Tina sat perfectly still at her son's bedside, her only movement her fingers tracing the edge of the bruise that surrounded the dressing over the bullet wound. The bullet wound in her son's head. Her eyes moved slowly around to where Court stood by the door talking with the doctor. He rubbed at his face.
Tina thought of her sister's eyes as they had darted from Clint to Cord as she and her husband rushed to leave the fortress for the hospital.
"Where is Natalie?" She'd asked her eyes pinched. "Where is-?"
"Tina?" Her eyes blinked up at her husband.
"I'm going to go talk to Bo now." Her hand clenched CJ's on the bed in rhythmic pulses. She nodded, looking at her son again. They'd come so close.
"Tell him he can get that bottle of champaign out of the fridge." She looked at him, feeling the hardness of her features. "My brothers are dead."
"We don't know that." Cord soothed. She turned her stone face towards the wall. Her brothers were dead. "Sarah should be here by morning."
She nodded looking back at her son.
"I have a feeling Bo will take some time." He told her.
"All we have is time." She told him softly. "Until they come for the rest of us."
Cord crossed the room and kissed the top of her head, she let her eyes close.
"Don't give up yet." He whispered. "Have faith in them."
"It's all so orchestrated," Todd had been talking incessantly from the spot where Miles had tied him to the chair. Victor hadn't said a word. His face was pinched tightly. "Years of putting the pieces into place."
Victor was stuck in a swirl of memory. A life flashing in clips; his life.
"You're a God Damned disappointment." Irene huffed, looking over her shoulder. Victor could feel the blood trickling from the cut on his face. "You have put everything in jeopardy. Everything."
"You always were the weakest branch." A young Walker Lawrence sneered at him as he fell from the jungle gym bars.
He watched from the window as Luis stood to greet an approaching car, smiling as what could only be his family piled out. His eyes focused on a pretty brunette whose ponytail swung as she ran to Embrace the monster from his nightmares. Alcazar swung her into his arms and spun her around.
"Tea." He whispered, Todd stopped musing and looked at him.
"Oh thank God I thought I'd lost you." His brother muttered. "Victor? Can you-?"
"I remember. I-." He shook his head and looked at Todd through his watering eyes. "I remember."
"Anything useful?" Todd asked hopefully.
"All of it's useful!" He yelled.
"Any of it useful right now?" Todd corrected, pulling against his ropes to remind his brother. "I can't feel my arms."
"I just remembered forty years of repressed memories in the last hour. I don't care about your arms."
"Look." Todd yelped. "Congratulations! I can't wait to read the autobiography but right now our children are in a bunker and we're technically being held hostage so.."
Victor rubbed his face before moving to Todd's side and loosening the rope and undoing the cuffs he'd put on him when they'd left the car. That seemed like another lifetime ago. HIs actual lifetime.
Todd stood immediately, shaking out his arms and clenching and unclenching his fists, They did actually look red, and the dents in his biceps from the rope were already bruising.
"Okay, so let's take our self-guided tour before Miles comes back from preparing for our guests," Manning murmured as he started opening and closing drawers on the desk under the gold symbol. "Pens, tape, staples… no files." He muttered. Victor was staring at the Alcazar name, "Everything is on computers these days."
Victor knew if Luis Alcazar was the guest, they were in real trouble. His brother was tapping his fingers against the keyboard of the laptop on the desk without pressing them.
"Think Todd." He whispered to himself. What's the password?"
"You don't know who the fuck we're dealing with here." He told Todd, swallowing harshly. "The man makes Irene look like Donna Reed. He is the devil."
"He's not the devil, he's just a man."
"A man who kills in cold blood." Victor shook his head. Todd snorted.
"We've both killed in cold blood." He reminded him.
"He hurts people." Victor struggled to explain.
"We hurt peop-."
"Without a reason, Todd. Without guilt or conscious." Victor continued. "These people were a mob family as a cover for the real crimes they were committing. They have ties to the FBI and the CIA. We are in over our heads here." His brother was squinting at the computer. "Todd! We have to get out of here and regroup. Contact Sonny Corinthos he may be our best resource right now."
"Sonny Corinthos." Todd snorted. "It's not three branches.. maybe-"
"Enough!" Victor smacked the laptop onto the floor, and his brother finally looked at him. "For once you need to understand that I know more than you. We have got to go!"
Todd looked at his urgent face, putting up a hand before standing up and bending to get the laptop. He folded it and tucked it under his arm.
"Okay." He said calmly. "Lead the way, Boss."
The van stopped and Thomas Delgato, Lorenzo Alcazar, or Luiz Alcazar, which one John could not be too sure, had him raise his hands off the steering wheel. The mystery man pulled the keys out of the ignition and held them tight in his grasp before pulling a phone from his pocket.
"We're here." The rough voice was not Thomas, so that ruled him out. That probably also ruled out Lorenzo. So that left John with a sinking feeling that he was dealing with the eldest Alcazar. The most dangerous Alcazar. He really had been hoping for Thomas Delgado.
A man appeared at the driver's window and McBain took a moment to size him up.
"Don't do anything stupid if you want your wife to live." The man's voice was flat and harsh. He gestured with the weapon in his hand for John to get out of the car. He did so slowly and the body man on the other side quickly cuffed him. He looked towards the back of the van where Natalie Blair and Jack had been as a few more men John could only see the backs of joined Luiz at the doors as he swung them open.
"I thought we said no injuries?" Said a familiar voice, John struggled to recall its owner.
"She got mouthy." Their captor told them bluntly.
"She does that." The voice sounded almost affectionate as the body lunged forward and pulled Blair's limp form from the back of the vehicle.
"Don't touch her," Jack yelled, John could see the boy's expression now as he leaned as far forward as his binding would allow. His eyes widened in fear at whatever he saw there. "You."
"Come on Jack, is that any way to treat your hero?" A face was beginning to form in John's mind. "The man that saved your life. A little ungrateful. "
It was Natalie who finally voiced it, Her tone low and deadly.
"Spencer Truman." His wife spit out and McBain felt the burst of rage that had been threatening. He pulled against his captor to no avail as the man that had killed his father lifted a lifeless Blair Manning from the back of the van.
"In the flesh." A smarmy grin was on his face when he turned towards McBain. "Hello, Detective. Such a lovely day to be alive. Let's see if I can keep the beautiful Ms. Cramer that way shall we?"