How
the assailant had actually managed to squeeze the trigger of his
gun yet shoot himself in the thigh would always be a mystery to
Luke Spencer. Luke looked at him now, writhing on the floor, bleeding
out from his wound, and shook his head.
“Damn, Helena’s really got to up the education requirement
on her application for henchmen,” Luke scoffed. “Cuz you,
Johan, you’re just an idiot.”
He watched as Marco and Max, who’d come in from their positions
covering the back of the house, dragged the bleeding man through
the kitchen and out the back door. Luke knew that Sonny would have
them clean this place from top to bottom later. No one would ever
know for sure what happened here tonight except for the men in this
room…and one frightened little girl.
Meanwhile, across the living room far from the scene of carnage,
Sonny stood holding his child’s head gently to his shoulder.
He breathed in the sweet smell of her soft curly hair, curls she’d
gotten from him, he thought with a slight smile of pride.
He sighed out a whispered prayer of thanks that she was alive and
unhurt. But if her mother wasn’t okay, how in the world would
they get through it? How in the world would he look into his daughter’s
eyes when he had allowed her mother to die?
In that aching horrible moment, all the words…harsh, ugly,
thoughtless words…that he’d hurled at Alexis, and that
he’d allowed Carly to say to her….came back to punish
him. They ate at his gut like piranha on bloody prey.
None of the men could miss the abject fear in Sonny’s eyes
when he looked over his shoulder and whispered, “We have to
check downstairs. We…Alexis…”
“Say no more,” Luke said. “I’ll do it.”
“No,” came Nikolas’ hoarse voice. “I should
go.”
“Neither of you will go,” Sonny said softly. “It’s
my place.”
Just then Kristina lifted her head, having heard the familiar voice
of her cousin Nikolas. Sonny noted the way her bottom lip quivered
as she reached out for the prince. “Take her,” Sonny bade
him, his voice quaking as he did so. “She needs to be with
someone…someone that she knows.”
Nikolas saw the way Sonny averted his eyes as he passed him his
daughter. It must have hurt the man that his own child did not know
him. But at the moment, Sonny had a more pressing need to see if
Alexis was alright. He swallowed several times then went to pry
open the floorboards that functioned as a secret cellar entrance
in the kitchen. He found a darkened stairway beneath the floor and
peered below. He withdrew his gun in case someone else was downstairs
with the two women, Alexis and Yuri’s wife, Nadia. Slowly,
he descended the staircase, blinking as his eyes became accustomed
to the dimness.
There before him, crouched on the floor was a woman’s form.
He knew that it wasn’t Alexis; this woman was shorter with
a rotund figure.
“Nadia,” he called and the woman turned, fear all over
her face. And then Sonny saw why Nadia had crouched on the floor.
A body lay before her, a form he knew as intimately as the back
of his own hand. The body was still, too still. Like death.
He felt himself move without thinking. It was like walking through
the tide; he couldn’t make his legs move any faster. He didn’t
want to get there, to see his fears come to life.
When he reached the place where she lay, he looked down into a beloved
face, covered partially by her own blood, and ice grabbed at his
spine. Strength left his legs so suddenly and completely that he
sank to his knees before her.
There were no words in his throat. Fear had robbed him of speech.
He reached out to touch her face but found that his hand trembled
too much; he curled it into a fist that he pressed pensively against
his mouth, holding back the sobs that wanted to tear from his throat.
Was this what it all would come to? All the banter and the sweetness,
all the fighting and forgiving, all the heartache and the loss,
all the waiting…god, all the waiting…all the time spent
loving her from afar…all the painstaking work to make himself
part of her life again…For what? To watch her die? To see her
leave him and their child?
He attempted to voice the question he felt he must ask. “Is…is
she…”
Dead…he wanted to ask, is she dead, but the
last word would not come. Nadia’s eyes were on him, but his
did not stray from Alexis.
“She was hit very hard by the man,” Nadia told him, talking
so fast she stumbled over the English. “But afterwards…she
was talking to me. She heard you upstairs. Then…there was nothing.
The pain hit her and she lost consciousness.”
“But she…she’s not…”
Understanding dawned on Nadia and she gripped his arm firmly. “No,
no! She is alive. But she needs to get help. Now!”
Those words snapped Sonny out of his haze of shock and in an instant
he had Alexis’ still form in his arms and was carrying her
up the darkened staircase to freedom.
She will not die, he made a vow to heaven. Give me this
chance to make good on my promise to her. Long ago, I told her everything
would be alright, and then I made her life pure hell. Give me this
last chance. It’s all I ask…
When he emerged from the basement, he found the men waiting with
anxiety etched into their faces. They all cared for the woman in
his arms. Hell, he sometimes suspected that Luke was even a little
in love with her. So he steeled himself, and gave them each the
most reassuring look he could.
“It’s bad, but she’s going to make it,” he asserted,
barely pausing on his way to the front door. “I have to get
her help.”
The others knew that it was their job to take care of the fallout
from tonight’s rescue. Marco would take Nadia to her children.
That much they knew Alexis would want. Max would take care of the
house. Luke and Johnny would hold onto Johan for whom, they knew,
Sonny had very specific plans. That was if the man didn’t bleed
out before Sonny was able to enact said plans.
Only Nikolas strode out to the limo with Sonny, Kristina safe in
his arms, and it was the prince who drove them all to General Hospital.
Nik had strapped the baby into the front seat, sensing that Sonny
wouldn’t want his child to see her mother in this condition.
Neither would Alexis. She had terrifying memories of her own mother’s
murder. She wouldn’t wish a similar nightmare on Kristina.
In the back of the car, Sonny sat with the love of his life curled
across his lap. Reverently, he stroked her hair from her pale face.
And softly, he spoke to her. Just as he’d done with Kristina,
he spoke in Spanish. Just as he’d done with his child, he spoke
to her heart.
“You made me love you the day you first defended me to Dara
and Mac,” he told her. “You didn’t want to do it,
but…you know…you couldn’t help it. And afterwards
I couldn’t pry the smile off my face with a crow bar. You made
me love you the day you sat in that nasty jail cell and talked me
down from the edge of madness. That day, you opened up your soul
to me and showed me how to heal. And you damn sure made me love
you the day you sold Ned out and told me where to find my sister.
I knew then that in your eyes I was just as good as all the rich
bastards who flock around you and tell you to abandon me...
Then there’s the night you danced with me in my casino, the
night you fell into my arms from a fountain ledge and made me want
to take you to my bed and never let you leave it. You made me love
you a thousand times and a thousand ways and I fought like hell
not to know it. But I know it now. Like my next breath and my last
name…it’s a certainty. And now that I know it, I’ll
never let it go...
So, Lex, you just gotta…you just gotta wake up, flash those
pretty brown eyes at me…and say you love me, too. Cuz that’s
what I need, and we all know how self-centered I am. It's always
all about me.”
He punctuated his words with a husky laugh against her soft cheek.
But the coldness of her skin sobered him
immediately.
“Lexis, life is just too damn hard…just too much for me,”
he whispered. “I can’t do it without you. I can’t…”
When he had said his piece and had emptied his heart, he sighed
into her hair, and let the silence wash over him. And in the back
of his limousine…safe from the watchful eyes of bodyguards
and needy wives, from cops trying to make a point and DA’s
trying to get revenge…for the first time in a very long time
Sonny Corinthos allowed himself to hang his head and cry.
