Julian jumped into his Porsche, the dream still lingering inside of his head. Imagine him, dreaming that Alexis had decked herself in some dark but figure hugging clothes to spring him from his own wedding.
Funny how a person could dream something that was a complete reversal of reality. That being it had been the mother of his daughter who was scheduled to get married today to Shawn Butler the so-called manager of Kelly's Diner who had more than just ties into organized crime. He was Sonny Corinthos number one enforcer though he'd never been much good at it.
The man couldn't hit a target from 10 feet out, standing still. If he'd been in the Jerome organization, he would have found up at the bottom of the harbor near Pier 51 with a bullet hole in his heart. Especially after yet another one of his hits went wrong and he'd nearly taken out Alexis' daughter, Molly not to mention his own foster son.
Alexis had walked away from him once when she'd found out he'd fired and missed at that crazy artist turned serial killer and back again Franco leaving someone else to nearly take out Olivia.
She'd gone back to him after all the whole mob war blew up around all of them and Shawn had told her that all the violence including that against the teens at his son's disco party had been caused by the Jerome organization. They hadn't been the targets but that's what happened when you let amateurs or incompetents take out your competition. Anna the commissioner and Dante, the entire police department hadn't contested that assertion…though Alexis did think that the only active police officer being a son of one of the players in the mobsters' war should constitute a conflict of interest.
Shawn had surfaced a month ago claiming to be a brand new man eschewing La Familia and all the violence around that way of life. As if he were someone else inside the same body even dressing differently.
Oh Alexis hadn't known everything about her groom that when they had been engaged in a whirlwind courtship during a holiday in New York City but Julian had discovered this when he had run the obligatory and every extensive background check on her future husband. Shawn had been in the military and shot T.J.'s father by mistake, he'd been treated for PTSD but even before being a hired mercenary, he'd been suspected of committing numerous atrocities during his military stint.
Nothing that could be proven but it seemed to Julian that he'd been discharged from the military rather abruptly. His files that would shed some light on the issue, buried in confidentiality regulations and red tape.
He hadn't told her this because he knew she'd turned her back on him, wouldn't be receptive of anything she had to say. She would tell him pot calling kettle black but in the case of Shawn, the man had no honor.
The guy was a stone cold sociopath tied to a string of hits throughout towns around Lake Ontario, some possibly at the same time that he had been romancing Alexis both the first and second times. That's what his sophisticated computer software had told him that he'd hired a Damian Spinelli to decipher and play with. Sam had recommended him as her partner in their investigative agency and she'd done some recognizance as well now that Danny was fully recovered.
The problem was, how would he now explain this to Alexis? After all, she was now preparing to walk down the aisle at a plush estate overlooking the Atlantic Ocean up near a town called Crystal Cove. Sonny Corinthos had property there that he'd loaned Shawn for the wedding. He'd been much more coherent after his month's long stint at Fern cliff being treated for his nervous breakdown.
He looked at his watch, which showed that he had just a few hours to make it before she exchanged vows with Shawn. If traffic cooperated, he might jet there in half the normal time so he kicked his sports car into gear and turned onto the coastal highway.
Sure enough the traffic was light in the direction he headed and he merged into the fast lane.
Alexis looked in the mirror dressed in her slip, which accented her tanned shoulders. She had woken up that morning alone in the suite because Shawn had told her the previous night he had some business to attend to, but would be finished in plenty of time to get ready for their wedding. She fingered her engagement ring which was a diamond set amid sapphires, very elegant. It hadn't been on her finger long at all, about two weeks when he had proposed to her while they picnicked on the beach just outside of PC.
Julian hadn't been in town when Alexis and Shawn had returned as an engaged couple. He had been working on buying into some casino action near the Canadian border and well, she and Shawn just couldn't wait to get married it appeared. They would start with a simple ceremony and then in a month or two would hold a more public reception back in PC when things settled down there.
Then they live together as man and wife raising their combined family while Shawn managed Kelly's and no doubt stuck to his primary source of income. If Alexis believed he'd ever give that up, she'd be dead wrong. A man like Shawn had lived by the gun and killed by it. Any day he could die by it too leaving her a widow. The flow of cash, the adrenalin rush, it'd clearly become an addiction to him. That's what one side of her brain told her but the other side…told her that if he promised to give it up all for her and their family that she should believe him.
Alexis always had wanted to build a larger house on Lake Ontario and at first, Shawn hadn't seemed as enthused but he had warmed on the issue so much in the past week. Sam had expressed interest in taking over the lake house for Danny, Rafe and maybe Silas if things continued to progress well on that front.
Shawn had told her that he just wouldn't be around that much. That he had to travel on work for weeks at a time and that he might have to leave on an assignment at a moment's notice…in his new importing job while he hired management to run Kelly's. She had been so into starting over with him that she hadn't really cared at the time that he might not be there much leaving her an empty house.
Someone knocked on the door and Alexis knew it was Carly, who'd be part of her wedding party given how close Shawn was with Sonny. She knew Carly didn't approve of her marrying Shawn thinking she'd never be able to keep him happy…in certain areas. Alexis didn't give a crap, she just wondered why she wasn't hanging around Julian so much.
Then she remembered she wasn't supposed to think about him anymore…certainly not on her wedding day.
"Are you getting ready," Carly asked.
Alexis still stood before the mirror.
"Not quite yet," she said, "I've got the dress out and ready but there's still time."
The other woman dressed in her bridesmaid outfit, a peace gown with puffy sleeves didn't hide her pout.
"If I didn't know better, I would think you're dragging your feet here on marrying my best friend."
Alexis frowned.
"I thought Jason was your best friend."
Carly waved her hand.
"He was…but you know what I mean."
Yes, Alexis did, Carly changed her BFFs forever on a monthly basis. After all, she'd been tight with Felix the GH nurse for a spell and now it was, Felix who? Even Franco…well Alexis didn't even want to go there. He ever set foot in her company she might have to go Natasha on him for what he did to her daughter Sam. You just didn't mess with her girls and get away with it.
She'd wished Carly felt the same about Franco considering what he did to her oldest son Michael but sometimes Carly treated her children like accessories she could enjoy every once in a while. Sam had taken Michael under her wing like an older sister.
Alexis shook her head, annoyed with her.
"I'm not Carly, I'm sorry you feel that way but no, I'm not bailing out on the wedding…you're just going to have to accept that."
Her scowl told Alexis that wouldn't come easily or freely but she knew that despite her animosity towards her, she did love her latest best friend dearly and would behave herself if only to please him.
"And if I ever find you have a lover on the side, I will bash your head in myself."
Alexis gave her a strange look. Now that was a bit extreme, she thought, she would never cheat on her husband…not even with…her mind lingered on another man, with dark hair and strong features right down to his muscular frame. Throw a chambray shirt and some rugged jeans …and it would start getting warm in here. But when she had walked away from him after the shit hit the fan so to speak, that had been it. She sighed, knowing she'd done what everyone expected her to do but not for those reasons.
And then this golden opportunity arose when Shawn returned in her life as if he'd been waiting in the wings. She had gravitated towards him and he had swept her off of her feet. Their romance if not based on love at least had brought some semblance of stability into her life since their families meshed so well. She had tried to contact Julian and tell him of her plans but he was unreachable, probably off being a mobster somewhere else.
Well, he would know that she had gotten married soon enough when he returned. But for her, marriage would change a lot because she would be rebuilding her life.
She looked over at her dress lying on her bed, creamy white with nice cuffs on the sleeves and a lengthy train. Not exactly her style but Olivia had recommended that he use the designer who had worked on dresses for the brides in hers and Sonny's family.
Then she sat on the bed to think of someone, not her future husband but the man she'd left instead despite her promises to herself to leave that part of her life behind.
Julian stopped while the elderly man herded his ostriches across the road to the other side. He had heard of the giant birds being raised on farms and harvested for their meat but the sight in front of him made him shake his head. Nothing, not anything, would replace cattle in his mind as a form of succulent meat.
He looked at his watch and figured he had dressed up in the right attire to be unnoticed in the crowd. The "smaller" ceremony advertised on the invite still would involve over 100 guests.
The road finally cleared and Julian wondered if he had lost valuable time to get to the church. But he figured, weddings never started exactly on time did they? His one own experience had been testimony to that…not that it actually lasted very long before being sabotaged by a psychotic killer, one who was fortunately dead now.
He thought back to the desperate actions of Alexis in the dream where she had used of all things, smoke bombs to end his own ill-advised wedding but what would he do to stop hers?
He had packed heat and had used it but he didn't have any other weapons in case those who might oppose his actions might take a shot at him in order to keep the wedding on track.
No matter, he had to stop it because Alexis just couldn't marry this hit man, who had tried to masquerade himself off as an unassuming businessman putting that life behind him. He knew that if he could just find Alexis and talk to her, talk her out of this crazy wedding then she would be safe and they could return back if not to PC which was under a lot of heat now, someplace else. Still he knew that she might not go for any attempts he made to tell her what to do, like not get married to the man she rekindled things with. He ran through all kinds of plans and scenarios in his head minus a few that involved hiring mercenaries to help him in case he could think of one that might work.
After all, he knew it had been his fault, because he hadn't been honest with her for too long and then it'd been too late. He'd wrestled with what to tell her and Sam, lost sleep over it but still didn't owe up to his family when it counted.
He'd been away a while and returned seeing the entire world had changed. A federal task force had arrived in PC including marshals to ensure no more violence affected innocent residents and certainly not the tourists. Mayor Lucy Coe met with Anna, and newly re-elected DA Scotty Baldwin to work with the feds to restore order in the town. So things had quieted down for the past few months and a couple of mobsters who wouldn't be named decided it was past time for vacations.
Alexis had ran off and gotten herself engaged to someone she had barely been seeing again for a month. He had returned to the new reality and then had checked his phone messages and emails for the first time in a while and had found a lot of them asking him how he felt about the big news about the engagement…including from Ava.
What engagement, he had asked himself until his eyes widened when he saw it was indeed true.
He flashed back to seeing Shawn in photos with a capo or two from his pre-PC days on some deep sea fishing trip which probably involved pulling fish out and throwing some bigger ones with cement flippers into the water. Alexis really had no idea who she was marrying today.
He looked at his watch as the time continued to elapse without mercy and pressed the accelerator making the car roar. He had to make it to the church on time and time was running out.
Alexis wandered back into the suite she shared with her fiancée to find her shoes, the pair she would be wearing for the wedding and that's when she saw the folder on the floor, half hidden beneath the bed.
She pulled it out curious, and opened it before wondering whether she should or not, before she could chastise herself for snooping on her husband. After all she wasn't Carly.
And that's when she saw the photos.