The story is taking a more serious turn. I'll tell you now that there is NO major character death in this story. It is enough that the threat is there. But I can hardly create a sequel for this if my main characters kick it here. Supporting characters, however, are on their own . . . Each chapter, like the previous ones, will all come with warnings if you are sensitive to darker, deeper themes.

That being said . . . If you love me, please review. I miss hearing from you. Yeah, YOU! You know who you are. ;P

WARNING: Language, Grief, and Images of Death . . .

Grief . . .

Unrelenting sadness . . . It tore at him, but by the time Nightwing had arrived at Chez Donovan's, he knew that Elle wasn't in danger. But she still needed him. He knew this in his very core as he hid the bike and located Elle's black Yugo in the parking lot next to the restaurant/club.

Double checking for any spectators, Dick opened the trunk and pulled out a gym bag in which he kept a spare set of clothes. He disappeared into the alley across the street and reappeared less than ten minutes later as Dick Grayson. He locked his Nightwing uniform inside of the Yugo and trotted to the entrance of the club.

At one fifteen in the morning, the lines were nonexistent.

"She's not here anymore," Igor told him even as he held the door open for him.

Dick's steps faltered. "What do you mean, she's not here? Her car is in the parking lot!"

Igor shrugged. "She left with several gentlemen a little more than an hour ago."

Something inside of him clenched. He couldn't tell what the emotions were that were roiling around in his gut, but they were definitely uncomfortable. Who the hell would she leave with? And why would she do it without calling him and telling him about it?

"Did she leave me a message at least," he asked.

Igor shook his head and pointed inside. "I don't know much. She didn't give me anything. Maybe Shannon knows. Brian might be able to tell you more."

Dick nodded. "Right."

"I can tell you that she was mighty upset when she left, though," Igor commented.

Dick thanked him, but this wasn't news to him. He already knew she was mighty upset.

Shannon, the sea-witch, took one look at him and raced around the desk. He was shocked when she threw her arms around him.

"What's going on?"

"She's not here," Shannon cried.

"Igor told me. Do you know why and who she left with?" Dick questioned her. It was always touch and go with Shannon whether or not she would help him by answering his questions. She had already proven guilty of harboring a grudge against him.

"One of them I recognized as one of her bodyguards," she said.

"She went to Chicago?" Dick had a feeling he knew exactly what happened.

"Yes. She left near midnight. I overheard them talking, though. Elle's father died a few hours ago," Shannon told him; confirming his fear. "I don't know why I'm so upset. I only met the man once, but I haven't been able to stop crying since I saw Elle break down."

Dick suspected the reason had something to do with the hostess being in such close proximity to Elle's emotional overload.

"You are going to go to Chicago, aren't you?"

"You have to ask," Dick was a little offended.

"It's just that you ducked out on her before," Shannon wiped her eyes with a tissue. Whatever eye makeup she had started the evening with was long gone by now.

He made a frustrated noise. "That was one time!

"One time that lasted three weeks," she reminded him.

"I thought we had already established it was work related," he grumbled.

"Sorry," Shannon said, although Dick thought that she just enjoyed getting in her little digs at him, even if she was crying her eyes out at the time. "You better hurry, then. They said they were flying out. It's only an hour's flight." She checked her watch. "She's probably already arrived by now."

Dick blinked. Elle was in Chicago . . . upset and alone. Her brother was bound to be there! And he had close to a three hour drive before he could reach her! But Shannon said her bodyguards were with her.

He relaxed. Hugh and Edward wouldn't let anything happen to her until he could get there.

He turned to go, but called out over his shoulder as Shannon moved back behind her desk. "You might want to touch up your makeup," he told her with an evil smirk. "You look like the zombie apocalypse has arrived!"

He allowed himself a brief flash of enjoyment at her outraged gasp, and headed back in the direction of Elle's Yugo. He would contact Tim and see if he would locate his bike and take it back to the Batcave for safe keeping for him. Dick had a road trip ahead of him, and it would take up most of the night.

Elle was still in her gown when they arrived at the house. She was a little startled when Franklin wasn't there to open the door for her. Hendricks unlocked the door and let them in instead.

"Where is Frankie?"

Hugh and Edward looked confused, but Hendricks shook his head.

"Franklin was let go," he told her regretfully. "Yesterday."

Elle spun around, almost toppling in her heels. Edward grabbed her elbow to steady her.

"What?! Why," she demanded. Franklin was the only servant her father had left that was loyal to her, and the only full-time, live-in one in Cedric's employ besides Hendricks and Lazlo.

"Your brother."

Those two words were self-explanatory.

"He had no right," she practically snarled. Franklin had been in her father's employ for longer than Elle had been alive.

Hendricks looked at her then. "You weren't here to stop him, Miss Bella," he reminded her. "And these last couple of months, it had been necessary to give Aiden power of attorney."

"No one told me that," she gasped.

"You weren't here to tell," Hendricks murmured.

"That's not fair," Hugh complained. "Someone should have called and told her."

"Mr. Hamilton gave specific instructions that she not be informed," Hendricks snapped. "Something bullshit about not wanting to infringe on her independence. Now, if you'll excuse me, Miss Bella. I have had a difficult day."

"Where are you going," Hugh asked when Hendricks headed back to the front door.

"I need a drink," he growled.

Elle nodded, dazed. "Where's Lazlo," she asked of him before he left.

"He's with your father," Hendricks said without turning. She watched in dismay as the front door shut behind him.

"Don't let him bother you, Bella," Edward told her. "He or Lazlo could have called either of us. We would have told you."

Tears glistened in her eyes, but didn't fall. She understood what Hendricks had been telling her, and she had to agree with him.

"This is all my fault," she whispered.

Hugh frowned at her. "No, it isn't! You had a right to live your life. Mr. Hamilton understood that and abided by it. He made the decision to keep the worst of what was going on a secret from you so you wouldn't feel obligated to come home."

"He tried to get me to come home," she told him. "And you know as well as I, if I had been here, he wouldn't have been able to keep his secrets," Elle insisted. "Had I been here, he might not even have gotten sick!"

"Now you aren't being fair to yourself," Edward objected. "You couldn't have prevented what happened. What were you supposed to do? Give up your youth and your freedom to babysit an old man?"

"He was my father," Elle yelled. She stopped and sighed, rubbing her forehead with her fingers. Moving up the stairs, she said in a softer tone, "Poppa didn't get ill until after I left home.

"That was just bad timing," Hugh started to follow her.

"You two are dismissed. Go home," Elle told them. "Go back to the city."

Hugh shook his head. "You shouldn't be alone right now."

"That's exactly what I want right now," Elle insisted. "To be alone."

Hugh passed her on the stairs. "Not until after I speak to Lazlo."

Elle paused and watched him go up; one hand on the rail. She felt out of breath and dizzy. Edward stopped beside her, keeping one hand on her elbow for support.

"Are you all right?"

"I feel sick," she admitted reluctantly.

"With all that's happened, I'm not surprised. Hugh is checking to see if Aiden is in residence," he said, quietly. "We won't leave you if Aiden is here."

Aiden.

Elle was torn with both wanting her brother to be in residence and hoping the man had crawled back under his rock in the city.

Power of attorney . . . How could he? What was Poppa thinking? This would give Aiden a certain power over her life as well until the will was read. Her hands were effectively tied for the time being.

Fine. She had waited this long; she could wait a little longer until the will was read. Her lawyers had assured her that the Hamilton Industries noose her father had placed around her neck wouldn't slip free without Cedric's going so far as to draw up an entirely new will. Elle already knew he wouldn't do that. Her taking over for him had been his dream for her entire life.

But Elle wasn't about to give up her life to it. She would own the company and do the quarterly meetings and make decisions that only she could make, but Elle could and would hire someone capable and trustworthy to run it for her in the interim.

Hugh and Lazlo stood in the hall outside the master's suite talking as she and Edward came up.

"Lazlo? How are you holding up," she asked, gently.

He and Hendricks had been with her father for years. Elle couldn't remember a time when Hendricks hadn't been a fixture in their home, and Lazlo had come to them just a couple of years after Hugh had been hired for her. She knew the men were more than employees; that they had both become trusted friends to her father over the years, and that they were both grieving the loss as much as she.

"I'm doing alright, Miss Bella," Lazlo told her tiredly. He sounded like he had aged a decade overnight. "I should be asking you the same."

"I'm . . ." she hesitated, staring beyond his shoulder at the door to her father's room. "I'll be alright," she said; settling for some vague future reference because she was definitely not alright at the moment.

"Lazlo said that Aiden left two hours ago," Hugh told her. "Presumably for Chicago."

"You saw him leave," Edward asked.

Lazlo shrugged. "I didn't walk him to the door, if that's what you mean. He said he had some business to take care of. That usually means Chicago."

"Perhaps we should stick around," Hugh looked at Elle. "Just in case."

Elle was exhausted. "This is ridiculous! Just go home, all of you. I want to sit with Poppa for a while."

"How long before someone comes to get him," Edward asked.

Lazlo sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Not until morning. We wanted to give you guys a chance to locate Miss Bella and give her time to say her goodbyes. Eight o'clock."

Hugh gave Elle a little hug. "Okay, missy. We'll be back around seven thirty."

"Thank you," she whispered and reached for the door.

"You might want to change first, Miss," Lazlo told her. "We had to lower the thermostat to the room. It'll be cold in there."

I'll get something out of Poppa's closet," she assured them.

"Get some sleep, if you can," Edward said as the three men moved back up the hall.

"I'll try," Elle promised.

Sleep was something that she would never have thought she would be able to do under the circumstances, but she had fallen asleep on the short flight over here, and even managed a little cat nap in the car. Being a night owl and used to staying up until two or three in the morning she thought she would be wide awake, but despite everything, her eyes were drooping.

As the men disappeared down the stairs, Elle turned and braced herself. Turning the knob, she walked in.

He looks so thin, she thought as she pulled up a chair next to the bed where her father's body lay. When had he gotten so thin?

Even two weeks ago, when Cedric had shown up at the club for Dick's proposal, he hadn't looked this bad. But he hadn't looked good. That was why she and Dick had planned to come up to see him.

Hesitantly, Elle laid her hand atop of his where it lay on the blanket. Her breath caught in her throat. It was so cold and hard, like there was no flesh beneath the skin!

Tears sprung to her eyes and flowed down her cheeks. He wasn't there! Whatever this was on her father's bed, it wasn't her Poppa. Her mouth trembled as the reality abruptly settled in her heart.

He was gone!

She hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye!

Suddenly Elle was replaying their last conversation over in her head. What had they said to one another? She had had no idea at the time that when she told her father goodbye that it would be for the last time . . . She had told him that she loved him, but had he really understood the depth of that love? When she remembered their relationship over the course of the last year it had been one full of anger and frustration and contention, and Elle was ashamed.

For all that Cedric Hamilton had been a bad parent, he had been a very good father. He had loved her so very much. Elle never doubted that he had only wanted her happiness; had only wished the very best for her . . . They just had very different opinions about how to accomplish that.

She hadn't been wrong when she had told Edward that Cedric hadn't gotten sick until she had begun striving for independence. And then he had begun to seriously deteriorate the moment he had suspected that she had found her bondmate. It was as if, once he was satisfied that she would not be left alone in the world, that he gave himself permission to give up; to just let go.

Elle sobbed so hard that she choked. She slid from the chair to kneel by the bed and laid her forehead on that hard, cold hand and cried. A huge part of her life was gone. She had Dick, thank God, but could anything ever truly replace a parent?

"Poppa," she cried. "Poppa . . . Don't go . . . Please, please, come back! Don't leave me!"

How long she kneeled there, she didn't know. Elle fell asleep in that position, tears still flowing down her face.

Dick checked the clock on the dash. Still over an hour and a half to go. He tried Elle's cell phone again using the touchless control on his. When it picked up, his heart started pounding.

"Elle? Baby, are you okay?"

"It's Randi. Elle forgot her purse, Dick. Sorry," came the other singer's apologetic voice through the phone. "Where are you?"

That explained why she didn't answer.

"On my way to Chicago," he said.

"Oh, good. Someone told you what happened," she asked.

"Her father died." His voice thickened and he blinked several times to keep his vision clear.

"It was awful," Randi told him. "They interrupted her performance. I think she knew what was happening as soon as she saw those men, but I've never seen her react like that. She just stopped singing right in the middle of the song. She just kept saying 'It's too soon' over and over, until I took the mike from her. At least she didn't break down until she was away from the audience, but it was bad from what I heard."

"He'd been ill," Dick admitted. "He deteriorated faster than we realized. Elle and I planned to go up after New Year's to see him. She talked to him yesterday, but he never said a word to her that he was worse or that she should come up earlier."

"So, this was unexpected? I thought as much from her reaction," Randi murmured.

"Not completely unexpected, just a lot sooner than we thought it would happen," Dick swallowed the guilt he was feeling.

They should have traveled up for Christmas. Sure they had gone up to celebrate the holiday early . . . not that that visit had gone well, but Dick worried that Elle wouldn't forgive herself for not being there. No matter the problems that were present between father and daughter, Elle loved the man. He was all she had left besides grandparents that she only saw once a year.

With more than a hundred miles separating them, Dick could still feel her upset. That only happened in extreme circumstances. In the normal course of things, Elle had to be within a certain distance for him to 'feel' her.

He looked down at the speedometer. He was speeding, but he couldn't get there fast enough. He might have taken Wayne Enterprises' company jet, but by the time he had arranged for it and driven to Gotham Dick didn't think he would arrive any sooner than he would driving the distance. Better to have the freedom to come and go that a private vehicle provided.

Elle was to inherit eighty percent of her father's wealth, but until the will was read, everything still belonged to someone else. Dick had no doubt that Aiden Hamilton would be contesting the will. Better, he thought, to have their own personal transportation.

"How much farther do you have to go," Randi asked.

"About another hour and a half," he growled. A lot could happen in an hour and a half.

"Will you be okay driving another hour and a half?"

"Don't worry about me," he told her. "I'll get there in one piece."

"If you need anything, give me a call," Randi told him. "I don't work tomorrow night. I can be up there in three."

Dick appreciated the offer and told her so. "Thanks, Randi. From the both of us," he said. "I'll have Elle give you a call when we get back."

"'Kay. Drive safe."

"Will do," Dick said. "End call."

Dick found himself grateful for Bruce's contribution to Elle's Yugo restoration project. The new engine was incredibly powerful for its size. He pressed on the gas, determined to shave off every possible minute that still separated them.

The little black car rocketed forward twenty-five; thirty; forty; fifty miles an hour above the speed limit.

He stared at her with narrowed eyes and a hate-filled heart.

Aiden Hamilton closed the door to his father's bedroom and walked over to where she rested on the floor, propped against the mattress. She still clung to the man's cold, dead hand. Even in death, she strove to steal his father from him; just as her mother had stolen him from his own.

Bella was still dressed in a ridiculous gown that she had worn while parading herself in front of a crowd like some common street whore; selling her wares to whomever came to listen to her.

Her voice . . . He had spent his entire life listening to his father claim her voice was magic, but Aiden had always ever been immune to whatever spell she had been able to cast upon others. He wasn't sure why that was, however, he wouldn't put it past the realm of possibility that it was his absolute hatred of her that protected him from it.

Why couldn't she have died in the wreck with her tramp of a mother, he didn't know. Miraculously, seven year old Arabella had waded out of the sea; shaking, injured, but very much alive. He remembered reading the newspaper articles that had raged in the wake of the mysterious accident and the remarkable escape from death by such a young child.

He didn't know who the man had been who had pushed Esmeralda's vehicle into the Mediterranean Sea so many years ago, but he could have told him that drowning wasn't an effective method of murder from experience. He didn't think Bella remembered his own unsuccessful attempt to rid his life of the encroaching child when she was but a toddler, and he but fourteen years old.

That was when he had discovered that she was a freak of nature.

He remembered her blinking up at him from beneath the water of the pool as he held her under. She had thought it was a game at the time, but he had grown more and more astonished as he had slowly come to realize that little, three year old Bella could actually breathe under water. Then he had noticed the slender webbing that laced her fingers as they grasped his forearms.

He had been so shocked that he had simply released her. She had swam to the steps of the pool and climbed out without a care in the world as he could do naught but gape. He had determined then that Bella and her mother were some sort of demons who had put his father under a spell and been responsible for his own mother's death.

He had grown up and matured, but never had that perception faltered in the intervening years. He had only tried once more half-heartedly, a couple of years later, by shoving the girl down the stairs. She had broken her leg in that fall and gotten a terrible gash on her forehead, but she had been completely healed in but three, short weeks.

He hadn't bothered again after that, but had taken advantage of her unique healing abilities to make her life as miserable as she had made his. It had made him laugh back then to watch servants accuse her of lying when she had tried to incriminate him.

The bruises he had given her would disappear anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days depending upon their severity. By the time she could accuse him of causing her bruise an hour or two later, it already looked to be several days old.

Now, she continued to take away from him. Throughout life, she had stolen their father's love and attention. In death, she stood to take away Aiden's inheritance. Ultimately, Aiden knew that Bella was responsible for their father's demise.

He had noted when the man had decided to give in to the disease or whatever had made him waste away in front of his son's eyes. It had been within a week of Bella's defection. Cedric hadn't gotten better, despite rest and a dozen different medications. The man had continued to deteriorate until yesterday, when he had slipped from this world with naught but his daughter's name on his lips.

Why did Aiden hate her? He snorted. How the hell could he not?

Standing over her, Aiden gripped the chair beside her and threw it across the room. Bella startled awake immediately at the resounding crash!

"Time to wake up, you little bitch!"

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