred out of her fond thoughts by the sound of the doorbell ringing. After a cursory glance out the window (she couldn't be too sure about anything after earlier), she opened the door to Franklin and a frail-looking Lester, who clutched the younger man's arm as if it were a lifeline.

"Hey, Mrs. De Santa," Franklin said, polite and soft-spoken as always, which she'd always found strange for a former gang member. "Sorry I'm a little late. I had to go pick up this guy's ass."

"Yes, unfortunately I don't have a teleportation device for whenever you idiots get into trouble," Lester said sarcastically, obviously wanting to be anywhere other than her house at midnight. He hobbled past them and into the living room, muttering his annoyance under his breath. Franklin followed him, shooting a pitying look that seemed to say "Sorry" towards her.

She had to bite back a frustrated sigh. This is gonna be a long night, she thought as she joined the others. As if it hasn't been already…

"So," Trevor started once they were all together. "Our dear Michael has been kidnapped by resident douchebag Devin Weston, but why?"

"Well, Weston does own a large piece of Richards Majestic and is the reason that Michael even works there in the first place. A little birdie told me that that asshole wanted to scrap Meltdown and tear down the studio to make a bunch of condos. Michael, well…" Lester started with a small laugh. "He didn't like that and stopped him. They've been fighting ever since and I bet things came to a head tonight with the premiere and all..."

"Great," Amanda said under her breath. That noble fucking idiot. "That's that. Now, where the hell are they?"

"That is something I need time to figure out, but..." Lester said, pulling out the laptop he'd been carrying with him. "I'll check both of their phone signals and see where it goes from there. It shouldn't take very long, but knowing that asshole he might have already gotten rid of their phones…"

As he started typing away, a look of extreme concentration on his face, the rest of them sat there anxiously. Tracey still had silent tears running down her face, and Jimmy sat stoically next to her, his distant eyes betraying his sadness and worry. Franklin looked at them sadly, as if he could have prevented anything that had happened, even though none of them could've seen this coming. Even Trevor sat there, looking regretful and the most worried Amanda had ever seen him.

Amanda, unable to bear the silence between those looks and her own overactive mantra in her mind (What if he's hurt? What if he's dead?), got up and walked into the kitchen. She glanced longingly over at the alcohol, wishing she could have something to take the edge off, but opted to make some coffee instead. If it was gonna be a long night, she needed to at least be somewhat awake for it.

As she stood there impatiently, waiting for the coffee to finishing brewing, her phone buzzed next to her on the counter. Feeling something between hopefulness that it was Michael and dread that it was something that would make her already shitty night worse, she picked it up.

She raised the phone, only to be greeted with a text from an unknown number. It's probably just spam or something, she tried to reassure herself as she opened the text.

It wasn't. Inside was the most horrifying picture she'd ever seen: Michael, battered and barely conscious, tied up to a chair, his face bruised and beaten with fresh blood streaming down his forehead and his shirt soaked with his own blood.

The image was accompanied by a single text message:

"He's running out of time…"