Nikolas
danced Emily into the Great Room at Wyndemere, the room that doubled
as a family gathering place and a sort of business office. The couple
had had a fabulously romantic night in the City and were loathe
for it to end. Neither cared that the room was bathed in darkness
as they swayed together to a song that lingered in their heads.
“So how does the Prince top such a wonderful night on the town?”
Emily murmured huskily, her lips nuzzling her husband’s neck.
“Oh, I can think of some ways,” he murmured with a low
chuckle.
“Well, please don’t demonstrate any of ‘em in front
o’ me.”
Nikolas and Emily jumped apart as an unfamiliar male voice spoke
through the darkness. Nikolas lunged for the light switch and then
whirled round to see who had spoken.
Sonny Corinthos sat comfortably on their couch, his arms resting
on his thighs, hands clasped in a pose that looked deceptively calm.
He stared at them, blinking at the sudden brightness of the room.
By the looks of him, Nikolas could tell he’d been here some
time. His suit jacket had been removed and was somewhere out of
sight. (In Alexis’ bedroom perhaps? Nikolas mused bitterly)
His shirt was unbuttoned almost to the waist, his sleeves pushed
up to his forearms. And the man was missing his usual $500.00 pair
of Italian shoes. Socks peeked up at the prince from beneath the
coffee table.
“What in the hell are you doing in my home, Corinthos?”
Nikolas demanded.
Sonny smirked at the young man. “Seems to me its Alexis’
home too, Nikki.”
He’d injected just the right amount of derision in the little
nickname he’d used. Sonny smiled as Nikolas’ face showed
him that the insult had hit its mark.
“I know that my aunt went out to dinner with you earlier for
business reasons,” the young man replied. “I understood
that business dinners ended at the restaurant.”
“Honey,” Emily interjected, “this is really none
of our business.”
“Oh yes, it damn well is. I love my aunt. And I know how this
man has treated her in the past.” Nikolas wielded the rapier
sharp gaze that only those born to wealth could adopt; it cut straight
through Sonny. Made him feel like that boy he’d once been standing
in the snow selling papers for food money.
The young prince stepped toward Sonny. “No good ever comes
of you being in Alexis’ life,” he fired.
“Oh really?” Sonny parried. “Well, Kristina came
of it! She’s somethin’ good, wouldn’t you agree?”
Nikolas fell back a little, as if hit by an invisible blow. “What…what
the hell are you trying to say?”
Sonny stood and placed his hands on his lean hips, in no mood for
tiptoeing around. He’d been through far too much tonight to
spare these two the reality of what had happened. “I’m
sayin' that tonight I discovered that Kristina is mine,” he
said, his voice raw with emotion. “And two seconds later I
found out she’d been kidnapped.”
“Oh God,” Emily yelped.
“Who could have--? Was it one of your enemies?”
“No, one of yours. Your grandmother. Helena sent someone here
to take Kristina.”
Nikolas’ knees gave out and he sank to the couch, his head
in his hands much the same way Sonny’s had been earlier. “Alexis?”
“Is fine. The man drugged her but didn’t do anything else.
Thank God.”
Sonny watched Emily’s eyes fill up with tears. The young woman
moved towards the stairs. “I have to go see how she is—”
Sonny caught her arm in a gentle grasp. “No—could you—it’s
just that I only got her back to sleep a little while ago. And she
keeps tossing and turning. She needs to rest.”
“You’re right,” Emily sniffled. “I can’t
even imagine how she feels.”
“If this is true,” Nikolas said, “if my grandmother
has Kristina…”
“It is true,” Sonny said gruffly, completely out
of patience. “That crazy witch sent a videotape to me and some
kind of weird email thing to Alexis announcing that she took our
child.”
“Let me guess,” the prince uttered in a somber tone. “The
messages included a death threat.”
Sonny nodded. Emily groaned and sat down weakly next to her husband.
She looked to Sonny. “So what do we do now? Do we call the
police?”
Sonny opened his mouth to answer, but Nikolas erupted. “No,
we don’t!” he yelled at his wife. “And why are you
asking him? He knows nothing about this family. He finds out that
he fathered Krissy and he walks in here to be her savior overnight?
Damn it, he hasn’t been here for one day of the two years she’s
spent on this earth!”
“I wasn’t allowed to be here for these past two
years, Nikki. There’s a big damn difference!”
“You chose to be with Carly and your other children. And losing
Alexis and Kristina didn’t mean anything to you then. You took
the loss and kept on living your life. So why don’t you just
keep on doing that, and let us take care of our own.”
Sonny stepped into Nikolas’ face with a menace he usually reserved
for heads of syndicates. This kid didn’t know it but he
was dangerously close to the point of no return, Sonny thought.
His voice was deadly quiet when he told the prince as much.
“Listen here, little boy, I am Kristina’s father and I
have more right to be involved in this than you do. The only reason
I’m not smacking you into the ground right now is that we have
no time to waste fighting each other. You have information I need
about Helena; I have the manpower that you need to take her down.
So screw this argument! Let’s put Kristina and Alexis ahead
of our own needs!”
Nikolas stared at him, angry tears brimming in his eyes that he
would not allow to fall. “This would be the first time you
ever did that, wouldn’t it? Put them ahead of yourself.”
Sonny sighed in aggravation. Emily stepped forward to take her husband’s
hand. “That wasn’t fair,” she said. “Sonny is
here to help. He has a right. And both of you—both of
you—love Alexis and her child.”
Nikolas rolled his eyes, and for a second Sonny felt an ounce of
his humor return. The eye roll was genetic, it seemed. The two men
glared at each other in a moment of pure masculine understanding.
They would put aside the strife for now, but silently they vowed
to take up the argument when this crisis was over.
“Tell me what you know so far,” Nikolas demanded grudgingly.
Sonny turned to point toward the far wall of the room, which had
rolled back several inches to reveal a secret entranceway. The house,
he knew, had many. “That door was open when I got here. Since
Alexis told me that Mrs. Lansbury was off tonight, I figure it was
Helena’s man who used it.”
Nikolas crossed to the door and stared inside. “Find anything
in the passages?”
“Johnny, my guard, and I went as far as we dared to go not
knowing where the hell they end up or how to get back. But I’m
sure the kidnapper is long gone.”
Nikolas nodded. “Its Helena’s MO. She watched us, found
out when Em and I would be gone, and Mrs. Lansbury, too.”
“Yeah, and there was a video camera up there in that corner,”
Sonny gestured. “I figure she had somebody on staff, someone
inside, who could put up the camera while you all slept or were
off the island.”
Emily shuddered at the sensation of being watched by that maniac.
“So--so we have been living with this creep for what—weeks,
months now?”
“Perhaps years,” Nikolas answered his wife. “The
question is who?”
“We need to draw up a list of all the staff members and have
their movements checked,” Emily stated.
“My men can be discreet. It’ll be handled,” Sonny
said. “The next step we gotta take is one you might not like,
Nik.”
The younger man smirked. “I don’t like any of this so
just tell me straight out what you think we should do.”
“We need insight into Helena’s head. I only know one person
who can give us that.”
Nikolas groaned and rolled his eyes again. “Damn it.”
“Who?” Emily queried.
“The man who has spent half his life tracking, fighting, and
outmaneuvering Helena Cassadine: Luke Spencer.”
