The Golden Chain
by Abelard

part 8

Sonny's heart froze as he turned Alexis over and ripped her coat open. There he saw the gunshot wounds: two in the stomach. There was so much blood…He had to stop it. He hurriedly unwound the scarf from his neck and pressed it against her abdomen, barking orders to call the medics and tend to Menshikov, who looked as if he suffered even more damage in the attack. Then Sonny realized he hadn't checked Alexis for a pulse.

Sonny stopped breathing. He put two fingers to the vein in her neck. He vowed that he wouldn't inhale again until she did. *Just breathe, Alexis,* his mind begged her. Then a wave of relief washed over him. Her pulse beat timidly and unevenly - but it was still there. Sonny gave thanks to a God he hadn't spoken to in a long while.

Ambulances arrived and medics loaded Alexis and Menshikov into separate vehicles. Sonny saw how terrified Kristina was and asked Hakari to take her back to the house. A few advisors boarded the ambulance with Menshikov. Sonny muttered he'd ride with Alexis. The others promised they'd follow them to the hospital as soon as they could roust the drivers.

The ambulance swayed and sirens screamed; Sonny knew in his mind they were going as fast as they could through the busy Moscow streets, but it still felt like eternity. *Faster, faster, just get there,* he silently willed the ambulance driver. And yet, he wondered morosely, holding Alexis's freezing cold hand, why would he want to get to the hospital so quickly, when he knew this would be the last time he would ever allow himself to see Alexis?

****

Their surgeries took hours. The advisors sat and stood around in black coats in the cramped waiting room. Police had come and the advisors had dismissed them. Sonny heard Marevich murmur to one of the officers in Russian and the officer promptly led his team back out the way they came. Sonny asked Sandnikov to translate. "He said, 'This is a private matter.' In Moscow, the police know not to help us if we don't wish it," Sandnikov said.

Sonny had been forced to let go of Alexis almost as soon as they'd entered the emergency room. He'd sat down in a drab green chair and hadn't gotten up once. Not for coffee, not to pace the halls, nothing. The advisors seemed to acknowledge his need to be completely still. They congregated around him, drank their coffees and paced, but no one spoke to him unless he spoke first. For the most part, Sonny just sat and withdrew deeper and deeper into himself with every passing minute. He knew he was to blame for what had happened. The people who'd aligned against him had tried to kill him once, in London, and now they'd tried again, with better success. Even though they hadn't hurt Sonny physically, they'd wounded him more deeply than if they'd shot him outright: they'd gotten to Alexis. Shot her to the ground, in front of their little girl. Kristina would never forget the sight of her mother lying, bleeding in the streets. Alexis might not live through the night. And Sonny would never forgive himself.

Whether Alexis lived or…or not (his mind could not allow the word), he couldn't see her again. Alexis had once told him destruction followed him wherever he went, and evidently, she was right. But now he could do something about it. He could leave and make sure that his demons would never find Alexis or Kristina again. He would wait just long enough to hear that Alexis survived the surgery, and that she was going to be alright. Then he'd leave right away, before the sight of Alexis could make him want to change his mind. If the doctors came in with worse news about the operation, Sonny didn't know what he'd do. He'd still leave, yes, but where would he go? There was nowhere he could possibly go where total despair over losing Alexis wouldn't consume him.

Finally, in the small morning hours, two weary doctors came before the Cassadine group. They glanced around, trying to decide whom they should address, but the advisors parted like the sea before Sonny and made it clear they should speak directly to the Prince.

"The Princess will live," one of the doctors said in Russian, and Marevich translated for Sonny. Sonny bowed his head in gratitude and a small cry of joy arose from the other advisors. The doctor went on to tell him, "The wounds in her abdomen will take a long time to heal, and we had to give her a great deal of blood, but she should make a full recovery. She will not gain consciousness for a few hours, but you may see her then."

"Thank you," Sonny said, though he knew he would do no such thing.

The other doctor cleared his throat and began speaking. "The other patient was not as fortunate. He was shot seven times, but we have not been able to completely stop the bleeding. He is slowly hemorrhaging to death His age, and the severity of his wounds, worked against us. I am sorry. He has only a little while to live, perhaps an hour." All movement in the room ceased. The advisors stood frozen in astonished grief. To lose Menshikov? Impossible.

Suddenly, Sonny leaped from his chair and turned over the small table next to it. The vase of flowers that had sat on the table crashed to the floor in pieces. The noise from the smashing porcelain seemed to echo through the room as if in a vast canyon. As Sonny stood, stricken, the second doctor spoke again.

"We took the liberty of reviving the gentleman, knowing that he may still have strength enough to say his farewells. The only person he has requested is the Prince."

Sonny nodded gravely. The second doctor led Sonny to an operating room. Marevich did not follow them, and his translation skills weren't needed: Sonny and the doctor said not a word to each other. The doctor simply brought Sonny to Menshikov's side, then left him alone with the dying Vizier.

Menshikov was taking labored breaths. It looked to Sonny as if he was growing weaker with every passing second. Sonny took the old man's hand in his, and Menshikov opened his piercing ice blue eyes.

"I was dying of cancer," he said. "It's better to go this way," he said slowly but with the careful precision that marked all his speech.

"You never told Alexis?" Sonny asked, frowning.

"No. My duty is to look after her. It is not hers to look after me. But you…" Menshikov gazed at Sonny very intently, and paused to collect a little more breath. "It is *your* turn to look after her now. It is *your* time."

Sonny thought for a moment about lying to Menshikov, in order to let the Vizier pass with an easy mind. But Sonny could not bear for his last conversation with the noble man to be a dishonorable and false one. So he shook his head. "I brought this on you. Those men shot you instead of me. I can't take back the pain they caused you and Alexis," Sonny said, clenching the old man's hand, "but I can make sure Alexis doesn't suffer any more because of me. I'm leaving."

"No!" Menshikov protested.

"I have to."

"No! You were the last…" He coughed and lost his breath for a few moments, then caught it again. "You were the last responsibility I intended to perform for Her Highness. *You* are my final service to her!" Menshikov felt Sonny's hand in his feeble one; he slowly turned Sonny's hand over and fingered the gold wedding ring on Sonny's third finger. "I bound you to her…with this golden chain…so she would have…at least the possibility…" Menshikov seemed to be losing strength rapidly.

Sonny could not help himself; he was too curious to let Menshikov's thoughts go unspoken. "The possibility of what?" he prompted.

"Of happiness!" Menshikov exclaimed energetically. Then he went into a fit of coughing; Sonny saw the old man was coughing up blood from his wounded lungs. "Of happiness, you dolt. Do you think…she would ever…think to find it…on her own? She is a great ruler *because*…she does not think…of herself." Menshikov somehow found it in him to move his hand from the bed to Sonny's shoulder. He urged the younger man to lean closer. With wide, almost wild eyes, the Vizier said, "It was *my* task to think of her! And I did my duty…as I have always done. I thought of *you*! She loves you…if you feel the same, you cannot leave!" Then, Menshikov seemed to have exhausted himself. He lay back, eyes closed, gasping slightly for breath. His hand fell from Sonny's shoulder. Tears fell from Sonny's eyes onto the sheets that covered Menshikov's body. He couldn't bear to witness the eclipse of such a great soul. So he delivered a kiss to the unconscious Vizier's forehead, whispered "I'm sorry" into the old man's ear, and left.

****

Two days later, Alexis felt well enough to call a meeting of her group in her bedroom. She had been ordered not to rise from her bed for a week more, at least. But Alexis knew she would be disobeying that order. There were too many matters to attend to, and as soon as she could stay awake for more than ten minutes at a time, she began talking to her advisors about them.

First was Menshikov's funeral. They spent an hour discussing just the funeral arrangements. The Vizier would have despised such inefficiency, but everyone felt it was utterly crucial he receive the burial that someone of his spirit deserved. When Alexis had delegated the thousand tasks involved with the burial to her satisfaction, she turned to another matter.

"Where did he go?" She asked the group at large. No one needed to ask whom she meant by "he."

"He left without making any of us aware, Your Highness," said one advisor. "He did not return to the estate. By the time we were aware of his departure, he had already left the city. We are tracking his whereabouts now."

Alexis nodded. Although she thought she knew the answer to the next question, she asked it anyway. "And why did he leave?"

The advisors shifted nervously in their chairs. Finally, Sandnikov said, "Our best guess, Your Highness, is, well…guilt."

"He thinks he was the intended target of the assassins," Alexis clarified. The advisors murmured their agreement. "Well," she said, plucking at the sleeves of her robe, "I think he was wrong."

The advisors stared at her, clearly puzzled. "Your Highness? What could you mean?" various voices asked.

"I think the gunman hit his targets," she said. She looked up. The group was obviously still confounded. Alexis rolled her eyes and missed her old Vizier. *He* would have caught on by now. "Who would have found us on our first night in Moscow? Who would have known where we dine? That we would have been on foot? It was someone who'd been with us here before."

At last, comprehension filled the advisors' eyes. The name Hunter Raleigh entered the minds of all present.

****

It was three days after the shooting, and Sonny was wandering. He hadn't called Benny. He hadn't spoken to anyone but airline ticket agents and flight attendants. He had flown from Moscow to Vienna, Vienna to Amsterdam, and from there to Paris. Now he was simply walking. Walking and walking and thinking and grieving.

He'd left the hospital quickly because he knew that if he stayed for one second longer, he'd have been tempted to rush into Alexis's room and wait at her bedside until her beautiful eyes opened again. And once she looked at him…he'd be lost. Or rather, he'd be found. Saved. And someone like him, the person who'd almost gotten her killed more than once, didn't deserve to be saved by her.

He couldn't allow himself to live with Alexis. But he was having the damndest time trying to live without her. So here he was, walking along the Seine, just wandering and wondering what was next for him.

Then, blackness. A hood slipped over his head. Men binding his wrists behind his back. Had they come for him, his enemies? Found him here, in Paris? *This is it*, he thought as he was pushed into a car of some sort. "Who are you?" he demanded out loud. "Joey Capra's crew? Montoya's? Who? I have a right to know who my killers are!" he yelled.

The hood was taken off, but his wrists were left bound. Sonny blinked. He was in a limousine, surrounded by several large guys and one rather large woman. She looked to be about sixty or so, and had a plump face and dark blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun. Her expression was grim. She wore a heavy black overcoat; her neck and her wrists looked thick and strong. "My name is Ekaterina Menshikov," she said in a cultivated British accent only slightly tinged with Russian inflections. "I am the new Vizier of Her Highness, the Princess Alexis Cassadine."

Sonny almost smiled, but his grief at Menshikov's death was too raw. "You're his daughter," he observed.

"Yes," said the younger Menshikov.

"You, ah, don't look very much like him," Sonny said, recalling the thin, wiry frame of her father.

"My mother was a German," she explained.

"I see," said Sonny.

"I'd been overseeing the Cassadine family's interests in Berlin for four months when the news of my father reached me. I've since returned to the Princess to take my father's place."

"I'm so sorry about your father," Sonny said. "What happened to him, and to the Princess, was my fault."

"If that were true. I would have come to kill you, rather than kidnap you," said Menshikov. "As it is, you are not to blame for the shooting."

Sonny frowned. "Then who is?"

"A disgruntled former employee of the family's. His name is Hunter Raleigh. Evidently, he developed a fixation on the Princess and imagined that she would someday enter into marriage with him. He had delusions of becoming the Prince. When he was dismissed, he blamed Her Highness and my father equally for ruining his fantasies. He was familiar with their routine in Moscow; he lay in wait for them in an alley and, as their group emerged from the restaurant that night, he gunned them down. You," Menshikov told Sonny, "were not in his sights, although I am sure he would have been only more pleased if a stray bullet had found its way to you."

Sonny could only gape at the new Vizier and piece together the facts in his head. It made sense; but it was so far from what Sonny had believed, that he had a hard time wrapping his mind around it. Finally he said, "But if that's true, then…I don't have to keep myself away from Alexis."

Menshikov sighed and said, in an exasperated voice that mimicked her father closely, "Your Highness, where do you think we are taking you?"

****

Hours later, Sonny entered Alexis's bedroom in Moscow. It was dark outside. She looked as if she was sleeping, but Menshikov told him he could go in and wake her. Alexis had given very specific orders that Prince Mikhail was to be allowed in her chambers no matter what the hour.

Sonny took off his shoes and coat and slid in behind her. She lay on her side, and it was easy to wrap himself around her warmth. He had thought he would never be warmed by her again. He put his cheek to hers and smiled. He thought he felt her smile back at him. She was awake.

"I ought to kill you for leaving like that," she said.

"I'm going to kill Raleigh for what he did," Sonny said, suddenly serious.

"Don't bother. We've taken care of it. He's alive, but he won't be of much use to anyone from now own."

"Alexis," Sonny said, and she rolled onto her back. He stared at her and said, "When you were in that hospital, I thought I would die if you didn't make it. I told God that if he only let you live, I would pay him back by leaving your life forever. But when I left, it felt like I died anyway."

"Oh, Sonny," Alexis whispered. She put her hand against his cheek. He leaned down and kissed her gently, sweetly. "I know I'm part of the reason why you were so quick to blame yourself. I know I told you, a long time ago, you bring darkness wherever you go. But people can change. And to me, right here," she said, taking his hand and putting it over her heart, "you've brought so much light. I feel like I'm carrying the sun around with me now. Please don't ever be afraid that you're casting shadows over me."

"Okay. I won't. In fact, it is my number one goal to live in *your* shadow from now on." He tried to take her in his arms and show her how much he'd missed her, how much she meant to him, but Alexis winced and he let her go. "How bad is it?" he asked, mildly alarmed.

"The pain? Not so bad if I don't do anything strenuous. Unfortunately, strenuous things are all I want to do with you in this bed," she said, gazing up at him with limpid eyes.

"How long before…?" he asked, flashing both dimples.

"Too long," she groaned. "Maybe a week?"

"Alright. I can go without for a week. It's a hell of a lot better than never having you again, which I thought I was gonna have to do."

"And you were wrong about that, weren't you?" Alexis showed him her own pair of incredibly sexy dimples. "It looks like you'll have to live happily ever after with the Princess after all."

"Sometimes, it's so good to be wrong," Sonny said, and let himself get lost in the depths of her gorgeous eyes. "I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. I love you more than I love myself," he said solemnly.

Alexis looked taken aback at first. Then she said, just as seriously, "I suppose that's alright, since I love you enough for both of us." Then, as she felt her body give in to its need for sleep, she burrowed into Sonny's chest and murmured, "Will you hold me tonight?"

"Every night. I'm never letting you go again." Then the Prince closed his eyes. And as he slept, for the very first time in a long time, he dreamed of the future.

*end*