The Golden Chain
by Abelard

part 2

Sonny had already sent Carly away, since he didn't want her or Michael to become easy targets of the war that was being waged against him. So when he told her that he had to divorce her in order to marry Alexis temporarily, it was over the telephone. He was glad for the distance. He anticipated her reaction would be painful and prolonged, and he couldn't have been more right. All his reassurances that it wasn't permanent, that neither he nor Alexis wanted to marry but they had to do it to satisfy her advisors' code of loyalty, that they would dissolve the union as soon as Sonny had won against his enemies - all this counted for nothing with Carly. His every word only seemed to fan the fires of her fury higher. But, since it was done via telephone, he could, at least, eventually hang up.

Divorces take a great deal of time in most states. But for those with money, connections, and an emergency, they can take as little as a day, and this is what happened with Sonny. He was divorced from Carly on a Wednesday, married to Alexis by proxy on a Thursday, and seated on a chartered jet to London on that Friday pondering the absurd convolutions of fate and life. With him on the plane was Pyotr Menshikov, an elderly man with a Russian pedigree but a perfect British-sounding accent. He had a tall, attenuated frame, thick white eyebrows, a bald head, a pointy white goatee, and a very disapproving stare. He looked disapprovingly at everything: Sonny, the seats on the plane, the beverages on the plane, the sky and the clouds.

Menshikov called himself the Grand Vizier, the chief advisor, to the Princess. He said something about the title being a holdover from the Ottoman Empire, but his forebears had migrated to Russia after being exiled from Turkey, and they carried their title with them.

"I knew Stefan and Nikolas Cassadine, you know…" Sonny thought to mention to Menshikov after an hour of strained silence between them.

"You mean to say, you knew their *Highnesses*," the old man said, pointedly correcting Sonny's bourgeois failure to use their titles.

"Uh, yeah. Anyway, the Cassadines never had a Vizier that I saw, all the time they were in Port Charles."

Menshikov gave a slight hmph. "That backwater? Our traditions shriveled away to nothing there. They insisted on following that ridiculous American…"

"Laura Spencer," Sonny supplied, going completely unnoticed by Menshikov.

"…and nearly ruined the family in the process. They completely disregarded the way we have conducted ourselves for centuries. They took none of the staff and followed none of our practices. Living among those illiterate cretins made it so easy for His Highness to give up his birthright…" The old man shook his head in misery, contemplating the corruption of Nikolas by Port Charles. "Thank goodness, the Princess has had the sense to return to the customary way of governing the family."

"You talk about it as if it's an empire," Sonny said.

"And so it is. Perhaps not an empire in the way the Tsars understood it. But instead of ruling over lands and serfs and armies, the Princess rules over corporations and trusts, mines and pipelines, factories and unions, managers and executives, all over the world. The Cassadine empire controls more billions in your dollars than many countries, and the Princess wields more power than many Presidents. She leads the last of the Old Dynasties. In just a few years, she has brought it to heights of power that her ancestors could not have imagined. And we, who have been faithful servants of the Cassadine family for many generations, are happy to serve her," the Vizier concluded on a self-satisfied note.

"So, you were born into this position? What is this, Russian slavery?" Sonny cracked. Again his comments were totally disregarded. "So who are the other, uh, attendants or servants or whatever who make up Alexis' entourage?"

"You shall meet all of Her *Highness's'* retainers when we land," said Menshikov. "And, incidentally, it is customary for the consort of a Cassadine Princess to take on the Cassadine name."

It took a moment for the implications of that statement to sink in. "You mean, my last name is Cassadine now?!" Sonny exclaimed.

"Yes. Her Highness informed us of your birth name, so while you travel with the Princess, you shall be known as Prince Mikhail Cassadine."

****

They deplaned on a small runway fifty miles outside of London. As Sonny walked down the stairs onto the black asphalt, taking in the cold humidity and gloomy skies, four limousines pulled up, one after the after in a caravan. Men and women in dark suits and overcoats emerged and walked towards Sonny and Menshikov in unison, like an army on the march. Leading them, in their very center, was Alexis, her straight brown hair blowing behind her in the stiff wind, her large black overcoat flapping open to reveal a black jacket and short, fitted skirt, her expression serious and her face and body more beautiful than Sonny had remembered. Her title was Princess, but surrounded by her people, she looked like a queen.

And there was another Princess, too. Sonny saw her standing in front of one of the limousines, holding the hand of a woman who was obviously her nanny. Kristina was a little five-year-old girl, now. She looked almost exactly like Sonny's mother - his mother had shown him photographs of herself in Cuba as a young child. Kristina had short black curls and wide brown eyes. She was all buttoned up in a dark red coat that guarded her against the English cold. As Sonny looked at her, he felt a swelling of his heart. He was flooded with love for that tiny stranger. The only child of his body. His little girl.

"Hi, Sonny," Alexis said. She had an easy tone of voice, but she didn't smile. "Strange circumstances for our reunion, wouldn't you say?"

"Pretty damn strange, Wife," Sonny said, in a bland attempt at humor.

Menshikov interrupted, sounding offended. "You will use Her Highness's honorific title when addressing her…"

"Oh, it's alright, Menshikov. We've known each other a long time. Besides, we're married now." She added a few words in Russian, and the old man appeared to calm himself. Alexis turned to Sonny again and said, "Welcome to London. Despite the food in this country, it's still possible to have a good time. Although I imagine you'll want to put most of your effort into strategizing."

"The sooner you can help me win, the sooner I can leave your, uh, retinue," Sonny said.

"Then let me introduce you to everyone, and then we'll get you settled at the house." Alexis walked Sonny down the line of her attendants. No one shook Sonny's hand. They each bowed slightly as Alexis introduced them and said, "Your Highness" to him.

There were two sets of bodyguards, four for Alexis and four for Sonny, and everyone else was simply an "advisor." Alexis explained that before Stavros and Stefan, the Cassadine rulers had always traveled with a coterie who helped keep them informed of events throughout their empire and contributed to every decision made. Alexis had reverted to this custom once she'd assumed control, reinstating some of the people who had served the Cassadines for generations, and hiring the rest. In addition to Russians, there were young, bright-looking advisors from every continent. One was especially interesting to Sonny, a handsome blonde Englishman named Hunter Raleigh, who looked at Sonny like he was vermin. Sonny noticed that when Raleigh wasn't trying to stare him down, the man couldn't keep his eyes off Alexis.

Finally, Alexis finished introducing her people. "Come with me," she said. "There's someone else you have to meet."

Sonny's blood began to pound in his veins as they approached Kristina. Finally, she was right in front of him, her big, round eyes looking up at them both. It wasn't lost on Sonny that this was the first time Kristina was seeing her parents together.

"Baby, I'd like you to meet somebody," Alexis told her daughter. "This man is going to be staying with us for a while. He's going to be our friend, aren't you, Sonny?" Alexis' voice had the edge of a dare to it.

Sonny bent down to look at his daughter eye to eye. She was almost too beautiful to look at. "I'd like to be your friend," Sonny said, holding out his hand.

Alexis prompted Kristina in Russian. Kristina reached out and put her small hand in his much larger one, and they shook. Kristina asked him something in Russian; Sonny looked beseechingly up at Alexis.

"English, sweetheart,"Alexis corrected her - their - daughter.

Kristina tried again. "What's your name?"

"You can call me Sonny," he told his little girl.

"That's a funny name," said Kristina. "Are you a Prince?"

Sonny grinned. "I suppose I am now."

Kristina nodded her approval. "That's good. We've never had a Prince, and I always told Mama we needed one."

Alexis laughed and Kristina giggled, too. Sonny couldn't help but join in. He had crossed an ocean to escape death, he needed to work night and day to recapture his own territory, and he knew that his killers might yet follow him to England and hit him there. But here he was, laughing in the cold British wind with a little girl he already loved, and a woman that he had once loved, long, long ago.

"Alright, come on. Time to go home," Alexis said, and they climbed into one of the limousines.