Justus
reviewed his notes on Sonny’s case once more before leaning
back wearily in his chair. His desk was cluttered with every conceivable
attack plan he could come up with, but would any of them be enough
to win over Grayson?
The front door of the condo opened and swished shut as Dara entered.
He turned to greet her with a small, tired smile and opened his
arms so that she could step into them. She melted against him, leaning
down to kiss his mouth lovingly and to stroke the frown from between
his brows.
“Not going well?” she asked him and he heard the sympathy
in her tone.
He shook his head. “I’ve been at it all day. This is a
tough one, Dee. I just don’t know if I’m gonna be able
to spring him from this.”
Dara sat daintily on his lap; her arms looped loosely round his
neck. She shrugged. “Then maybe it’s time for Sonny Corinthos
to pay for his crimes, honey. I’m sorry to say it but—”
“I know you don’t like him,” Justus interjected,
“and I don’t always like the things he does. But Sonny—he’s
not all bad. He’s had some hard knocks in life. When people
hurt him, he loses it. But I believe he can change. Certainly that
night when he was gonna kill AJ he had the capacity to change his
mind and he used it.”
“Because Alexis asked him to.”
“Yeah,” Justus conceded. “And because she made him
see what that act would’ve turned him into. He’d have
killed his sister’s husband. Lila’s grandson.”
“It wasn’t Courtney or Lila he was thinking of that night,”
Dara noted dryly. “It was Alexis. What’s up with that?
If she meant that much to him, why did he leave her and go back
to his she-devil of a wife?”
“I don’t think even Sonny knows the answer to that question,”
he said. “He’s a complicated guy with a complicated set
of morals.”
“You’re making a lot of excuses for him, baby. But it
all boils down to the fact that Mr. Complicated doesn’t seem
to know right from wrong.”
“Sometimes right and wrong are blurred,” Justus replied.
“Like the fact that you and I are breaking our ethical code
by discussing this case right now! And like the fact that I’m
about to ask you what you found out from your friend at the DA’s
office.”
She shook her head. “You’re not going to be like it. The
source they have? One of Sonny’s right hand men, a Francis
somebody or other.”
“His guard?”
“Apparently. And now for the worst news: any minute, you’ll
be getting a copy of an arrest warrant for Sonny. Grayson is ballistic
because he knows Sonny and Alexis left to get married. He’s
been told it’s a fraud.”
Justus rolled his eyes heavenward. Could this case get any worse?
“How the hell could they know about that already?”
“Well, who knew about the plan? You, me, Sonny, Alexis...”
“And Carly,” Justus finished. It really was a no-brainer.
***
“Mrs. Corinthos, how do you feel about your ex-husband’s
marriage to his former attorney? Weren’t they lovers quite
some time ago? Did Sonny marry Ms. Davis to save himself from the
rumored murder charge? A comment, Carly, just one comment, please!
Help us out here, Carly!”
They’d come out of nowhere when she’d emerged from her
mother’s brownstone with the children. She’d only had
Max with her and he had tried to head them off before they’d
gotten near, but he had been holding onto Michael with one hand
and clutching a bag of purchases from an earlier shopping trip against
his chest with the other. Leticia had been holding Morgan and the
baby bag, so Carly had ended up encircled by the reporters.
Sonny had always told her not to make Max hold either of the children
or her shopping bags but to leave him free to guard and to respond
to potential attacks. Carly had never listened. Now she saw the
wisdom of it as the paparazzi and tabloid reporters converged.
It had been this way since the news had broken this morning. Reporters
on the telephone, congregating outside the penthouse garage, waiting
outside the hospital after Morgan’s checkup, and now here at
her mother’s house tonight.
She was so done with this: done with the humiliation of playing
the cast off wife, done with putting up with Sonny’s mercurial,
life-changing decisions, and done with covering for her ex. She
was going to stand up for herself and to hell with everyone else.
The noise swelled and grew to a fever pitch while flashbulbs exploded
in her face. And all at once she erupted in frustration. She opened
and her mouth and screamed above their clamor to get their attention.
“Shut up, all of you!”
Somehow her screech shocked them into attention, and their questions
died down to a lower din. “If you’re quiet, I’ll
give you a statement.”
The men and women in the crowd pressed their microphones closer.
Carly inhaled deeply, and let the air out on a long, slow hiss.
“I am no longer married to Sonny Corinthos. We were--for a
brief time--sharing our penthouse apartment so that our family could
remain intact despite our divorce. Sonny’s current marriage
or whatever the hell it is with Alexis Davis is his business. I
have nothing to do with that. I have my own life and two children
to raise.”
“Will you still live in the penthouse?”
Carly’s eyes burned holes in the reporter who slung that question
her way. “That is the place my children consider to be their
home. I will most definitely be living there with them.”
And she could have stopped there with the fairly tactful and fairly
innocuous answers she’d made. But of course she didn’t.
She was no one’s coward. She said what she wanted to say and
damn the consequences. It was what made her who she was…
“As for whether their marriage is real or not,” she simpered,
“ all I can say is that neither I nor my children have seen
Sonny with Ms. Davis. Ever. He’s never had anything positive
to say about her. She didn’t hold his interest the first time
they…were together. I can’t imagine that Sonny would make
a permanent commitment to her.”
She gave the reporters a practiced innocent smile. “Unless
of course there was some other reason involved.”
By the time she’d completed her reply, Max had finally pushed
and shoved his way through the journalists and had latched onto
her arm to pull her away with him. But he was too late. Her damage
had been done, and no amount of strong-arm tactics could undo it.
For the first time in a long time, Carly Corinthos smiled. Really
smiled.
