Chapter 16

Sara

Sara walked through the front door of her house. She was so exhausted all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and finally put an end to this horrible day.

She walked into her bedroom and her eyes immediately fell upon Michael who was tied to a chair in the center of the room.

"Michael!" she said running to his side and removing the gag in his mouth "What are you doing here?"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you Sara." said a familiar voice behind her.

She turned around to see Mark standing in the doorway.

"Mark let him go." she yelled angrily as he stepped further into the room.

"I warned you Sara. I warned you that if you told anyone that there would be consequences."

"I didn't tell him anything. I did as you asked, I told him to leave."

Mark pinned her to the wall, wrapping his hand around her neck.

"Don't. Lie to me. He came here looking for you." he yelled.

Sara struggled to catch her breath under his hold. He loosened his grip a bit giving her enough air to respond.

"Mark, I swear I didn't say anything to him. Please don't do this." she said as tears ran down her cheeks.

He tightened his grip one last time before forcefully throwing her to the floor.

He stepped back and pulled a gun from his back pocket and aimed at Michael's head. Sara looked over at Michael who stared up at Mark before lowering his gaze down to her.

"You did this to him." he said as he pulled the trigger.

"Michael!" Sara screamed shaking awake from the horrible nightmare.

She looked around at the dark bedroom. No Mark, no Michael, just an empty room.

"It was just a dream." she kept telling herself "It was just a dream."

The Next Morning

Sara put down the paper she had been reading when she heard the lock turn in the front door. A short while later Mark stepped into the kitchen.

"Good morning sweetheart." he said with a smile when he saw her.

"Ugh." was her only reply as she picked up the paper and pretended to read it.

"There's that winning Tancredi personality that I love so much." he said sitting in the chair across from her.

"And let me be the first to congratulate you on your Oscar winning performance last night." he said applauding "I didn't think you had it in you. It seems Mr.Scofield hopped on the first plane back to Panama this morning. You must've done a real number on him..."

"Mark, if you don't mind I don't really feel like playing house this morning." she interrupted him not wanting to hear anything else he had to say.

"Alright. I'll be back here at 3:00 to pick you up for the appointment with the caterers." he said getting up from the table and kissing her on the cheek.

"Looking forward to it." she said sarcastically scrubbing her cheek.