Chapter 19

Sara

Sara closed the door behind her without locking it. She made her way into the kitchen where she found Mark sitting at the table reading the paper.

"Hey sweetheart." he greeted her without looking up from the article he was reading "The photographers called, we're meeting them at the church tomorrow to go over the layouts."

"Mark why don't we just cut the crap right now. We both know there's not going to be a wedding so lets stop pretending that there is." she said skipping straight to the point.

Mark put down his paper and looked at her. She could see his anger building with each passing second.

"If this is about Scofield again..."

"This has nothing to do with Michael." she interrupted wanting to leave him out of this "We both know that you have no intention of letting me even make it to the alter, just like those other girls."

"What are you talking about? What other girls?"

"We're both adults here, put you're cards on the table. There's no point in lying now."

Mark stared at her for a moment as if trying to tell whether or not she was bluffing.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"No? Well let's see. What do I know about Mark? What do I know about John, David, Rick..." she went on to list all of his previous aliases "Or Linda, Amy, Emily... should I continue or do you need to know all the names of the women you've killed?"

His eyes narrowed at her a second before getting up and walking over to stand in front of her next to the counter. She stared up at him not budging the slightest from her position in front of him.

"Congrats Sara, you figured it out. Why am I not surprised that you would?" he asked grabbing his mug next to her and making his way to the coffee maker.

"Why did you kill those girls?" Sara asked getting back on the subject.

"They deserved it." he stated simply taking a sip of his coffee.

Sara let out a bitter laugh "Nobody deserves to die."

"Oh but these girls did. Or rather their fathers did." he explained putting down his mug and walking closer to Sara.

"Do remember when I told you about my dad?" he waited until Sara nodded and continued "Well I didn't exactly tell you the whole truth. See my dad was one of the top...buisness men in a private company..."

"You mean the mob." Sara interrupted.

"Exactly. Fortunately no one had any evidence to tie him to the Flazone family, just theories. He was about to be called into office when an anonymous source provided evidence to support the claims. So my father was sent to jail and executed."

"What does any of this have to do with you murdering those girls?"

"Be patient, I'm getting there. During final visitation he told me there was one more thing he wanted me to do for him. He told me to find out who ratted him out and avenge him. So for the next 6 years I did nothing search for the person who killed him. I was eventually able to find the original call and trace it back to a cell phone. Imagine my surprise when I figured out that the call was not placed by a person but rather by a secret organization called the 'E Pluribus Unum.' It was a group of made up of six senators and governors who took an oath to be the political protectors of America. Unfortunately they were already dead."

"So now as you can see I was at an impasse. How was I supposed to get my revenge if they were already dead? Most guys would have stopped there, thrown in the towel. Not me, I kept digging until I discovered that all of them had left behind a single daughter to succeed them. So I disguised myself as the perfect guy who swept them off their feet until I could get close enough to...well you know. So one by one I took all of them out until I was left with only one, Sara Tancredi, daughter of 'Frontier Justice Frank, the last member of the political protectors."

Mark edged in closer putting his hands on either side of the counter trapping her in as he did so.

"But you see you Sara took twice as long as the others. You were already in love with someone, someone who you were waiting for. So I waited a whole year for you to get over him and agree to marry me. I would of had you too if he wouldn't have shown up and screwed everything up." he said angrily as his grip tightened on the counter.

"So what now?" Sara asked. She had heard enough she was ready to get out of there. "Are we just going to continue to 'Pass the Ketchup' or what?"

"Pass the Ketchup? What the hell does that supposed to mean?"

"You know it's a... um a figure of speech for beat around the bush... or something like that." she explained nervously hoping Bruce and his guys would bust in any second now.

"Whatever. But now seeing as how you know too much, I'm forced to move up my schedule." he said turning away and picking up a knife.

He turned back around to face her. Sara looked around nervously. Oh God where was Bruce.

Just a note - I was thinking about a possible sequel for this story.