"Are you alright?" Blair leaned in to her son as John McBain took the plastic zip tie from Delgado's outstretched hand.
"I'm fine." He growled. "He had Natalie, I couldn't run."
"Your face.." She whispered, noticing the angry welt on his cheek.
"Yeah well I said I couldn't run, didn't stop me from running my mouth." He muttered.
"Blair?" John held up the zip tie, and Jack watched his mother roll her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing!" She spit at him as he tied her hands together. "If it isn't my long lost fiancé! Where the hell have you been Tomas? Or is it Lorenzo now?"
Jack watched the muscles in the other man's jaw clench and release.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" She yelped. "Maybe you can paint me a picture!"
He turned his eyes towards her and gave her a long look Jack wasn't sure he approved of.
"Blair, please." John whispered, placing his palms between the two of them. "You don't know who you're dealing with here."
"You're right. I have no idea who this man is." She snipped, sitting down heavily beside her son.
Delgado kept his grip on Natalie, pulling her with him into the cab. He gestured his weapon at John.
"Drive. Back out to the main road, go left at the first intersection." John stood stiff for a moment before the other man pressed his weapon against Natalie's ribs so hard she winced. John raised his palms again, settling into the driver's seat.
…
"Three branches. Three brothers." Miles grinned at the wall, running his hand over the four gold letters of Victor's family name. The one Todd had denounced, the one his brother had refused to take. "The Lord, our father." He said almost reverently. "Lazarus, The Messenger." He said, moving his hand to his own family moniker, before stopping and tapping lightly on the Alcazar name. "Lucifer, the personification of evil."
Victor felt a faint buzzing in the back of his head, he pushed back against it, settling his eyes on his brother. Todd's face was pinched in concentration, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. He could almost hear his questions, but it did nothing but make the buzzing louder.
"Personification of evil?" Todd choked. "Isn't that a little dramatic? I've met the guy, he paints in the park."
"No." Victor whispered, the buzzing growing louder. In his mind he saw Tomas Delgado his face twisted into a sneer, towering over a younger version his brother bound to a chair. Only it wasn't his brother. "It.. was all a cover…"
"Victor.." Todd's voice was flat, a beacon he tried to reach for as the memory overwhelmed him.
"I remember."
…...
Jack watched his mother glare at her former lover with a level of contempt he hadn't seen in some time.
"Did you hit my son?" She asked, her mouth drawn into a straight line. The other man remained silent. "Were you married to Skye? Where you married to her when you turned my husband over to Irene Manning?"
"Mom." Jack called quietly watching the man's jaw clench and release.
"Answer me!" She yelled.
"Mom, stop." Jack saw it coming before she did, He made a move to block it, straining against his restraints.
"Who the hell are you?!" She shouted just as Tomas Delgado's weapon whipped forward and smacked against the side of her head.
"Mom!" He yelled again as Natalie twisted in his grasp and Blair sunk to the floor. "Mom!"
"Natalie?" John yelled from the front as his cousin continued to take the opportunity to try and get the upper hand.
"Stop!" Jack pleaded, looking from his mother to his cousin. "Please. Stop. He'll kill us."
"Natalie?!" John's voice yelped again from the driver seat as the van careened left.
Blair made a soft moaning sound and Natalie looked down at her.
"Please." Jack locked eyes with her. "Please."
Natalie let her body go Limp and Delgado pushed her back to toward the bench.
"Somebody talk to me!" McBain begged.
"It's fine John!" Natalie yelled back. "We'll do what he says."
….