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Author's Note: This story is very dark and there is a MAJOR character death. PG-13 for violence.
They say that all men must pay for their sins. I thought I would pay for mine when I died, but it seems that instead
I'll be forced to stay alive long enough to watch my debt paid in blood, hers before mine.
He's sitting there, across from me, watching me. He wants a reaction. Do I have anything left to give him?
The ability to feel shock was wrung from me by the realization that the man I loved like a brother, the man who I trusted
with my life, had betrayed me. Jason's love for Carly had proven stronger than his vows to me. He protected her lies, protected
her scheme to try and get pregnant to hold onto me, and now the family that I once thought I had has evaporated into the mists
of those lies. Yet even as I damn Jason, I wonder if his unwillingness to expose Carly was really my comeuppance for the
void I ripped in his life the day Carly and I first had sex. I claimed I was thinking of Jason that day, trying to prove
how unworthy Carly was. Was I? I can't even remember anymore. I only know what I've told myself so many times that it seems
true.
The hope that I once had that life could be better than what it had been was now gone as well, stamped out by Carly's
version of loving me. I was a prize to her, a possession, won in a battle waged against Alexis, who had never declared herself
a combatant but drew Carly's focus anyway. Her lies, her manipulations, they accumulated so quickly, so massively that it
was as if I became blind to everyone and everything else but her. I couldn't see clearly enough ahead to see the train wreck
we were becoming because each time I moved to try and catch of view of what might be out there, Carly added another lie to
the pile, and I was once again blind.
It would be easy to blame Carly for losing the respect of my men, too, but it wasn't her actions that cost me that, it
was my decision to ignore them. How many times can a supposedly strong man be weak for a woman who shows him no regard before
the men around him see him as weak period? So I became weak in their eyes, and when Roscoe began putting feelers out for
someone who would reveal details of my business, I shouldn't have been surprised that someone took him up on it. But I was.
And I was angry. And I committed what I thought was the mostly costly sin of my life.
Zander.
I hadn't stopped to think what it would do to her, what she would think of me. Had I actually thought she wouldn't know
it was me? I must have. For some brief moment, I had convinced myself that nothing I did after our night together would
push Alexis away from me.
But Zander was all the push she needed.
She moved out two weeks later. She resigned as my attorney one month later. With each step she took away from, Alexis
took all that was good and decent about me and packed it up inside of her. My soul, my ability to feel compassion, my ability
to laugh - these all became memories to me of the way life had been once, for a short, dreamlike period of time that she had
filled.
Then she was gone.
The house of cards that I had built around me, my power base, my men, they could not survive her going. Alexis had been
the one sane, rational thing the men had to hold on to, and when she went, so did their loyalty. Benny and Jason, who stayed
despite my rage at him, had tried to quell the storm, but it was too late. A tidal wave of violence and war swept into my
life and I had no choice but to grab hold and try to survive it.
But he didn't want me to survive.
The how of him being alive was irrelevant. He was here, in that gleaming silver wheelchair, grinning at me. He had come
to collect for the sin for which there seemed to be no atonement. And he intended to take my heart as repayment.
"Yes," he said, his accented voice slurred by the hardships he'd faced over the years. A stroke and a near-miss
on a self-inflicted gunshot wound will do that to you. But the old bastard hadn't died after all. His hatred of me had kept
him alive until at long last he had found a way to strike me down. "This one will hurt you much more, Sonny. Brenda
was a plaything to you. This one, she is your soul. This one will hurt much worse."
I looked across the room at Alexis, who was still laying unconscious on the couch. I was tied to a chair 10 feet away
from her, and two guards stood between us. And he stood between us. I knew I had to keep fighting. I owed it to her. The
devil could take me if he wanted to, but I had to keep fighting for her.
"Rivera, how long is this going to go on?"
He glared hard at me. I already knew the answer. It would go on forever, even if Rivera had to follow me into hell.
To make me suffer for Lily, her father would stop at nothing, not even what he was planning to do now, murder a woman he didn't
even know just to cause me pain.
The evil of the whole thing was that I understood his logic. During the months that Rivera had been funneling money into
Port Charles, destroying my organization, the old man had been watching me, and he wasn't blind. No, I had been the one blind
to the looks that passed on my face when I saw Alexis on Ned Ashton's arm, watched her body change as she carried his child,
watched her slip further and further out of my life and back into the world where she really belong. Sure, I had borrowed
her for a while, made myself think that a woman like Alexis was someone I could have in my life. But I had always known the
truth - she belonged in a world without guns and contract killers and business she couldn't know about.
Only I had held on to her too long, gotten too close, and only realized after it was too late that I needed her more than
anything or anyone else in my life.
Rivera wheeled himself toward Alexis and my whole body stiffened. He reached out and moved his hand along her cheek and
I felt like I was going to be sick. Then he stopped, his hand, resting it on her throat. He didn't make any other move,
he simply let his hand rest there.
"Not your usual sort. This one has class, breeding. Like my Lily. And like my Lily she will die without ever seeing
her child...because of you."
"Damn it, Rivera, she's nothing to me," I yelled, hoping that it sounded truthful. "She's my ex-lawyer.
She's marrying Ned Ashton next week."
"Yes, I know. I know that she is marrying another man while her heart belongs to another, just as you did when you
married my daughter. Though I must admit, her intentions are more noble than yours."
I can feel my eyes narrow as I look at him. His hand is still on her as Alexis stirs. She's starting to wake up.
"You were going to send me to prison if I didn't marry Lily, you would have hurt Brenda."
"True, so you married my daughter to protect yourself and your whore. Ms. Davis isn't marrying to protect herself
or to protect someone undeserving."
"I don't know what game you're playing, Rivera, but Alexis is marrying Ned because she loves him." I can feel
sweat running down my back. Rivera is close to making a move. He's just been waiting for Alexis to wake. He wants her to
suffer. He wants me to see her suffer. His hand begins to form a grip around her throat as Alexis' eyes blink open.
"She's marrying Ashton to protect her child. Your child."
As he says the last two words Alexis' eyes open fully. She's confused, not sure where she is. She looks over at me and
then up at Rivera. I see fear cross her face. She turns her face back to me, and I try to give her a look that says that
everything will be okay. But Alexis doesn't believe me. She has no reason to. I have lied to her and her faith in me is
gone.
My gaze with her is broken as Rivera tightens his hold on her throat. She looks up at him and tries to speak, but she
can't. 'Your child.' The words ring in my head and I realize I have known all along. I let myself believe the child was
Ned's because I knew that if I claimed it, if I claimed Alexis, they would pay for my sins as everyone else I love eventually
must. But not this time. I can't let it happen. Not her. Not our child. I can feel my body straining at the ropes around
me. I have to stop him. I have to save them.
Rivera tightens his hold, his hand surprisingly strong considering his past ailments, and he lifts Alexis' head from the
pillow on he couch. Alexis is holding onto his hand, trying to pull it away, gasping for breath.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Davis, but you had the misfortune of falling in love with the wrong man. And it is finally time
for him to know what it feels like to lose what you love most in the world."
How many times, I think, have I asked God to spare someone I love? How many prayers have gone unanswered? But I can't
think of anything else to do to stop her pain, to stop Rivera from exacting his ultimate vengeance. Because he's right.
Though I didn't know it until right this moment, he is about to destroy everything that matters to me in my life.
'Please, God, please just this once, let me be able to do what's right. Help me protect them. Please, don't make Alexis
and my child pay because she let herself love me. Please.'
The thought is no sooner through my mind than the ropes snap. I'm not sure I even realized it at first, but they puddle
around me. The guards are on me immediately. Punches fly, kicks are landed. I break the neck of the taller guard. The
smaller one has a gun and I hear it fire just as I pick up the ropes and move toward him. He screams as I knock the gun out
of his hand and repeat the neck snapping technique I learned so long ago from one of Joe Scully's enforcers. He falls to
the ground.
I turn and see Alexis' face. She's in so much pain, and I know I'm almost out of time. I rush for Rivera, the ropes
in my hand, and I wrap them around his neck. I pull with everything in me, with every ounce of feeling I have ever had for
Alexis, with every hope that just admitting that the child inside of her is mine has given birth to inside of my heart. I
hear Alexis draw in breath and realize I have dragged Rivera away from her, his hand releasing its death grip. She curls
up into a ball on the couch coughing, her own hand grasping her throat as she struggles to breathe freely again.
I have Rivera on the floor now, and I'm dragging him still, back behind the big desk that filled up half the room. I
leave him there, his paralyzed legs unable to move, and I run to the body of the smaller guard and retrieve his gun. This
time there will be no question about Rivera's survival. This time, I will make him pay for his sins and take the consequences
of my own.
Once the clip is empty, I turn around and see Alexis. She is sitting on the edge of the couch, her face tear-stained,
her throat red and beginning to bruise. But she is alive. Her arms are wrapped around her belly, but she looks to be comforting
the baby more than reacting to pain or discomfort.
I look up at the ceiling and for once know what it means to have a prayer answered. Despite the horror of what has happened
in this room, I smile.
"Thank you, thank you," I say. There is nothing else to say. I know God doesn't make deals. He will take
from me what he wants, he will take me if he wants. All that matters is that the sum of my sins was not the death of the
woman I love or my child. I bring my eyes back down and look over at Alexis. Horror begins to register on her face. I see
her stand and move toward me as I suddenly realize I'm falling to the ground.
My knees hit the floor just as I feel her arms come around me. Somehow she manages to get me to the ground with a strength
I can't believe she even has considering what she's been through. Alexis, as always, is more than I have given her credit
for. Why am I surprised?
I can feel her tears on my face as she reaches down and starts pushing against my chest with her hands. I look down and
see blood. The gun - it fired before, but I didn't feel - well, the bullet clearly found it's mark. There's blood everywhere.
And though we aren't in snow and this time we're alone, Alexis and I have been returned to a familiar scene.
One of her hands moves to my face, and I look up at her.
"Sonny, I'm going to get help. Just hang on. I'll get help."
She starts to pull away, but I don't let her. I just hold her hands in place against my body and stare up into her eyes.
"Take care of our baby, Alexis. Be sure that she knows that I loved her."
Alexis begins to cry harder. She doesn't want to let me go. Even now, after all the ways I have failed her, she still
somehow believes in me enough to not want to let me go. I manage to bring a hand up to her cheek and caress it.
"And tell her that her mother was the one good thing in my life."
Alexis leans down and her lips find mine. I feel the softness of them against me as everything else in my body begins
to fade. And I wonder how the universe will equate all the bad I have done with the one single act for which I know I need
no forgiveness.
Somehow, even though I don't have the strength left to form the words, I say them. I hear them leave my mouth as her
lips gently pull back from mine.
"I love you."
And I smile as darkness takes me away.
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