After
their meeting with Luke, Sonny and Alexis had reached the island
close to four thirty in the morning. The whole ride to Wyndemere
had been accomplished in silence, Alexis seeming unwilling to talk.
But then that didn’t surprise him; it had been a hellish night
for both of them.
Once back home, Sonny had spoken briefly to Nikolas and Emily who’d
fallen asleep waiting for them on the couch. The staff list was
done and Sonny’s men would begin interviewing most of the employees
at daybreak to see what, if anything, they knew.
Entirely exhausted, Sonny headed upstairs, grasping Alexis’
hand and leading her up behind him. Once in her suite of rooms,
he’d immediately walked through her sitting room into her bedroom
and set about building a fire. Shortly, the whole suite was toasty
and softly lit by the fireplace. Sonny looked up from his task and
saw her standing in the doorway; hands clasped together, eyes darting
everywhere but at him. Looking as if she wanted to run for her life.
“Hey,” he said softly and extended his hand to her. “Come
here. Why don’t we stretch out down here by the fire, get a
couple hours sleep?”
She stared at his outstretched arm, her mind rocketing back to the
night they’d spent in his penthouse. He’d reached out
for her that night, too. But afterwards he’d let her walk away
and he’d gone on without her.
“My couch is really comfortable,” she said pointedly.
“My couch in the other room.”
“Nah, I’ll skip it, thanks. Your bed looks better.”
Alexis blushed to the roots of her hair. “I can’t…you
can’t…”
“Sweetheart, I’m just sayin’, we need to sleep. Just
sleep. Either down here by the fire or up there in your bed. I don’t…I
don’t want to…to put myself first…but I need…tonight
I need…”
To his embarassment, his voice broke.
“What, Sonny?” she asked him, taking a few tentative steps
toward him. Her eyes were brimming with concern.
He shut his eyes tightly against the gathering tears. He’d
had to be her hope tonight, her rock, and the strain of his own
worry was landing on him now with the weight of a boulder.
“I need to hold you,” he whispered, his eyes still shut.
“I’ve had too many shocks today, and I’ve been walking
around with my mind on high alert. I just—I just need to shut
off my thoughts for while. Not with Scotch or the ocean, but—but
by holding someone who has always brought me peace. No one…no
one else has ever brought me peace like you have, Alexis. And I—forgive
me for being selfish—but I just need that right now.”
No one has ever brought me peace, he’d said. The corners of
her mouth lifted with the knowledge that he did need her. Not just
anyone. He needed her.
She walked slowly to him and…his cell phone rang.
The expletive on Sonny’s lips was growled in Spanish as he
wrenched the phone out of his pocket and gave the caller ID a cursory
glance. It was Carly, and there was just no way he had any words
in him for her. He tossed the phone angrily across the room without
answering it.
Alexis knelt beside his rigid body. She reached up with one hand
to stroke his hard jaw, and his eyes came met hers as she did so.
She felt his tears splash onto her fingertips, and thought once
again how unbearably beautiful this man was. Most women saw that
from observing the outward, the dark good-looking package. But few
women saw it from observing his wounded heart.
She felt some of the tension ebb out of him, and she slid herself
down on the carpet, her hands guiding his arms around her waist
as they had the previous evening. And her mind was full of the same
peace he sought when finally…they slept.
Lucky Spencer adored children. His sister Lulu was the light of
his life especially now that their mother was so ill. Lucky felt
very protective of his sibling. When Luke had called him about Lulu’s
friend Krissy being kidnapped the previous night, Lucky had felt
like someone had punched him in the gut. He had been ready to call
out the cavalry in the form of his brothers in blue.
But then his father had said two words that had changed everything:
Helena Cassadine.
Since the early morning call, Lucky had been busy hacking into Alexis’
email account via his own state of the art laptop. He had made quick
work of that illegal task. From there, he’d uploaded her most
recent emails. The last transmission was a slideshow of sorts…but
the sender’s address was blocked by several dummy programs
that led absolutely nowhere. Typical Helena.
Three hours into the process, Lucky stretched aching muscles and
growled at the computer screen. “Where are you, you lunatic?
Show yourself.”
And by some miracle, Lucky hit the right combination of keystrokes
and an address popped up. The sender’s moniker: Anubis.
Lucky’s face twisted in a humorless grin. If his memory of
high school ancient civilizations was accurate, then Anubis was
the ancient Egyptian god of the dead. The creature was always drawn
as a jackal. Fitting.
A few more keystrokes and he found that the email had been forwarded
from a computer with serial numbers belonging to an Internet café.
Five minutes more and he had the exact location of the café
where this Anubis had last logged online. Lucky was on the phone
to Luke the next minute.
“Yeah, dad? I tracked the email to a place in the City. Whoever
Helena has running interference sent the message from there.”
“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes,” his father replied.
“We’ll head in and check it out.”
“You think the guy will go back there?”
“Don’t they teach you anything at the PCPD, Cowboy? Everybody
knows the crooks return to the scene of the crime. Look at me: I
always come back to Port Chuck.”
