“So, we’re truly family now?” Elizabeth said quietly a few minutes later as she stopped being hugged by her mother and she had a chance to hug her brother and then Grace. “That seems right,” she murmured as Max stood back and watched and diverted the tough talk for the moment as he knew that Elizabeth needed to see her family and to know she wasn’t defined by the horrors she had experienced, and the fact they couldn’t have helped her. He could only wish he could have helped her, but Nicholas was too much of a bastard, and thankfully he was dead, but he just prayed he did not take Elizabeth down with him. “Belle told me!”
“I wished she would have told us where she was, and we didn’t have to find out by other methods” Maria muttered.
“She was worried about you and Dad,” Elizabeth commented. “She’s mad at me for screwing up our family,” she muttered and saw her mother’s reaction.
“You didn’t screw up anything Elizabeth,” Maria murmured. “We screwed you up and your brothers and sisters when we didn’t properly protect you guys from our past, and we took our eyes of the ball too much and we left the enemy walk right in the front door” she sighed as she watched Max who nodded as none of them could imagine that the enemy had been Nicholas and what he could have been capable until he struck and then there was no coming back from the carnage…
“To Belle I am why the family is where it is,” Elizabeth muttered as she thought of her baby sister, and how much time had gone by and what she had missed. “She’s so big…”
“Yeah, she is” Maria nodded. “She’s going to be a headache…”
“That’s for sure,” Jake muttered as he knew firsthand how their sister was already given their parents a hard time, and she was not even a teenager officially until August. Belle had seen too much and experienced too much to be a simple child, and he hated that for her. He wished she could have had their childhood, and not the complicated mess of the last seven years.
“We wanted you at the wedding,” Grace said quietly, and Elizabeth nodded as she hated to have missed it. “We were thinking of you the whole time.”
“I wish I could have been there,” Elizabeth muttered as she cursed Nicholas some more
If I had gotten rid of him a whole lot sooner, she mused to herself. But then she knew she had not been sober back then and who knows if she had come back to her family if she was still high and stoned all the time.
“What were you talking about when we arrived?” Maria asked. “Is there a deal?”
“Nothing formally offered but a possible tentative one which is 10 years with good behavior, out in 5” Max said softly and knew how that would land on Maria.
“Hell no,” Maria swore, and Jake and Grace were as indignant at the mere thought of a decade in prison.
“Mom,” Elizabeth tried.
“She’s not going to jail for 10 years for a death that should have happened 7 years ago if myself or Michael had gotten a hold on him” Maria swore as Elizabeth shook her head and watched Max. Jake and Grace pale at the mere thought of such a sentence but Max also knew that it might be the easiest sentence they could get unless for some reason he could convince the prosecution to come up with another one, that wasn’t so terrifying as she sighed as he glanced at Elizabeth who nodded, because Elizabeth knew what she was facing.
“She’s risking way worse if they find somehow to upgrade her charges, or if they don’t and she’s convicted on the most serious of the charges, which is murder 2. She is looking at least 15 years and since this is the second death that she was part of it, the judge is unlikely to be lenient Maria. As much as it pains me to say?”
“Why would they upgrade the charge?” Grace asked.
“If they find evidence of planning or premeditation” Jake said worried for his sister because he had seen too much of it his job. “If they don’t believe it was spur of the moment?”
“It was,” Elizabeth promised.
“I believe you, but the prosecutor already doubts your version of what went down, and she doesn’t know half the stuff I do” Max muttered. “They already have questions and they are going to find holes?”
“What holes?” Elizabeth asked.
“You said it yourself that you thought he was getting tired of you and was looking at another angle” Max asked deliberately not mentioning the possibility that Belle was one of the targets when she got older and Elizabeth winced. “That isn’t very spur of the moment because they will say it jealousy?”
“The last thing I was jealous of Nicholas or wanted him to pay attention to me” Elizabeth muttered. “If he was tired of me, all the better for me except he would have likely killed me and was probably planning on it” she murmured to the revulsion in her brother, mother, and Grace. “I just don’t like the idea he was looking for other targets?”
“You said you were pregnant, but you got rid of it without Nicholas knowing about it, but you just said he kept you locked up” Max asked.
“As I said I was allowed out on occasion, and especially when he was off doing whatever crap he did, and could whenever I was pregnant loosened the restrictions because he wanted the baby to born healthy, but even then they didn’t completely end” Elizabeth explained. “I still had to have a bodyguard escort me nearly everywhere, or whenever I was allowed out on my own… he had someone follow me unless I found a way to circumvent it”
“Then how did you get the abortion?” Max asked. “Without word getting back to Nicholas?”
“I waited until Nicholas did one of his disappearances and I did what I did best, and I seduced the bodyguard and tied him up enough to get of the apartment and have the procedure, and then made sure he was gone so to protect him from Nicholas’s wrath, I explained he disappeared and left me in the lurch” Elizabeth muttered. “I was fully recovered by the time Nicholas returned, and the con was on, and he continued to believe the baby was real until the big showdown.”
“But it sounds like you had the ability to get free, so why stay?” Max asked.
“He had me tied up at night, which is how he liked the sex” Elizabeth said the horror of her mother, who looked away. Jake did too as Grace took his hand. “I was able to bust out of them in the morning, but still most of his guys were loyal to him. I was able to weaken one or two of them, but that was never going to be constant thing, so I got lucky that once… still Nicholas kept me under lock and key, and I didn’t have the ability to get out unless I had an escort and if I was on my own then I was always fearful that Nicholas would find me. Those neighbors in the paper lied when they said I was coming and going, and I was an intimate partner of Nicholas. I was, but come on, you would really think Nicholas would let the neighbors see me, given his treatment of me and the scars he was inflicting on me, and especially when I had the kids with me, so I don’t know how they could have seen me given we always kept to the apartment and barely saw anyone that was in the building.”
“It’s probably people wanting to comment without really knowing the full story. They want to believe they should have known and could have helped when behind closed doors existed a life that was too good at fooling the outside world ,” Max murmured as he seen too much of his in his work “Unless they saw something and didn’t talk?”
“Nicholas wouldn’t have been that stupid,” Elizabeth commented.
“Anyways, you said you were drug free for some six months, why not let your powers get stronger and use them to get free?” Max asked. “Until then I know he had a hold on you with the drugs and the blackmail, but why stay when the drugs stopped…”
“He would have found me,” Elizabeth murmured “He found me in that hospital and forced me out,” she murmured. “He has spies, and he would have used his position as my husband to force me to go anywhere and I couldn’t come back here because I feared if I did, he would use the material he had on you guys. So, there was nowhere to be safe, unless he was dead”
“Which gets us incredibly lucky that you’re only charged with
Murder 2 and
Manslaughter. If they figure out the only way out of there is to kill him, they will think you planned to kill him. Being off drugs for the last six months allowed you the clarity to see your only way out which would have been by killing him especially word of the blackmail which we were able to get to before the cops found a way into that safe. So, we know what he had on you...”
Elizabeth turned into a ghost.
“We don’t blame you,” Jake sighed as he thought of the pictures they had seen and the blackmail material which detailed all the crimes the family could have gone down for but didn’t for one reason or the fact they got lucky having Jim on their side. “What he did to you was a crime, and it was illegal…”
Elizabeth remained silent as she heard Jake’s words, but she knew they were all talk and no sincerity. “I couldn’t do it to the family… those pictures, and to know how much I had hurt you all…”
“We failed you Elizabeth,” Maria cried. “We should have protected you… We let you down, and it is not your fault that Nicholas got to you. We should have never put ourselves into the situation where we could have let Nicholas get to you, or anyone for that matter… and especially not to give him the opportunity to use you to get to us…”
“I should have told you Nicholas was back” Elizabeth whispered.
“You were hurting, and we wanted to help you, but we only drove you away” Maria whispered as she grabbed her daughter’s hands and paled when she saw the scarred arms. “We failed you. We were your parents, and we should have protected you…”
Tears came down Elizabeth’s face as she looked at Max and whispered. “I never planned on killing him, honest. It was pure spur of the moment because he was going to kill me, I told you that. He was moments away from succeeding” Elizabeth murmured quietly. “It was either start shooting, or I would be dead, for good this time.”
“But he was on the floor when you fired the first shot and never stopped.”
“It never occurred me to kill him until I had the gun in my hand, and I snapped. I saw only one way out. I told you that he was starting to wake up, and if he did then he would have zapped me dead. I didn’t have a choice…”
Max sighed.
“I promise you Uncle Max, it never occurred me to kill him,” Elizabeth murmured. “In the back of my mind I probably thought he would win on that score, which he is because I was immediately arrested and looking at years in prison. It would be a victory to be dead, which it is.”
“He’s not going to win….”
“Given he is dead, and I am here, then it is obvious guys that he has won” Elizabeth murmured as the pain in the memories filled her heart as the despair returned to her face “That is why I planned to kill myself. I never planned to kill him, only myself” she blurted to the horror of her family as the words seeped out. “That was my way out. If I were dead then Nicholas would believe he won, and he wouldn’t have come after my family because he would have scored the biggest victory by forcing me to kill myself” she cried. “And he would be only opening himself up for trouble if he showed up here. You guys would have him dead in no time flat, so I was counting on…”
“Oh no,” Maria whispered in pure anguish as she remembered the fear, they all had when she disappeared, and they found the note and informed the family, and to know it was truly attempted suicide escape. “Please no…”
“It wasn’t my first suicide attempt,” Elizabeth admitted as she showed her scarred arms to much flinching “but it never worked because Nicholas always found a way to step in, and then finally I thought I had it figured out. I planned it, and I thought I had a way to make it work this time. I waited until Nicholas disappeared on one of his missions or whatever the crap he does when he is not ruining my life. Then I phoned the tip into Child Welfare so they would take the boys away…”
“Oh my god,” Grace breathed.
“I had to get them to safety. I could not keep them in that apartment a moment longer and especially if I succeeded in killed myself. Mom, I hoped they would contact you and Dad, and you would take the boys, so they could be close to you guys and Emily,” Elizabeth sighed to the horror of her mother. “I knew you guys would take care of them or I hoped you would. So, I made myself look unfit but that that place made it easy to look totally unstable and unable to care for two growing boys. So, they removed the children, and then I drugged one of the guards, so I got out. I was high as you can be, and I made sure I got arrested by coming onto a beyond obvious undercover cop. I got thrown into jail, and I thought if they thought I was some crazy addict prostitute that they would not care if I die. Then after wedging a piece of metal off the bed, I slit my wrists. I nearly succeeded in killing myself if they had not found me and got me to the hospital in time. When I came to, I knew they had called Dad. I was barely conscious, and later I came too, and I knew I was too lucid for them to hold me, and they would eventually return me to jail. I knew Nicholas would find me, but I didn’t count on him having a spy in the that hospital and he got notified and just when I thought I could kill myself with a noose I made myself, he showed up and drugged me and made me disappear. So,
there, my intention was never to kill Nicholas. It was to kill myself. I failed big time and my punishment was to live without my kids and try to find another way but this time he was not leaving me alone. Then I found out I was pregnant, and I knew I could not let Nicholas win after taking so much, and so that started the countdown of the last six months.”
“Hell,” Jake said as he watched his kid sister fall apart in his arms as he stared helplessly at his mother and wife.
“It never occurred to me to kill him until I snapped and started shooting,” Elizabeth muttered as she tried to compose herself and tried to pick herself up. “Truly guys, I snapped and started shooting and with that first shot, it was like liberation took over, so I kept going until there was no more bullets in the gun and then they burst the door open and grabbed me…”
Max sighed as he observed the pain and the hurt on his goddaughter’s face and the horror that was seeping into Maria’s soul at the thought of how close they had come to losing Elizabeth without a chance to make it right, as he knew this was going to get very messy…
*
“Oh, it’s you,” Michael said as he opened the door and found his long-time friend Isabel. “I was expecting my wife, and it’s making me worry” he muttered as he hadn’t been able to reach his wife as Maria had gone silent and hadn’t sent him word of where she had gone off to, and now it made him think of so many things.
“That’s a nice greeting,” Isabel sighed and allowed the dismissive tone to roll of her back. “Where’s Maria?”
“I have no idea,” Michael murmured as they walked into the house “She was upset about what happened in court, and when we got home. She said she was going for a walk, and she has not returned home. It’s getting me to worry…”
“I am sure she is fine,” Isabel insisted. “She needs to blow off some steam. It was a very emotional time in court” she sighed. “To find out what you guys found out, so she needs some time to get her head together and it beats coming back to the house and taking it out on you or the kids, so she needs time”
“I know, which is why I hate this…” Michael said as he thought of the newest attack on their family. “Little by little we were starting to make up ground and then this comes back to the forefront to knock us down. To see Elizabeth in so much trouble and to know she was in so much danger, and we did not know where she was and we could have helped her, if only we had known.”
“She wouldn’t have allowed you too,” Isabel sighed. “She was thinking she was protecting us, and she felt like she needed to do this on her own.”
“Blackmail. Nicholas had all our secrets and was threatening to turn them over” Michael sighed. “Would he have, I don’t know because we could have exposed him and the statute of limitation on most of them had run out. The authorities would never be able to put up a compelling case, but Max is right. The burden we have put on our kids to keep our secrets?”
“You mean about who we are?” Isabel asked. “And not just about our laundry list of crimes…”
Michael nodded. “I thought because the families knew that it would be simpler because that was half the battle in hiding from your parents, or Maria’s mother and Liz’s parents but I can’t help but think that hiding it from the public at large has caused more of a burden on the newer generations because they have to be even more careful than we ever did, and they have to be protective when they shouldn’t have to because so many times it could gotten out there into society, and today with social media and video files that can catch onto things we don’t even think about… Our kids have had to grow up faster than we did. It was much simpler to hide who we were back in our day?”
“We just had different hurdles,” Isabel sighed. “It wasn’t any easier, but it was different level…” she allowed. “It only seems simpler because of what Elizabeth has had to deal with, and cope with and what all of them have to deal with on any given day.”
“Well I want those days back,” Michael grumbled. “It has to be better than what we have dealt with over the last seven years. Not knowing whether we would be called on to bury our daughter and the last five when she had vanished. Why could not our enemies leave us alone. We didn’t want to hurt them, we just wanted to be left alone”
Because they envied that we found happy lives here on Earth. We were forced off Antar, and they wanted our new world to be not better than the one had there and from all we know. All our lives are immeasurably better for getting off Antar and find who we wanted to love, and not forced to mate with due to social convictions of our planet. We all got who we loved, and they couldn’t handle it and so they went about destroying it”
“We took our eyes off the threats” Michael sighed. “Or worse of all, we were focused on the wrong places, like us and not our kids.”
“It’s not like Elizabeth wanted your help in the aftermath. She was falling apart, and she wasn’t taking anyone’s help” Isabel asked. “She was in pain, and we did see that she was crying out, but she wasn’t allowing us to be there for her, and she was turning away those of us who were trying to be there for her, and she felt like she had to do it all on her own.”
“Because of Nicholas,” Michael said with murderous glare in his eyes.
“And because of the pain, and the trauma and she was dealing with in the aftermath and she couldn’t come to us because we wanted her to get better be the old Elizabeth and because of who she was, she felt like she should be magically better but she wasn’t, as she felt like she wasn’t the girl she once was, and could never be, and she felt the drugs were a better solution so she slipped away from us. But Michael she is back now, and so maybe we can help her today. We failed her in the past, but today is a new day.”
“Is it because she’s facing the rest of her life in prison,” Michael sighed. “She will miss out on her kids, and our lives and we’ll have to visit her behind cement walls” he murmured as he did not relish the future and what it meant for his oldest daughter. “Nicholas is going to win again isn’t he. He’s dead, and yet he’s celebrating and not rotting six feet under like he should be,” he said with hatred in his eyes as he wished he had done something to prevent this nightmare.
“That night Michael, we didn’t know” Isabel sighed as she remembered back to that day just as much as Michael did as she carried much of the guilt of what they couldn’t prevent as before their eyes, Elizabeth was taken “How were we to know this was his plan…?”
“We should have known because we had enough warning that he was going after our kids” Michael muttered as he wanted to punch someone as he remembered back and knew that how they were warned with the attacks on Grace. “Liz was the warmup, and we failed to see the warning signs before we fell into their trap.”
“Grandpa,” said a small voice and Michael and Isabel twisted around to see little Drew looking at them. She could only laugh and the littlest of them being able to sneak into a room without a fuss and overhear conversation they should not have been exposed to.
“Yes Drew?” Michael asked annoyed but the sight of the little face did allow his blood pressure to come down a few notches but still was annoyed because he had asked Belle to keep an eye on her nephew, and of course the kid was now downstairs. “What’s wrong?”
“I heard Aunt Belle talking on the phone. Is it true Mommy is back!” Drew Jacob asked his grandfather and Michael silently cursed as he did not want to have to deal with the boys finding out until he knew more about Elizabeth’s status because it would not help anyone.
“What did you hear?” Isabel asked the pint size little boy and she could not help but notice how Drew was looking more and more like Michael, but she found he had a quality that led to his mystery father whoever he was.
“I heard her talking about Mommy,” Drew asked.
“It’s a long story,” Michael muttered. “What did you hear?”
“Is Mommy okay?” Drew asked wary of the diversion his grandfather was giving him as he was evident already how smart the little boy was as his face turned into a pint size frown. “That bad man didn’t hurt her, right?” he asked scared and it twisted Isabel’s stomach to know that Drew had seen too much during his time with Elizabeth and Nicholas.
“What bad man?” Michael asked as he knelt in front of his eldest grandson and asked for the first-time what Drew knew about Nicholas. Until now, they had kept the subject unasked, because it would have brought too much they did not want to know and now both he and Isabel wondered what Drew had seen.
“The bad man who made Mommy, me and Mick live with him” Drew asked. “I don’t like him, he hurt Mommy, and made her cry” Drew said sadly as he still remembered his mother crying when she said good-bye to him and little Mick.
Jesus Isabel muttered as Michael went dangerous in his glare at his friend as he tried keep his glance from the boy.
“Your Mom is doing okay, okay Drew” Isabel assured the little boy. “We know she misses you and your brother.”
Drew nodded.
“Can you tell us what you saw?” Isabel asked tenderly of the little boy as Michael squirmed.
“Mommy hurt, that bad man who make her scream and she always had bruises and scratches, and bleeding sometimes but she tried to keep that from me, but I noticed” Drew murmured as Michael paled and wanted to curse but he couldn’t because it would be mean revealing too much to the little boy and Isabel knew Michael was falling apart.
“Go Michael, try to calm yourself okay. I’ll stay here with Drew” Isabel encouraged his friend as she could see the anger rising in her friend and Michael knew it so he nodded and stormed off into the kitchen and she heard the backdoor slam shut which meant he was going to out to let some steam out in the back yard “Your Grandpa is upset,” he assured the boy. “We just need to give some time. Drew about your mommy, you were too small?” Isabel asked of the boy.
“But I knew,” Drew muttered as he remembered all. “Mommy is okay, right? Grandpa and Grandma are upset, and Belle is even, and I just know it’s Mommy.”
“I promise you your Mommy is going to be fine. Your grandparents will make sure of it,” Isabel assured the boy. “Drew, can you tell me, was that bad man your Daddy?”
“No,” Drew shook his head with great force. “Mommy told me that we had to live with that man because of a mistake she made…” he said softly, and Isabel wanted to curse out loud, but restrained herself. “She said my Daddy is a nice man, who she wished she hadn’t been mean to him and that things could be different.”
Hmmm. Isabel murmured to herself.
“Did Mommy go to see your friend?” Drew asked as Isabel frowned when she heard those words.
“What do you mean Drew?” Isabel asked.
“Mommy, when she said good-bye to me and Mick when that lady came to take us. She said we would be happy, and that maybe she’ll see us one day, but she had to go a pretty place and meet up with Grandma’s friend, and that she loved us and never to forget her”
“Did she give you a name?” Isabel asked confused as she did not know who Elizabeth could have told Drew of.
“His name was Alex….” Drew said as he knew he said something bad when Isabel’s face dropped, and then there was loud sound of a glass breaking and she looked up and saw Belle’s wild eyes, and tears coming down her face.
“Did I say something?” Drew asked Isabel and then her aunt Belle.
“No, how about you go and get yourself a glass and your aunt a new glass. I need to talk to Belle for a minute, okay Drew” Isabel asked as the little boy nodded and left through the kitchen door as she eyed her niece with a stern look. “Don’t ever tell that boy what your sister was actually referring to, okay. You are to let him think it was a nice place, and he would have seen his mother again?”
Belle silently nodded as tears continued to come to her eyes. “She wanted to die, didn’t she?” she asked. “She was planning on dying?” she muttered as she was forced to reconcile the fact her sister was planning on killing herself.
Isabel did not answer and went looking for Michael as Belle started to cry as the door opened and her brother Liam came in the house and dropped his bag on the floor. Confused, he looked at his younger sister. “Oh god, now, what?”
“Nothing,” Belle said as she worked to wipe the tears away because at least some good was coming from this disaster that her family was making a beeline back to the family home, and she did not feel so alone anymore. “Nothing at all…” she said and hugged her big brother and tried to forget how they had almost lost their older sister without knowing it, or that their fears had almost come true.
“What is this about?” Liam asked as he was confused by the sudden hug as Belle had for months turned into a sullen teen before even turning thirteen and it was not in her nature to be happy to see him.
“Nothing just wanted to hug you” Belle smiled as she successfully wiped away the last tear as she looked around expecting to see her other brother.
“So, where is Colin?”
“Where else…” Liam laughed as they walked into the kitchen.
“Right,” Belle laughed out loud. “Oh boy, Mom and Dad are going to love that…” she said as they started to talk, and she soon was focused on friendly family drama than the darker parts of their family.