The Convenient Wife
by Kelly

chapter 51

"Ned, back off." This time the warning voice belonged to Jax who had
walked up from the back of the room. "Let it go."

"No, Jax, don't stop me now. I'm enjoying this little spectacle:
Alexis standing here supporting Sonny. Its rich, but by God it's not
new! Risking her whole life—and her daughter's as well—on a thug who
chose Carly over her time and time again!"

Sonny pushed past her before Alexis could do a thing to stop
him. "Whatsa matter, Nedly? " he taunted. "Hurt that she didn't want
to risk anything to be with you?"

Silence fell in whispered gasp across the courtroom; Ned's eyes
physically reddened and he stepped closer to Sonny. Alexis tried once
more to stave off the conflict that was approaching with the
relentless speed of an oncoming train. "This is so pointless. We are
over; we have been for some time. Let go of the petty jealousy and
just walk away."

Ned's eyes swept over her again with disdain. "I HAVE walked away
from you, Alexis. Or were you too dim to notice that part?"

Sonny tensed; she felt it. "Don't you ever talk that way to her. I
won't allow it. That's your warning. And it'll be the only one."

Ned's eyes snapped back to him, foolishly unafraid. "Ooh, did you
hear that everybody? The threats come so easy to him now that he
knows he can get away with murder. God, Alexis, this is the man you
trust to raise my daughter?"

If possible, Sonny stiffened even more. "She was NEVER your daughter!
Get that through your head. And you can be damned sure that if I knew
she was mine back when you stole her from her mother, you'd have
never drawn another breath."

"Wow! Look at that: a second threat in less than a minute? Am I
supposed to quake? Fall on my knees, Sonny? Like Alexis has
apparently done for you many, many times, I'd guess."

"You sick bastard—"

Jax jumped between the two men just as Sonny surged forward.

"No!" Monica cried simultaneously.

Alexis cringed; she was absolutely mortified. She had never known
that someone she had loved could debase her so, and do so in a
roomful of witnesses.

"This is getting way out of hand!" Jax shouted at his friend. "This
isn't about your anger with Sonny anymore; it's about stuff you
didn't finish with Alexis! And that's not her problem; it's yours!"

Ned, totally out of control now, flung off Jax's restraining
hand. "Still in her corner even now? When she'll let him threaten my
life twice and not say a word? Maybe you're delusional, too, Jax!

"And by the way, when will everyone realize that I am NOT jealous of
Corinthos? I am NOT longing for Alexis. Hardly. I had her already…
often…and in many, many ways…and from what I remember it's really
nothing to miss!"

Somehow (and no one afterward would be able to tell exactly how),
Sonny maneuvered around Jax with a lightning quickness no one thought
he possessed and grabbed two fistfuls of Ned's shirt, his black gaze
daring anyone to try and stop him. "You need to shut your filthy
mouth before I shut it for you! I am trying DAMN HARD to have
restraint and not beat the crap outta you because she loved you once
and because you're obviously in pain and making a COMPLETE ass out of
yourself! But don't push me, Ashton! Dear God, don't push me any more
than you already have!"

Amazingly, Ned smiled. An eerie wounded smile that was so sad it hurt
her to see it. "In pain, Sonny? Why would you think I'm in pain? Just
because the woman I loved turned to you over and over again when we
were together? Just because she took a child that she let me call my
own and turned her over to you when we'd decided that that was too
dangerous? Just because she let you plan to MURDER a family member of
mine and never told me? Because she apparently never gave a damn
about me in the first place? Why would any of that hurt me?

"Why would I still WANT someone like that, some little bitch with no
pride who lets YOU crawl all over her in bed at night—"

And that, as they say, was the proverbial last straw.

He didn't get to finish that sentiment. Sonny's fist was rammed so
soundly into Ned's offensive mouth that the man flew over the
prosecutor's table ending up in a heap on the floor. Sonny—in a fit
of rage--followed him over the table, leaping on him with a flurry of
fists so fast and unerringly precise that it took Jax and two guards
to pry him loose.

Alexis was horrified as she watched Sonny fight like the boy he had
once been on the streets of New York. She was not embarrassed about
the violence though she knew she should have been; Ned had asked for
his punishment more than once. Rather, she was embarrassed over the
way Ned had made Sonny lower the polished, controlled veneer he
strove so hard to erect and maintain.

She knew that later—in a more sober moment—Sonny would regret his
loss of control in front of them. He'd regret giving them yet another
reason to label him an animal. He would pretend valiantly to one and
all---even to Alexis—that the Quartermaine's disdain meant nothing to
him. Just like he'd pretended that selling newspapers in the snow
while people blithely drove by him had meant nothing. But Alexis knew
differently; she knew that his pride meant everything. And that was
why she would hate Ned Ashton from that day forward. Not for herself
but for Sonny.

As Jax delivered Sonny back to his feet and to her side, with a stern
warning to stop the madness now, Alexis took him into her arms,
cradling a hurt and bloodied fist that would surely be swollen in the
hours to come. She looked at him with tender eyes. He was so angry he
could only stare at Ned on the floor, his chest heaving, and
adrenaline pumping, at the ready to go at him again if need be.

Her whispered voice was what deescalated his flaring emotions, called
him back from the abyss that had claimed his conscious mind when he'd
lost it a moment ago. "It's alright, Sonny. It's okay. Just calm
down. You took care of it. It's done. No more, now. Please no more."

Her words dragged his eyes from Ned back to her face, serene even in
this time of great strain. He nodded numbly at her and allowed some
of the tension to ebb from his body. She felt him relax against her
and she absorbed his weight, becoming his support now.

"Look what you did to his face!" Monica flared, as they all spied
Ned's bloody lip and a jaw that was already turning black and blue
and a peculiar shade of green.

"My God, you're barbaric!" Alan yelled. "You think you run this town!
Well, you don't! We'll sue you for this! We'll prosecute you! These
guards saw it. My whole family saw it. You'll be back behind bars
before noon, Sonny!"

Alexis was the one to stiffen now. She stepped away from her husband
and shielded his body with her own as she faced down people she had
once considered friends and nearly family. "You do that and I will
dig up every dirty, tawdry, lowdown, scandalous underhanded thing
each of you has ever done and make sure it is published in every
newspaper in this region. By the time I am done with you, every
citizen in the surrounding areas will know the salacious details of
the Quartermaine family; it will be a story in proportion to the
Martha Stewart trial. You will NEVER live it down, do you all hear
me? And the Amanda Barringtons of this world will not hesitate to cut
you off from every powerful echelon you inhabit."

Alexis met Edward's eye and fearlessly faced him down. "You doubt
that I will? Then try me. Have Sonny arrested and see if I'm not a
woman of my word."

Edward stared back unflinching, a man of consummate skill who could
spot a bluff anywhere he found it. It took him only moments to see
Cassadine steel in her eyes and back down.

He looked at the waiting guards and waved a dismissive hand. They
stood down and cleared the scene. Alexis turned to her
husband. "Looks like we're done here. Let's go home."

And that's exactly what they did.

chapter 52