Hello readers! It's Sunday and I made a promise to post one of my stories on Sunday around 9:00est... I had intended to post a chapter of The Magic of Fifty Shades but I could not get this idea for EOTN out of my head.

Like I have said before the reviews have really fueled my desire to continue with this story and the last chapter had the least amount of reviews so far... So if you like it and you want me to continue... please review!

To all of you reviewing and reaching out to me on Tumblr to keep going with this story THANK YOU so much! I think you are all the reason I had to write this today! Oh and let me know what you would like to see next Sunday... Security, Magic or Fifty Ways at perhapsperhapsperhaps50 on Tumblr or on Facebook or Twitter...

XOXO PPP

Chapter 5:

E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E…Over and over again I hear these notes in Ella's voice. They play in my head, haunting me like a ghost that I can't see but I can hear. I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face and my mother's breath on the back of my head as she sings. I can see the dust floating in the air and hear the cars and traffic below us. The fact that I can't remember the words makes me fucking insane. I close my eyes and try to hear her voice but it never works. I tap my finger on my thigh, mimicking how I would play them on the piano.

E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E… E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E…

I feel Grace's hand on my shoulder and she gives me a small tentative kiss on my cheek. I feel numb as she leaves the room. She is a calming force and when she is gone the calm leave with her. Grace urging me to make it right with Ana is good advice, it is the only advice but I have no idea how to do it. I have never in my life been at a loss for what to do next. I have always had everything so planned and placed, every move, every decision and every action was crafted. Life is a game of chess and I am the master of the board. I can anticipate every move and counter accordingly. Every action has an equal reaction and I always knew what it was going to be. Until today. Today was a game changer. Nothing will ever be like it was and I can feel the spiral begin. My thoughts take over, mixing and merging until I can't separate one from the other. Words and voices screaming in my head things that have been said and things that have not. I run my fingers through my hair and scratch at my scalp trying to stop the marathon race in my mind. Fuck, Fuck, FUCK!

E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E… E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E… E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E… Breathe…

I stand up and pace around a bit and then I am drawn to the window in my childhood bedroom. I see Ana standing there below me; she is glowing under the lights in the driveway, the night and darkness surrounding her. Ana hugs Kate and Elliott; she shakes her head no as if to tell them she does not want to explain what has just happened. How could she ever explain? Kate wipes a tear off Ana's cheek and I understand the power of their bond in that small gesture and remember how quickly Kate abandoned an interview she had worked a year for just to be there for her friend. Jose stands stoically beside her, his face as confused as the rest of the crowd. My son is asleep on his shoulder holding a small stuffed animal and sucking in his thumb.

E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E…

When I was a boy I used to suck my thumb too. I remember always being hungry, I didn't understand really what hunger was but I remember a hollow pain in my belly and how the gentle act of suction somehow eased that feeling to where I could fall asleep. As I grew older and the pain from the burns and bruises would keep me up I started to chew on my nails until then bled. One pain was the distraction from the other and chewing my nails was a pain of my choosing. I look down at my hands and they don't look like my own, they are trembling, a potent mix of fear and adrenaline.

E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E…

I stare at my shaking hands for a moment and then I hear the engine of a car start and watch as Ana drives away. I know now how she felt that night when I left her in the bar. Rage… All I feel is emptiness and a rage that I have never felt before. I can hardly contain it, I feel as if my skin is pulling away from the muscle, the bones breaking into tiny shards imbedding themselves into my flesh. I can feel my organs shutting down and calcifying inside of me as everything slowly bleeds out and dies.

I feel small and weak. It is worse than any pain I have ever endured and suddenly my room feels so fucking small I can hardly stand to be there. I can hear my own heart beat as the blood pumps in my ears and I am fighting the urge to scream. I tear out of the room and fly down the stairs, my destination is unknown but I feel like I need to follow Ana. I need to find her and tell her all the things I should have said that night in the bar. I need to make her understand that she has dominated my thoughts and dreams for the past three years and that everything that I have done in that time has been because of her. I need her to see why I stayed away, that I believed I was doing what was best – for her. I want her to know that if I knew about Leo, I would have done things differently because the last thing I would ever want to be is like my father. I make it to the foyer with a renewed purpose to somehow make it right. The truth. I love Ana, I loved her for the moment that my eyes locked on her. I have loved her in every breath and every moment since and that is never going to change. I know that I will never be happy in this life until Ana is mine and Leo knows that I am his father.

"Christian what is the world is going on?" I hear Elena's voice from behind and my body tightens at the sound. I turn on my heel and she is a few inches away from me. "I mean really, didn't I teach you be discreet in all things? What a spectacle you just made of yourself. They entire party is talking about you and that girl." She admonishes me, shaking her head from side to side. When I was her sub it was this tone she would use to bring me back into submission. "Control. Focus. Power. Have you forgotten all that I have shown you? Perhaps you need a reminder!" Her stance changes, her shoulders high and wide, her hips flex in my direction and her jaw is tight. This moment has been coming for years, the moment where my Dom meets her Domme and I am more than ready in my current state of mind.

"A reminder of how you beat and fucked me when I was a boy Elena. No trust me I have not forgotten. I remember every moment of it and my stomach turns at the thought. You are the reason I am so fucked up." She tips her head back a laughs a harsh throaty laugh, the evidence of all her years of smoking clear.

"You were fucked up when I met you dear boy. I saved you. I shaped you. Everything you have and will every have is because of me. Don't. You. Forget. It." She reaches out to touch me and I grab her wrist quickly twisting it behind her back. She grimaces in pleasure not pain and I release her just as quickly.

"Fuck you Elena, you are a sick twisted bitch. Yes I was a fucked up kid, but you are the reason I am a fucked up man. You made me in your image. And maybe you're right maybe all I have is because of what you taught me but you know what I don't have… A life…Love… a family that knows me… I have money and things… but I don't have a life. I have an existence. All those years you had me fooled. You made me believe that fucking you was as close to love I would ever get."

"Love, family… What has gotten into you? Power, money, sex… that is what you need and that is what I gave you. So please stop trying to convince yourself that I am the bad guy here. Do you think that little brown haired girl and her red headed son would love you if they knew who you really are Christian? Do you think Grace and Carrick and the entire Grey Clan would open their arms to the monster that lives inside of you?"

"Yes! Yes we would Elena." I feel my mother presence and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I turn and see that my entire family, including Kate are standing in the door way beside us. The shock and horror is apparent and I fight the urge to run. Instead I just stand there and watch as my mother storms up to Elena and slaps her across the face with a ferocity I never knew she possessed. Elena lets out a squeal and takes a step back stunned. I know she is used to pain but public humiliation is new to her.

"If you ever step foot into this house again Elena, I assure you it will be the last thing you ever do."

"Grace please you are over-reacting." The red mark of my mother's hand print is practically glowing on Elena's check and I can't help but feel a small amount of joy in that fact.

"Over reacting! You have been fucking my son in mind and body; I am under reacting right now. Get out of my house!" There is a moment where I think Elena is going to stand her ground but then she eyes the Grey Clan chewing at the bit and makes her way to the door.

"When the truth comes out and they all turn their back on you my Pet… You know where you can find me." I cringe at the use of a name I would much rather forget and feel immediate relief when she slams the door behind her. I am on over load; this day has been too fucking much. One fucking wave after another crashing down on me and here comes another one as my family descends upon me. There questions all blur into one and I can't stand it another second.

"Elliott give me your car key!"

"What?"

"Give me your fucking keys…"

"Christian… it's a Jag… and a stick… when was the last time you drove a stick?"

"Yes, I am aware I bought it for you on your birthday, and I fly a helicopter for fucks sake now give me the fucking keys." He tosses them to me and I catch them in my left hand and barrel out the door to my mother calling to me from behind. I drown out the sound and all I hear is music.

E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E…

The white XKR-S GT is sitting in the driveway, it's technically not available yet but I made a few phone calls and got one just in time for his birthday. Well, Andrea made a few phone calls. I slide in and turn the key, the 550 horsepower engine purrs and I know that I can take this from 0-60 in about four seconds. Yes this is exactly what I need to be doing right now. Driving hard and fast.

The roads that surround my parent's home are winding and heavily treed. I open the windows, and let the wind and the night air creep in as I push my foot to the pedal and shift. Everything blurs around me and my mind is moving as fast as the car. Ana has suffered these years without me, going through her pregnancy all alone having to lie and hide not only who the father is but even the event of getting pregnant. How she kept that from Kate and her friends I have no idea. Lies have a way of eating you from the inside out, it consumes you like fire and one its starts there is nothing you can do to stop it.

"When I found out I was pregnant it all because so real, because I knew I would have to lie for the rest of my life. I would have to lie to my friends and family and my child… How do you tell your father that you fucked a stranger in a bar and got knocked up? You can't. So you create a man and story, you create a lie that sounds like the truth and enough time passes and you start to believe it yourself. But then your son is born and looks like the truth. You hold him in your arms and the truth is looking up at you."

I hate that I was not there the moment my son was brought into this world. I know nothing of my own birth, there are no pictures of me as a baby, not memories or mementos of my existence before I came to live with Carrick and Grace. All I have left of that time is the scars that splay across my chest, a few somber notes of a song I can't really remember and ever-present look of sadness in my mother's eyes. Sadly and most tragically I have even less of my son. I replay the moment I first saw him in my head.

The birch tress swaying in the wind behind me, the sound they made and how I saw him in the distance. His joyous laughter wafting over to me with the breeze, he sounded as happy and free as a bird in the sky. The way he spun around, the sun light catching his hair and the dizzy look on his face when his eyes found mine. I wonder if he knew who I was in the same way that I knew who he was. A calling of ones soul to another's. It was something I had never experienced before I saw Ana the first time and hardly understood even after hours of careful reflection. How is it that I have managed to avoid any meaningful connection and interaction and then all of a sudden I made one that affected my entire being? How is it that seeing a girl behind a bar in the middle of the night managed to unravel me so completely? There is really only one answer. Love. True love. I loved her enough to stay away dispute my growing need to be near her, to love her, to fuck her. I stayed away to keep her safe from me. I thought I was being honorable but in reality I was being selfish because I was the thing she needed most.

"Do you think that I am that same stupid naive girl I was three years ago? Do you think that a look or a touch from you could reduce me to fall at your knees? Do you think I would ever allow you to touch me ever again! I never want to see you again… I hate you for leaving me. I hate you for never coming back for me and I hate that you are here today. Now let me go Christian. Let. Me. Go."

She hates me, of course she does. I am the asshole that fucked her and left her pregnant and alone. I am the villain in her story, the same way my father was the villain in my mothers. History will always repeat itself. We are doomed and destined to become that which we hate. And I hate a man that I have never met, never looked in to his eyes or heard his voice, I don't even know his name. I hate man who beat me daily, burned my sadistically and allowed my mother to perish. They are the villains in my story, along with Elena a fact I am only now willing to admit.

I see headlights coming towards me, as they pass I can hear a man's voice yelling at me to slow down. Instead I just push harder and faster until I hit the highway, I weave in and out of traffic until I pull into the garage at Escala. I don't know what I am here or what drew me to this place but when the elevator doors open to my apartment it all becomes clear.

I make my way to servant's quarters and find Taylor and Gail on the sofa watching television, his arm is draped around her shoulder and her head rests in the crook of his arm. There is a peace and a comfort in their interaction, a stability that can only come with time and trust. They are shocked to see me because I never come to this part of the house. But I am on a mission.

"Taylor, where do you keep your tools"

"Excuse me Sir?" He stands up at attention with a puzzled look on his face.

"Tools, where do you keep them?"

"In the storage closet, in the gym. Why?" I don't have the time to answer, I just leave but I can hear his footsteps close behind. The closet is large and organized; my eyes dart around until I find what I am looking for. I am in a controlled rage; I can feel it bubbling under the surface of my skin just waiting to leach out. I wrap my hand around the wooden shaft of a twelve pound sledge hammer and after that all I see is red. The red walls of my play room and the bar that in built to fill the void that will never be filled. It all crumbles around me, shattered glass flying, broken splinters of wood, red satin sheets, various toys spread out on the floor. The secret of alcohol in the air burning my nose. I take every ounce of shame and hate, rage and regret out on this space until there is nothing left. If I could light a match to it all I would and gladly watch it burn.

I am breathless and can feel the warmth of blood trickling off my forehead. I think I remember a piece of mirror cutting into my flesh. My hands are numb, the knuckles purple. My shoulders and knees are sore, my abs are barely able to hold me up. I drop the sledge hammer, and rest my hands on my knees bracing my body and giving my lungs a chance to recover.

"Taylor." I look up, hands still on my knees and Taylors usually stoic face is etched with shock and concern.

"Yes Sir?"

"Have this mess cleaned up and get an NDA from whoever you hire. Call the real estate agent; put this place on the market. Have Gail pack all of my things and have them sent to the Fairmont Olympic. When are you two leaving on your trip?"

"Tomorrow evening Sir."

"Perfect, fill Sawyer in on all the details."

"Will do." He looks at me for a beat and takes a deep breath. "Are you alright Christian?"

"No. No I am not. But I will be."

"Elena Lincoln in officially on the no contact list." He smiles and nods once.

I walk out of apartment and into the elevator feeling like a weight has been lifted from my body. I know that this is a place that I will never return to and there is a peace in leaving it behind. The elevator doors open and I slide back into the XKR-S, pulling my phone from my pocket.

"Welsh. I need everything and I mean EVERYTHING you can find on an Ella Jane Ramsey and Anastasia Steele. S.T.E.E.L.E… also goes by Ana. I want it on my desk tomorrow morning, first thing." I hang up the phone throw it in the cup holder. I know now that my future and my past have collided in my present and I have no choice but to confront both head on.