Note- The updates on this are going to be really slow. I haven't written that much more of it yet because I am still ruminating on how to fit the puzzle pieces together. Wish me luck!

And hope you like this chapter.

Chapter Twelve- Seeing Red

Anna Devane Scorpio studied the face of the woman who hired her, looking for signs of weakness. There were none.

Anna said, "You will have your account numbers in due time. Patience is a virtue, like faith."

The blonde titled her head and gave Anna a hard look. "What is the hold up?"

Anna answered, "I go into Greystone without the proper planning and I'll end up behind bars. And you will have tipped Corinthos off to your desire to take what is his."

Faith stood up from her seat at the table in her hotel room.

She leaned closer to Anna, "Get this straight. That man would have nothing if not for me. He killed my first husband and took over his territory. I helped Sonny get to where he is today. Without me he would still be a street punk in Bensonhurst."

They had plotted together to kill Roscoe and then use his men as an army to take on other smaller organizations. Soon Sonny ran all of upper New York from the Canadian border to the city limits of NYC.

For a few years he was the undisputed kingpin of the Northeast, and then things went south with Faith and she made sure to cripple him financially and business wise before she walked out of their marriage.

"So I don't want to take what is his," Faith finished. "I just want back what is rightfully mine, which is," she said the last word slowly "everything."

Faith cackled, her laughter getting louder with each passing second.

Anna was pretty sure this woman was criminally insane, or at the very least, incredibly delusion.

She thought about walking away from the job but there was one thing that intrigued her.

Not only had she seen Spinelli, Zander and Carly back in town, after months of being gone, but Mac also reported that when he was paying Stan off for the blueprints Stan got a phone call from Lucky. From what Mac heard, Lucky wanted a face- to- face with the security expert, and didn't want Sonny to know about it. Stan had flatly refused, and hung up, but he looked shaken.

If the crew was back and the target was Sonny more than likely, Anna figured, Scorpio's Eight were after the same painting she was hired to heist.

And that made this job irresistible.

LUKE did his best to convince Robert to let bygones be bygones with baby brother Scorpio, because they needed an explosive experts for a pivotal part of this plan. But Robert wasn't biting.

So Luke headed into New York City to look up his second choice.

Knocking would have been too easy so he picked the lock on her high raise apartment door, after blacking out the security camera, and bypassing the alarm.

As soon as he stepped inside, he heard water running in the bathroom.

Luke slipped off his gloves, shoved them in his coat pocket, and moved through the darkened room. His hand closed over the bathroom door and he tried the handle, found it unlocked, and then turned.

He stepped into the room, catching an eyeful of bare skin and long red hair behind the glass door. Then it was flying open and the taser gun was being fired at him, square in the chest.

Luke flew backwards and then he was falling towards the ground, thinking Damn, she got me again.

CARLY loved the fringe benefits of this job- getting to hang out with some of the coolest guys in Port Charles after her partners in Scorpio's Eight- Max, Marco and Johnny.

If all went well with the con Sonny would lose the bulk of his bank and never know who took it. So, Carly figured, she could keep her new buddies in her life without any of them every knowing she had used them.

They were sitting in her living room, the big screen TV playing Monday Night Football, and playing strip poker.

She had invited Lulu so they would have five players.

Carly shuffled the deck and started dealing.

Max was down to his underwear. Johnny had on jeans still but no shirt. Marco sat there minus his socks and pants, but had a shirt, coat, earmuffs and scarf on. Carly couldn't help but laugh every time she looked at him.

She was making sure Lulu got the best cards so she hadn't had to strip off anything yet. To make it look good, Carly lost two hands, leaving her to sit there missing her socks and jeans.

Max lost the current hand and everyone started whopping and hollering for him to "Take it off! Take it off!"

"Wait," Carly said.

Max looked at her with a Thank God expression on his face, thinking she was about to get him out of stripping down to nothing in front of this crowd.

But she said, "Let me put on some music for your show."

Everyone, but Max, laughed.

The doorbell rang.

Johnny stood up, grabbed his gun from his ankle holster and went to answer it.

The next thing they saw was Johnny falling backwards and Jason pointing a gun at his head.

Jason barked, "You better have a damn good excuse for being half dressed..."

Lulu jumped up. "No, um, this isn't a good time..." Jason looked past her without a word. "Well when you put it that way, okay. Geez, you are so rude, Morgan."

Carly's eyes locked on him, wanting to cuss him out for treating her guard that way and also wanting to lead him straight upstairs and make love to him until she had no energy left in her body.

Jason took in the scene before him, shaking his head at the weirdness he saw, and then focused on her.

"Caroline."

"Hmmm?"

Their eyes held.

Johnny used the opportunity to raise his gun. He glanced at Carly to see how she wanted this guy dealt with.

Jason pulled a ring out of his pocket and said to her "I think we have something to talk about."

LUKE was laying on the bathroom floor in agony for long minutes. When he could finally pull together a coherent thought he said, "Red, I didn't know they made waterproof taser guns."

"You really should keep up. Your life could depend on it one of these days, Spencer."

Skye Chandler helped him off the ground. She now had on a bathroom robe.

"So what made you darken my door?" she snarked at him "I thought we had an agreement. I get NYC and you get that podunk town up north."

"There's a job."

"I can get work on my own. More than enough, actually. So take your lock picking sneaking into my bathroom self and go back where you came from."

They stared at each other. He saw the past was not forgiven, far from it by the way her eyes sparked with unbridled hate at him. Or was that lust?

He tended to get the two confused with her.

"Can I, at least," Luke asked, running his hand through his hair which now stood on edge, "get a drink before you kick me onto the curb?'

Skye Chandler cocked her head at him and said, "You are a whole lot of trouble I don't need."

But she went and fixed him his favorite drink.

CARLY kicked Jason out.

She needed Sonny's guards to go and tell him how she shot down Morgan and still needed Sonny's help so desperately.

But later she snuck out, when they believed she was sleeping, and crept down the alley to Lulu's waiting car.

Carly knocked once on the door above Jake's.

"Took you long enough," Jason said before he opened it.

"Took me a couple of hours to get back to you. It took you years to get that ring," Carly told him as she walked in.

She turned to meet his eyes and stared Jason down.

He was unreadable. Just still and stoic. Blue eyed and leather clad.

"Say it," she prompted

He held the ring out, toward her.

Carly shook her head slowly, side to side, and smiled, telling him that he was not getting out of this without words. The words she needed to hear to give her some measure of faith they could stop screwing around and start treating their love the way it deserved. Like it was a prize more amazing that any they could steal with a con.

Jason swallowed. "Oh, Caroline."

Tears came to her eyes, giving her away.

He crossed the room and took her face in his hands.

"Carly...Carly..."

"Yeah, Jase?"

"I want to stop dancing..."

"You don't dance."

He chuckled. "Will you let me talk, girl? Do you really want me to say all the mushy stuff? Or can we just agree that we both want this?"

"Say the mushy stuff."

He brought his hands down from her face and took her hands in his. Jason sucked in a breath, let it out, and then did it again. Stalling.

"Unless there is no mushy stuff," Carly said "There's just sex and cons and the fact I know you like no one else ever could. And that we both are in this life and will never get out... that's something...that's..." she tried to make it sound like enough and yet she knew she wanted more.

He said, "There's more to use than that and you know it."

"So...mushy stuff, Jase."

He smiled. "I want to stop dancing around how much I love you. I want to stop being with other women when I want to be here with you. I want to start being the man you never doubt is in love with you and who you know for sure is coming home to you. Because that is where I want to spend my life... that is where I want to live and where I want to die, Caroline. Home ...with you. Now, please, tell me that you will be my wife?"

"Was that so hard?"

He started to laugh softly and so did she, she held out her hand and he slid the ring on.

Then his lips were on hers, hungry and dying for this feeling to never end, for her to always be as needy for him, as crazy for him, as wild for him as she was right now.

Jason lifted her up, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and in his ear she whispered "I want to be your wife."

Coming up- Spinelli and Lulu scenes, Carly sees Sonny again.