Thank you to everybody who read or reviewed the last chapter. I am really sorry that it took so long for an update. I put Monique in a coma and Alex at the mercy of a psychotic Carlo and then I go on vacation. Being away for two weeks got me behind in my rotation on every single one of my stores. My output for July was just awful. However, I do plan to resolve things quickly in this chapter.

To make up for accidentally posting the last chapter to my own LiveJournal instead of the site, everyone on this site is getting this chapter an entire day early. I'm not posting this anywhere else until tomorrow. After you read this chapter, you'll realize what a big bonus that is.

The title comes from Romans 6:23.

Warning: nonconsensual drug use but it was for a good cause. Character death (not the baby). Also, grab a tissue.

Chapter 41: The Wages Sin Pays

Betty Suarez has not slept in 56 hours. She's tried to, but she can't for more than a few minutes and she refuses to take the tranquilizers that her stepmother's doctor provided. She needed her head cleared to get through this and the drugs would just muddle everything.

No, what she needed was her son back. She needed her baby. If she had just refused to let herself be interviewed until Daniel's interview was done or told Monique specifically that she couldn't let Alex anywhere near Wilhelmina her baby would be safely in her arms sleeping next to her. But Monique was in a coma and her baby was who knows where with Wilhelmina and Nico. At least she hoped that was the case.

Wasn't it absolutely horrible when the best case scenario was her child being held hostage. As terrified as she was at being told that they found her sons dead body, Betty was equally terrified that they would find Nico's dead body as well. She was barely 16 and Carlo was a sick son of a bitch.

"You're supposed to be sleeping." Daniel said as he laid beside her on the guest bed in Jamie, Jordan, and Alexis' townhouse. Taking over the room since Alex went missing. Neither one could bear to be at their own home surrounded by all of Alex's things. Also neither one could be separated from the other. She honestly would fall apart without Daniel by her side. He was probably the only one who would understand the dark thoughts running through her head.

"You should also be sleeping." Betty knows he's been up almost as much as she has. Their days have been spent meeting with the police, the private investigators, the lawyers, and trying to keep DJ calm. That wasn't an easy task considering that his baby brother and best friend were kidnapped.

Hilda took him to church with her to light candles for Alex. She personally didn't believe stuff like that worked but she was desperate. Her sister was also planning to hand out flyers with Alex's picture on it. Maybe that would prove more useful.

"I didn't take a bunch of tranquilizers." Daniel commented. "You should be out for hours with what Faye gave you."

"I didn't actually take any of the sleeping pills. I just told Faye that I did." During this entire mess Faye has become a ferocious Mama bear forcing Betty to eat and sleep. The irony of it was not lost on Betty. Because of the lack of sleep, her stepmom has resorted to pharmaceuticals and Betty wasn't having any of that.

"You need to rest. You're running yourself into the ground. We both know that with everything going on that's not going to be possible without heavy drugs."

"You need sleep just as much as I do. You take the pills."

"One of us needs to be completely alert, and it should be me. This is my fault anyway." Daniel set up in bed. His eyes were haunted and they have been ever since a hysterical Amanda told both of them about Carlo kidnapping Alex.

"I'm the one who suggested calling Monique to watch Alex." Betty said miserably. If she just called someone else, Alex would not have been there. If she just did one thing differently this would've never happened.

"For all we know Alex may have been the primary target not Wilhelmina. Considering security footage shows that Monique fought Carlo as hard as she could to get Alex away from him, it was a good choice." Daniel half joked.

"And now she's in a coma." Betty blames herself for that as well.

"A medically induced coma. The last time I spoke to Jamie he said they were planning to lift it very soon and then maybe the police will be able to talk to her." Betty doubted that Monique would be able to tell them anything they didn't already know from the security footage but she needed to hold on to any hope at all that her baby would be found. Maybe Carlo said something that the security camera didn't pick up. One could only hope.

"I'm the one who did not want to have Carlo arrested for his little stunt at the Mode offices. He wouldn't have been around to kidnap Nico and Alex if I just had him arrested." Daniel trailed off almost on the verge of tears and she was right there with him.

"Don't second-guess your decision. We both believed Alex would be safer if… I didn't think Carlo was that unhinged. Why did he do it?" That's been the question she's been asking herself for days.

"Ruth and Marc think that it's because he was obsessed with Wilhelmina and…"

"Nico and Alex were at the wrong place at the wrong time." Daniel nodded his head and Betty felt sick again. If she had any food in her stomach Betty would have thrown up. But she had barely eaten anything in the last few days. She's pretty sure her father is putting protein powder in his signature hot chocolate. It's about the only thing she can keep down.

She can actually smell the scent of hot chocolate in the air. Therefore it doesn't surprise her when she hears a knock at the door. It's Jordan carrying a tray of hot chocolate and 'protein' cookies that will never be touched.

"I have hot chocolate and an update from Jamie." As Monique's friend and boss he was camped out in her hospital room at Manhattan medical center along with her boyfriend, mother, and sister Mercedes.

"Is she out of the coma?" Daniel asked wistfully.

"According to Jamie, they stopped giving her the drugs keeping her unconscious about an hour ago, but she hasn't woken up yet. It may be a little while." The 'if she woke up' was left unsaid.

"Did Detective Benson call or anyone else? Do you have any leads?" Daniel asked as he grabbed the hot chocolate off the tray and took a tiny sip. Daniel made strange face but continue drinking. Now she was sure that her father added protein powder.

"Dozens. That's what happens when your child's celebrity godmother goes on national television, pleading for any information about Alex's whereabouts."

She still can't believe Chloe canceled her plans for the weekend to help despite her agent being pissed. She's been on every talk show imaginable pleading for Alex and Nico's safe return (and Wilhelmina's as well because they couldn't show any bias publicly). Chloe was offering a $100,000 reward out of her own money for any information leading to finding Alex. This was in addition to spending the night on Jamie's couch just to keep an eye on her. Betty was blown away by her friend's support.

"Yes, but are any of these tips actually useful?" Daniel asked bitterly.

"A few." Jordan said she gave Betty her cup of hot chocolate. "Someone saw somebody matching Carlo's description purchasing diapers and protein drinks at a convenience store in Putnam County yesterday morning. It could be nothing but Alexis says that Wilhelmina has a house less than half an hour away from there."

She hopes that it really was Carlo. You don't purchase diapers for a baby that you're planning to dump in the river. That little sliver of hope gives Betty enough energy to actually drink the hot chocolate. It was only a few minutes later when both her and Daniel got very sleepy that she realized Jordan dosed both of them was sleeping pills. She's too drugged up to decide if she should be angry about this.

The first thing Monique notices as she finally returns to consciousness are the white lights above her and the smell of disinfectant. She sees lots of white and soft green. She also smells Gio's cologne and her mother's lavender perfume. That's also when she realizes there is a tube down her throat and various alarm bells going off around her.

Monique hears Vivian and Gio being pushed out of the way for more doctors and she gets asked dozens of questions, yes or no questions because all she can do is nod her head until they finally decided to take that stupid tube out of her. Which they do when she has successfully proven that she can breathe on her own.

She wants her mom. She wants her boyfriend. What she really wants is her foster daughter but then she remembers what happened and she understands why the first person she actually see is a tough guy detective that was probably a rapper in a previous career life with a last name too weird for her to pronounce on so many drugs. It starts with a T or something.

She tells him about what happened despite talking being painful and her need for more sleep. She really just wants to sleep, but she wants Nico and Alex back too. She told him about Wilhelmina being knocked out the moment they walked into the garage and her trying to run away with Alex. She mentions the fight with Carlo over Alex. Including the fact Carlo kept shouting about wanting the boy to punish Daniel because he blames the man for getting reassigned away from Wilhelmina.

She then recounted Carlo pulling Alex out of her arms after he shot her in the stomach. She recounted Nico running over to her, only to be knocked out by the same syringe that did in her mother. However, the detective was most interested in her describing Carlo kissing an unconscious Wilhelmina and telling her that he was going to take her back to their secret hideaway. He probably only said that much because he was sure she was dead at that point.

She thought she was dead too, but apparently her idea to send a SOS text message to Amanda probably saved her life. At least that's what Gio told her when he was allowed back into the room with her mom. But that didn't matter because it didn't prevent Carlo from getting away with Nico and Alex. But maybe they can figure out where he is, if anybody knew where their secret hideaway was.

"Rest, my baby." She heard her mother say as she kissed her on the cheek. "You did good."

Wilhelmina Slater was never one to just wait for something to happen. She would still be Wanda otherwise. If she wanted to get out of this hell she needed to make it happen. After what seemed like two days, Wilhelmina was tired of waiting to be rescue.

Under dark of night with Carlo being unconscious due to orgasms in the room next-door Wilhelmina used the file and the bobby pin to get Nico out of her handcuffs. In perfect Portuguese she told Nico to pretend like she was still chained to the bed. She chose Portuguese because unlike French only her and Nico were familiar with that language. The bastard put Nico back in chains last night after their dinner and Alex's diaper change.

The second part of the plan was to distract the bastard long enough for Nico to get out of the room. As soon as she had Carlo distracted, Nico was to take Alex and run.

A little after the sun came up Carlo was back for his morning fuck and probably breakfast. She would never find out because as soon as he unzipped himself, she stabbed him in the balls with the file. Nico took that as her cue to grab Alex and get out of there. Good girl.

She didn't have time to congratulate herself on Nico and Alex's escape because she needed to keep the bastard occupied. She reached for his gun, but unfortunately she was not able to shoot the bastard before he recovered.

They fought for the gun. Of course, the weapon goes off during the struggle and she gets hit. But Wilhelmina Slater does not give up and somehow she managed to shoot Carlo in the chest before the blood loss became too much.

Her final thought is a prayer to a God that she stopped believing in a long time ago that Nico makes it to safety. She does not ask for redemption because people like Wilhelmina Slater don't get redemption. With her final breath, she accepts that's okay as long as Nico survives.

Nico runs.

The moment the file makes it into Carlo's testicles she grabbed Alex and leaped out of the room. She's out the front door and halfway down the sidewalk to the driveway when she hears the gun go off for the first time. For perhaps a second, she wanted to turn back to see if her mom was okay. Then Nico remembered her words, 'Don't look back, just keep running until you get to the road.'

She does that, despite the gravel beneath her bare feet. She wished she could've found her shoes, but there was no time. She thought about going off the trail but she stayed to the driveway because unlike her mom she wasn't familiar with this place. Besides, he would find her anyway with the trail of blood being left by her feet as she continued on.

Nico is just thankful for the lack of snow. It's not like she's dressed for a hike in the woods and neither was Alex. Nico was thankful that she kept him wrapped in one of the towels from the bathroom.

She thinks that it's been a while. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but it's not like she has a watch. Nico is certain that Carlo would've caught up with her by now if he really was coming after her. But she doesn't stop to rest. She needs to get to the main road.

If she gets to the main road, she can find a house or maybe flag down a passing car. Everyone had cell phones now. Although she wasn't sure if they would work in a place like this, too much grass and trees. However, she didn't have to do that because she saw a car coming down the driveway at a distance. At first she started to run towards the woods in case the car belonged to Carlo's accomplice, even though she doubted the man had one. They would have seen somebody by now. But she couldn't be too careful.

Once she realized it was a police cruiser she actively flagged down the car. Of course, the cruiser stopped when they noticed a half-naked bleeding girl holding a baby in the middle of nowhere in late November.

As soon as she told him her name she was placed in the car and a blanket wrapped around her and Alex. When she was safely in the back of the police cruiser she promptly blacked out.

Daniel woke to somebody shaking him.

"Seriously, Jordan, what did you give us?" He was still groggy. Very groggy. Due to the dumb things he did in college, He knew right away that the hot chocolate was drugged, but he also knew that would be the only way to get Betty to actually sleep and she would only drink it if he did too.

"The same mild sleeping pill that I've been trying to get both of you to take for the last two days." It makes perfect sense to Daniel that she was able to get the good sleeping pills.

"Get up. Detective Benson just called." Faye ordered.

Within seconds Daniel was out of the bed and getting dressed. He really didn't care if Faye was watching him. She was a former fashion editor. In their profession, people getting dressed in front of you is a normal occurrence along with the ability to get runway presentable in 90 seconds or less.

"What did she say?" Daniel asked as he brought biting his shirt. He also realized that Betty was still fast asleep.

"They have Alex and Nico." At those words. Daniel felt every ounce of tension in his body release. But then he realized that they may have his child's body

"Betty, you need to wake up." Faye said before actually shaking Betty again buy she was probably too exhausted.

"They found Alex." He whispered in her ear, but still no reaction. Because he wanted to get to his son wherever he may be as quickly as possible Daniel decided to take a different approach. He lent down and gently kissed Betty on the lips. That caused the woman in front of them to at least open her eyes.

"Why did you kiss me?" Betty asked groggily.

"Because the police found Nico and Alex about 45 minutes ago." Betty was instantly sitting up in bed at her stepmother's words.

"They found him." Betty sounded elated before a frowned upon her face. "Is he…" Betty couldn't even finish the question and neither could Daniel but he was wondering the same thing.

"They found Nico running down the driveway of Wilhelmina's secret getaway with Alex in her arms. Their biggest problem is frostbite. Nico was wandering outside for at least 40 minutes in sub-freezing temperatures. At least Alex had a towel." Faye said angrily.

"Where are they? Where were they?" Betty asked frantically.

"Wilhelmina's secret getaway house about two hours outside of the city, in good traffic anyway. The same place she kept Alexis when she first faked her death." Daniel had a feeling that Alexis was probably the reason why they found the house. "They're being transported to Manhattan medical center because the Senator's being an asshole and doesn't want his granddaughter being cared for and I quote 'by a country bumpkin quack' and even though she lost consciousness in the cop car Nico won't let anybody touch Alex."

Alex and Nico were alive. Thank God Alex and Nico were alive. He was so grateful. He did not want to think about what would happen if Alex never came back.

"We have to leave now. Jordan said that she brought something else for us to wear before the hot chocolate she drugged us with kicked in.

"That was my idea. Neither one of you was going to fall asleep otherwise, nor were you any good to me or DJ in the state you were in. You needed sleep. The town car will be here in 10." Faye left to let them get dressed in peace. If both he and Betty broke down in tears when she was gone, he would never tell.

It was only in the car that Daniel realized that Wilhelmina's whereabouts were never mentioned. He didn't ask his boss about it because maybe he was afraid of the answer.

The ride to the hospital was quiet, probably because Daniel wasn't completely ready to accept that his son was found. He wouldn't accept it until he held Alex in his arms.

They managed to avoid the paparazzi by sneaking in through the garage. They passed the officer guarding the room to find a gray-headed nurse, placing dinosaur bandages on Alex.

Happy tears were already spilling out of his eyes at that point. His little boy was back. He was okay. All the bad things he was imagining didn't happen.

Betty quickly ran past him and scooped Alex into her arms before he could even catch up. He followed behind quickly wrapping his arms around both.

"You're such a brave little boy. I love you so much. Both you and mommy." He kissed Alex's forehead and then Betty on the lips. He knew they were both crying happy tears. They stayed wrapped together like that until Hilda brought DJ to join the group hug. In his mind, Daniel vowed to never let his family go again. Betty, DJ, and Alex were his family and he never loved anybody else like he love those three.

"You did good baby girl. Both you and Alex are safe right now. Just rest." The woman said as she gently stroked Nico's cheek.

"Mrs. Wyndham-West?" Nico asked groggily. Where was she?

"I will have none of that. I told you to call me Vivian or grandma."

"I don't think I have a right to anymore considering I got your daughter killed." Nico closed her eyes remembering Monique's lifeless body on the floor of the garage. She felt like she was going to throw up.

"Monique is fine, just recovering from drug-induced coma, but she is up and about now." Nico never heard such good news before.

"Carlo told us that she was dead." She whispered.

"Carlo was trying to mess with your head. Thankfully Monique had the good sense to send an emergency text message to Amanda before Carlo did what he did. It probably saved her life."

"That's good."

"Because she survived we were able to find you and Alex a lot easier than without that information. By the way he is in the pediatric unit with Betty and Daniel with nothing worse than mild frostbite and diaper rash. They're very thankful you kept him so safe." She smiled at that.

"What about mom?"

"You need your rest." Vivian placed a hand on her shoulder but did not answer her question. This worries Nico greatly.

"Where is mom? She stayed behind? Did you find her in the house? What about Carlo?" Nico asked frantically.

"Carlo is dead. Wilhelmina killed him." There is a certain level of anger in those words.

"She attacked him so we can get away." Nico explained.

"That supports what the police believed to happen."

"Why can't they asked mom…" Nico stopped speaking when she realized that Grandma Vivian wasn't looking at her.

"Where's my mother?" Nico asked again hoping to get an answer.

"Your mom did a very brave thing. She made sure that you and Alex got out of there." It was at that moment Nico understood why the woman who would not look at her refuse to answer her question.

"She's dead." It was said as a statement not a question because somewhere in her heart, Nico just knew this was the case.

"I'm sorry." With that grandma Vivian confirmed her worst fears. Wilhelmina Slater was dead.

To be continued