A/N: Wow. So sorry for the long wait! And I haven't even been able to reply to reviews for the last chapter. Seriously, I feel awful! I moved, I quit my job, I turned a decade older, stuff you know. But I'll be better about updating now. Pinky promise! So, since we're on a TVD break, maybe this'll help tide you over a little :) Happy Sunday everyone! Wishing y'all sunshine and happy times 3

The nineteenth chapter, in which unconditional trust turns out to have been abused

Elena didn't have to wonder for long. In that instant the door was pushed open and Damon walked in, followed by Bonnie.

"Damon," Elena exclaimed in relief. "We have to go. The…"

"Elena, don't!" Mason instructed from behind her.

Elena spun around, ready to tell her husband off for his ridiculous insinuations, when she was stopped by Damon's calming hand on her arm. "I'm assuming the Mikaelson brothers have been apprehended and you want to go to New York?" he asked of Mason, making Elena marvel at his ability to stay calm in the face of so much unwarranted hostility.

"I ask that you stay out of this," Mason returned coldly.

"New York's a dead-end," Damon returned matter-of-factly. "You're wasting your time."

"And what has brought you that epiphany?" Mason spat mockingly.

"Who told you about the elevator?" Damon questioned in return, his eyes boring into Mason's. Elena turned to look at him, confusion at his unexpected change of topic evident on her face.

"What?" Mason asked, the anger suddenly evaporating at the abrupt mention of the tryst that – in his mind – had started everything.

"Who told you about what happened in the hotel elevator?" Damon asked again.

"I told you. The hotel manager brought it to my attention," Mason replied, annoyed that the unpleasant event was being brought up again.

"I don't think so," Damon returned with a slight shake of the head. "The Plaza is a five star establishment. They know that their guests value their privacy. Things happen there all the time that would warrant to be brought to someone's attention. But they never are. Because the hotel doesn't tell you what your wife does. It knows – and then keeps it private."

"Why would they keep my wife's affair from me?" Mason questioned, enraged again, no longer pretending that their marital problems were a secret.

"Because they don't know if it's an affair. Or if you know about it. Or if you arranged it to rekindle your love life," Damon returned and Elena could see the fury rise in her husband's face. "They know that it's better to keep things quiet than to bring something to a guest's attention that might embarrass them. That's why I'm sure they wouldn't have told you unless you specifically asked them. Did you ask them?"

It was obvious that Mason was inwardly debating how to respond. "No," he finally squeezed out. "Tyler brought the pictures to me. He said that the manager had approached him."

A spark shot into Damon's eyes, almost akin to triumph. "That's what I thought," he continued eagerly. "I claim that Mr. Tyler and his wife are behind your children's disappearance."

"How dare you!" Mason exclaimed and lunged for Damon, one fist raised to strike.

Captain Grant and one of his officers immediately stepped in and held Mason back before he could reach his target. "Break it off," the detective warned, positioning himself between the two adversaries.

"Where do you come off accusing my family?" Mason fumed, pushing against the policeman's hand that was raised to restrain him, in an effort to make the point that he would still beat Damon if he was given the chance. "My brother wouldn't hurt my children."

"For their sake let's hope that's true," Damon returned.

Something tightened in Elena's gut. The mere insinuation that the only friend she had left in this world and her husband's brother might be behind the events that pained and terrified her more than even her unbearable youth had been able to, compressed her lungs to the point where she found it painful to breathe. It couldn't be true. She couldn't accept even the possibility.

"You are unbelievable. He has no motive! He owns half the company. He has enough money," Mason argued.

"Exactly," Damon agreed. "But Tyler's assets as well as yours are all tied up in Lockwood Limited. Neither of you has a lot of independent wealth. I believe that Tyler was planning on selling his half of the company. But when you pulled out of the Westside development, that half of a company lost a lot of the value it would have otherwise had."

"That doesn't mean he would resort to violence," Mason reasoned.

"Which is why he didn't at first. He hoped you would pay up before he would have to take more drastic measures. What kidnapper makes multiple threats before actually kidnapping someone? The kind that would rather not go through with it."

"It couldn't be him," Mason persisted. "He's in Italy with Vicki. They called us. The cell tower that the kidnapper called from is in New Jersey."

Elena's heart jumped. That was true. She felt herself cling to that hope, felt herself wish that her husband was right and Damon was wrong. The idea that the evil that had descended upon them originated within the family was too appalling. She had no family of her own left and had for many years been reluctant to forge new bonds. The only people she had let close had been her husband and his family, her children, and now Damon. And the idea that someone from within this tiny circle had set out to hurt her, that her trust had been grossly abused again, that she was – again – all alone, ripped open old wounds, the memory of which she had spent the last years repressing.

"Vicki called," Damon corrected.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that Vicki is in Italy and she called you from there but that Tyler didn't go with her but instead drove up to New Jersey and called you from there."

"That's ridiculous. You have no proof. And we're losing precious time with your nonsense allegations."

"Well, I have proof that no Mr. and Mrs. Lockwood ever got on any plane to Rome," Damon countered, putting down a printed-out passenger list on the coffee table. "They were booked onto a mid-morning flight out of Richmond, changing in Washington. But they never checked in." Mason stayed quiet now, agitatedly studying the paper Damon had just produced. "Here's what we conjecture," Demon continued, meaning Bonnie and himself: "Tyler and Vicki were angry about the share of the profits they lost when you backed out of the Westside development. They assumed that they would be compensated appropriately if they could anonymously extort money from you. But you proved less willing to pay up than they had assumed. Things got even more difficult when you agreed to keep your family in a secret location with live-in protection. So they needed to get rid of both. I didn't think much of it at the time, but after we arrived at the house, Vicki described the trip in enough detail to allow Tyler to find it and take the pictures which they then used to make you believe that your family wasn't safe. The second step was causing a security risk – by getting rid of me and disrupting the chain of protection."

"You got rid of yourself, pal," Mason interjected under his breath.

"And I take full responsibility for my actions," Damon returned, his jaw ticking. "But I know what Vicki implied on several occasions while talking to me and I wouldn't be surprised if she implied something similar to Elena."

Elena thought back to the talks she'd had with her sister in law, the suggestive remarks, the hints and the winks. She had fallen for Damon all on her own but it was true that Vicki had helped to – if not plant – at least water the seed, had been permissive and even supportive of the idea even before it had formed in Elena's head. She found it hard to believe that her friend would be able to be so calculating, however.

"That's leaving a lot to chance," Mason argued.

"Not necessarily," Damon returned. "If their plan hadn't panned out, the mere suggestion of something going on might have been enough to get me fired."

"You were already asking questions about the picture that showed us during our self-defense workout," Elena added. "Nothing had happened then."

Mason's shoulders dropped slightly. "Tyler was the one who asked me if I didn't think it looked a little too cozy."

"Tyler knew when he got the pictures from hotel security that I would be gone as soon as he handed them to you. I bet that he had instructed the hotel manager to come to him with anything unusual regarding your family or your security. I am almost certain that he was therefore informed immediately and thus knew about the incident the night before he told you. They quickly booked a flight and made hotel reservations so that the simultaneity of the children's disappearance and their leaving would appear like a coincidence instead of a reaction. He probably told you about their planned trip either that night or early the next morning."

"He called me. Around midnight," Mason confirmed. "He was a little drunk and said they had just had the best… night of their life. They wanted to go on a second honeymoon. When he came to my office the next day to show me the pictures, he even offered to stay and support me."

"But of course you insisted he go on his trip anyways," Damon concluded, earning a defeated nod from Mason.

"He went home immediately," the latter explained. "To pack."

"And then directly to your kids' school," Damon continued his account. "He incapacitated Agent Roberts and Miss Forbes, while Vicki went to pick up the children. We assume it happened during their lunch break and they went willingly, since they knew her."

Elena felt tears start to well up in her eyes at the image of her children happily following their aunt, only to be taken away and locked up somewhere.

"But Mrs. Lockwood called from Italy. It was the hotel's phone number," Captain Grant interjected.

"I never said Vicki wasn't in Italy. Mrs. Lockwood never got on that plane from Washington to Rome. But there was a Mrs. Reagan on that flight – accompanied by her two children, Jennifer and Jared." Damon pointed to the names on the passenger list. "I haven't been able to procure surveillance footage from the airport yet. National security issues. But I assume that that is Vicki, traveling under a false name and taking your kids out of the country. And I assume that this is why the ransom demand came so late at night even though the drive up to New Brunswick is a lot shorter. Tyler dropped them off at the airport in Washington before heading north to throw us off. He knew about the threats made by the Mikaelson brothers and he set them up as the perfect scape goat."

"We have to alert authorities up there, put out an arrest warrant for Tyler," Mason sprang into action.

"I don't think Tyler's in New Jersey anymore," Damon shook his head.

"New Brunswick isn't only perfect for framing someone in New York City," Captain Grant caught onto what Damon was concluding. "It's also perfect for catching a red-eye out of Newark." Damon nodded solemnly. "And I suppose you checked the Europe-bound flights that left last night after ten pm?"

"I did. No Mr. Lockwood and no Mr. Reagan. But obviously many men traveling alone. I'm sure if we had the security footage, he'd be on it."

"We can't get the recordings from inside the airport," Captain Grant conceded. "But I'm sure we can get a warrant for the parking lot footage."

"I'm on it," one of the officers called and hurried out of the room.

"Davis," the Captain addressed another officer, standing by. "Look for alternate camera footage at both Dulles International and Newark airports – gas stations across the street, coffee shops, anything that might have had a view of Mr. and Mrs. Lockwood or the children."

The officer nodded eagerly and followed his colleague.

Damon turned slightly and, for the first time since stepping into the room, looked directly at Elena. "Are you okay?" he asked, concern in his voice and eyes. He could see how shaken she was from her wide-eyed expression and the paleness of her skin.

"Are you sure?" she asked, her voice a testament to the uncertainty she felt.

"I think it's the most logical and probable assumption," he acquiesced, unsure of how to soften the blow he was dealing.

What was worse than the idea that her own family was behind her children's abduction, was what came next – the certainty. Within two hours, the police had found footage of Vicki with the kids from a car rental establishment at Dulles Airport. One of the parking lot cameras had an only slightly obstructed view of the drop-of zone in front of the international flights terminal and having calculated an approximate time-frame, it didn't take them long to spot the woman traveling with two children that hurried into the terminal just in time to catch Mrs. Reagan's flight to Rome. And despite the somewhat pixelated quality of the image, Mason and Elena had no doubt that the young girl and boy were their children and that the woman shooing them inside was their sister in law.

A phone call to the hotel in Italy confirmed that Vicki, despite explicitly not having checked out, had left immediately after telephoning them the night before and that the room had not been entered since. The staff didn't know where she had gone but had been instructed to take messages that she would call in for. In the hopes of intercepting her or one of these phone calls, roman carabinieri had agreed to cooperate and were staking out the hotel as well as tapping its phones.

Elena felt sick to her stomach, while Mason seemed to react as usual, with unappeasable anger. When the phone rang at the fixed time that night, it took all of Elena's pleading looks and Elijah's calming presence to wrestle the promise from him that he would stay composed while Elena received the new instructions.

"Hello?" she answered when the room had finally fallen completely quiet and all eyes were trained on the chiming telephone, Damon's hand on her back giving her the strength she needed.

"Mrs. Lockwood," the contorted voice greeted jovially and Elena tried to make out an inflection that would confirm that it was Tyler she spoke with. She felt, for some reason, that facing the cruel reality would be more bearable than knowing of it only theoretically. But try as she might, the voice was too metallic, too tinny, too disembodied. It was not Tyler. It was the idea of him, warped by technology and fear, that made her spine shiver and her skin crawl. "How do you do?"

"Awful," she answered truthfully.

"So sorry to hear it," he replied. "I'm sure I can think of something to cheer you up."

"Let me speak to my children," she demanded but was met with a hollow, brassy laugh.

"They are well," he reassured. "Having the time of their lives. Now, about that payment."

"We want proof of life, or we won't pay," Mason interjected heatedly.

For a second it was quiet at the other end of the line, before the voice spoke again, crackling ghostly from the line. "We have given you many chances to do this the easy way. You blew every single one of them. So now we're doing it the hard way. You can either pay and hope for your children's safe return, or you can not pay and be sure that they're dead within the hour."

"You son of a bitch," Mason exclaimed, even Elijah's calming hand on his arm no longer enough to pacify him.

A low chuckle on the other end of the line made Elena's blood boil. She understood Mason, understood his anger. If she could, she would have reached through the telephone and strangled Tyler herself. "Believe me," he said, sounding mocking in his calmness. "This hurts your children more than it hurts you."

That was too much for Mason to take. "I swear to God, Tyler, if you hurt my children, I will hunt you down and kill you!"

The sudden stillness that fell over the room was in stark contrast to the heated argument that had preceded it. Elena's heart stood still as she waited for a response from the other end of the line.

"Well," the voice finally responded. "I will hang up now and let someone explain to you, brother, Why that was the dumbest thing you ever did." And with that the line went dead.

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