Chapter Two
Okay, a few timeline issues to clear up before we proceed. As it stands, I have no use for Sam or Lucky, except for keeping each other out of Liason's orbit. So, while their existence is admitted, they will most likely not make an appearance.
Lucky buggered off after it was revealed that he was not, in fact, Jake's daddy. Lucky, as per his faboo fatherly role model has disappeared to parts unknown. The TMK-pile-o-crap storyline is over, finished, kaput. Although stupid, Emily and Georgie are still gone from the canvas. And Sam has left too; gone somewhere else to do physical therapy on her hip. Oh yeah, Monica still drunkenly hit her and is in rehab. Jason and Monica have made up, and Jase drops by (re: sneaks in) to visit his Momma periodically.
Please R&R. Many thanks to beta Selene.
--
"Where are you?"
"Don't get your panties in a twist Trevs," Claudia Zacchara teased, knowing the complete lack of control was, and would continue, to drive the Zacchara family attorney near batty, "I'm perfectly safe and sound. Not even an eyelash out of place."
"This is no joking matter Claudia," Trevor warned testily, "You call a meeting with the Five Families, and then you disappear. We need to be prepared for this Claudia. Where are you?"
"I'm already in Port Charles," Claudia swilled the remaining liquid in her martini glass, before gulping it down and gesturing to the bartender for another, "Scoping out the lay of the land, that sort of thing. I thought I'd see the place for myself before I jaunt off to the meeting."
The frustration was evident in the elder man's voice. "We need to present a united front here Claudia. With your father gone, we need to show the other families that the Zaccharas are still as strong as ever."
"Right Trevor, the Zaccharas." Smiling her thanks to the server who set another drink in front of her, she plucked the olive from the glass, and raked it from the decorative stick with her teeth. "Last I checked, your last name was Lansing."
Trevor tried quickly to reason with her, but she cut him off before he could utter more than a syllable, "No Trevor, you will be there simply to make introductions. I don't need your interference, and I sure as hell don't need your help. Your crap may have worked on my father, but he was a certifiable loony. I'm not going to fall for it. So you can either accept that fact, and be the faithful attorney who keeps his nose out of my business; or we can part ways right now, because we both know that I don't need you. You need me. More importantly, you need my family name to keep your ass safe from all the people you pissed off while running things in Daddy's name."
"I have been a loyal employee of your father's for more than twenty years," Trevor huffed, "And here Claudia, your bravado means nothing. You need me to take care of this meeting. The leaders of the Five Families won't trust you or respect you simply because you say you're Anthony Zacchara's daughter."
--
"Ow," Nadine hopped on one foot to the bench in behind a few bushes. Hopefully no one would bother her, and she could berate herself for her stupid feelings, stupid thoughts, and even more stupid actions, "Ow, ow, ow, ow."
She flopped onto the bench, and carefully lifted her throbbing ankle to balance on her opposite knee. She gently wiggled her sneaker off, and then pried off her white sports sock. Tenderly, she probed the swelling joint, her fingertips brushing the blue-purple bruise, "Stupid, stupid, stupid."
"Hey-uh-are you okay?"
Nadine's stomach knotted as she looked up to find a member, the head actually, of one of New York's most feared mafia families gazing down at her concernedly. His hands were in his light-weight, black sports coat pockets, his legs were encased in faded blue jeans, just tight enough to hint at the delicious secrets hidden beneath the denim. He bent to the side at the waist to see her face.
"Ye-ye-oh-yeah," Nadine stammered, "I'm fine."
"You sure?" The dark lord (clearly her ankle injury was spreading, if she was thinking in Star Wars terms) sat lightly beside her on the bench, almost perching on the edge of it. "Because that," He pointed to her rapidly swelling appendage, "Looks like it hurts."
"It's not so bad," Nadine replied, trying to deflect the mobster's attention away, "It hurts a little, yeah, sure, but not as much as say, a gunshot wound would."
--
"Jason, in here! Now!" Sonny bellowed from the inner office. Max offered a sympathetic look to his friend and employer as the blonde stood, heaving a weary sigh.
"Good luck," The guard offered wryly, and Jason rolled his eyes as he slowly wandered towards the office, dreading entering and facing Sonny.
"What's up?" Jason lifted his chin as he came to pause in the doorway.
"Sit down," Sonny ordered, not looking up from whatever was scattered across his desk. Jason was growing agitated with Sonny's orders and presumptions, and knew he wasn't the only one. How long would it last before someone's loyalty was seriously called into question?
"What's going on Sonny?" Jason asked, lowering himself into the chair on the opposite side of the heavy desk, tapping the eraser end of a pencil against the arm of his chair, "What do you need?" He'd nearly asked what the other man wanted, but stopped himself in time to avoid another classic Sonny outburst.
"The Zaccharas have called a meeting with the Five Families," Sonny grunted, tossing whatever he was feigning working on to the side of the desk, "You hear anything about that?"
"A couple of rumblings, but nothing major. Why? What's up?" Jason shrugged himself into a more comfortable position in his chair, "You expecting something to go down?"
"We need to keep a close eye on the Zaccharas, Jason," Sonny bluntly said, while Jason was biting his tongue to keep from saying anything, "We need to provide a united front for the Families. Show 'em that my, y'know, my organization is strong, that nobody can knock it down. We—we gotta show them that no Zacchara is gonna waltz in here and take what's mine y'know?"
Ours was on the tip of his tongue, but he managed to refrain, "What do you suggest then Sonny?"
"You're going to come with me."
--
Her stomach felt like the bottom had fallen out of it. Had she really just said that? To him? How stupid was she?
But her worries that her rambling would cause her companion to remove his "piece" from his pocket and "let her have it" were quickly proven unfounded. He looked at her sideways, but then his gaze grew amused, and a chuckle burst forth from the presumed brute. His amusement lightened the angry, frightening glare his face had previously held, and an oppressive weight seemed to lift from his shoulders.
"So, what's your story?" He asked after a few long moments of silence. He noticed that the blonde occupying the other half of the bench was, though not successfully, trying to hide the fact that his reputation had preceded him, and that she hadn't the slightest idea how to speak to him.
"M-m-my what?" She stuttered, working very hard to keep her gaze locked on her throbbing ankle. Her rambling was surely going to do her in before the night was out.
"Your story," He repeated offhandedly, resting his shoulders comfortably back against the top rung of the bench, "The reason you're limping out here instead of being somewhere else."
She could have come up with an intelligent response. She could have pleaded ignorance; made something up; denied she had a story. She was a respectable nurse, having passed nursing school with one of the highest grade point averages in her class. But could she form words, sentences that didn't make her sound like a moron? Of course not.
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Dear god, now she wanted him to shoot her.
--
"Trevor, why don't you have a drink and calm yourself down?" Claudia suggested icily, "Or maybe you should stick to beverages of a non-alcoholic nature, because clearly you've imbibed too much if you think that you can tell me what to do. My father may be crazy enough to fall for your reindeer games, but you are not going to pull the same kind of crap with me. Do you understand me old man?"
"Claudia, where do you think you are? In Milan?" Trevor retorted, "This is not a wine-and-cheese-tasting with your dopey uncle, and his merry band of money launderers. We're going to have a meeting with the Five Families. They are hitters; heavy ones, including Corinthos, who might want you dead on sight."
"I'd really like to know what this ugly history is between you and Sonny Corinthos, it colors every word you say about him," Claudia raked another olive from the stir-stick with her teeth, pausing as she mused, "It's fascinating."
"We have to have an agenda," Trevor pushed, as if his word was final.
"Go in there with your big plan and something goes wrong, you've got nothing," Claudia snapped, setting the martini glass down on the bar with more force than necessary, "We do this my way, all you have to do is make an introduction and get out my way. This is the last time I'm saying this Trevor. Has it forced its way into your head yet? Or is your skull that impenetrable that you can't understand a simple order?"
"You're not going to be this reckless on purpose are you?" Trevor demanded, sounding as if he had reached the end of his rope, and was dangling over a precipice by the end.
"Watch me," Claudia flipped the phone shut, a satisfied grin on her face. She was not going to be played by some scum-sucker who thought he ran the show. The grin widened as Claudia gleefully appreciated what affect her return would have on the seemingly comfortable life Trevor Lansing had while he played the Zacchara family like puppets. Not anymore; not her and not John. She would see to it.
--
"Ah, c'mon Elizabeth," Robin trailed after her as she strode across the lobby floor to the nurses' hub, patient file in hand, "It'll be fun."
"I don't know Robin," Elizabeth kept her eyes on the binder as she made notes in it; "I don't really think it's a good idea."
"Why not?" Robin leaned on the counter of the hub, "Don't leave with me with both of them."
Elizabeth chuckled, closing the binder and tucking it back into its place in the stack, "I think you can handle it."
The pathologist rolled her eyes, rubbing a flat hand over her pregnancy bump, "I can tell Leo has a crush on you."
"Really?" Elizabeth couldn't help but ask, fingering the chain around her neck and fisting her hand around the gold band threaded over the chain.
"Yeah really," Robin grinned, thinking she may be getting somewhere, "You should come out tonight with Leo, Patrick, and me, have dinner, have some fun."
"I just don't really think that it's a good time for me to be going out on a date right now," Elizabeth squeezed the ring one last time before reaching for another patient chart, at the same time tucking the chain and ring safely out of sight.
No, she thought wryly, now was not a good time for her to be dating. Holding in a giggle she realized, her husband would have a fit.
--
"Do you do that often?" he asked, just as she was contemplating making a run for it, bad ankle or not.
"Do what?" Nadine blurted, smoothing her palms over her thighs, flattening imaginary wrinkles in her scrubs.
"Ramble," Johnny turned a disarmingly handsome smile in her direction, and now Nadine felt herself puddle into her own shoes, "Or is it only when you're nervous?"
"Nervous? Me, nervous?" Nadine forced a smile of her own, raking her blonde locks away from her face, "No, I'm not nervous. A little weirded out maybe, to be telling my quote unquote issues to a total stranger, an armed and dangerous stranger," The hand in her hair flew to cover her mouth, "Oh my god, I am so sorry. I'll bet you hear that all the time huh? The armed and dangerous part, I mean. Gah!" She exclaimed, exasperated with herself, "There I go again! Here I am, rambling on and on about the stupidest things. I'll bet you think you sat down next to a raving lunatic."
"Hey, hey," There was that damn smile again, "Trust me on this, I know raving lunatics; and you?" Not thinking about it, feeling quite natural about it, he placed a hand on her knee and squeezed gently, "Don't even tip the scales."
Finally, a genuine smile brightened her face.
--
"I thought a Zacchara called this meeting," Salvatore observed, and suddenly the door to the back room flung open, and in sauntered a woman all dressed in black; tight black jeans, a tight black top with a deep, open v-neck, and a black trench coat, the buttons left undone and the lapels flying open. She fixed the men gathered around the table in the center of the room with an appraising stare, before smiling like she wasn't surrounded by dark, particularly dangerous men in the back room of a cheesy sports bar,
"One did."