Roswell Fanatics

Hey guys, can you believe its Sunday already! It’s crazy how time just flies by.

Carolyn: Thank you for leaving feedback and continuing to read. Yeah, this Maria is definitely to take charge kind a gal.

Thanks to Candysteffi for letting me steal the ringtone she had previously used, love that song! (I just hope she remembers the conversation we had about that – it was last year )

Chapter 21.

Michael sifted through the loose sheets of paper on his desk again, as he had already done several times during the last couple of hours.

He glanced over to his partner who was busy with his own paperwork. He looked relaxed and tanned, and Michael wondered if he would ever get to see this private island of Maria’s.

Jason returned to work with stories of being pampered beyond anything he could have imagined. His wife, Charlotte, and their young daughter, Kayla, almost mutinied, wanting to remain in paradise forever, but as it was with all good things, it had to end, and now their lives were almost back to normal.

Michael moved the papers again, hiding them under the file of a case he had been working on before meeting Maria and joining The Company, and he turned to the computer monitor on his desk, pulling the keyboard closer to him.

His fingers paused above the keys while his heart had an internal argument with his brain. Was it an invasion of privacy if he looked up a police report from eight years ago that concerned his girlfriend? Technically, there was no reason for him to pull the file, and his mind was telling him it was wrong. But his heart, it ached for what Maria had gone through, and he thought if he found the documentation, it would mean she wouldn’t have to tell him herself. He reasoned he was helping, and typed D E L U C A with one finger, slowly, as if giving himself the chance to change his mind.

“Guerin, Barrington,” a loud voice called over to them, and Michael and Jason both snapped their heads up at the sound of their Captain’s bellow.

“I need you out,” he continued as he stalked over to the area they monopolized and thrust as piece of paper into Jason’s hand. “This one is pretty grim. CSI is on scene with local police.”

“This is a Beverly Hills address,” Jason commented after looking at the document. “Don’t they have their own unit?”

“Yeah, they do. But like I said, this is nasty. They need some hardcore detectives, and I’ve offered them you two pussies.”

Michael grinned to Jason. They did have a reputation of dealing with some pretty messed up situations.
They stood almost at the same time, and Michael grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, Jason mirroring his actions, and they set off for Michael’s car.

They arrived at their destination in just under 45 minutes, showing their ID’s to the policeman placed at the large wrought iron gates, and they were waved through.

Michael drove up the carriage driveway and stopped the car by a grand staircase leading up to a large white door, which was open, and he could see movement within the house.

“Isn’t it amazing how some people live?” Jason scoffed, and Michael had to bite back his answer. This
house, although palatial, was a summer house compared to his current residence.

They exited the car and moved over to the wide marble steps that led up to the door. At the top of the steps, they were greeted by a balding, overweight man, maybe in his early 40’s, as he stepped out of the house.

“Detectives Barrington and Guerin?” he asked gruffly, his thick mustache wriggling like an over-large caterpillar on his upper lip.

They both nodded as they mounted the steps. “Joe Brantley,” he introduced himself.

“What do we have?” Jason asked, jumping straight in.

“Community security called it in. He noticed the front gate open and entered to investigate and found the body,” Brantley told them as they followed him into the house.

As soon as Michael stepped over the threshold, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he glanced down to see goosebumps breakout down both arms, the hairs there standing upright. He rubbed viciously at his arms, bringing heat back and thinking someone must have turned the air conditioning on, though looking at his companions, they both looked a little flushed with heat.

Jason whistled low in his throat at the opulence of the foyer they walked into. Marble floors and columns adorned the area, the walls a wet sand color and a huge crystal chandelier hung overhead.

Upon both long walls of the entryway, there hung a large picture, but both images were hidden from view by a large white cloth. Ornate side tables were against both sides of the hall, but the main focus was the double staircase in front of them. White gleaming marble curled and led to the upstairs rooms with dark iron banisters on either side of the steps.

They followed through the house while Brantley continued. “Nobody has lived here for eight years. I have one of my guys questioning the security guard about the owners.”

“Why would you not want to live here?” Jason asked nobody in particular.

Michael had a sense of impending doom as he hovered at the doorway to a room he felt he didn’t want to enter.

And as soon as he did, his fear became heightened, a feeling of oppression descended on him, and the air crackled around him with silent cries and degradation. He cautiously entered what was obviously a dining room, a large and grand room with a long walnut dining table in place, chairs neatly on each side, all except three that had been moved to one side.

When his eyes fell on a few strands of golden hair, his stomach flipped, and he reluctantly walked around the table.

“Ah, Shit,” Jason exclaimed as he saw what Michael was seeing.

A young girl, maybe 16, was sprawled out on the floor, her legs spread at a disturbing angle, her hands tied together above her head with coarse rope. She wore a small, brown-colored skirt that had been pushed up onto her waist, but thankfully obscuring her from the prying eyes of the men in the room. Her cream color shirt was open, and unfortunately, her top half didn’t have the same modesty that her bottom half did. Her blonde hair was fanned out, almost as if placed there deliberately, and her dead eyes were staring up to the ceiling.

Michael felt his stomach roll again and threaten to expel his lunch as he took in the many cuts scattered across her body; some shallow, more not so. Judging by the way the blood was congealed it was obvious it had stopped flowing a while ago.

Photographers from the CSI unit snapped picture after picture, documenting the room and the girl, and Michael was drawn again to the girl’s face. When light seemed to bounce off her, and he swore loudly, turning his back on the sight when he caught the green tint of the girl’s eyes.

When he turned back, Jason was crouching beside the body, his hand covered in a latex glove.

“It looks like letters,” Jason said to the room, his hand close to the girl’s leg, and Michael moved so he could see better as Jason added, “P and a D, I think.”

A photographer moved from snapping a picture of that, and Michael saw what Jason was talking about.
When his eyes fell on the cluster of red welts on the girl’s inner thigh, Michael moved quicker than he thought he was capable of as he headed instinctively for the kitchen and vomited in the sink.

He stayed there until he was hurling nothing but air, then he wiped his mouth on the back of a shaky hand.
He knew whose house this was. He didn’t need telling, but he still needed the confirmation, and he reluctantly turned back and headed back to the dining room.

Jason looked up as his partner re-entered the room, noting his ashen look and silently wondered if Michael was coming down with a bug or something. He never got sick at a crime scene. In fact, of all of the guys at the precinct, Michael seemed to have the strongest stomach when it came to some of the things they saw in the line of duty.

At the same time that Michael entered, Brantley came back.

“I think we are dealing with a copycat here, boys,” he told the two detectives. “This place belongs to the Deluca’s. They were killed here eight years ago, only the daughter survived.”

Jason reacted to that news with a huff. “The Deluca’s, huh? The ones who own half of this city.”

Michael half heard what was being said, his mind registering the other detective confirming his fears, and his eyes lifted to one wall, once a vivid green, now marred with splattered blood. His gaze shifted again until it stopped on a word that had been written in what he assumed was the blood of the victim. Soon.

Michael felt the bile rush again, and he couldn’t help but spit it out onto the hardwood floor.

“Hey,” Jason said, his eyes swinging from the blood-soaked wall to his partner. “Are you ok?’

Michael looked to his partner, his mind screaming at him not to do what he knew he was going to, but he had to. “Do you trust me?” he asked his partner.

“What?” Jason answered incredulously.

“Do you trust me?” Michael repeated hoping Jason understood the urgency in his voice.

“Of course,” Jason answered.

Michael looked at the other in the room. “I need this room emptied now,” he ordered, and the figures all stopped what they were doing, looking at him in question.

“Don’t you fucking understand me? Out. Everyone. Now,” Michael bellowed, and they scattered quickly at the anger in his voice. Only Detective Brantley stood his ground.

“You, too,” Michael told him, pulling his cell from his jeans jacket. “You need to hold the door. No one is allowed in here unless I say so,” and watched bewildered as the older man actually walked backward out of the room.

“Michael, what the fuck are you doing?” Jason asked, standing from the body and removing his glove.

Michael held his finger up to his friend, stalling his answer as he looked at his phone, wondering which speed dial number to hit. It went with number three and held the phone to his ear, waiting for the call to be answered.

“Max,” he said into the device as soon as he heard his other partner’s voice. “I need you to get your ass in gear. I’m gonna send you an address, and I need you here five minutes ago.”

“What’s going on, Michael?” Max asked concerned.

“Just get here,” Michael answered and pressed a button, ending the call, and then quickly typed in a message with the address and sent it off to Max.

“Are you trying to tell me you’re gay? ‘Cause if you are, this isn’t the right place,” Jason quipped.
Michael shot him a look as he pressed another number on his speed dial.

Again, he waited for endless seconds for the call to be answered.

“Deluca Group,” a cheerful voice called down the line.

“Riley,” Michael called. “Is she there?”

“Yes, Detective Guerin. She’s in a meeting. Do you…”

“Don’t let her leave,” Michael interrupted him.

“What?” Riley asked disbelieving.

“Do not let her leave her office until either Sean or I pick her up. Do you understand?”

“I’m not an imbecile,” Riley huffed.

“Good. Do you have the authority to request additional guards?” Michael quizzed.

“Oh fuck!” Riley exclaimed. “What’s going on, Michael?”

“Just get another guard on her door, and don’t leave her alone. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” Riley replied as he held the receiver between his ear and neck, his hand moving to his lowest drawer.
He opened it, reached in, and pulled out a small glock, flicked the safety off and slipped it into his top drawer.

“Ok, I’ll call later.” And with that he ended the call.

Michael moved around the room, keeping his eyes from the girl on the floor and turned back to see Jason looking at him quizzically.

“Some things have happened to me while you were on vacation,” Michael said to him, his voice low. “The most important being I have a new girl.”

“Wow,” Jason would have laughed, if not for the seriousness of Michael’s face. “And just who is this mysterious girl?”

“Maria,” Michael answered, watching Jason and when his partner showed no recognition he added. “Maria Deluca.”

“Ah, shit, Michael. Not a Deluca, they are the……” then he stopped and looked down at the dead girl.

“Maria Deluca, as in the only survivor of a brutal double homicide that happened here eight years ago?” Jason queried low and blanched as Michael nodded.

“Don’t do things by half, do you, Guerin?” Jason muttered, shaking his head.

In an amazingly short space of time, they heard voices from the front of the house, and Michael left the dining room and entered back into the foyer, where he saw Max by the front door being stopped by Detective Brantley.

“Brantley,” Michael called out. “Let him through.”

Max entered into the house quietly, his eyes roaming the hall and the staircase as he passed through. Michael turned and walked back into the dining room with Max following him.

“Jason Barrington, Max Evans,” he said, making quick introductions.

Jason threw a look at Michael, and he shook Max’s hand as Michael explained, “Max works for the Deluca’s,” and hoped Max went along with his tale.

“What can I do for you?” Max asked with a sidelong glance to Jason.

“I’m sorry to have to do this, believe me, but…” and he moved so Max could see the body on the floor.

“Ah, fuck,” Max expelled, his eyes lifting to the red letters on the wall. “Have you called Sean?”

“Do you think I should?” Michael asked, concerned of the effect something like this would have on Maria’s cousin.

“I think he’ll kill you if you don’t, and he finds out,” Max answered wisely.

“Who’s Sean?” Jason questioned, looking between the two.

“Sean Deluca. Maria’s cousin,” Michael answered.

“Call him,” Jason ordered. “We’ll need a Deluca here, anyway, and I’m taking it you don’t want your new
honey to come down.”

“Fuck, no” Michael retorted gruffly. This was something she definitely did not need to see.

Max dug for his phone to make the call. “Where is she?” he asked Michael.

“At work. I called Riley and told him to keep her there and double her guard,” Michael informed him, and Max nodded at his words.

“Sean,” he said into his cell. “I need you to remain calm. Do not do anything stupid, and meet me somewhere.”

There was a pause as Sean replied to Max’s short orders, Max smiling a little at whatever he was saying.

“Ok, I need you to come to your uncle’s old place,” Max said, and Michael grimaced as he could hear Sean string a line of expletives even from his distance.

“Look, Sean,” Max said softly. “Just get here.”

And he ended the call and moved over to inspect the body.

“I’m just gonna go tell Brantley to expect an irate Deluca any minute,” Jason told Michael as he left the room.

Michael moved over to Max, his eyes on the poor dead girl, and he willed his brain to stop changing her face into Maria’s.

“The marks are almost identical,” he told Max, leaning over to point out the ones on her inner thigh. “Jason seems to think these look like a D and a P.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Max conceited. “It’s hard to see with them being so new.” The welts looked angry and sore, and the dried, crusty blood on them obscured the markings slightly.

Max looked up to Michael. “What do Maria’s look like?”

Michael’s mind whirled as he thought of the stark white marks on his girlfriend’s leg, the ones he had kissed tenderly only a few days ago, which had caused her to freak out. He nodded, yes, they could be a P and a D.

“So, this is the work of the same guy or a copycat,” Max concluded. “You know, we’ll have to tell her and Mason.”

They was a commotion by the front door again, and Max and Michael moved out into the foyer to see Sean standing in the doorway, almost as if he was afraid to enter.

“He’s never been back here since it happened,” Max leaned over to Michael to tell him. “He holds himself somewhat responsible because he was supposed to have been here with her, but they argued that night, and he had gone home.”

“And what could he have done? He couldn’t have been more than 17. When did he his abilities come on line?”

Max shrugged, “I think he was older, maybe 20 or something.”

Sean looked up and saw Michael and Max standing to the side of the grand staircase at the entrance to the dining room, and he shuddered involuntarily as he stepped in to the house.

He looked automatically to the right side of the entrance area and crossed to the large covered picture there. His hand moved by itself as it lifted to the frame he could feel under the cloth, and he closed his eyes and pulled at the material.

The cloth fluttered almost gracefully to the ground, revealing a large portrait of a 15 year-old girl, her eyes shining brightly back to them, her cheeky smile infectious.

Michael moved closer to look at the likeness and smiled in spite of the situation. Even at 15, she had been a beauty, but this picture showed something that he couldn’t recall seeing in the woman he knew. It wasn’t exactly an innocence, the smirk of her lips and the mischief in her eyes was a look he was familiar with when she was about to do something indecent to him, but the brightness of her eyes had dimmed somewhat.

“This had been hung maybe three weeks before it happened,” Sean told them in an unrecognizable voice.

“Wow,” Jason whispered as he moved toward the three men by the painting, and all three of them swung their heads to him.

“This your new girl?” Jason asked Michael with a glint in his eye.

“This was her eight years ago,” Michael nodded as he looked back to the portrait.

“And she’s my cousin,” Sean growled to the intruder. “And don’t you forget that.”

With that, Sean moved away from the picture. “Ok, why am I here?” he asked Michael and Max.

The two guys looked at each other and then back to Sean. “You’d better come and see,” Max answered and led Sean off to the dining room with Michael and Jason following.

Max paused at the door, turning back to his friend. “I’m sorry to have to show you this,” he said quietly and then continued into the room.

“Sweet fucking Jesus,” Sean swore when his eyes fell on the young girl, and he stumbled, clutching his stomach. He fell to his knees, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the image before him, his mind instantly replacing her face with Maria’s.

His eyes blindly swept the room, taking in the area that had once been filled with laughter and enjoyment.

Now it held death and misery. He could envision Maria the night this nightmare had started as she had moved gracefully through the room, kissing her mom and dad goodbye before heading out to a party: A party where he had been a prick, and they argued. He left her alone, refusing to return home with her, and it was that evening their nightmare began after Maria arrived home.

His eyes fell back to the body laid out on the floor, and he shuddered at what this girl had gone through, and what his cousin had to live with each day.

He looked up to Michael. “Where is she?”

“At work,” Michael answered.

“I need to get to her, protect her,” Sean responded, almost to himself than the others in the room.

“I called Riley. Told him to keep her there until one of us collects her, and in the meantime, to put an extra guard on her door,” Michael explained.

Sean nodded. “Good. Thanks.”

Michael nodded, watching as Sean finally stood, and his gaze fell on the ominous word on the wall.

“We need to catch this bastard and quick, before soon becomes now,” Sean said to nobody in particular.

“What are the chances of your cousin leaving the country for a while, ya know, to stay safe?” Jason asked Sean.

Sean, Michael, and Max shared a look, then each let out a snort of sarcastic laughter.

“Not gonna happen,” Max laughed.

“Hell will freeze over first,” Sean added.

“Why?” Jason queried, looking at the three men in front of him. “It’s for her own safety.”

“I think you need to meet Maria,” Michael said with a slight smile. “She’s very……..determined.”

Sean huffed. “Yeah, and it was that determination that saw her through the nightmare she went through in this room.”

Sean turned to the man who was obviously Michael’s LAPD partner. “If we tell Maria about this, she will be in the front of the line so she can be in on the hunt and get a piece of this bastard.”

“You think we can keep it from her?” Max asked.

“Not a chance in hell. You can’t keep a secret if your life depended on it, especially with Maria. All she has to do is bat her eyes, flash a length of leg, and you’d spill your most inner secrets,” Sean scoffed. Then he looked over to Michael. “And don’t even get me started with the ways she could get the intel out of you.”

“So, you are telling her?” Jason concluded.

Michael’s cell burst into song at that moment, the familiar chords of Hoobastank’s “Inside of you” filling the room and startling them out of their conversation. He pulled it from his back pocket with a grimace on his face, knowing from the ringtone who was calling. He reluctantly accepted the call and brought the device to his ear.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Maria’s voice blared into the room before he had a chance to say anything.

“Hey Babe,” Michael greeted her.

“Don’t babe me, Michael. Why aren’t I allowed to leave my office? Why is there another guard on my door?
And more importantly, why is my PA walking around with a fucking glock in his pants?”

“Maria, just take a breath. Sniff some oil or something,” he reasoned, stalling for time, looking hopefully at
the men in the room for some way to appease her.

“Don’t tell me what to do, Michael. Tell me why I’m being forced to stay in my office. And what the hell are you talking about – sniff some oil?”

“Cypress oil, it helps to calm the nervous or some shit like that.”

He could almost see Maria taking a deep breath. “I do not need to sniff oil, Michael,” she returned obviously through clenched teeth. “I just want to know what the hell is going on.”

“Ok, Maria. I’ll be with you in 30. Wait for me, please?” Michael asked her.

“I don’t know if I will,” she told him. “You know very well I could just walk out of here if I want to. That guard is no match for me.”

“The guard is not to keep you in, babe,” he answered before he could stop him.

“Not to keep me in,” she repeated and he could almost hear her inner thoughts. “Who are you trying to keep out?” she asked cautiously.

“Maria,” Michael said gently.

“Who is it, Michael?” she repeated, her voice eerily calm.

“Maria,” he repeated and then heard nothing but a dead line as she cut off their call.

“Shit,” Michael whispered looking at his phone.

“What?” Sean asked stepping closer.

“She hung up on me. I think she knows?”

*********************

Hey guys. Happy St Patrick’s Day to everyone out there.

Thanks to everyone still reading this.

CandyliciousLovah: Thanks for your comments and believe me, some of these scenes are not easy to write.

Carolyn: Oh, she knows!

Chapter 22

Re-cap.

“The guard is not to keep you in, babe,” he answered before he could stop himself.

“Not to keep me in,” she repeated and he could almost hear her inner thoughts. “Who are you trying to keep
out?” she asked cautiously.

“Maria,” Michael said gently.

“Who is it, Michael?” she repeated her voice hitching slightly.

“Maria,” he repeated and then heard nothing but a dead line as she cut off their call.

“Shit,” Michael whispered looking at his phone.

“What?” Sean asked stepping closer.

“She hung up on me. I think she knows?”

*********************************

“How is that possible?” Jason queried.

Michael looked at Sean. “Is it possible?”

Sean shrugged, knowing what Michael was asking. With her abilities, could Maria know that there was someone out there who was intent on making her suffer?

“It’s never happened, before but Maria is exceptional,” Sean answered slowly.

“What aren’t you guys telling me?” Jason demanded, easily reading between the lines that there was something more going on here.

“Nothing,” Sean snapped to him, telling Michael in one word that Jason could not know about The Company.
Sean turned back to Michael “Has this room been processed?”

“Yeah, I think the guys were just finishing up when we got here.”

“Check it again. I want every inch of this room scrutinized to see if our killer left any clues that are specific.”

Max and Michael nodded, understanding what the other agent hadn’t said.

“Clues specific to what?” Jason asked, becoming annoyed that Michael, his working partner for the last three years, was holding out on potentially important information.

“Max,” Sean glanced over at the dark haired man with an apologetic look. “Could you check her?” and he pointed to the body.

Max nodded, moving over to girl who had lost her life and grabbing a pair of latex gloves from a box on the table that had clearly been left by the CSI team.

“What about the letters?” Jason offered, his voice taking on a hint of frustration. He couldn’t believe he was helping these two men who he didn’t know, who had seemingly taken over this crime scene with an ease that bewildered him. He reasoned he was only still there because somehow Michael had become entangled with these men through his new girlfriend, and if they were ok in Michael’s eye’s, that was good enough for him to wait and ask questions later.

“What letters?” Sean asked, turning his head sharply toward Michael.

“There seem to be some letters on her thigh that appear to match with the ones on Maria’s,” Michael told him, raising his hand nervously to rub the back of it against his forehead.

“Fuck,” Sean growled out and reluctantly moved over to the figure sprawled on the floor.

Jason, sensing Michael’s unease at getting any closer to the victim, gestured toward the markings on the girl’s inner thigh.

“Holy fuck,” Sean repeated, knowing about the markings on Maria’s thigh but having never seen them. So looking at the stark, bloodied lines sliced into the girl’s thigh, Sean felt his stomach lurch and he swallowed thickly.

“We think it’s a D and a P. We just have no clue what it means,” Jason supplied.

Sean shrugged, not finding any significance to any target they had come across, but made a mental note to check their files when he got back to the mansion. After all, this happened to Maria long before the young Deluca’s joined The Company.

“Guys,” Max called hesitantly from his place by the girl’s head. “She’s wearing contacts.” The others turned and watched as he gently removed a colored contact from one unseeing eye. “She has brown eyes and is wearing green contacts,” he muttered, scrutinizing the lens.

“Bag that,” Jason said quickly. “It might have a print on it. If she wore them by her own choice, it will have her prints. If they come back clean, that means he made her wear them.”

He looked up to Michael from his spot on the ground beside Max and the girl. “What color eyes does your girl have?”

Michael swallowed before answering, “Green.” Michael moved away from the body, standing by a tall window that helped bring the glorious Californian sunshine into this depressing room. “I gotta get some air,” he mumbled before heading for the door leading to the kitchen.

Michael strode quickly through the large kitchen, his eyes intently searching for the backdoor. He sighed gratefully when the cream colored wood of the door and within seconds in was standing in front of the exit,
his hand reaching for the brass knob.

When it didn’t move within his grasp, Michael swore. Of course, the door would be locked, the whole house had been locked up for eight years. “Fuck,” Michael said, relentlessly pulling on the knob, knowing the door wouldn’t open.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he repeated as he kicked the door with his foot, then he kicked again and again, his breath coming out in short, haggard exhales.

How could this son of a bitch still be out there? How could it be possible that someone would want Maria dead? Or worse, hurt her in a way he really couldn’t comprehend?

He kicked the wood again, his hands landing against the large window in the door.

“Michael.”

Michael heard Sean’s voice but refused to turn. He rested his forehead on the cool glass, not really caring if this man thought he was a pussy.

“She’ll be ok,” Sean said, closing the space between. “And you know why?”

Again, Michael didn’t answer. He just tried to control his breathing as he took big, gulping lung-fulls of air.

“Because,” Sean continued, “She has two of the best in The Company looking out for her, she’s on top of her game, and can beat the crap out of the both of us. And to be honest with you, she a stubborn bitch, and I suspect there is only one person out there who could take her down.”

Michael turned his head to the blonde man at that comment, his brow furrowed in question.

“You, man,” Sean shrugged, sighing a little before speaking again. “I have to admit it. You are better at this shit than me. Your abilities are stronger than mine, and I was jealous of that fact. That, and I know you are gonna take my cousin from me.”

“Sean,” Michael interrupted him, standing straight again, but Sean held his hand up, stopping him from saying anymore.

“Maria and I are a formidable team, but I reckon you and Maria, wow, nobody could stop you.”

“I’m not Maria’s partner. You are,” Michael answered.

“It will only be a matter of time before my dad sees what I see and then……”

Michael didn’t have an answer for that. On one hand, he understood he and Maria worked extremely well together, seeming to anticipate the others actions and thoughts, but he didn’t want to take another piece of Maria from Sean.

“Hey, I need you in there to help find the guy who did this,” Sean continued, hooking his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the dining room.

Michael nodded once before inhaling slowly, and then exhaling, knowing this was just as hard for Sean as it was for him to be in the room where his family suffered all those years ago.


The small group searched the whole dining room for any signs this monster might have left for them. They all knew he was taunting them with the fact The Company knew nothing about him, and he could strike again at any time.

Michael was crouched in a far corner, closely inspecting a large, floor-standing porcelain vase that appeared to be extremely old when he first felt it. It started as a tingling, almost in his peripheries, then it grew until it was sending a shiver down his spine, and he stood, turning to look back into the room.

“Oh, shit,” he uttered, his voice low, causing the other guys in the room to look expectantly at him.

“She’s here,” was all he said before Detective Brantley reappeared at the door leading into the dining room.

“We have a situation out front,” he said gruffly.

“Let me guess?” Michael raised his eyebrow. “About 5’4”, blonde hair, killer legs?”

“Yeah, and demanding I fetch the big oaf-ish one, which I presume is you.”

Michael’s eyes flashed to Sean. He might have known she would turn up, and he could only imagine the turmoil within her right now to be back here.

He strode from the room, following Brantley back to the front of the house.

He saw her before she saw him. A uniformed officer was preventing her from entering the house, and though she looked determined to enter, even with the distance between them, he could see the fear in her eyes.

When the officer placed his hand on her arm, Michael winced.

“Get your fucking hands off me!” Maria exclaimed heatedly to the policeman.

“Miss, I can’t let you enter. This is a crime scene,” the cop told her, his tone condescending.

“I know that, you idiot,” Maria shot back.

“Maria,” Michael said calmly as he approached the entrance. “Don’t call the officer names.”

“I wouldn’t need to if this dickwad would just listen to me,” she returned curtly, her eyes not meeting his as she continued glaring at the officer whose hand was still on her arm.

Michael noted the tear in her skirt and her disheveled look. “How did you get past your guards?”

Maria laughed. “Really, Michael? When are you gonna learn? If there is something I want to do, I will do it. No amount of men telling me I can’t will stop me.”

“Is that how you ripped your skirt?” he asked with a raised brow.

“Well, it’s not the usual attire I would wear to tackle some huge Neanderthal who thought he could keep me contained,” she returned sharply.

Michael smirked at her response before turning to the policeman restricting her entrance. “Officer?”

“Robinson,” the man told him.

“Officer Robinson, why don’t you let Ms. Deluca into the house,” Michael said evenly.

The cop quickly released Maria’s arm.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, looking to Maria before turning to Michael. “She never gave her name, Detective,” he gave, as a way of explanation.

“I shouldn’t have to explain who I am to enter my own house,” Maria returned indignantly.

“Normally I would agree with you, but in this circumstance, yes, you do,” Michael said sharply before turning and signaling her to follow him into the mansion.

Maria looked past him and into the marble foyer of her old home, suddenly hesitant, blanching a bit as her skin lost what little color it had left.

Michael turned to the policeman by the door. “Could you give us a minute?”

The cop nodded and headed down the steps and onto the paved driveway.

“Maria, you don’t have to do this,” he stated softly to her, reaching up to cup her cheek with his hand, making her look at him and not indoors. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“What’s in there?” she asked her voice low as her gaze flickered over his shoulder and into the foyer. “I mean, what happened?”

Michael stepped closer to her. “I really think you should just go home.”

“No,” Maria returned, trying hard to make her voice strong but failing, and she move a little toward the doorstep, Michael’s hand falling from her cheek.

She took another step closer to the threshold, then stopped, turning to Michael and grasping his hand, holding on with a death grip.

Michael re-entered the house but was stopped from going any further. He looked back to see his arm outstretched, Maria’s too, but she still hadn’t moved. He lifted his gaze to hers to see her eyes wide with fear.

She gave a silent shake of her head, and Michael took that to understand she couldn’t cross the threshold and enter her former home. He moved back to her, her arm relaxing, and he again cupped her face with his free hand.

“Maria, you really do not have come in. You don’t need to see this,” Michael soothed.

Maria gave him a watery smile. “Thank you,” she whispered, and she brushed her lips against his.

Michael relaxed a little, thinking she had decided to go home or back to the office, so when she inhaled deeply and then crossed the doorway, he was surprised.

Maria froze again once she was in the middle of the entrance hall, her muscles tense, and her eyes swinging around the space almost frantically. She took another shaky breath, then wished she hadn’t when the copper scent of blood filled her lungs.

Was that her imagination? Or had someone being bleeding to the point of death nearby?

Her hand flew to cover her mouth, almost as she was trying to stop the smell completely, and she turned to ask Michael about the blood.

Her question fell as her eyes fell on her portrait that Sean uncovered earlier.

She gave a surprised whimper as she focused on her younger self. She didn’t realize her feet were moving until her fingers brushed against the canvas, feeling the texture of the oil paint that was built up by the artist to capture her image when she was just 15.

“That’s an awesome painting, babe,” Michael said softly, moving closer to her. “You should bring it back to the house. We can hang it in our room.”

Maria acted like she didn’t hear him, her eyes roaming over the picture, her mind wandering back to her childhood spent in his house.

Maria turned silently to look at the covered painting behind her, and again, her feet moved seemingly by themselves, but she stopped before she got too close.

Her eyes darted to the door beside the marble staircase. She could make out movement in the room beyond, and she looked back to Michael.

“In there?” she asked, her voice shaking with emotion.

At Michael’s nod, she stood a little taller, almost bracing herself to enter the room.

She moved forward slowly. Her mind was screaming at her to stop walking toward that room, to turn and run from the house or at least into Michael’s arms where she knew she would be safe, but she didn’t, and she continued on, her heels playing out an even staccato on the marble flooring, though in Maria’s mind they were saying – don’t go, turn back, run, run, run.

When the figure standing in the doorway turned to her, she stopped in her tracks.

“Maria, this is Detective Brantley. He’s the guy in charge,” Michael told her gently before turning to
Brantley. “Brantley, this is Maria Deluca.”

The pot-bellied man stepped forward, his hand held out. “Nice ta meet ya,” he said.

Maria absentmindedly shook his hand, a thin smile on her lips.

“You didn’t need to come down here, Ms. Deluca. The fact that your cousin is here is more than enough,” Brantley told her, trying to be sympathetic to the young woman who had suffered so much in this house.

Maria whipped her head around to Michael. “Sean?”

At Michael’s nod, she turned back to the room and stepped into the once safe environment of her family dining room that was marred years before and had been marred once again.

“Maria, no!” she heard Sean before she saw him, her vision blurring as she imagined her mom walking into the room from the kitchen carrying a large casserole dish.

She shook her head, dislodging the memories, and turned to face Sean who was standing by the long walnut dining table, his frame obscuring her view of the body on the floor.

“You really don’t need to see this,” he said, stretching his hands out to stop her walking any further into the room, glaring at Michael over her shoulder.

“Sean, I’m a big girl now, you have to…..” she didn’t finish what she was saying as she side-stepped Sean, and her gaze fell on the young girl still sprawled out on the floor.

The last thing she heard was Michael and Sean calling her name as she felt like someone dumped a cooler of iced water on her. She shivered in spite of herself at the chill it left in her bones. She could almost feel the blood leaving her face as her eyes rolled back, and she slumped to the floor.

Sean reached her first, his hands stretching out to catch her as she crumpled to the hardwood flooring, but he was not quick enough to stop her head from crashing into the dark oak with a sickening thud.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” Sean yelled at Michael, cradling Maria close to his chest. “She did not need to see this!”

“And you really think I could stop her?” Michael returned, kneeling down beside Sean and moving Maria’s hair from her forehead to reveal a small lump forming before his eyes.

“Don’t touch her,” Sean hissed, pulling his cousin’s unconscious body closer to his, tears building in his eyes against his will.

Michael recognized the need in Sean to protect Maria, to shield her from the things he couldn’t, and his feeling of inadequacy.

“Sean,” Michael said gently. “Let’s get her out of here. You know this house better. Is there somewhere we can take her until she wakes?”

Sean nodded once and wound an arm under Maria’s legs, easily lifted her as he stood. When his balance wavered for a second, Michael caught his shoulder and guided him until he stood firmly upon his feet again.

He moved quickly from the room, Brantley stepping aside from the doorway, and Michael following him. Sean swiftly crossed the marble hallway and to a set of light wood double doors. He struggled a little with the knob until Michael reached around him and turned the rounded handle, pushing the door open, and letting Sean enter first.

Michael walked over to a large couch, covered with a dust sheet, and pulled the fabric off so Sean could settle Maria onto the plush coverings.

“Can you get a glass of water?” Sean asked Michael not looking at the taller man, his eyes intent on his cousin as he laid her gently onto the cushions of his aunt and uncle’s favorite couch.

Michael was hesitant. He knew Maria would need something when she woke. He wanted to be there when she did, but he had a feeling Sean would not leave his cousin’s side either. He reluctantly strode from the room and instinctively opened a door further down from the dining room, entering into the large kitchen.

After opening several cupboards, he found some glassware and filled a glass from the faucet before retracing his steps through the dining room and through the door that led into what clearly was the living room.

When he re-entered the room, Maria was sitting up, talking softly to Sean, reassuring him that she was fine, and begging him to stop fussing over her.

She smiled weakly to Michael when she noticed his reappearance and gratefully took the offered glass from his hand, noting that it was shaking slightly, identical to her own.

After a few minutes, she asked, “Do you know who she is?”

Michael shook his head. “Not yet, but forensics will do their magic, and we’ll soon have a name.”

Maria looked up to Michael, her next question sticking in her throat. “Is it the same guy?”

Michael looked between her and Sean, debating lying to her, but knowing she would find out eventually. “I think so,” he finally answered.

“How?” was her simple question.

“There are certain similarities that can’t go unnoticed. Same build and hair color. Same cuts. And...” he stopped himself and pondered, did she really need to know everything that bastard had done.

“What?” Maria asked, swinging her head from Michael to Sean. “What don’t you want to tell me?”

She watched as Michael and Sean exchanged glances.

“Come on, you know I’ll find out eventually,” Maria insisted.

“We think he changed her eye color. Made her wear green contacts,” Sean told her.

Maria blanched, the little color that had reappeared in her face draining quickly at her cousin’s words.

“We don’t know that for certain,” Michael quickly offered. “Not until we get any prints back from the contacts.”

“Maria,” Sean started cautiously. “Those marks you have on your thigh… do you think they could be his initials?”

Maria’s eye widened beyond what Michael would have considered natural at Sean’s question. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” was all she said as she handed off the glass to Sean.

“Yeah, I was, too,” Michael returned sympathetically, his hand rubbing her shoulder.

“No, really. I’m going to hurl,” and she jumped from the couch and dashed from the room, Sean and Michael hot on her trail.

She opened another door which led to a bathroom and promptly lost her lunch down the toilet bowl.

Michael crouched beside her, caressing her back gently, trying to give her what little comfort he could as Sean stood beside them, the glass of water still in his hand.

Maria moved to lay her cheek on the tiled floor, needing something cool against her heated skin. As an afterthought, she hoped the cleaning company still visited her old home like they were instructed to. She could see both Michael’s and Sean’s shoes as they waited with her for her nausea to pass.

“It’s to remind me,” she said, her voice strangely detached. “So I won’t forget.”

“What is?”

“His initials. That’s what he said as he was carving them.”

Michael lifted his gaze to Sean’s at her confirmation of what they feared. He vaguely hoped that this was a copy-cat and not the original man, but knowing the intricate details of the crime was not something a copy-cat would know, especially since those details were not available to public. Michael again felt the need to read what was in the police report.

“Maria, why don’t you let Sean take you home?” he wasn’t ashamed that he sounded like he was begging. He had work to do, and he couldn’t concentrate if she insisted on staying.

Maria slowly sat up, her eyes shifting between the two guys before she relented and nodded.

“Thank you,” Michael smiled and stood, offering her his hand so she could also stand.

Maria again took the glass Sean was still holding and cleaned her mouth with the water before spitting it into the sink.

“My keys are in my car. Can you bring it home?” she asked Michael.

“Sure, babe. You know I love to drive your car,” Michael returned glibly.

Maria gave him a small smile before kissing his cheek. She lifted her hand and stroked her thumb over the area she had just touched. “Don’t be too long.”

“I’ll be home before you know it,” he smiled back.

Maria nodded and turned to Sean. “Let’s go, Curly.”

*****************

Hey guys, hope your Sunday is going well.

Thanks to everyone taking the time to read and especially those who go that extra mile and leave feedback.
As the last two updates were a little heavy going, I figured it’s time for a light chapter, enjoy.

Carolyn: Thanks as always for you dedication to this fic. And yeah, go Max


Chapter 23.

Michael stirred in the bed, trying hard to stay asleep just a little longer but failing. His eyes flickered open to the glorious sunshine pouring into the room through the barely covered windows.

He turned his head slightly to check the time. Still early enough to relax in bed, he noted, and he looked back to the blonde beside him.

The last few days had been rough on her, especially after the gruesome discovery of the body at her old house. On the outside, she was strong and in control as she ever was, but sometimes, when it was just the two of them, that forced persona slipped, and Michael saw her as the vulnerable and frightened girl from eight years ago.

After Sean, Max, and Michael had informed Mason of the grisly find at the Deluca house Mason ordered extra guards on the building and assigned one to follow Maria everywhere whenever she left the house. Of course, this had not gone down well with Maria, and she bitched about it constantly, to the point of threatening the poor man with both bodily harm and a life with no chance of reproducing.

Forensics finally had a name for the girl, Rachel Stanley, and Michael was present when her parents were informed of her death. She had been a high school student with good grades, a cheerleader, and popular with her fellow students. Michael could also imagine Maria’s biography at the time before her ordeal being almost identical. Apart from those facts, the thing that set Maria apart was her family owned one of the largest business corporations in America and headed an elite assassin group.

He moved again, turning onto his side, and he wrapped his arm around Maria’s waist and pulled her back against his chest. She mumbled in protest at the movement until she settled back against him, and Michael smiled, his lips brushing her shoulder.

“Don’t stop the grunion,” she muttered sleepily, and Michael laughed, wondering what she was dreaming about.

He vaguely remembered something Jason told him when he first moved to L.A. about a tradition of watching the grunion run, which actually consisted of the small fish spawning in the surf on several beaches along the Californian coastline.

Maria, being a native of Los Angeles, probably had seen this in her youth and could well be dreaming about that time.

Michael noted it had been a while since he was at the beach. Until recently, his life had been his work. He realized he had never seen Maria in a bikini, then he wondered if she would wear a bikini with her scars, but judging from some of her racy outfits, he figured she didn’t really care.

He watched the sunlight as it danced over the trinkets on Maria’s dresser and felt the warmth of its rays on his arm even through the window, and with that, his mind was set.

Michael moved his arm again, away from Maria’s waist and back over his shoulder, trying hard not to move too much and disturb the girl in his arms. His fingers finally landed on his cell phone, and he lifted it toward him, quickly dialing his station.

After a short, almost whispered conversation with the desk sergeant, he placed his cell back on the night stand and wrapped his arm back around Maria.

“You playing hooky?” Maria asked drowsily, refusing to open her eyes.

“Yep,” Michael grinned from behind her. “And you are, too.”

Maria lifted her hand, scratching her head slightly as she struggled to think what appointments were on her schedule for the day.

“I don’t know Michael. I can’t think what’s in my book for today,” she answered, her voice still thick with sleep.

Michael moved again, reaching once more for his phone. Hitting the speed dial button, he waited until Riley’s recorded voice kicked in, then left a message saying Maria wouldn’t be in the office today and to re-arrange all her appointments.

By the time he turned back to Maria, she had moved around to face him. “So, neither of us are going into work today?”

“No,” he returned with a lopsided grin.

“And do you have plans for us?”

“Absolutely.”

“Is this something we have to get out of bed for?” she asked, her eyes twinkling with glee.

“Yes,” he laughed.

“Michael,” Maria whined with a pout.

“No way, Blondie. Don’t pull that look on me,” he said before quickly rolling out of the bed so she didn’t start something that could take all day to finish. He had specific plans for them today. “Now, get out the bed and into the shower,” he instructed her as she propped her head up on her elbow.

“Michael, come back to bed,” she answered, her voice dipping seductively as she shifted her body even more in the bed instead of doing as he asked.

“Nu-huh, Maria,” he chastised gently, moving away from the bed, not completely trusting her to not use her lightning speed abilities on him. “But if you get in the shower, I might join you there,” he added.

“Oh, watersports. I like,” Maria smirked, sitting up slightly.

Michael shook his head at her but watched as she moved from the bed and over to the bathroom, moving as sensually as she could, swaying her naked ass seductively before she disappeared from view.

He pulled on his discarded boxers before entering into her huge closet, hunting for clothes for her to wear. It wasn’t as though he wanted her to wear whatever he told her to, and he highly doubted she would anyway, but for today, he wanted things to be simple; simple like she may never have experienced.

He opened a couple of her drawers before he found one of the items he was looking for: a pair of denim shorts. Next, he found a drawer full of her swim wear and he pulled a light blue bikini top out. After searching for a minute or two he pulled the bottoms outs, grinning as he imagined the outfit on her.

Finally, he found a darker blue tank top with thin straps and walked back into the main room, tossing her clothes on the bed as he made his way over to the bathroom.


An hour later, and Maria was pulling on the clothes Michael had set out for her. “So, we are going to the beach?” she asked as she tied the bikini top.

“Maybe.”

“A pool?” she probed further.

“Could be?”

“A water park,” she grinned. “Oh, are we going to Disneyland?”

Michael looked curiously at her as he tugged on a pair of jeans over the top of his own swim shorts.

“You want to go to Disneyland?” he queried, puzzled that she would want to do something like that.

“Well, I do love the rollercoasters, but no, I don’t want to go to Disneyland,” she answered, sitting on the edge of the bed to slip her legs into her shorts.

The sad tone in her voice at the end of her sentence did not go unnoticed by Michael, and he figured it had been a while since she went to the famed amusement park, maybe even visiting last with her parents. Well, that would just have to wait for another day.

“Stop asking so many questions, Blondie,” Michael laughed. “You’ll find out when we get there.”

“Ya know,” she smirked to him, standing and moving closer, snaking her arms around his shoulders. “I find this take charge Michael highly arousing.”

“Yeah?” he returned.

“Oh, absolutely,” she countered, bringing his head down to meet her lips.

Maria moved back to the bed, trying to pull him back down onto the mattress with her, but Michael refused, pulling back from her lips.

“Come on, babe. Finish getting ready, or we’ll never leave this room.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she pouted, but she walked back into the bathroom to dry her hair.

While she was again busy, Michael searched through her unprecedented collection of purses and shoulder bags, looking for something she would consider suitable for their outing. Once he found a large canvas yellow and white striped bag, he threw in the novels from their respective bedside tables, some sunscreen, a couple of large beach towels he found deep in her closet, and a baseball cap.

Maria quickly braided her hair. Judging from her chosen clothes, she felt the need to have her hair tidy and out of the way.

By the time she returned to their main room Michael was waiting for her, one of her tote bags in his hand, bugling from whatever he had put in there.

“You ready?” he asked with a smile.

“Almost,” she returned. “Just need some sunglasses.”

Michael’s grin widened as he held up her favorite pair, which were encased in a duck-egg blue box.

“Well, aren’t you just the smart one?”

“Make sure you remember that,” Michael laughed as he leaned down to kiss her briefly before leading her from the room.

They made their way through the large house until they entered into the dining room. Maria smiled and waved to Tess, Isabel, and Liz as she moved to the buffet carts to pluck a bagel from the large pile of various breads and walked over to the toaster. While she was waiting for her bagel, she watched as Michael piled his plate high with bacon, sausage links, eggs, and a tall stack of pancakes. Maris shook her head, amazed he could eat such crap and still remain in good shape, but then again, between The Company’s training and exercise regimes and their own extracurricular activities, she figured he had plenty of opportunities to work off all those calories he ingested.

Once her bread was lightly toasted, she grabbed a few individual containers of cream cheese and a handful of peanut butter packets, and then moved over to the table occupied by her friends.

“Hey Maria,” Liz beamed to her as Maria kicked out the chair so she could sit. “You not going into work today?”

“Apparently not,” Maria returned. “Michael is abducting me for the day.”

“Ooooh. Do you think he’d abduct me, too, if I ask nicely?” Tess asked, her eyebrows wriggling suggestively.

“Give it up, Harding. You know I don’t share,” Maria said without looking at her crazed friend as she spread the soft cheese on her bagel.

“You are such a bore,” Tess moaned before taking a bite of her bacon.

“And what about Kyle?” Maria questioned, one eyebrow shooting up.

“Oh my God, Maria,” Tess replied, her face surprisingly calm. “You would make Kyle’s year if you agreed to a threesome.”

Maria shook her head at Tess, a smirk forming on her full lips.

“Who’s having a threesome?” Michael asked with a lopsided grin. He placed two cups of coffee on the table, pushing one over to Maria as he slid into the seat beside her.

“You offering?” Tess beamed at Michael.

“Ignore her, Michael. She’s a little deranged this morning,” Maria told him as she snagged a piece of his bacon and broke it up over the cream cheese on her bagel.

Michael watched her as she then squirted a packet on peanut butter onto the plate next to her bagel, at the same time, she took a bite from of her breakfast.

“You’re eating habits scare me,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Well, at least I won’t have a coronary with mine,” she returned, indicating to his plate.

“At least mine is nutritious,” Michael bantered, lifting a forkful of eggs to his waiting lips.

Maria answered him by swirling a delicate finger into the peanut butter and smiled at him as she closed her lips around her finger, moaning in delight.

“You are evil,” Michael poked his fork at her.

Maria just giggled before taking a grateful gulp of her coffee.

When they eventually left the room, Maria turned right, heading toward the main door. It was Michael’s hand on her arm that stopped her, and she turned, raising her brow in question.

“Today, we do things the normal way. We’ll walk to the garage and collect the car ourselves,” and he turned, moving down the hallway, her hand firmly in his as he didn’t give her any option.

“Are you saying I’m spoiled?” Maria questioned as she followed him out of the house and down a winding pathway leading to the large building that housed the numerous cars belonging to The Company and the people within.

“Not at all, Princess. I just think you may have lost who you once were,” he returned.

Ain’t that the truth, Maria thought. Throughout her childhood, her father reminded Maria money always came with a responsibility. He never really spoiled her. Sure, she went to an exclusive school, wore the best clothes, and had many gadgets before they hit the stores, but her every whim wasn’t catered to. This was something her uncle Mason couldn’t quite understand. His philosophy seemed to be, if you had money, why shouldn’t you spend it.

When they reached the garage, one of its attendant’s automatically reaches for the keys to Maria’s Bentley.
Michael stopped him. “We’ll be taking my car today.”

The guy looked at Maria uncertainly, and at her nod, he scurried off to fetch Michael’s beat up Buick.

As it rolled to a stop in front of her, Maria turned to Michael. “We really need to get you a new car.”

“We can do that another day, but for today, you get to ride in style,” Michael beamed with pride.

“Yeah, right,” Maria huffed, but nevertheless, she grinned, too, as she climbed in beside him.

As Michael set off down the long drive, Maria bounced a little in her seat. “Hey, this is pretty comfy. I’ve never been in a car with a bench seat before.”

“The very fact you know it’s called a bench seat is pretty impressive, babe,” Michael returned.

“I’m not completely dumb, ya know,” Maria scoffed.

“Don’t tell me. You used to date some mechanic, right?”

Maria just grinned at him, refusing to answer, but that was all Michael needed as he again shook his head and concentrated on his driving.

Maria reached for the stereo dial before Michael stopped her. “Don’t bother. It doesn’t work.”

“Another reason for a new car,” Maria commented, turning in her seat slightly to watch him. “Why are you so reluctant to get one?”

“Why are you so insistent on buying me one?” he shot back.

“I’m not, Michael. You probably have enough funds to buy your own car,” Maria answered with a shrug.

“Yeah, another beat up car like this maybe.”

“Michael,” Maria said cautiously. “Did my uncle ever discuss the wages you would earn while working for The Company?”

“It never came up,” Michael answered. “Why?”

“Well, let just say you could buy a pretty flashy ride now and still have no money worries for a while.”

“That good, eh?”

“Maybe you should check your balance,” she returned with half a smile.

“Maybe I should,” he grinned back.

“Surely the pay from the police isn’t that bad, Michael. I’m certain you could have been able to get a newer model or something,” Maria continued.

Michael looked sideways at her before saying. “My dad and I restored this car together during high school,” he finally answered.

“Oh,” Maria muttered, now understanding his reluctance to scrap his vehicle. “Well, the car definitely has its pluses.”

“What’s that?”

“A huge back seat,” she replied, wriggling her eyebrows.

Michael chuckled softly at her reasoning. “Yeah, maybe we’ll try it out later.”

“You mean to say you have never…….. in the back seat?” she asked, hooking her thumb over her shoulder to emphasize the point.

“Not with you?” Michael returned with a sly grin.

“Oh, real slick,” Maria laughed.

They continued making small talk until Michael pulled into a parking lot, and a huge smile stretched across Maria’s face. The small lot was adjacent to the beach, a wide footpath and several palm trees separating the tarmacked area from the sandy beach.

“I knew we were headed for the beach,” she said as she climbed from the car, breathing in the salty air deeply as Michael mirroring her actions.

“When was the last time you had time just for you?” Michael asked her as he reached back in into the car for her bag.

“Michael, I always take time for myself,” Maria returned.

“Well, when was the last time you came to the beach and just relaxed, had fun?”

Maria shrugged because she truly couldn’t remember the last time she was here just being a carefree person and enjoying the beauty of her surroundings.

“Well, for today, we are gonna forget our worries and just be two people spending time together. Just Michael and Maria, not a Deluca in sight.”

“Ok,” Maria smiled.

Michael grabbed her hand and started down to the beach.

“So, what do you want to do first?” Maria asked, bouncing excitedly beside him as he led the two of them toward the sand.

“Maria, we are gonna sit on the beach and do nothing,” Michael answered simply.

“For the whole day?” Maria asked incredulously.

“Well, there’s the pier, but that’s better at night,” Michael reasoned, his hand indicating the old landmark to the right of them a little further down the beach as they mingled in with the sun hungry people, jogging, walking and skating along the pathway.

“Oh, we could rent skates?” Maria suggested, truly jumping up and down in enthusiasm as she spotted a sign for skate and bike rentals near the boardwalk.

“No way, babe,” Michael shook his head, shooting her suggestion down immediately.

“Michael, isn’t rolling blading just like ice skating? And haven’t you told me like a gazillion times how much you love ice hockey?”

“That’s different, Maria. Hockey is a man’s sport, skating is for………” he paused at Maria raised eyebrow. “….less masculine men,” he finished weakly.

“Sure, whatever you say,” Maria relented.

“We could rent bikes, though, if you want?” Michael offered weakly, hoping she would say no.

“Ok,” Maria agreed before stepping behind him and jumping up on to his back, her lips grazing his ear once he had caught her legs, and she was settled securely against him, which wasn’t easy considering he still held her bag.

He changed direction and headed to Sea Mist Rentals, a place he knew rented good bikes at reasonable prices.

Maria slid from his back as they entered the store, surprised when they were greeted by an overly-cheerful
employee.

“Good morning, sir. Are you looking to rent a couple of bikes today?”

“Yeah, it looks like it,” Michael returned, less than enthusiastically.

************

Happy Easter to everyone. Hope you are all having a great day.

Carolyn: Yeah, things seem to be moving nicely, don’t they.

Chapter 24

By mid-day, Michael and Maria were at Venice Beach after a slow ride down the bike paths. They chained their rentals to a stand and then settled on the sand, Michael buying a beach blanket for them to share from a vendor along the way.

Michael watched Maria pull off her tank top and settle back on the blanket, slipping the cap over her head to keep the sun from her face.

He repeated her actions, but also removed his jeans, lying back on the surprisingly soft material, his eyes closed from the glare of the sun. They remained silent for a few minutes before he felt Maria shift beside him.

He opened one eye to see her sifting through the bag and finally pulling her hand free, her fingers clasping the bottle of sunscreen.

She turned back, and before he had a chance to say anything, she squirted the lotion across his chest.

“Shit, Maria,” he hissed out. “A little warning would be helpful.” The liquid wasn’t exactly cold, but still, it would have been nice if she had indicated to him what she was doing.

“Stop whining, Michael,” Maria chastised gently. “This way, I figured we would just eliminate the whole manly, I don’t need sunscreen speech.”

“I don’t need sunscreen,” Michael mumbled to himself but stopped when her hands started to gently massage the lotion into his chest, groaning slightly as she pinched his nipple playfully.

He watched her intently cover the whole of his front, her bottom lip caught between her teeth in concentration, dipping her fingers teasingly into the waist of his swim shorts before withdrawing them with a chuckle at his low moan.

When she was satisfied his chest was protected, she leaned forward to place a gentle kiss against his lips before saying, “Sit up.”

Michael immediately complied with her request, and Maria moved on her knees so she was kneeling behind him and repeated her actions with the sunscreen, again teasing him as she purposefully brushed her breasts lightly against his back.

“Payback’s a bitch, Blondie,” Michael muttered, his voice low and husky. It didn’t surprise him that she could get him all worked up just with the delicate touch of her hands and the hint of a promise of so much more.

“So you keep saying,” she grinned against his ear before placing a chaste kiss against his sensitive neck.
Maria went back to work, slowly rubbing the protective lotion into his warm skin, adding a little pressure across his shoulders to try and ease out some of the tension she found there.

“You need a good working over,” Maria said as she hit an especially tight knot in his muscles, concentrating hard on her task as Michael chuckled slightly.

“Are you offering?” he asked her, turning his head slightly to see the frown on her face.

“Uh?”

“To give me a good working over?” he questioned.

Maria raised an elegant brow. “Don’t I always?”

“Every single time,” he grinned back.

“Good. But I was actually suggesting you see one of The Company physical therapists. They give a good body massage, work out all those knots I miss.”

“So, you’re happy for some other woman to put her hands on me?” he queried.

“Hardly,” she huffed as she lowered her hands in a circling motion, spreading the lotion across his lower back. “But that’s really not an issue when those hands are there in a professional capacity. Besides, I could always schedule an appointment with one of the guys for you.”

She added this last comment with a touch of amusement, and she wasn’t surprised when he turned abruptly to face. “No way, Blondie. There is no way in hell another man is gonna touch my body.”

Maria sat back on her heels, a slow smile gracing her face. “Why do men have such problems with other men touching them?”

Michael smirked at her. “Well, I’m sure there are some out there who wouldn’t mind, but I’m strictly a men don’t touch kinda guy.”

He took the bottle from where she had dropped in against the blanket and indicated for her to lay down.

She did as he silently asked and laid out on her stomach in front of him, smiling as he settled over her, his knees either side of her thighs and trying hard not to rest his full weight on her.

Michael made quick work of untying her bikini top before squirting the sunscreen into his hands.

“So, it’s ok for me to have some guy with his hands on my body?” she asked, hopefully suppressing the moan that escaped her lips at the feel of his strong, talented hands on her back.

“No way,” Michael ground out, his hands sweeping up and down her spine and into her flesh, trying hard to ignore the small, white lines that faintly marred her alabaster skin. Though he had seen them before, after the week they just experienced, it seemed like they were standing out more starkly against her soft skin. “I do not believe there is a man out there who could touch you and not want it be anything but sexual.”

There weren’t as many scars on her back as her front, but the fact that there was some caused Michael to wonder, again, what that sick bastard had put Maria through to make them.

“I can think of a few,” she laughed, bringing his mind back to their conversation. “And I could say the same about you.”

“It’s a burden we both have to carry,” Michael sighed dramatically as he grazed the side of her breast with his fingertips, causing her to shiver with delight beneath him.

“You can turn over now,” he instructed her as he re-tied her top. He lifted himself onto his knees so she had room to maneuver under him.

When she settled back on the blanket, she grinned up to him, her eyes raking over his bare chest, her fingers itching to reach out and touch him again.

Michael’s eyes wandered over Maria’s body, and she squirmed a little under his gaze, and he gulped loudly.
“Maybe you should do the front,” he whispered hoarsely and handed over the bottle to her.

Maria giggled, taking the bottle from him, letting her long fingers grazed slowly along his. She poured a little dollop of the liquid over her stomach and then closed her eyes, moaning sensually as she rubbed the lotion in until Michael groaned and climbed off her, mumbling under his breath about public spaces, being arrested for indecency, and the need for a cold shower.

Maria laughed again as she watched him stand to the side of her. “Where are you going?”

“For a swim,” he grumbled. “I need to cool down.”

Maria’s eyes traveled down his body until she landed on the prominent bulge in his shorts. “So I see. Now that is something worthy to be arrested for,” she smirked.

Michael turned, choosing to ignore her comments and headed for the ocean.

“Wait, Michael,” Maria called after him, rolling back onto her stomach. “You’ve just put lotion on, you can’t go in the water yet.”

“It’s waterproof,” he tossed back over his shoulder as he started to run down to the surf.

“Yeah, after it’s been on for a while,” she muttered to herself as she watched his retreating body. She sighed and stood, pulling her shorts from her body to follow him, thinking they would probably need another bottle of sunscreen.

She made her way down to the water watching as Michael disappeared beneath the surface and then re-emerged seconds later.

The water was cold, and Maria stopped in her tracks as the waves gently hit her legs, Michael swimming in front of her a little further out where the water was deeper.

He turned when he felt her eyes on him. “Come on, Blondie. Don’t be a wimp.”

“It’s cold, Michael,” she called back to him.

“Not once you get in.”

Maria shook her head and kicked out gently with her leg, trying to get her body used to the water.

“Well, I never thought you’d back down at a challenge,” Michael teased her, knowing exactly how to push her buttons.

“You take that back,” Maria told him, purposely striding forward into the ocean, gritting her teeth as the cold water rose up her body. Before she could talk herself out of it, she dived under the water and kicked out with her feet, gliding forward to Michael through the water.

When she broke the surface, Michael grinned at her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “You just couldn’t back down, could you?”

Maria’s arms moved around his neck, “I think I’ve told you before that I’m stubborn.”

“Yeah. Stubborn, opinionated, and completely unwilling to take orders.”

“And sexy as hell to boot,” she grinned back to him.

“Well, that’s just a given.”

Michael swam back to shore a little until his feet touched the bottom of the ocean and immediately Maria brought her legs to wrap around his waist and her lips to his neck.

“Jeez, Maria,” Michael groaned. “Always the neck.”

“It’s one of your more sensitive spots,” she whispered knowingly against his skin before biting playfully.

“You are determined to have us arrested, aren’t you?”

“Meh. You’re a cop, Michael. I’m sure you know how to work the system,” she returned cheekily, her hand snaking between their bodies and dipping low.

“Quit it, Blondie,” Michael said sternly, when her palm grazed against him through his swim trucks, though his smile told her he didn’t really want her to.

Maria pouted but removed her hand, framing his face so she could kiss him instead.

“You’re not helping the situation,” he whispered against her lips. After all, he headed for the water to try and cool down after she had brought to life a certain part of his anatomy. But having her here in his arms, soaked through from the ocean and her lips on his skin, well, things weren’t settling down anytime soon.

“I know how to deal with the situation,” she countered, again moving her lips to his neck, intent on leaving her mark on him.

Michael groaned again, his mind whirling with the ways she could so easily deal with the situation.

‘But if you insist I don’t…..” and she relaxed her legs, letting them slip from around him, until she felt the sand from the bottom of the ocean between her toes. “I’m gonna go and relax on the beach.”

Michael stopped her from leaving, capturing her lips again with his in a searing kiss. Once he pulled back again, he breathlessly exhaled, “Go!”

Maria smirked once more before turning and wading her way back to the beach, knowing Michael was watching her every move and adding an extra sway of her hips just for him.

Maria was lost in a delightful daydream consisting of silk neckties, a jar of peanut butter and an exquisitely naked Michael when water splashed down on her.

She opened one eye to see Michael shaking his head, his wet hair, and droplets of water flying in all directions.

“Feel better?” she asked.

“Immensely,” he returned as he flopped down onto the blanket beside her.

“I hope to God you didn’t jack off in the water,” she commented suspiciously, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“Babe, I have some dignity.”

“Restroom?” she probed with a raised eyebrow.

“I can control myself, ya know,” he grumbled indignantly.

“Sure you can, baby,” she smiled, her hand reaching out to land on his stomach.

Michael’s lips curled up slightly at her words. Her endearments for him were few, but they meant all that much more when she did say them. He turned his head so he could look at her to see her watching him.

“What?”

She continued to watch him, her eyes boring into him as if searching for something: something within him.

She moved her hand up from his stomach until she framed his face and then kissed him gently, unhurried but with an emotion that Michael could almost feel pass into him through the touch of her lips on his and her tongue as it caressed his.

Acceptance. Trust. And he dared to hope, Love, though he knew she wouldn’t say it, not yet. But he could feel it in the way she looked at him, smiled at him, and touched him. He knew she felt the same from him, but he held back from saying those small words that meant so much. He didn’t want to scare her, send her running like she had done before, which he had recently been informed about, thanks to a chat with Liz.

He just hoped he would know when the time was right, because he truly did not want to lose this, and he especially did not want to lose her.

Eventually, she moved back from him, and in a hushed voice said, “Michael” almost unsure, hesitant, and he held his breath.

Maria again watched his eyes as they dilated a little at the timid tone of her voice. Her heart beat triple time, and she was sure he could feel it against his chest.

No, her mind screamed to her. Not yet. Don’t condemn him. I need him.

“I’m starving,” she whispered, her lips curling up to hide the fear at what she had almost done.

Michael exhaled, not realizing he was holding his breath. “Well, we can’t have that now, can we, babe?”

“No,” Maria returned, moving back from him slightly, glad he was ignoring what nearly happened, because she was sure he knew what she wanted to say, and she had an intrinsic feeling he wanted to say it just as much as she did. “Your points on this date are seriously dropping.”

“Now we can’t have that,” he laughed as he stood, already dry from the sun’s rays, and he reached to help her to her feet. “What’s my prize?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she replied in all seriousness. “It depends on how many points you can score.”

“Then will I score?” he asked with his lopsided grin.

“Well, I think that’s pretty obvious,” she beamed back. “But the number of your points will determine how you collect your prize.”

Maria chuckled as Michael’s eyes seemed to glaze over at her words, his look taking on that of one lost in his own world. “Come on, Spaceboy. I need food.”

Michael shook his head. “Spaceboy?”

“Yeah, you looked like you were lost in space,” she provided.

“Nah, just my own fantasies,” he returned, his eyes glinting with mischief.

Maria quickly stepped into her cutoffs and stuffed their tops into her bag. “Ok, you need to tell me more about these fantasies,” she quipped.

“Are you gonna share?” he asked as he rolled up their beach blanket, fastening the Velcro straps in place and shaking any excess sand off the cloth before throwing the strap over his shoulder.

“It’s not fun if you don’t share, Michael,” Maria said with all seriousness as they clasped hands and left the beach in search of food.


They spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the sun, the beach, and just being alone together. After a relaxed lunch at one of the many eateries along the boardwalk where Michael proceeded to eat most of her lunch, they settled on the beach again with their books and a fresh bottle of sunscreen.

As the sun moved over the sky and the day stretched into late afternoon, they packed up their gear again and rode the bikes back to the rental store by the pier. They stopped by the car to leave the beach tote and slipped back into their tops before heading for the pier.

The first thing Maria saw was the carousel.

“Oh, Michael. Can I we ride on the carousel?” she asked, giddy with excitement as she hopped up and down beside him, practically swinging on his arm.

“Maria, don’t you think we’re a little…..”

“Pleeease,” she added with the pout for good measure.

I’m so screwed, Michael thought as he glanced down at the woman beside him, her pouting full lips, and her glistening expressive eyes, knowing there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t do for her.

“Yay,” Maria giggled when Michael headed through the entrance of the building that housed the old carousel.

Michael couldn’t stop the wide smile forming on his lips at the sight of Maria Deluca, top elite assassin from The Company, Vice-President of the Deluca Group, and future mother of his children as she laughed with glee as she rode a simple carousel. He could almost see the child she had been, though he was sure his mind was helped in this task by the memory of that picture Mason had shown them, the very picture that was now framed and standing on her tall dresser in their room.

He again cursed the man who had taken that brightness from her eyes. Yes, they glistened and sparkled with mirth, mischief, and at times, wickedness, but still, they were no way as dazzling as they had once been as he unconsciously remembered from their early childhood and as they were in that portrait at her old house.

He reached across the space separating them and rested his hand on her thigh, taking his enjoyment from her over-excitement for the simple ride.

Maria interlaced her fingers with his on the top of her thigh.

“I can’t remember the last time I rode a carousel,” she told him.

“I don’t think I ever have,” he returned.

“Never?!”

Michael shook his head, and Maria said, “That can’t be right. You have to have been here before.”

Michael just shrugged in answer. If he had been here as a child, he couldn’t remember. But then again, there seemed to be a lot from his childhood he seemed to have forgotten.

When the ride stopped, he helped her from her chosen horse, and they exited the building, Maria stopping to look in the carousel gift shop as they went. Michael considered himself extremely lucky that Maria didn’t have her wallet with her, or he was sure he would be the proud owner of an ‘I rode the Carousel at Santa Monica Pier’ t-shirt. And, god-damn him, he would have probably worn it for her as well.

They walked down the bustling pier, making little comments about the stores and diners they encountered before Michael spotted the arcade. At last, something he was good at. He moved her over and through the wide blue doors before she could protest.

“Now, this is more my style,” he grinned.

“Oh yeah, I can totally see you as one of those bad boys who skipped school to visit the arcade,” Maria laughed.

“Well, there weren’t many arcades to be found in Roswell, but yeah, you could usually find me at the mall playing on the games.”

“Michael, come on. Let me whip your ass in the Shooting Gallery.

“I have no doubt you will,” Michael returned, letting himself be dragged over to the large booth decorated like the Old West.

“Wait, I need to get some change for us since you have conveniently left your wallet at home,” Michael stopped her before heading back to the ATM just outside.

“Hey, you were the one who said we had to be normal people today,” Maria reminded him. “And you know I don’t carry cash on me, anyway.”

Michael huffed at her, positive she had no real respect for the value of the dollar, anyway.
He slid his card into the slot and punched in his PIN number, not caring that Maria was looking over his shoulder. When his balance flashed up in the screen, his hand shot out to brace himself against the metal surrounding the machine.

“Holy fuck!”

Maria grinned against his back. “That new car doesn’t seem like a faraway dream so much now, huh?”

Michael could only shake his head disbelieving. He could quit his job with the PD and still have plenty of money to live on.

“So is now a good time to tell you about the standard of living I’m accustomed to?” Maria commented as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Babe, I think I already knew that,” Michael returned, his voice a little shaky as he continued to make his withdrawal.

“Well, shucks. What is it that gave the game away? The car? The house?” Maria asked in mock seriousness.

Michael turned back to her, his transaction complete and pressing a twenty into her shorts pocket. “Nah, the fact that your shoes have their own individual room in that apartment you call a walk-in closet.”

“Hey, buddy. Do not attack my shoes,” she warned, poking a finger in his chest.

“Would I?” he asked, his arms open to her. “Especially that pair with the incredible heel. Man, they do it every time.”

Maria grinned at him as she took the money from her pocket, snapping it wide in front of him. “I bet you twenty I beat you at the shooting gallery.”

“I’m not stupid, Maria,” Michael retorted, pushing her back in doors and over to a machine to give them change.


Ten minutes later, sure enough, Maria had beaten him at the game, earning him a laugh from a few teenagers who had gathered to wait their turn and watched the couple before them.

“Never mind, honey,” Maria drawled, patting his cheek. “I’ll let you win later.”

Michael challenged her next to a game of Pac-Man. This he won, as it seemed Maria had never played the game before.

“I’m sure that’s cheating,” she moaned as he walked her further down the arcade games.

“And you are telling me you didn’t cheat just a little with the shooting game?” he said from behind her as he wrapped his arms around her waist and walked closely behind her.

“I do not cheat, Spaceboy,” she retorted sharply. “I can’t help it if I handle my weapon better than you.”

The next game they stopped at was an Air-Hockey table.

“No using you freaky powers,” Michael warned her.

“You either,” she shot back.

Maria won the first game, Michael the second, and during the last game, after the fourth time the disk went flying across the room, Maria threw her paddle over the shoulder and kissed him instead, calling the game even.

The next game Michael talked Maria into playing was Skeeball, and he won handily.

“That’s not fair, you’re, like, practically a foot taller than me,” Maria moaned, comparing her few prize tickets to Michael’s handful.

“I don’t think size matters, baby. It’s all in the wrist action,” Michael returned with a grin, flexing his wrist back and forth in emphasis.

Maria lifted an eyebrow at his statement. “Well, that explains everything,” she countered with a wry smile.

“Oh, really, babe,” he drawled. “You’re never complained about my technique before.”

“Who’s complaining?” she smirked before turning and handing off her meager amount of tickets to a small girl at the machine beside her. Michael followed her, passing his own tokens to the girl as well.

Michael won the driving challenge, to which Maria demanded a do-over, but on the motorcycle game. This time, she won.

“I think we are pretty even with the arcade games,” Michael said as they moved to the exit.

“I don’t think so. I think I won the challenge,” Maria countered.

“Hardly,” Michael snorted at her.

“Well, you cheated. You’re too tall.”

“You cheated. You distracted me.”

Maria opened her mouth in shock, ready to give a reply to his comment, but he stopped her with a kiss.

When Michael moved away from her, her eyes were closed, and she licked her lips, tasting him in her own.

“Ok,” she whispered dreamily. “You win.”

“Damn straight.”

Maria shook her head and turned back toward the exit, then stopped again when her eyes landed on a photo booth.

She grinned wickedly at him and pushed him into the cubicle, her lips crashed against his as she landed alongside him.

She quickly pulled his t-shirt up and over his head, dropping it to the floor beside his feet as her lips left his mouth and moved down to his neck. Her fingers traced lightly over the defined muscles of his chest, raking over his nipples and Michael groaning loudly in appreciation.

“Sssh, Michael,” Maria hushed him. “You’ll get us kicked out.” But she didn’t let up on her torture as one hand moved lower and made light work of his jeans zipper before dipped into his swim trunks.

“Shit, Maria,” Michael groaned as her hand wrapped around his length, her lips moving to cover his again to stop him, as her hand began to move, tortuously slow.

All too soon, he was hard and needing release, but he stopped her, pulling her hand from him reluctantly.

“What’s wrong?” Maria asked with confusion, looking into his eyes that were now several shades darker than his usual golden brown.

“I don’t want to walk around the pier having come in my shorts, babe,” he whispered against her neck as he turned her sensual caresses with ones of his own.

“Mmm, pity,” she breathed out, her eyes closing again as his lips found her pulse point, and he began to nibble gently at her skin.

“Of course, your body is made all that much better to hide certain secretions.”

“Yeah,” Maria moaned when he bit down a little harder, and his hand repeated her earlier actions, unfastening her shorts and delving into her bikini bottoms.

She automatically tilted her hips forward at his touch, knowing it wouldn’t take long for Michael to help her to that point when her world would explode.

Michael intensified pleasure by sucked harder on her neck, and Maria felt her legs grow weak.

Michael chuckled softly as she leaned against him, his fingers stroking her gently before moving inside her.

“Michael,” she whispered hoarsely, and he moved them so he was sitting on the small stool with her astride him, opening herself to him more, though his movements were limited by her jean shorts. Of course, he didn’t let that hinder him too much as he added another digit to simulate her more.

“Oh shit,” she breathed out before latching her lips onto his neck again with intent to leave her own mark.

“Sssh, Maria,” he teased, repeating her earlier words.

Maria moved back a little, resting her forehead against his shoulder as her hips picked up speed against his hand, and his thumb grazed over the knot of nerves that was demanding attention.

Maria whimpered against him, pulling her lip between her teeth to stop calling out.

Michael lifted his free hand from her hip and under her tank top to gently cup her breast through the thin material of her bikini top, then he brushed his thumb against her distended nipple at the same time as he found that special spot deep inside her with his fingers and his other thumb again swept across her engorged clitoris.

And that’s all it took for Maria to fly apart, her body convulsing as her orgasm ripped through her, and Michael captured his lips before she could scream out, hating to silence her cry of his name at her release, but not wanting to be booted from the pier.

His passionate kiss turned gentle, eventually changing to playful kisses, and Maria moved back, her eyes bright and her face beaming.

“What are you guys doing in there?” a voice called.

“Having our photo taken,” Maria stated as calmly as she could.

“I don’t see any flash,” the bodiless voice returned.

Michael looked down at his hand in Maria shorts. “Obviously, he’s not looking in the right place,” he whispered against her neck.

Maria giggled as she moved her hand into Michael back pocket, which was a feat in itself, and she drew out some notes, which she quickly passed through the curtain to whoever was on the other side.

“Be a pal?” she asked sweetly, and she heard a low chuckle as the person took the money from her and started to feed the machine.

Maria kissed Michael once more before standing from his lap, her hand holding her shorts so they didn’t fall, and she turned around, dropping back down against him just in time for the first flash of the photo being taken. She purposely grazed her bottom against his hard dick producing a tortuous groan from Michael.


Maria held the strip of photos in her hand as they continued down the pier, smiling at the four pictures of herself and Michael. Michael was mumbling low beside her, Maria catching a few words of his rant. Something along the lines of That’s twice she’s had me almost ready to blow and yet she’s the one who gets off.

In the first photo they are beaming at the camera.

The second, they are smiling at each other.

The third, Michael was licking his fingers, and Maria rolling her eyes.

And the last capture them in a searing kiss.

“I think we should get them blown up, frame them, and hang them in the dining room,” Michael said sincerely.

“Oh yeah, I can just imagine everyone’s joy at being faced with huge photos of me every day.”

“Especially if they knew what we had been doing seconds before,” Michael returned.

They reached the entrance to the amusement park on the pier, and Maria tested to make sure the strip was dry before carefully slipping it into her back pocket.

“You hungry, baby?” Maria asked Michael and again Michael smiled at her endearment.

“I’m always hungry, babe,” he countered, leading them over to the food stalls. “You wanna share a funnel cake with me?”

“Sure,” Maris answered. “Since you ate half my lunch, I could probably do with the calories.”

Michael chose to ignore that comment and quickly joined the small queue for the treat while Maria sat at one of the tables.


Ten minutes later and following several smears of chocolate spread on Michael’s neck, the corresponding point on Maria’s and disapproving looks from other patrons, they moved further into the area known as Pacific Park.

“Oh, look, Michael,” Maria called out, and Michael immediately noted that excited sound her voice and dreaded what she would have him do next.

“Glimmer Bodyart.”

Michael groaned. “I’m not having a fake glitter tattoo, Maria,” he answered sternly, determined to stand his ground on this.

They moved away from the stall, Maria grinning at Michael and the sparkling ‘Maria’ in emerald green glitter above his left nipple, his T-shirt for the time being tugged into the pocket of his jeans.

“I think you should get that done in permanent ink,” she said to him, skipping backward in front of him.

Michael stopped her, his hand falling on the top of her shorts and again popping the top few buttons, pulling her shorts slightly to reveal his transfers mate, ‘Michael’ in black glitter high on her hip. They had debated heatedly when she had indicated where she wanted her transfer, Michael not really like the fact that the man running the booth would have his hands so close to an intimate part of his girlfriend. But, of course, Maria had won, and Michael took solace in the knowledge he would be there, watching the man closely.

“As long as you have this done, too,” he challenged.

“Then it’s a deal,” Maria returned with a simple nod.

Michael laughed. “But you hate needles.”

“Yeah, but I don’t hate you,” she answered quickly before her eyes widened at how that sentence could have come out and the silent implications behind it.

“Besides……” she continued waving her hand in the air and turning, walking beside him again. “Alcohol is always willing to help.”

Michael smiled at her quick cover-up.

“Let’s ride the rollercoaster,” she added, again pulling on his hand and tugging him the direction of the ride.
Michael looked skeptically at the tall structure and shook his head. “How about we don’t and say we did?”

“Michael, are you scared of a rollercoaster?” Maria teased.

Michael took his eyes from the ride and looked back at Maria. “I wouldn’t say scared. More cautious.”

“Michael, look at that thing. I wouldn’t even call it a rollercoaster. I’ve had more dangerous rides while…..”

“Babe,” Michael stopped her. “I don’t want to hear about your past conquests.”

“Brute,” Maria laughed, hit his shoulder playfully. “I wasn’t gonna say anything like that, but since you started it…..”

“Come on, Maria. Let’s ride this fucking thing.”

“No need to get pissy, Michael,” Maria countered but let him drag her over to the ticket booth so they could try the rides.


Michael felt like his grin was plastered to his face when they finally left the amusement park. The sun was beginning to set, and the colors of the setting sun rippled on the ocean. They had ridden the rollercoaster twice, as well as the Ferris wheel and the bumper cars.

Maria beat him in a fireball game and he won her a stuffed rabbit on Roller Derby and they managed to avoid the several photo booths scattered around the park.

They walked back down the pier, Michael with his arm relaxed across her shoulders, and Maria with her hand firmly in the back pocket of his jeans.

“Are you hungry?” Michael asked her, suddenly concerned that she hadn’t eaten much that day. Granted, half of that was his fault as he had stolen half her lunch and eaten the vast majority of their funnel cake.

“Mmhmm,” she nodded against his shoulder.

“What do you want?”

“You,” she smirked.

“Me?”

Maria nodded, her gaze catching his and he saw the desire building there.

“Just me?” he probed.

“No.”

“What else do you want?”

“A couple of silk neckties and a jar of peanut butter,” she grinned.

“Then what the fuck are we standing around here for?” he answered hoarsely, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder and he strode off to find their car, Maria’s giggles sounding like music to him.

*************

Wow, posting on a Monday ! I could go into a long account about how this has come to be, but I won’t bore you.

Thanks to all readers, I appreciate the time you give to this fic.

Carolyn: Yeah, its good to just take a day for yourselves every now and then.


Chapter 25.

Maria looked down at Michael, a soft smile crossing her face at the contended look he wore in sleep. Her hand reached to him, and she gently rubbed at the dried peanut butter clinging to his chest, attempting to wipe it away and not wake him.

Her eyes lifted to her silk stockings hanging from the headboard of the ornate bed, the next best thing she could find earlier when she realized Michael completely lacked in the silk necktie department, and she remembered his willingness and enthusiasm to be bound and dominated by her. I wonder if I would ever get to that point with him, she thought as her gaze dropped to his right wrist, which was still held within the confines of her impromptu restraints. Never before had she wanted her lover to have that much control, and the very fact she was thinking about submitting to Michael, giving him her complete trust, both terrified her and excited her.

She leaned across him, her fingers moving nimbly over the sheer material that was pulled tight, only to realize she had no chance in unfastening the knot, which had twisted into an impossible bond because of Michael’s frantic movements during the night.

Maria closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, before opening them and concentrating on the air surrounded the knot, pushing the molecules to gently move the silk.

“Why don’t you just cut it off?” she heard Michael’s sleepy voice ask.

“Do you have any idea how expensive pure silk stockings are?” she asked, flicking her gaze down to him to see a soft smile on his lips.

“I’m sure you can afford more,” he returned softly, lifting his head slightly to flick his tongue out and swipe it across her bare nipple.

Maria shivered at his touch, a grin spreading across her lips.

“Yeah,” she breathed out, and Michael wondered if that was in acknowledgement she could afford more stockings or in encouragement to him. He took it as the latter and moved his free hand behind her back to draw her closer, his tongue dancing across her skin to encase her other nipple in his warm mouth.

“Michael,” Maria whimpered as his hand moved from her back down to cup her ass, and her fingers wound into his hair. In that moment, both forgot about his bound hand, and they could care less, engrossed in their mouths and bodies touching, as Michael tipped his head back so she could capture his lips with hers.

Their kiss was gentle, unrushed, and Maria’s hands slid from his hair to his face, holding his head in place so she could give his mouth the attention it deserved as her fingertips brushed delicately behind his ears. She couldn’t stop her smile as Michael trembled slightly under her, knowing a simple caress from her had such an effect on him was like the ultimate aphrodisiac.

She pulled back quickly, moving off Michael completely, not paying attention to his protests as she scrambled around the room.

Michael watched her open and close drawers as she clearly searched for something.

“What are looking for, Blondie?”

“Scissors,” she returned quickly, moving into her closet.

“What’s the rush?” he grinned.

Her head popped around the door. “Because if I don’t feel your hands on me soon, it will not be pretty.” And she disappeared again, swearing to herself as Michael chuckled low in his throat, his other hand reaching for the silk wrapped around his wrist in an attempt to loosen the knot.

When she returned into the main room, Michael twisted his head to look at her, his eyes widening at the knife she held in her hand.

“Whoa, babe,” he rushed out. “That’s a little drastic, don’t you think?”

Maria shrugged, her eyes sparkling. “Don’t you trust me?” she asked, almost innocently.

Michael gazed at her, his body heating up at the sight of her completely naked and holding a switchblade in her hand. He wasn’t sure what turned him on more: the potential danger of the blade or the fact that she was naked while holding the blade.

“Of course,” he replied, amazed at how husky his voice sounded, even to him, and he watched as Maria shuddered at the sound.

“Hurry up,” he commanded, and Maria was all too eager to comply as she moved closer to him and slipped the blade under the material against his inner wrist.

The coolness of the steel almost burned against Michael’s overheated skin as Maria guided it into the knot carefully, and he inhaled sharply at the sensation.

Maria tugged the knife outward quickly, the silk of the stocking slicing easily against her sharp blade.

She carelessly dropped the knife to the floor as Michael grasped her wrists, tugging her toward him roughly, dragging her up against his chest and to his waiting lips.

****************************************

Maria wandered through the house a couple of hours later while Michael caught up with Jason on the phone about what he had missed from work the previous day. She knew he wouldn’t normally be so desperate for this information, but it was the situation that promoted his need to be updated.

As she passed a room she hadn’t entered for a while, she paused, and then opened the wide, solid oak doors slowly to reveal a sunny room, one wall lined with windows, and several instruments strategically placed within its walls. She wondered if anything had changed within the area and the urge to enter overpowered her, almost as if her younger self was drawing her in.

She loved the music room. It was one of her three favorite places in the huge house; her bedroom and the library being the other two.

This room reminded her of her mother. Amy Deluca spent hours at the grand piano teaching her only daughter to play, and as much as Maria moaned and groaned about the hours she spent indoors, she loved that her mother had taken the time to teach her something herself. Amy believed in music and the therapy it held in a person’s life, and she instilled this in her daughter. She was a patient teacher, ignoring and rerouting her daughter’s complaints throughout their weekly sessions in the music room, and her skill and patience showed in the fact that Maria still knew her way around the piano, even though she hadn’t had a lesson in years or even played in recent memory.

She crossed the room and lifted the wooden lip slowly, not wanting to disturb the peace of the room. She knew there weren’t many people who actually came in here, and those who did mainly wanted peace and quiet, or a place to hide. The music room had gone silent in the years after Amy Deluca’s death, and in this moment, Maria found that somewhat offensive to her mother’s memory.

Theodore Deluca’s grandmother was the one to insist on a music room when the house had first been built in the late 1800’s, but with generations of male-only offspring, the room became neglected. On her marriage to Robert, Theodore asked his first daughter-in-law what she would like for a wedding present. Her answer was simple: To restore the music room. Amy spent hours working on the restoration herself, choosing the décor, the furnishings, and adding the instruments because she strongly believed music could play a positive role in everyone’s life.

The fingers of one hand danced over the ivory keys she once knew so intimately, a melodic sound seeming to fill the room even though she wasn’t even trying. She took a deep breath and let her fingers fly without thought, appreciating the solitude in the music room and the swell of chords that brightened it. Before she knew what she was doing, Maria slid onto the piano bench, her other hand coming into play and the tinkling of a distant tune became the full body of a classical piece she instinctively remembered.

She was lost in the music for the first time in years, so much so that she didn’t feel the presence behind until she finished the classical concerto her mother taught, then instilled in her so many years before, with a dramatic flourish.

“Still got it, I see,” a warm voice called, and Maria turned quickly on the bench, her mouth falling open in surprise.

“Alex!” she called before she launched herself at her childhood friend, his arms coming around her to hold her close to his tall, lanky body.

“Hey, Ria. How have you been?”

Maria moved out of his arms, smiling at him before her grin fell, and she lifted her hand to slap him hard against his chest.

“Where the fuck have you been, Alex?”

“Ouch, shit, Ria! That hurt. I’ve been out in the field, you know that,” Alex returned defensively, rubbing where her hand had struck him.

“Well, I’ve been going through some shit, and I needed you here,” Maria huffed with an over-exaggerated pout. Alex took that look and put it through his Maria filter and determined she wasn’t been too serious with her exclamations of woe.

“Ah, I’m touched,” Alex laughed. “Truly, I am. Just don’t let Sean know.”

“Alex, I love Sean, you know I do. He’s like the brother I never wanted. But you are my guy, my go-to guy, and you weren’t here.”

Alex looked at Maria intently, his steel blue eyes meeting emerald, finally catching the turmoil there. He took her gently by her hands and moved her over to a large old-styled couch that was covered in a rich, maroon velvet material before lightly pressing on her shoulders and making her sit, following her a moment later.

“What’s wrong, Maria?”

Maria gave a snort of laughter. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Alex raised his eyes to hers, and she sighed. “Well, there’s this guy…..”

Nearly half an hour later, Maria caught Alex up to her current situation, not leaving anything out.
Alex shivered when she recounted the death of Rachel Stanley at her old home, as well as how the girl was found and how Maria came to arrive at Deluca Manor shortly after, despite others trying to make her stay away.

Alex knew everything of what happened there, and along with Sean, he held himself somewhat to blame for not being there for her and not realizing something was terribly wrong. He usually saw Maria every day since the moment they met, and at the time of her ordeal, he had been too occupied in his first love to register anything was wrong. And when he finally noted he hadn’t seen her for a while, his girlfriend suggested Maria was away at some luxury spar or having fun with her own boyfriend. These suggestions had eased Alex’s mind, and he hadn’t thought much more about it until that fateful day.

Alex Whitman, along with his parents and older sister, were one-time neighbors of the Deluca’s. His parents still lived next door to the now abandoned mansion, and Maria and Alex had grown up together, along with Sean. Alex was two years older than Maria, but that hadn’t stopped them from becoming best friends at a young age, after Alex had taunted Maria’s ability to climb the huge oak in his backyard.

Of course, Maria had taken his challenge, and climbed to the top of the tree, only to slip on her way down, falling to the ground and breaking her arm. Alex had been terrified that his parents would blame him for the young girl’s injury, but Maria convinced both sets of parents that it was her idea to climb the tree, and Alex had valiantly tried to stop her, not the other way around.

From that moment, they were inseparable, Maria’s high intelligence making up for her lack of years.

The day when he realized Maria was not out of the country or spending ample amounts of time with her own boyfriend started like any other. However, when Maria’s dog, Jacob, escaped the house after her tormentor left, he ran to Alex’s home. Alex immediately knew something was wrong when the poor dog wouldn’t stop barking at him, and he nervously followed the Jack Russell back to the Deluca’s house, calling out to his dad over his shoulder as he went, suddenly terrified. His father, noting the apprehension in his son’s face and voice, followed closely behind.

He would never forget the smell that greeted him as he entered through the back door in the kitchen. The overwhelming stench of death almost overpowered him, but as Jacob fastened onto the leg of his jeans with his teeth in an earnest grip, Alex had no choice but to allow the small dog to pull him further into the room and the house, even though he want to do nothing more than run or at least exit the home for fresh air.

He almost buckled as he entered the dining room. The room, which had once been so welcoming, had become a nightmare. Blood was everywhere, stark against the evergreen walls and the rich, dark wood of the floors.

He watched as Jacob trotted over to a figure lying lifeless on the floor, and Alex was motionless and shocked as the pale, barely clothed form of his best friend finally registered in his mind.

He was frozen in place, unable to tear his eyes from her naked upper body, not seeing anything except the blood and wounds covering her, as his father rushed past him and into the room. He could hear the rushing of blood in his ears and time seemed to slow down as he watched his dad desperately feel for a pulse against the blood-stained neck of his 15-year-old neighbor, his other hand waving frantically at Alex after a moment.

Alex could see his dad’s mouth moving, talking, clearly saying something to him, but the words did not connect and made no sense. All he could see was his best friend’s abused body, bleeding, raw and broken with what looked suspiciously like a gunshot wound to her left side. It was horrific, and he fought the bile that rose in his throat, threatening to spill, as he watched the scene unfold in slow motion in front of his eyes.

“Alex!” His dad’s abrupt, loud, voice finally registered through his wall of shock and in that moment, time sped up. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears again, pumping in time with his heart, and his head lifted so his eyes could meet those of his father’s.

“Call 911. She still has a pulse.”

That spurred Alex into action, and he dug into the pocket of his jeans for his cell phone. He called for the authorities as he made a move closer to her, kneeling at his friend’s side, and studying exactly what was wrong.

The array of crisscrossing slashes marring her torso was frightening, the wounds old and new at the same time. Blood spread in all directions over her pale body, and there was hardly an inch of her normally clear skin visible. Thick, red, liquid was flowing from the small hole to her side, and Alex swallowed at the sight.

There was a gossamer thin sheet barely hiding her lower body, splotches of blood stark against the whiteness of the material, aligning with the apex of her thighs, and Alex’s fingers inched closer to the sheet, ready to lift it to find the source of the blood.

His motion faltered when his dad rushed back into the kitchen and returned moments later with a handful of kitchen towels, wadding them up and pressing them against the wound at her side in an effort to staunch the blood flow. Alex tried not to be discouraged at the fact that the towels were immediately filled with blood, and he stayed by her side, hoping and praying she would make it through this horror.

Maria flinched from the pressure and slowly opened her eyes, and Alex smiled down to her, his hand re-routing and reaching out to touch her forehead.

“Don’t,” his dad whispered, his hand flashing out to stop his son from touching her.

Alex nodded, understanding what his father was saying with that one word. Don’t disturb any evidence.

“Dad?” Maria croaked out before closing her eyes again, and Alex looked over to his father, a question in his eyes. Immediately, the older man stood quickly and went in search of her parents.

Jacob lay down beside her, a soft whimper emanating from him as he rested his head against her arm, his eyes sorrowful as he watched her.

Alex absentmindedly stroked the animal’s head. “She’ll be ok, boy,” he reassured the small dog, though in truth, he was trying to reassure himself.

Maria’s eyes opened again, and she whispered, “Sean.”

“You want me to call Sean?” Alex clarified, but again, her eyes were closing as she battled consciousness.
Alex could hear the sirens by now in the distance as he lift the phone which was still in his hand and pressed the speed dial number for her cousin.

Maria had been taken to the local hospital after a few EMT’s were bitten by Jacob attempting to protect his master. After they battled with the animal who was so insistent on ensuring Maria’s safety, Alex picked the dog up, comforting him with words he had heard Maria use. The words didn’t make much of a difference though, and he and his friend’s beloved pet sat together on the front step as the other emergency personnel arrived.

While Alex and Jacob were dealing with the EMT’s and arrival of the emergency personnel, his dad found the bodies of Robert and Amy Deluca in a room to the side of the dining. Both bodies were decaying, proving they had been left there for a while. He recollected the last time he’d seen or spoken to any of the Deluca’s was more than a week ago. Had it really been that long? Why had not one commented on that? But then again, Robert and Amy were known to just take off on vacations. Robert was always busy with the Deluca Group and tended to just leave when his schedule eased up a little.

Charles Whitman shuddered when he realized if Maria’s dog had not come running and barking for Alex, it could have been weeks before anyone realized something was wrong, and Maria would have met the same end as her parents did.

He turned to look at the back of his son, who was still seated on the marble front steps, cradling the dog to him, mildly pondering how the animal had finally escaped. He couldn’t come up with a solid answer.

Soon, the number of people in the house tripled as Theodore Deluca, Maria’s grandfather, arrived with his two other sons, Sean, and an array of other people the officer in charge was not happy with.

Sean moved over to his friend. “She was alive?” the question was asked in a voice that Alex hardly recognized coming from his friend.

Alex could only nod, his body beginning to shake as realization of what had happened here finally seeped into his brain. He was running on adrenaline and shock before, but it was coming back to him now, and it was even more horrifying than it had been when he first entered the once peaceful house.

Theodore walked over to the lanky teen and clasped his hand around Alex’s shoulders as he noticed the young man going into shock. “You need anything in this life, you come to me, son. You hear me?”

Again, Alex could only mutely nod his head.

Theodore turned to Sean. “We need to get her transferred from the hospital back the house. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Alex stalled them, a hand landing on Theodore’s arm. “She was shot, cut, and possibly raped. She needs to be in the hospital.”

“What she needs to survive is at the house,” the older man returned cryptically.

Alex swung his head from Sean and back to Mr. Deluca. He heard of the mysterious things that happened at Sean’s home, but he was never invited there. When he questioned Maria once about this, all she said was she couldn’t talk about it.

Alex watched as the older man seemed to study him, appraising him, and he asked, “Do you want to come?”
Alex nodded again, bewildered at the invitation, and promptly left with Sean and Theodore, hopping into Theodore’s Mercedes before they sped into the night.

Maria was moved back to the great mansion under the guise that the grand house was actually a private hospital. She looked beyond awful, and on the verge of death, she had been placed in what Alex could only describe as a huge, marble sunken bath tub.

He spent the next week in the house, spending hours sitting beside Maria as she lay unmoving, encased in some hard element he did not understand and could not grasp. He moved freely through the large house, meeting men and women in all different stages of their lives, but still, no one told him what this place was or why his friend had been brought here from, in his opinion, a perfectly acceptable hospital and beyond adequate medical care.

It was while he was sitting quietly in the library a week after Maria was brought back to the mansion when the door opened, and Maria walked in, alive and well, and as far as he could see, unscathed physically from her encounter. It was that moment when he decided whatever this place was, he would be indebted to it for the rest of his days. How she had survived, he would not understand until later, but the fact she had was a miracle in and of itself.

In fact, it was Theodore Deluca who gave him a chance at the life he was living today. After Alex graduated college from MIT, it was Theodore who spoke to him about joining The Company. For the past four years, Alex traveled the country, discovering new technologies and developing them to meet the needs of The Company, and he loved every minute of it. He especially loved that he got to spend so much time with his childhood best friend. While they worked hard, they balanced themselves out by playing harder.


“Hey, where did you go?” Maria smiled warmly to him, and Alex was brought back to the moment in the music room with his friend who he nearly lost years earlier.

He shook his head, willing his thoughts and memories away as he looked at Maria, who was alive and vibrant despite all the things that happened in her life. Alex suspected she was alive and vibrant in spite of what had been done to her, and his friend’s joie de vivre was stronger because of it, though he knew Maria had her dark days and times, just like anyone else.

“You know how I space out when you go on,” he smirked to her.

“You are a cruel man, Alex Whitman,” she returned, her expression mock-stern.

“And you know how I always listen to everything you say,” he countered seriously and watched as she relaxed back onto the plush upholstery of the couch.

“So how has Mason taken this new development?” he asked cautiously.

“He put a guard on me. A Guard, Alex, like I’m completely useless and fragile and…..,” she shuddered dramatically before exclaiming, “…. a girl!”

Alex suppressed his chuckle at her melodramatic response. “That bastard!”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Alex looked over to the piano and then back to Maria.

“So, you’re playing again,” he stated.

A soft smile played on Maria’s lips. “Not really, this was the first time,” she admitted, raising her thin shoulders slightly.

“But still, it’s been a long time since you even looked at a piano,” Alex stated before surmising. “I take it this new occurrence has something to do with the new guy you have hooked up with?”

Maria shrugged nonchalantly, but her smile grew at the thought of Michael.

“When will I meet this wonder boy who has stolen my girl?” Alex asked, feigning distress.

“Oh Alex,” she sighed dramatically. “A wedding attended by three teddy bears, a transformer robot, G. I. Joe, and a frog, presided over by Sean, does not make me yours.” She bit the inside of her mouth as a smile threatened to surface.

“Yeah, and the fact you were seven, and I was nine at the time,” Alex added. “But you will always be the first girl I kissed.”

“And, of course, the measuring stick for all the rest,” Maria laughed, winking at her friend saucily.

“That goes without saying,” he grinned back.

Maria moved closer to her longtime friend and snuggled against his side. “I really missed you.”

“What? With all the fun you’ve been having, I’m sure my face wasn’t even considered for a moment.”

Maria picked at his jeans, tugging on a loose thread as she leaned into him. “Did Dean come home with you?” she asked timidly.

“You know he did, Maria.”

Maria sighed deeply. “Was he with anyone while you were away?”

“Are you asking me if he’s over you?”

Maria nodded against his chest, unwilling to comment on his correct assumption.

“I don’t know what to tell ya, kid. Yes, he was with someone…. or some people, but I can’t answer your other question, Maria. Only Dean can.”

“But what do you think? Because I don’t need a repeat of last time.”

Alex’s silence spoke volumes to Maria.

“Shit,” she mumbled.

**********************************

Michael moved through the house looking for Maria. He finished with his call to Jason and felt he needed to tell her the outcome before taking the news to Mason.

The forensic results were back from the contact lens, and they were clean of any prints, which indicated to the police that Rachel Stanley had not chosen to wear these herself and needed assistance to place them.
In the mind of a detective, that, along with the placement of the body, the similarity in cuts and marks on it and the ominous wording on the wall meant they were almost certainly dealing with the same guy who had committed the original crime eight years ago. Which in turn confirmed Maria was in danger, and that’s what was bothering Michael this evening.

He wished she would just leave the country for a while, maybe take a little vacation on that private island of hers, and hopefully, take him with her. He wasn’t above begging, either, especially if it meant keeping her safe and sound while the man who potentially killed her parents and scarred her for life was making a reappearance.

He noticed Sean talking to a tall, dark haired guy who he had never met previously just by the door leading into one of the rooms where he, Maria, and his other newfound friends generally gathered. The guy was tall, probably the same high as he was, and around the same build. His skin seemed to be naturally tan, and his short, rough, beard growth looked like that was the norm for him.

“Hey, Sean,” he called to the blonde man.

Sean turned at the sound of his name, then wished he hadn’t. He groaned as Michael came closer.

“Hey,” Michael repeated, ignoring the newcomer and getting straight to the point. “I need to talk to you in private.”

Sean looked at Michael and then at Dean, wondering if he should introduce the two, as well as mentally starting a pool on when the fireworks would start. Sean smiled and bit the bullet, knowing there was no way this would end well when Dean discovered who Michael was.

“Michael, this is Dean,” he introduced. “Dean, Michael is our newest recruit.” He decided to leave out the fact that Michael was also the new bedmate of his cousin.

Dean held out his hand, a semi-warm smile ghosting on his lips, but it didn’t reach his light hazel, almost green, eyes.

Michael felt the hairs prick at the base of his skull as he took the offered hand and cautiously shook it. He flashed his eyes back to Sean, hoping he would get he really needed to talk to him alone.

“I’ll catch ya later, Sean,” Dean offered, and at the shorter guy’s nod, he turned and moved off down the hallway.

“Who’s that?” Michael asked, eyeing the disappearing man with suspicion.

“That’s Dean Prescott. He’s been an agent here for more than 10 years,” Sean replied, unable to keep the smirk from his lips at Michael’s innate reaction to Maria’s ex-boyfriend.

With one last glare, Michael turned his attention back to Sean. “I’ve just heard back from Jason who heard from forensics earlier today. There are no prints on the lenses.”

“Fuck!”

“Yeah, I’m thinking of just packing Maria up and taking her somewhere, not give her the opportunity to disagree or argue,” Michael confided.

“It’ll never work. She’s too suspicious. Nothing gets past her,” Sean reasoned as they moved down the corridor together.

“Yeah,” Michael acknowledged. “It’s just a thought.”

He rubbed at the static hairs at the back of his neck. “I’m gonna go find her,” he said to Sean and left before the other man had a chance to reply.

Sean smiled and rubbed his hands together. After a moment, he turned back down the corridor in search of some unsuspecting suckers he could draw into his betting pool.

******************************

Hey, I know it’s been a few weeks since I updated this fic, sorry guys, but shit happens, ya know. My updates may be a little sporadic for a while, but I will post as often as I can.

Thanks to everyone reading, and remember, leaving feedback makes me do my happy dance.

Carolyn: Yeah, Alex and Maria have some good memories. Thanks for reading.

Chapter 26.

Michael glanced through the partially open door of a room he had never entered, almost passing by it completely until he heard Maria’s bright laughter coming from within, compelling him to stop and find his girlfriend.

He pushed the door completely open to see Maria sitting on a couch extremely close to some guy Michael had never seen before, and he resisted the jealousy that rose in his chest.

“Hey,” he said, breaking into their conversation, and he was rewarded with a bright smile from Maria.

“Michael,” she sprung up from the couch and bounced over to him, her arms swinging around his neck as she pulled him into a kiss.

After she pulled away, she turned in his arms to face her friend Alex.

“Alex, this is Michael,” she introduced.

“Ah, the man who stole my girl,” Alex smiled to Michael.

Michael swung his head from Maria to Alex, wondering if this scrawny guy was the past lover he had heard so much about.

“Alex, we’ve talked about this,” Maria reprimanded, her voice teasing as she rolled her eyes at her friend’s declaration.

Alex sighed dramatically. “A guy can dream, Deluca.”

Maria ignored him as she looked back to Michael before introducing him to one of her oldest friends, a grin forming on her lips at his perplexed expression about the exchange he just witnesses. “Michael, this is Alex, my best friend in the whole world.”

“I thought that was Sean?” Michael asked, clearly confused.

“Sean is the brother I never wanted,” Maria explained, waving her hand at the thought of her cousin. “Alex is my friend.”

“Which trumps almost brother,” Alex beamed.

Michael offered Alex his hand. “Well, boyfriend trumps brother and best friend,” he returned snidely, wrapping his arm tightly around Maria’s waist and holding her close.

Alex’s eyebrow rose at Michael’s statement and the almost growl in his voice, his eyes swinging to Maria in question at the man’s obvious show of protectiveness.

Maria dismissed Michael’s choice of words with a nonchalant wave of her hand, and Alex eased noticeably.

“We need to talk, Maria,” Michael announced seriously.

“Oh, I don’t like the sound of that,” Maria grumbled before moving back to the couch and tossing her body down onto it.

She watched as Michael shifted his weight between his feet, obviously not comfortable with what he had to say. This went on for a few moments, and Maria’s imagination got the best of her as she realized what this might be.

“Are you breaking up with me?” she asked him, disbelief apparent in her voice, and a little outrage, too.
“What?” Michael exclaimed in surprise. “Don’t be crazy, Blondie.”

“It’s just, I’ve started a lot of conversations with the whole, ‘we need to talk,’ thing and none of them ended well. Well, for the guy, at least.”

“No, babe. I’m not breaking up with you,” he answered seriously, though inside he was smiling at her reaction. At least she was admitting there was a relationship between them that could break. That had to mean something. “I need to talk about what happened the other day.”

“Hey, that was not my fault. How was I supposed to know you can’t bend that way?”

Michael had to chuckle at her statement, his mind flashing back to that moment, and a large, dopey grin forming on his lips. “Most people can’t bend that way, baby.”

“I can,” Maria returned with a smirk.

“Yes, you can,” Michael responded evenly, his tone light.

“Guys, you do know I’m still here, right?” Alex interrupted them.

Michael’s eyes widened, and he turned to Alex, only just remembering they weren’t alone in this large room he had never seen before. It was obviously a music room, exquisitely decorated and containing instruments he had never heard anyone play.

“Sorry.”

Alex smiled, thinking he might actually like this guy.

“So, Maria. We really need to talk,” Michael said again.

“Ok, so talk.”

Michael looked between Maria and Alex. “I think it’s better we talk alone.”

“Alex is ok, Michael. We can talk in front of him.”

“As long as it has nothing to do with your sex life,” Alex added in, just for clarification.

“Well, not a whole lot to talk about then,” Maria grinned as she leaned over to Alex and stage-whispered conspiratorially. “We have a LOT of sex.”

“Maria, you forget that I know you. This information is nothing new to me,” Alex quipped.

Maria beamed as she turned to Michael, ready for anything he had to tell her.

“It’s about what we found the other day,” Michael informed her evasively before adding for clarification, “At the house.”

“Oh,” Maria whispered, her voice taking on a somber tone immediately as her mind was invaded with images of the girl and that day.

“What?” Alex asked looking between the two.

“A dead body was found at my old house,” Maria told him without actually looking at him, shrugging her shoulders lightly as she stared off into space.

“What!” Alex repeated, louder this time.

“I don’t think anyone else should know, Maria,” Michael said. “The fewer, the better.”

“Alex was the one who found me,” Maria provided simply.

“He found you?” Michael asked, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

Maria’s eyes locked with his, needing him to understand without her actually saying the words.

Michael shifted his eyes to Alex to see the other man looking intently at Maria. The look of concern was evident on Alex’s face and when he finally lifted them to meet Michael’s, he clarified, “I was the first one to enter the house after her parent’s murder, when she was unconscious.”

Michael looked sharply at the scrawny man. “Wow.”

“Not the words I would choose but… yeah,” Alex mumbled.

“Will you be able to look at some crime scene photos for me?” Michael probed.

“Hers?” Alex asked, pointing at Maria. “Because I really don’t want to go there again.”

“No,” Michael shook his head immediately, not wanting to put his girlfriend’s best friend through that kind of trauma again. “We’d want you to look at the new crime scene. I need to know how identical it is to the original.”

“Ok,” Alex answered, less than thrilled at that prospect.

“What did you need to talk about?” Maria asked Michael, reminding his of his urgency to find her before he got sidetracked.

“The girl,” he told her, reluctance evident in his voice. “The contacts were clean. Which makes us think the perp put them in.”

“So he made her wear green contacts,” Maria stated, bile rising in her throat.

“That’s just… wrong,” Alex added.

“Maria,” Michael started, his voice taking on a soft tone. “I wish you would consider getting out of the country for a while. Take a nice vacation somewhere, relax and be pampered.”

“I second that,” Alex nodded his approval. “Seriously, Pix, you don’t need to be around this.”

“Pix?” Michael asked.

“Pixie,” Maria snorted with a shrug of her shoulder, glad Alex could always make her smile, even in moments like these where she was forced to relive the horrors she had once experienced. “It’s a pet name of sorts.”

“And the fact when you were little, you told everyone you were gonna be Tinkerbell when you grew up,” Alex added, earning a snort of laughter from both Michael and Maria at the ridiculousness of that thought.

An image of Maria dancing around in a green dress and fairy wings erupting into Michael’s mind, and he was transported back in time to his childhood.

“Will you be my P’ta?” a tiny Maria asked him.

“I’m not Peter Pan, I’m Spiderman,” was his gruff reply, and he ran off down the hallway, shooting imaginary webs from his wrist. When he reached the end of the long corridor, he turned back.

Even with the distance between them, he could still see the tears welling in her eyes and her bottom lip trembling slightly.

Young Michael sighed, and then retraced his steps.

“Do you have pixie-dust?”

Maria nodded, a huge smile forming on her face as her chubby hand dove into a pouch tied around her waist.

She carefully pulled it out again threw it into the air, green glitter flying everywhere and fluttering to the hardwood floor around them.

“Well, come on. Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.”

And he grabbed her hand, and the two of them ran down the hallway giggling.


“Michael?”

“Huh?” Michael shook his head, his eyes focusing on the grown-up Maria.

“You kinda spaced out there,” she grinned.

“Sorry, just remembered something.”

Maria shot him a quizzical look.

“I’ll tell ya later,” he smirked.

“So,” Alex interrupted them again, smacking his hands together. “Do you need any help packing?”

“I’m not leaving,” Maria told them both. “I’m not running away. I never have before, and I won’t start
now.”

“Maria,” Michael returned sternly.

“No, Michael,” Maria cut in her anger building. “This animal killed my family. He… he…” She shook her head, unable to say anymore.

“I just want you to be safe, Blondie. I don’t want him to hurt you again.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Maria scoffed. “I am not the same girl I was back then. I’m stronger and more deadly than he can ever imagine. And I am going to bring him down.”

Michael could see the resolve in her eyes, and he knew there was no way he could get her to leave the country until all this was over with.

“Ok, with that decided, let me see the crime scene photos, and I’ll tell you want I know,” Alex interjected, noticing Maria’s determination and Michael’s stubbornness. “I could help with research and shit like that.
That’s what I do.”

“Alex loves research. He really does. He keeps it under his mattress with his KY," Maria quipped.

“You are incredibly strange sometimes. Ya know that, right?” Alex told her, his expression serious.

“Says the guy who still has his collection of Star Wars action figures,” she returned glibly.

“Hey, they are vintage and will be worth a fortune someday.”

“Man, you really have vintage Star Wars stuff?” Michael asked him, his interest in Alex’s collection apparent from his tone.

“My collection is legendary,” Alex smiled.

Maria shook her head, knowing she had lost the conversation, but she at least convinced Michael that she would not run and hide from the pervert who was still out there.

“Ok, I’m gonna let you boys bond,” she said, standing from her seat and giving Michael a fleeting kiss. “I have a ton of work to do since I was abducted yesterday and forced to have fun.”

And she swept from the room, leaving the two men standing, chatting about Star Wars, the finesse of a light saber and something about a Millennium Falcon!

************************
Later that day, Maria was heading toward one of the many rooms she could work from, her laptop and notepad in hand, ready to look over some emails Riley sent over and a few proposals she need to read before work on Monday. Her and Michael’s day off had been great, but now she needed to catch up on the important stuff that needed to be done.

“Maria,” a familiar voice called, and she stopped in her tracks, whispering a silent prayer before slowly turning around.

Dean Prescott was a truly handsome man, his green eyes hypotonic, and his strong features so easy on the eyes. Maria could see how she was attracted to this man so long ago, what heterosexual woman wouldn’t be?

“Hey Dean,” she smiled as he moved closer to her. He leaned in to kiss her, and Maria turned her head just in time to avoid his lips meeting hers, and he kissed her cheek instead.

He looked confused when he pulled away.

Maria sighed before explaining sadly. “We’ve talked about the kissing, Dean.”

“Sorry,” he smirked, his expression showing he was anything but. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“Well, you are gonna have to stop,” Maria returned sternly, deciding she didn’t want to have this conversation a anymore before turning to continue down the hallway to find a room to work in.

“Aren’t you gonna ask how the mission went?” Dean asked following her.

Maria sighed. “How did my mission go?”

“It was awesome, though I have to say, we’re lucky that I’m still alive, Sexy.”

“Don’t call me that,” Maria exclaimed, spinning back around to face him, her green eyes blazing.

“Whoa, easy there, Babe,” Dean answered, holding his hands up to her.

“Dean, just stop. We broke up, remember? You can’t keep calling me those pet names after all this time.”

“What?” he asked daftly. “So are you and Vladimir still hot and heavy? To be honest, I thought you’d be over him by now, and I mean that in a completely non-sexual way.”

“This has nothing to do with Dimi,” she answered as she turned, spotting an empty room where she could work, and suddenly wishing she hadn’t sent Michael off to bond with Alex. She could use some of his hyper-protectiveness of her right now, especially since she want to be having this conversation – now or ever.

“No,” Dean queried as he followed her in, closing the door behind him. “So, are you still doing him or not?”

Maria placed her laptop and notepad down on the walnut desk, sighing deeply before meeting his eyes, annoyance apparent in hers.

“No, Dean,” she snapped. “Dimi and I are no longer together.”

Dean chuckled a little. “I knew it wouldn’t last long. He wasn’t someone I thought who could handle you long-term.”

“Handle me?” Maria echoed with disgust.

“Sure, Babe,” he continued easily, not acknowledging the anger in her voice. “We both know it takes a certain kind of man to keep up with you.”

Maria looked up at him and laughed. “Well, obviously, you weren’t the one to handle me, either.”

“Oh Babe. I did a whole lot of handling, and you know it,” he returned confidently.

Maria stopped organizing her work materials and sat down. “Stop calling me Babe. I’m not your Babe anymore.”

“But you could be again,” Dean pleaded, clearly not ashamed that he was begging her as he continued.

“Come on, Maria, we were good together.”

“We were good together,” she admitted, “but the relationship ran its course. Move, on Dean. I have.”

“What! To Vladimir?” he scorned.

“Initially, yes,” Maria answered, narrowing her green eyes at him before a sudden smile graced her lips at her next statement. “I have a new boyfriend now.”

“Boyfriend?” Dean squeaked out. It was the very word she intentionally never used in relation to him.

“Yes, and you are going to leave him alone and not get all possessive and shit like you did with Dimi. Because he will kick your ass,” she finished with a grin.

Dean huffed in disgust. “Oh, he can try.”

“And he will succeed,” she gloated, not even trying to keep the bite out of her voice as she responded to his arrogance.

“I take it he’s here?” Dean grumbled as he flopped into couch in front of the desk watching Maria open her laptop.

Maria nodded and switched the machine on. “He’s been with The Company for more than a month now.”

“And you are calling him your boyfriend already? That was quick. We dated for months, and I never got that honorary title.”

“Well, that must tell you something, don’t ya think?”

She looked at Dean. “I’m serious, Dean, leave Michael alone.”

“Michael. I think I met him earlier.”

“Tall, brooding, devastatingly handsome,” she described while smiling, not looking up from the work that appeared on her laptop.

“Well, that describes me. How about the new guy?” Dean smirked to her.

“Whatever,” Maria dismissed his high opinion of himself, though she knew Dean was just as good-looking as
Michael was. However, Michael had something Dean didn’t – humility.

“Look,” Maria started, “what we had was great, but it ran its course. I’m sorry that it obviously meant more to you than me.”

Dean ignored Maria’s words and grinned. “When this is over, we should have angry sex. That’s the best.”

“Why are you not listening to me?” Maria said with frustration. “I’m tired of having this same conversation with you over and over again.”

Dean looked at Maria, his face serious and his eyes holding hers.

“You can pretend all you want, Maria. But sooner or later you're gonna have to face up to who you really are.”

“And who is that?” she asked.

“A sad, lonely, little girl who’s scared of having any true feelings or commitments. Scared of putting herself out there because she’s afraid that the minute she feels love or allows someone to love her, they will be taken away.”

“What’s wrong with that?” she returned, her voice seeming to have lost its strength.

“You are missing out on life,” Dean answered.

“I hardly think that,” Maria scoffed.

“Maria, screwing random guys is not living… maybe living in the moment but what’s that gonna get you twenty years down the line? Nothing. You will just have The Company and nothing else. We both know you don’t want to end up like your uncle.”

“I won’t end up like my uncle,” Maria ground out through her teeth. “Michael is different. I…”

Dean laughed. “Don’t tell me you love him?”

Maria looked down at the desk in front of her and swiped away invisible dust with her hand while pondering his question.

“Come on,” Dean cried in disbelief, his voice rising in anger. “We both know you are incapable of that emotional shit. You don’t know how to love beyond the physical kind. And ya know what? When he’s had enough of your insecurities and hang-ups, you’ll come running back to me.”

“You can be a real bastard, ya know?” Maria spat out.

“Yeah, and you’re a bitch,” Dean returned harshly.

“But I’m not your bitch,” she paused before smiling.

“Yeah, well I feel sorry for this Michael guy because sooner or later, you will rip his heart out and stomp all over it.”

With that statement, he turned on his heel and stormed over to the door. He pulled it open roughly, finding Tess on the other side, about to enter.

“Hey!” she called out in disgust. “Watch where you’re going.”

“Oh look, it’s bitch number two,” Dean said sarcastically.

“Oh look, it’s the leader of the Peckerheads,” Tess retorted.

Dean continued out of the room and down the hallway.

Tess turned when she heard Maria exhale loudly.

“You ok, Babe?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Maria answered quietly.

“You sure? I could hear the yelling out in the corridor.”

“He won’t stop calling me Babe,” Maria said with irritation as she fell back into her chair, running a hand through her coiffed blonde hair in exasperation at Dean’s reaction to her.

“Babe? I call you Babe,” Tess stated.

“Yeah, but you know it’s different when girls call their friends Babe. When he calls me Babe it’s more of an I wanna nail you Babe,” Maria explained.

“Well, he has been known to do that,” Tess pointed out.

“You’re not helping.”

“Sorry. That bastard.” Tess grinned. “Better?”

Maria offered her a weak smile. “Thanks.” She rested her head on the back of the large office chair, grateful for the soft cushioning. “Why is he so hung up on this?” she asked her friend. “It’s been eight months since I ended things!”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Tess returned, kneeing on the couch in front of the desk and leaning forward, resting her arms on the back and looking at Maria.

“Relationships break down all the time,” Maria continued without acknowledging Tess’ question. “It’s a fact of life.”

“Yeah, but there is always one relationship that makes it, ya know? The one relationship that involves marriage, babies and matching walkers. And Dean… he wanted that with you.”

“He knew from the beginning that it wasn’t that serious,” Maria admitted.

“Maybe not at first, but it turned into something more,” Tess argued. At Maria’s skeptical look, she added.
“Well, for him anyway.”

“I thought you were supposed to be on my side,” Maria huffed.

“I’m always on your side, Babe,” Tess smiled. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” Maria moaned before she stood. “He needs to get over it. Move on. I’m tired of this every time he comes home. It’s not like he’s not been with anyone since me. I asked Alex. So why does he refuse to let go?”

“I can’t answer that for you. I would say give it time, but that doesn’t seem to be working.”

Maria paced with frustration. “God, he makes me so angry sometimes.”

She stopped by a window which looked out across an expanse of green grass. She could see a group of the guys playing an impromptu game of football in the late afternoon sun.

Right in the middle of the action was Michael, and Maria smiled as she watched him sprint across the yard, stretching out and catching a ball before receiving high0fives from his teammates.

“Whatcha looking at?” Tess asked and she climbed off the couch to join Maria at the window. “Oh, men at play. There is nothing more stimulating, don’t ya think?”

“Yeah, there is definitely something to be said about a hot and sweaty man,” Maria smirked.

The two girls watched as Michael caught the ball again and turned, running in the opposite direction with Max, Kyle, and Billy hot on his trail.

“Your sleeping buddy does not stand a chance against my man,” Maria gloated.

“Yeah, well, just wait until Kyle hits his stride. He’s a bit of a slow starter,” Tess retorted with a grin.

“Too much information, babe,” Maria laughed, holding her hand up in a stopping motion.

“I was actually talking about football, Maria. You need to get your mind out the gutter.”

“There is nothing wrong with getting down and dirty,” Maria retorted.

“Amen to that sister,” Tess, and they high-fived each other.

They shifted their gazes out the window again, each with their own thoughts as they watched the guys continuing their game.

“Wanna go play cheerleaders?” Tess asked, nodding her head out to the guys.

Maria looked back to her laptop and notepad on the desk.

“What the hell, Let’s go.”

*************************

Hope those who observe Memorial Day had a greet weekend and gave a thought to those brave souls who give so much and ask so little.

Thanks to those leaving feedback.

Chapter 27

Classic country music poured out of the speakers and into the street from the hole-in-the-wall bar. It wasn’t the kind of sounds that normally radiated from a bar in Los Angeles, but this place was off the beaten track, and it was a small business that catered to specific clientele.

A tall, slim figure paused in the doorway, scanning the room quickly. He tugged on the lapel of his crisp, charcoal gray suit conspicuously when he felt many eyes on him, noting his out-of-place attire. These people soon returned to their drinks, shrugging off the newcomers as a lost tourist or businessman in the wrong neck of the woods, and the newcomer finally spotted his companion and moved further into the establishment.

He slid onto the worn padded bench across from the other man, hoping the cracks in the leather would not cause permanent damage to his bespoke suit.

“You’re late,” the guy in the booth noted, his voice gruff and low.

“This place isn’t the easiest to find,” the new man retorted primly, resisting the urge to look around him in disgust.

The man opposite lifted his hand to a passing waitress and nodded once. The two sat in silence until two fresh bottles of beer appeared on the table.

“So, why did you want this meeting?”

The prim man looked at the other in shock. “Things are getting serious.”

“Things are getting serious! Don’t you think they were pretty serious in the first place?”

“With Michael back, I mean.”

Charlie lifted his eyes, searching the orbs of his acquaintance in question. “Do you really think Michael had something to do with all the shit that is happening?”

“No. I think Michael is too much like his father, and that is the problem.”

Charlie shook his head wearily, the loss of Harvey Guerin still too much for him to process as his mind wandered back to a location almost identical to the place they were in.

**************
Four years earlier.

Charlie looked around him anxiously. The country bar that Harvey suggested for a meeting place seemed so unlike a place he would choose, but obviously, Harvey felt at ease here.

As the door opened again, Charlie looked up from his bottle of beer to see his old friend enter the bar. Their eyes met immediately, and Harvey headed his way, pausing only to say something quickly to the bartender before joining him.

Harvey was still a good looking man, his easy looks and charm having benefited them both in their younger years until Harvey had met the woman destined to be his wife.

Harvey, Charlie, and their other friend, Robert Deluca, had formed an unbreakable bond when they met as freshman in college. The three friends become almost legendary within their fraternity during the four years, and it still amazed Charlie that any of them actually graduated, academia being the last thing on their minds during their years at Harvard.

Charlie and Harvey were brought into The Company through Robert, though he himself never had much to do with the assassin group.

“Well,” Harvey grinned, “I would say the years have been kind, but… you look old, my friend.”

Charlie chuckled low at Harvey’s honesty. “That’s because I am old, Harv.”

Harvey waited as a young waitress dropped a bottle of beer onto the table before him, spilling a little of the liquid from the long neck.

“Easy there, Courtney,” he growled.

The blonde tossed a strand of hair over her shoulder and glared back at the older man. “You can tell that good for nothing son of yours that I’m done waiting for him,” And she stormed off.

Charlie raised a brow at the confrontation. “Michael?”

Harvey laughed. “Yeah, that boy is always getting himself into some sort of trouble. Be it with the ladies or the law.”

“Just like his old man then, eh?” Charlie chuckled.

“Too much,” Harvey agreed, suddenly serious. “How are things in L.A.?”

“Are you asking in general or regarding The Company?”

“Both,” his old friend smiled.

“L.A. will never change, and neither will The Company,” Charlie answered before taking a drink of his beer.

“How is Maria?” Harvey asked tentatively.

Charlie pondered how best to describe the only child of their deceased best friend before saying, “Strong.”

“Strong?” Harvey questioned.

“She’s just started her training,” Charlie offered.

“Already?” Harvey practically shouted. “She’s too young.”

“She’s 19 now, Harvey, just graduated from Stanford. Triple major, I might add,” Charlie grinned, thinking of the little spitfire.

“She’s still too young to start her training,” Harvey insisted. “Christ, she’s 19! Still a teenager.”

“And already outranks half of the Benders in service.”

“Shit,” was all Harvey could say. How much more could the girl take before she broke under the pressure?

“Robert would be proud of her,” Charlie said, his voice hushed.

“Robert should be here, and Amy, too,” Harvey returned harshly.

“How is Michael?” Charlie asked, hoping to turn their conversation from the horror that surrounded their friend’s death.

“Michael is impulsive,” Harvey returned quickly.

“Much like his old man, then,” Charlie grinned.

Harvey huffed, though knew in his heart Charlie was right. He looked intently at Charlie. His hair was greying, much like his own, and his face showed that the years had been tough for his old Company partner.

“Charlie, as much as I enjoy seeing you again, why are you here? Roswell is not exactly ‘in the neighborhood’ for you.”

Charlie swallowed nervously, knowing as soon as the words left his mouth, there was no taking them back, and things would change.

“I need help,” Charlie finally answered, diving in.

“Thank God,” Harvey grinned. “I’ve been suggesting you get professional help for a long time now.”

Charlie ignored the comment, his expression remaining serious.

“I recently had a conversation with someone, and it has brought to mind some disturbing questions.”

“Regarding what?” Harvey asked, his interest piqued, though the hairs on the back of his head stood to attention, warning him.

“The Deluca’s murders,” was all Charlie said.

Harvey sat back against the wooden back of the booth, his gaze boring into Charlie.

“Have they caught the bastard yet?” he queried, his face emotionless. When he heard about the deaths of his friends and the torture their daughter had been subjected to, he almost had given up his retirement from The Company to be part of the sect hoping to hunt down the animal.

“No, he continues to elude both the LAPD and The Company, but I have a few leads that need chasing,” Charlie answered wearily.

“So why not tell Mason?”

“Because this could stir up a whole hornets nest, and I need to be sure before I do that. I’m not fully aware of all the implications, as my source refuses to disclose everything to me. But he assures me he will speak candidly to you.”

Charlie handed over a small business card before settling back in his seat, watching the man opposite him.

Harvey looked at the white card Charlie handed over, his eyebrow raising at the name printed on it.

“You understand, this is strictly between the two of us for the moment,” Charlie commented, though he knew he didn’t need to specify this. Harvey knew.

Harvey nodded, as he slipped the card into his jeans pocket.

“The number on the back is secure,” Charlie added. He watched as Harvey took a long swig of his beer before adding, “So, tell me more about Michael.”

*****************************
Now, years later, Charlie felt they were no further along in their investigations. The only thing that was different was the fact Harvey Guerin was dead, more than likely because of something he learned following up on the various leads that fell his way.

Charlie was sure Harvey died knowing who was behind the vicious attacks on the Deluca’s eight years earlier, and he berated himself every day for involving Harvey in the first place.

He looked back to his companion, Harvey’s initial contact from three years ago.

“Things are getting out of hand,” Charlie said. “The fact that The Company is now being targeted is disturbing. Plus the body found in the Deluca home. I have to admit, I’m worried.”

“I can’t understand why this has all started again,” the prim man stated.

“Because it never finished,” Charlie replied. “Whoever committed that crime years ago failed. Maria didn’t die.”

“I understand that, but there have been eight years since then. Maria was in college for three of those years, a young agent after that, and nothing happened. Why do you think they have waited all this time to finish the job?”

“You think it’s because Michael came back?”

“I think it’s too much of a coincidence to not take seriously.”

Charlie looked sideways at the man. “You don’t think Michael has anything to do with all this?”

“No, I don’t,” the man spoke, pausing for a second before expanding. “Michael is a good person. Maria wouldn’t let him near her if he wasn’t. She has an innate understanding of people.”

Charlie nodded his agreement at that. Throughout his years with The Company, he never crossed paths with anyone that resounded power like she did. And she herself didn’t seem to understand what was contained within her.

Charlie looked down at the worn wooden table, his mind whirling with questions they were struggling to find the answers to.

“Who are you going to ask to continue this investigation?” the man asked.

“I think the best person will be Dean. He’s not here half the time, which gives him a kind of free range,” Charlie hypothesized.

“That and the fact he would do anything for Maria,” his friend laughed.

“Edward, any member of The Company would do anything for Maria. I can’t comprehend what would happen if we lost her.”

“Let’s not think about that because it won’t happen. Maria is stubborn, and she simply will refuse to die.”

“Let’s hope so, because I have a feeling things are gonna get much worse better they get better.”

The two unlikely friends continued to drink in silence.

***************************
Maria and Tess were actually relaxing more than cheerleading in the bright afternoon sunshine. That was until Isabel and Liz joined them, and then the girls began making up cheers to urge the guys on during their friendly game of football.

This only seemed to distract the guys from playing, and soon, the girls found themselves dragged out onto the ‘field’ to join the game.

“Maria’s not allowed on the same team as Michael and Sean,” Kyle said straight away.

“Why not?” Maria pouted, moving to stand next to Michael, who wrapped his arm around her shoulder automatically and gave her a squeeze.

“Because three Benders against one is totally unfair and against the rules,” Tess answered with a smile.

“Whose rules?” Maria demanded, her hands on her hips.

“My rules,” Tess returned, stepping forward to face off with Maria, a smirk on her face.

“Bitch showdown,” Billy grinned, his head swiveling between the two, and there was an audible groan from most of the crowd while they watched the two women with rapt attention, curious to see what happened next.

Maria narrowed her eyes at Tess, and when the smaller girl wriggled her eyebrows back, Maria smiled.
“Fine,” she agreed and turned on her heel, walking in the opposite direction and pulling Kyle with her.

“Did Tess just win?” Max asked, bewildered while watching the retreating figure of Maria as she whispered something to Kyle.

“Nope,” Sean smirked. “Maria gave in, which means there is something in it for Maria.”

The group split into two teams, Tess and Isabel joining Michael, Sean, and Alex, while Maria and Liz joined Max, Billy, and Kyle.

Max called his team into a huddle. “They have a strong team over there,” he told them. “Liz, you concentrate on Alex, he’s too much a gentleman to do any damage.”

Liz nodded, shifting her eyes over to the other team’s huddle and the tall man clutching the football, thinking the best way to take him down was by the legs.

“Billy, you stay on Sean,” Max instructed.

Billy nodded.

Max looked to Maria and Kyle.

“Kyle, you take Isabel. She can be crafty.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Kyle grinned, though slightly miffed that he didn’t get Tess to cover.

“Maria,” Max started and when she lifted her eyebrow to him, he smiled, shaking his head and resisting the urge to chuckle, knowing he would be the one to take on Tess. “Do whatever you are gonna do.” At Maria’s grin he added, “Just don’t hurt Michael too much. Remember, he’s my partner just as much as he’s yours.”

“Oh, threesome,” Maria giggled.

When Billy began to cough, Kyle smacked him on the back, chuckling at Maria’s choice of words and Billy’s reaction.

“Ok, break.” And the group spilt apart and into position.

Maria smirked to Michael when she squared up in front of him.

“I might have guessed Max would be too chicken shit to go against me,” he said her, a half smile on his face. “You are going down, Deluca.”

“Bring it on, Guerin,” was her reply.

Alex snapped the ball to Sean and he scurried back with it, looking and waiting for one of his team to get clear.

Max shook his head when he saw Maria tackle Michael, her full weight behind her as she brought him to the ground and landed hard on top of him, a wide grin on her face. The pair was oblivious to the rest of the team players as they rolled on the grass, Michael eventually standing and running in the opposite direction looking for the ball, Maria hot on his tail.

Max intercepted a throw from Sean to Isabel and quickly tossed the ball to Kyle, only to be caught mid-air by Sean again and the other agent started for the end zone.

“Maria!” Max called, knowing he had no chance of catching the older Deluca, finally getting the blonde’s attention.

She turned from Michael and set off after Sean. She almost reached him before she was tackled from behind by Michael.

Max grinned at that. Finally, someone who was not afraid to take the girl down.

Michael laughed out as he brought Maria down, turning as they tumbled to the ground so he would land first.
Maria grunted against him, her hands automatically cover his arms around her waist as they rolled. “You cheated,” she huffed out as she heard his team cheer as Sean scored.

“I did not,” he replied in disbelief. Maria lifted her hand from his arms and wove her fingers into his hair as she lay back against his front on the grass. She turned her head, tugging gently on his hair and placed a soft kiss against his neck, and his arms slackened at the feel of her lips on his skin.

She was instantly up and running back to her team, turning as she went and grinning back to him.
The next several plays all went the same way, Michael and Maria intent on bringing the other down whilst the rest played the game around them.

Half an hour later and Sean called it. He was fed up of watching his cousin roll around the ground with her boyfriend in the name of sport.

Michael smirked to Maria as he helped her from the ground. “This is your fault, ya know.”

“How can it possibly be my fault?” she retorted as they moved to stand with the rest of the players.

“Just because,” he grinned. He turned to the rest of the group and asked, “Who won?”

“We did,” Sean beamed.

“No way, Deluca,” Kyle butted in. “We won!”

“Dream on, Valenti,” Alex laughed.

“I would call it even,” a new voice called, and the whole group turned to look up onto the terrace that ran the length of the back of the house.

“Shit,” Tess whispered, her head turning back slowly to Maria.

“This should be fun,” Sean gloated.

Michael looked on as eight heads turned to look at him, watching for his reaction.

“What?” he asked, his eyes flashing up to the man on the terrace. He recognized him as the guy who was talking to Sean earlier that day.

“Come on, Michael,” Maria said pulling on his hand, “Let’s go for a walk.”

“Who is that?” Michael asked, though he let Maria pull him in the other direction.

“Nobody,” Maria answered quickly.

“Maria?”

“Michael, please,” Maria whined. She looked behind her to see Dean smirking.

Maria knew she needed to talk to Michael about Dean. She could hardly keep the relationship to herself with the guy living in the same house.

“Let’s just go for a walk, Michael, and then we’ll talk,” Maria pleaded.

Michael looked back at the figure watching the two of them, a smug look on his face and then he turned and let Maria drag him off.

*****************************

They walked around the edge of the large pond, entering into parts of the estate Michael had yet to see.

“Was that the ex?” he finally asked her, as they strode side-by-side, their hands clasped and fingers entwined, along the pathway that ran by the pond, several trees sprouting on either side of it.

“Ex?” she repeated shyly.

“Don’t be coy with me, Maria,” Michael bit back, a little harsher than he meant to.

Maria sighed. “Yes.”

“The one who hates to see you with any other guy?” Michael probed.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Maria mumbled. She looked sharply to him. “How did you know?”

“Liz told me,” he answered with a shrug, then regretted it. He didn’t want to hurt the doc’s friendship with Maria.

“Huh, figures,” Maria smiled.

“She just wanted me to have a heads up for when he returned home. Which is more than someone else,” he finished, bumping her shoulder with his to show he wasn’t really angry.

“You want to have a conversation about my exes?” Maria asked with a smile.

“No,” he replied quickly. “But I think we may need to about this one.”

“Maybe,” Maria relented, wondering when Michael developed the power over to her to force her to spill almost any information, and generally information she kept close to her chest.

Michael looked out at the green expanse around them. “Are we headed anywhere in a particular?”

Maria lifted her head as well, her eyes scanning the area. She smiled when she spotted the moderate looking house not too far away.

“You wanna meet the other man in my life?” She schooled her smile as she watched him struggle to keep his emotions under control.

“What other guy?” he asked hesitantly.

“My grandfather,” Maria giggled, pointing over to the red brick house.

“Really?” Michael asked, “You want me to meet your grandfather?”

Maria took a step closer to him, her one hand lifting to his hair, and she ran a finger through its length.
Michael watched her as her eyes softened and she smiled to him. “Yes, Michael. I want you to meet my grandfather.”

As she started to walk again, leading him over to the house, Michael couldn’t help a feeling of nervousness flowing over him. He guessed, in the absence of her father, her grandfather was the one to impress.

*********************

“Maria, child. What has kept you from my doors for so long?”

Maria swept into the room with ease and into her beaming grandfather’s arms.

“You know how Uncle Mason is, Gramps. All work, work, work,” Maria whined goodheartedly.

Michael smiled as Maria settled beside the older man on the couch, dipping her hand into the pocket of his cardigan and pulling free an individually wrapped Tootsie Roll.

Somehow, Michael expected the patriarch of the Deluca clan to be pushed around in a wheelchair and shriveled like a prune or someone who uttered commands and expected everyone to jump. Theodore Deluca was the complete opposite. He was of average height with a full head of thick brown hair peppered with gray. He looked well for his age and obviously took care of himself.

“How long have these been in your pocket?” Maria asked as she unwrapped the candy and popped it into her mouth.

“I knew you would visit today, Pixie-child, so I put some there especially,” he told her.

“Right,” Maria laughed, digging for another candy and tossing it over to Michael. “And the fact you watched us cross the yard has nothing to do with it.”

“You are too good, my girl,” Theodore grinned and then turned to Michael. “So you are the reason my granddaughter has neglected her old, frail grandfather.”

“You couldn’t be frail if you tried,” Maria quipped before standing again and crossing the room to bring Michael closer into the room.

“Gramps, this is Michael,” she smiled. “Michael, this is Theodore Deluca, my grampy.”

Theodore stood, stretching to his full height and held out his hand to the younger man. “I remember,” was all he said in greeting.

“How does everyone remember Michael but me?” Maria complained, her bottom lip jutting out in her trademark pout.

“You were only two-years-old when he left, Pixie. Those of us who were a little older remember him.”
Theodore turned to Michael. “Your father was a great man.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Michael acknowledge, shaking his offered hand.

Theodore nodded and indicated for Michael to sit, Maria settling in between the two on the long couch.

“Tell me about what happened at my son’s house,” Theodore instructed, not wasting time on small talk.

Maria stood, obviously agitated, and moved over to the drink cabinet. Michael looked with concern at her back and then over to her grandfather. At his slight nod, he proceeded to tell him what they had seen and the developments they had, pausing only when Maria handed him and her grandfather a tumbler each, both with a liberal amount of whiskey in them.

Michael watched Theodore express no emotion as he recounted recent events, though the tight grip the older man had on Maria’s hand told Michael that Theodore felt a lot more than he showed.

After Michael finished, Theodore drank his whiskey in silence, Maria’s glass already drained of the golden liquid and her eyes flickered back to the bottle.

“Your uncle has increased security?”

“Yes, Gramps, but I don’t need it.”

Theodore ignored her and looked back to Michael. “Is L.A.P.D looking into this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They won’t find anything,” he stated evenly. “The Company has been looking into this for eight years, and we are still grasping for our own balls.”

“We’re working on it, sir,” Michael returned. “Maybe the L.A.P.D. will find something The Company has missed.”

Maria snorted at that. “Michael, you cannot believe that. No offense to the L.A.P.D., but The Company agents have been working for years. And the information is something no one has found.”

“Well, I hoping there is something I can do that will make a difference,” Michael retorted.

“You want to do something for me?” Theodore asked, anger evident in his voice. “You find this piece of shit who killed my son and his wife; who tortured my grand-daughter to the point of death.”

Michael balked at Theodore’s tone, and Maria’s eyebrows shot up. Her grandfather was a protective and emotional man, but she had never heard him speak so directly or harshly before.

“Maria, will you wait outside for a moment, please?” Theodore asked,

“Why?” Maria asked, automatically suspicious.

“Because I’m your grandfather, and I’ve asked you to,” Theodore replied sternly. “I need to have a conversation with your boyfriend,” he added with a sly smile on his thin lips.

Maria looked at Michael with a look of apprehension. “Don’t you want me to stay?” she asked hesitantly.

“Maria, out,” Theodore ordered, and Maria reluctantly stood and slowly made her way from the room.

The moment Maria stepped from the room, Michael became nervous. His hands began to sweat, and he swore his heart rate increase by a thousand beats per minute. He could feel Theodore’s eyes on him and shifted so he could look back, never one to back down from a confrontation. He did admit to himself that he was terrified about what Theodore was gonna say.

“So, Michael. I take it you know all about Maria’s history?”

“Most of it,” Michael stated. “She hasn’t told me the intimate details…”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes, I want to know. Something that happened eight years ago is not gonna change how I feel about her, no matter how traumatic that may have been for her or for me to hear. What happened made her the person she is today. The person I love.”

Theodore regarded Michael with steel gaze before he settled back, a smile spreading on his face.

“Welcome to the family, Michael, and good luck, because with Maria, you are gonna need it.”

********************************

Hey Guys, I hope everyone is having an awesome day. I spent the day with an amazing set of guys, my step-dad, my step-brother and my fiancé.

Thanks to all who are reading my fic’s.

Carolyn: Thanks for your feedback and constant support, it’s very much appreciated.

Chapter 28.

Michael tapped wearily at the keyboard on his beat up wooden desk that had provided a work space for numerous detectives throughout their careers. He looked down at the wad of paper under one corner and wondered if he could pester his captain again for a new desk… or at least one that didn’t stand with a wobble or the need of assistance. He was previously told the budget wouldn’t allow it. Maybe he could offer to buy it himself?

“Hey, Guerin.”

Michael lifted his head to see Neil from the post room weave between the desks, a large manila envelope in one hand, whilst the other controlled the mail trolley in front of him. “You have some personal mail. Trying to escape someone?”

The man laughed as he neared Michael. He was short, slim built, and looked like a good gust of wind would knock him over. He tried a couple of times to join the police ranks but failed on several levels. Now he was resigned to working in the post room for the L.A.P.D. and was somewhat settled in his job.

Michael smirked back to the man, thinking he was lucky no one in the department, aside from his partner, was aware of who his present girlfriend was, and for the time being, he wanted to keep it that way.

“You know how it is, I’m sure,” Michael bantered goodheartedly, his eyes light with mirth.

“Not me,” Neil returned. “I’m a happily married man.”

“Well, married at least,” Michael joked.

He took the envelope from Neil, idly thinking he should stop by his apartment and pick up his mail or better yet, change his address with the post office.

Neil perched himself on the corner of Michael’s desk, an amused grin on his face. Michael flashed him a look of slight irritation, annoyed that the man hadn’t moved on since their talk and seemed intent on watching Michael’s face as he opened the letter. He clearly was choosing or was too dense to understand he wasn’t welcome anymore.

Michael turned his attention back to his mail and looked at the hand-written address on the envelope. He didn’t recognize the writing, and there was no return address, but it had a Los Angeles postmark.

He turned the letter over and pinched the clasp together before running his finger under the edge to open it, his hand reaching inside in one fluid motion.

His fingers registered the photograph before his mind did, gliding easily over the glossy paper, and he pulled his hand from them quickly.

Michael felt the hairs on his arms stand, and he instinctively tipped the envelope, dropping four 8x10 prints face down onto his desk. He reached down to his bottom drawer, quickly opening it and pulling a pair of latex gloves out of the box he kept there.

“Michael?” Jason asked, concerned as he slowly stood from his chair behind the desk directly across from Michael’s. He recognized the moment Michael became suspicious of his delivery, his body becoming tense and his jaw locking.

When Michael didn’t answer, Jason crossed the small space that separated their work areas to investigate, as well.

Michael snapped the gloves into place and looked up when Jason came to stand by his side, staring at the face-down images quizzically.

“What?” Neil asked his face eager, and his eyes swinging between Michael and Jason.

The two detectives didn’t answer him, their eyes intent on the white backs of the photo paper. Michael slowly reached out and pulled the first one free, turning it over and placing it back on his desk.

It was a glossy print of Maria, her eyes vibrant and expressive, a bright smile on her face. It looked like a professional portrait, maybe taken for The Deluca Group to use in brochures and on their website.

Neil whistled at the photo. “Hot babe,” he smiled, nudging Jason with his elbow, his eyebrows wriggling comically. At the disapproving looks from Michael and Jason, his grin slipped quickly.

Michael reached again and turned the next photo over. Another picture of Maria, but this time, it was more candid, and the image looked like it was a surveillance photo. She was sitting at a small table, obviously an outdoor café, drinking a cup of coffee. Her clothing was business style which Michael took to mean it was snapped during a break from her office.

The third photo was recent, and Michael recalled the time and place immediately. It showed the two of them on the beach, Maria looking stunning in her pale blue bikini, and Michael with his wet hair plastered to his head. Her arms were around Michael’s neck, his around her waist, and they were laughing at something. The disturbing thing about this photograph, other than it was clearly taken in a public place without their knowledge, was the crosshairs that had been added to the image around Michael’s head.

Someone had been watching them that day, and neither of them realized. That thought made him sick to his stomach.

The last picture was the most disturbing. Upon first glance, he could have sworn it was snapped at the crime scene they visited a few weeks ago regarding the recent murder at the Deluca home, but Michael noticed the subtle differences as he studied it. The green of the walls was brighter, the starkness of the red blood against the pale skin was more horrifying, and the unconscious form of a younger version of his girlfriend was all too real.

Across the bottom of the glossy print was scrawled the word Soon, just as it had been written on the wall of the dining room of Maria’s old home.

“Oh, fuck!” Jason breathed out.

Michael couldn’t tear his eyes from the last picture. As horrific as it was, he was hypnotized by it. The angle of her half naked body and the obvious gunshot wound to her side brought home to him how sick this bastard really was. When she joked about knowing how it felt to be shot, she wasn’t kidding, and his heart ached again for what she had been through at such a young age.

Jason rushed back to his desk and retrieved an evidence bag, quickly scrawling the time and date on the label section and Michael’s name.

“Do we put this in with the new murder or the old murders?” Jason asked as he returned to Michael’s desk.

Michael couldn’t answer his partner, as his mind was working overtime with thoughts on how to keep his stubborn girlfriend safe until he hunted down and caught this psycho.

“Michael,” Jason probed.

“Is he all right?” Neil asked, standing from his position and studying Michael intently.

“He’ll be fine,” Jason said quickly, flashing a look at the mailman. “Thanks, Neil.”

Neil nodded once, taking that as his dismissal and collected his trolley before moving off, looking back over his shoulder once before disappearing from their view.

Jason pulled on a pair of gloves and reached for the photos, stopping when Michael’s hand clasped his arm tightly.

“I need a copy of those,” he said, his voice emotionless and his face expressionless.

“Michael,” Jason started, ready to try and talk his partner and friend out of whatever he was thinking, but after one cold look from Michael, he nodded once and picked the pictures up before heading for the copier.

Michael sat for a few more minutes before he stood abruptly, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair in one fluid movement.

He passed by Jason at the copier just as his partner was finishing. Jason pressed the copies into Michael’s waiting hand.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said simply.

“I’ll process these and make the report,” Jason offered, knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep him in the building.

“Thanks,” Michael said, then turned swiftly and left, one thought on his mind: He needed to see Maria.

************************

Michael breezed through the reception area of The Deluca Group’s building, by-passing the long desk and heading straight for the bank of elevators, waving at building’s receptionists as he passed them.

A few minutes later, he stepped out onto the top floor.

The foyer here was smaller, though still large, and several people were in various places around the area. Some were seated on the plush couches waiting for an appointment with one of the Deluca’s, a few workers intent on their business, and the ever present receptionist sat behind the expensive glass desk.

“Good afternoon, Detective Guerin,” she smiled to him, and Michael nodded back, forgetting her name and shrugging it off as he ended down the corridor which led to Maria’s high-class office.

Kathleen was at her desk, her eyes lowered as she worked on something, and Riley’s desk was surprisingly empty.

“Hey, Kathleen,” Michael greeted. “Is she busy?”

Kathleen smiled at the rugged man who Maria cared for more than she realized.

“She’s always busy,” she answered lightly, “but I’m sure she’ll take a break for you. Want me to announce you?”

Michael moved toward the door, tossing over his shoulder. “Thanks, I’ll announce myself,” he grinned.

He paused with his hand on the brass door knob, looking at two guards now stationed outside her office.
“Full alert at all times,” he said, his voice low, and the two nodded in understanding before he entered the office.

The soft, gentle sound of classical music greeted him, and he paused by the door, observing her as she worked. Her laptop was open on the desk, off-center, and Maria was busy writing something on a large notepad, her hand moving gracefully as it danced over the paper.

“Are you here for business or pleasure?” she asked, though she didn’t look up, and Michael could hear the smile in her voice.

“Oh, I’ll take pleasure any time of the day,” he grinned back, moving further into her office and closer to her, feeling the tense nerves inside of him soothe when he observed she was safe and well.

Maria chuckled low in her throat as he walked across the room, shaking her head slightly. “And they say I have a one-track mind,” she said as she finished her sentence, placing her pen down on the pad and leaning back in her large chair.

Michael stopped in front of her desk, a lop-sided grin on his face as she pushed her chair from the desk slightly, her legs crossed demurely.

Michael couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering to the length of thigh she was showing him, and when his gaze
finally returned to her face, he found she was smirking at him.

He moved toward her, his eyes not leaving hers as he practically stalked around the furniture which separated them, and Maria rolled her chair back a little further.

Michael came to a stop in front of her, placing his hands on the arm-rests, and leaning down into her before gently brushing his lips against hers.

Maria sighed at the feel of his lips, thinking she would never tire of the way he kissed her, the way she felt it throughout her body, and the way something so simple made her tingle.

Michael’s hands found her wrists, and he tugged on them, raising her from the chair, their lips never separating.

Her hands rose to slide under his jacket, and she pushed it from his shoulders. Without a word, Michael let it drop to the floor. Her fingers wound into his hair as their kiss intensified, and Michael’s hands rested on her hips. He maneuvered her body, turning her from her standing position in front of the chair until she was pressed against the edge of her desk.

The movement caused the old burgundy, leather desk pad under the paper Maria had been writing on to move slightly, and Michael glanced down at the sound.

He pulled away from Maria when something white caught his eye, something hiding under the desk pad.

“What?” she asked, looking down as well to see what had turned Michael’s attention from her.

Michael stepped back, his imagination running wild at what could be lurking, hoping it wasn’t something like what he had received in the mail earlier.

He moved her aside without answering her, needing to be the first to see whatever it was, just in case. He gingerly lifted the old desk pad, half dreading what he would see.

“Michael?” Maria asked again, concern now in her voice.

Michael looked down at the white paper, moving the pad completely. What he saw was the last thing he expected.

It was a picture drawn in crayon by a child. A mom, a dad, and a little girl, all standing next to a large house, the childish figures smiling and holding hands. A big, fat, yellow sun shone in the sky, and a tree and flowers completed the picture. Across the top was written in a childish scrawl, I love you, Daddy, and under the figures was written, Mommy, Daddy, Maria. The paper had been laminated and secured to the desk with glue.

Michael turned to the woman beside him. “Very talented,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, be quiet. I was seven years old,” she returned, playfully slapping her hand against his shoulder.

“Why do you have it on your desk?” he asked, moving the pad aside so the picture was on full view.

“The picture kinda came with it,” Maria replied, pulling Michael over to her and pushing him down in the large desk chair, settling herself sideways in his lap.

Michael looked at the large desk and then to her, her fingers weaving into a space between the buttons of his shirt, realization suddenly dawning on him.

“Please don’t tell me that was your father’s desk?” he asked, his voice wavering slightly.

“Of course it was my father’s desk,” she answered looking at him.

“Shit, Maria. We had sex on that desk,” he moaned, disbelief in his voice.

“And…?”

“And… I feel like I disrespected your father somehow,” he told her.

“Oh please, it’s not like he never had my mother sprawled out on that desk,” she teased.

“Maria!”

“What! My parents were very sensual people, Michael. Where do you think I get it from? It’s highly probable
that I was conceived on that desk,” she informed him with a cheeky grin.

Michael looked at her disbelieving, and at her nod, he shook his head.

“Come on, Michael,” she moaned, her fingers playing with the collar of his shirt. “Don’t go all shy on me now.”

Michael grinned as his hand, which had been resting on her knee, slid higher and under the material of her shirt dress, gliding easily against her smooth skin.

Maria returned his smile before closing the space between them to capture his lips with hers, immediately demanding more from him than a sweet kiss.

They were lost in their passionate kiss, Maria’s hands in Michael’s hair again and his hand leaving her thigh to lift higher and mold against her breast. Maria squirmed in his lap as he caressed her through the silk of her dress at the same time her intercom buzzed to life.

Maria tore her lips from Michael’s, looking accusingly at her complicated desk telephone, knowing Kathleen’s voice would be on the other end of that hail.

“Ignore it,” she said harshly, turning back to Michael again and pulling him back in for another searing kiss.
It rang again, and this time, Kathleen didn’t wait for an answer. “Ms. Deluca, Mr. Bertini has arrived for your appointment.”

Maria moved away from Michael again. “Shit, I forgot about him.”

“Tell him to come back tomorrow,” Michael said, his voice gruff with lust as he popped opened a button on Maria’s dress to get more access to her skin.

“I can’t,” Maria answered her own voice regretful as she pushed Michael away from her.

“Maria,” Michael groaned, ignoring her and settling his lips against her neck.

“Ooh,” Maria sank back against him against, his lips teasing the tender flesh of her neck.

“Shall I make coffee?” Kathleen’s voice filled the room against.

“Fuck,” Maria hissed out, pushing Michael away from her away and moving from his lap before he could entice her into a compromising position with an important potential client waiting outside her office.

She hit the button on her intercom. “Yes, Kathleen. Thank you.” She knew her voice was harsh, but she was now horny, and instead of doing something about that with Michael, she would have to sit through a boring meeting with a pompous middle-aged man.

She turned back to Michael to watch as he picked his jacket from the floor. “I guess we’ll finish this at home,” he smirked to her.

She only nodded, and when he took a step toward, she held out her hand, keeping him an arms-length away.

“Keep your distance, Buddy, or I won’t be responsible of my actions.”

Michael laughed at that. Her hair was a little wild, and her lips were swollen, and he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms, but he respected her need to work.

“I’ll just get going then,” he said, rounding the desk and heading for the door.

“Michael,” she called her voice low but stopping him anyway. She hurried over to the door leading to her Uncle’s office, which had at one time been her father’s. “You need to leave by Uncle Mason’s office.”

Michael’s eyebrows rose. “You ashamed of me?”

“Of course not, but I …”

“Don’t worry, babe,” he grinned. “I know. It’s hard being a woman in a man’s world, right?”

“Something like that,” Maria smiled back, glad he understood.

“I’ll see you when you get home,” he returned, daring to lean in and draw her back into a kiss. He opened the connecting door and slipped into the other office, and before she closed the door behind him, he said,
“You might want to button your dress, Blondie.”

And then he was gone.


Maria quickly fastened the button on her dress as she walked back to her desk. She ran her fingers through her hair, straightened up her desk, casting a wistful smile to the picture she had drawn a lifetime ago before covering it again, and settled into her chair just as Kathleen knocked on the door.

“Mr. Bertini, I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” Maria said gracefully as Kathleen showed the middle-aged, stout man into her office. His brown hair was thinning Maria thought his eyes were beady and looked a little small for his head.

It seemed he tried to over-compensate for his lack of good looks with a superior air and an impeccable taste in clothes. His suit was bespoke and exquisite, his shoes expensive.

“Will Mr. Deluca be long?” the arrogant man asked, looking skeptically at the small frame of the young woman in front of him as he cross the room.

“There seems to be some misunderstanding,” Maria smiled sweetly, her eyes swinging to the younger man who settled into the chair next to Mr. Bertini. “I will be leading the meeting today.”

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Bertini said with a smile and a tone that said he was anything but. “I was led to believe that I would be dealing with one of the Deluca’s.”

“And you are,” Maria returned through clenched teeth, though her smile never slipped. “Maria Deluca.”

Mr. Bertini laughed condescendingly. “I’m sorry, dearie, but I don’t deal with underlings. I only deal with the bosses.”

“I am one of the bosses,” Maria told him, “and whether you deal with me or one of my uncles, your proposal will still cross my desk, and I still have a say in the outcome. So you can either pitch to me or rearrange to meet with one of my uncles, but I will assure you if you refuse this meeting, they will look less favorable on a second one.”

“I will not be spoken to like that from you, young lady,” Mr. Bertini ground out, standing from the chair, his face turning a shade of red.

Maria settled back in her large chair. “And I will not have my time wasted by you, Mr. Bertini. The name on the door says Maria Deluca. Vice President and CEO. My Uncle Mason is a very busy man as is my Uncle Henry, and I am a very busy woman so you can make your choice.”

The younger man grinned to her, finally stepping into the conversation. “I’m sure my father did not mean to disregard you, Miss Deluca. I’m sure he will be happy to discuss our business with such a strong, domineering woman.”

Mr. Bertini looked with shock at his son, but as the younger man settled into his chair, so he slowly returned to his seat.

********

Maria stormed through the wide front door of the mansion a few hours later, her mood darkened by her meeting with the arrogant Mr. Bertini and his son, Anthony.

The elder Bertini had taken every opportunity to belittle her, complaining at her lack of age and experience, despite the fact she had been working for The Deluca Group for the last three years. She took pride in her work and though she may lack in years, her experiences and success usually preceded her.

She knew what to do, she did it well, and it was the pompous asses like Bertini, who found it hard to deal with women in the first place, never mind those who were maybe 30 years younger than him that made her job difficult.

She was grateful his son Anthony had joined the meeting because if not, she might have needed to call Charlie for clean up after she was forced to take the meeting to a whole different level.

The card Anthony Bertini pressed into her hand at the end of their meeting, assuring her his cell number was on the reserve, was tossed in the trash as soon as he exited her office.

There was a time that crisp white card would have been placed somewhere safe, to be used when she was feeling particularly lonely and didn’t feel like trawling the clubs looking for someone to play with.

Maria smiled when she admitted to herself those days were over.

She knew Michael was home, his presence in the house surging through her as she felt the now familiar pricking at her senses whenever he was close, as though the cells in his body were calling out to hers, demanding they find their mate in the other’s body.

She looked up the marble staircase, knowing she should take her bags up to her room, but wanting to find Michael as soon as possible so he could pull her from her black mood.

The need to see Michael won, and she stopped one of housekeeping workers, a woman nearing 50 who had worked for The Company for as long as Maria could remember.

“Carmen, would you mind taking these to my room, please?” she asked pleasantly, not usually one to ask such tasks from the help.

“Of course, Miss Maria,” the Hispanic woman smiled eager to assist the woman she watched grow from a bubbly young girl to the spirited woman before her.

“Thank you,” Maria smiled, handing her briefcase and laptop bag over before slipping out of the light blazer she had worn to the office.

She immediately headed down the long hallway to her right, her instinct taking over as she honed in on Michael.

She again wondered if this almost symbiotic state between the two of them was something born from their abilities to bend and control the molecules around them. But, to be truthful, she didn’t really care what it was, she just knew she had been lost before she found Michael.

She moved through the house, letting her instincts guide her, trusting they knew where Michael currently was. She exited through the double glass doors which opened onto the back terrace, her eyes roaming the vast expanse of the estate behind the building.

She turned left, walking along the terrace while searching the area. Electricity seemed to course through her as she passed a window, and she stopped, moving closer to the open frame, her mind registering male voices coming from within.

“I can’t believe this sick bastard has the balls to do something to provoke us like this,” Sean was saying, and Maria inched closer to the glass, intrigued by what they were discussing.

“The man killed an innocent girl just to get our attention,” Max reasoned, and Maria stiffened slightly, now knowing they were talking about her parents’ killer.

“He’s not a man, he doesn’t even come close,” Michael hissed.

“Judging from this photo, I think my dad needs to step up protection on you, too, Michael,” Sean said, and Maria felt Michael bristle with irritation at that suggestion.

Maria didn’t dare glance into the window, in fact she was amazed Michael hadn’t realized she was there, but she didn’t need to look. She could almost feel the tenseness in the room, it was throbbing like a heartbeat.

“I don’t need protection,” he growled back.

Maria heard some rustling and then Sean, “This tells me you do.”

“All these photos tell us is there is someone out there who wants to finish what he started eight years ago,” Michael shot back. “And I’d go to hell before I let that happen.”

“Maybe Maria shouldn’t go on anymore missions,” Max speculated.

“She’s our best agent,” Sean returned, then added quickly, “Just don’t tell her I said that. My dad will never intentionally keep her back.”

“Not even to keep her safe?” Michael responded, his voice portraying his astonishment.

“And Maria won’t have it either,” Sean concluded, and Maria nodded, agreeing with her cousin. They couldn’t hold her back even if they tried, and her uncle understood that.

She could sense Michael’s agitation bubbling, threatening to explode, and there was more rustling, as if paper was being moved.

A warm breeze played with strands of her hair, lifting then from her face briefly as she listened in from outside, hating herself for eavesdropping but not moving none-the-less.

“Look at this,” he said, his voice rising, “look what he did to her when he had her last. You want that to happen again?”

“I know what he did,” Sean hollered back, “I saw it with my own eyes. I don’t need some picture to remind me.”

Maria balked from where she stood by the window, feeling the blood rush from her face, and her head becoming light and woozy.

They had a picture! A picture taken of her from the time she was held in her own house by a psycho?

She pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling suddenly nauseous. She didn’t remember him taken any photographs, but there were times when she been unconscious and could only speculate what had happened during them.

She didn’t know what made her feel worse: the fact he took pictures of her which she knew nothing about, or the fact he still had those images. For a moment, she wondered if he looked at them often, and she shuddered, suddenly overwhelmed by the seriousness of the situation.

She leaned against the warm red brick of the house, taking several deep breaths as she listened to the guys talking in the room.

“This can’t happen again,” Michael was saying. “I refuse to let anything happen to her, and trust me, I can be just as stubborn as she is.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Sean returned, his voice rising with each word. “You think I want to watch her go through all that shit again?”

“Hey, guys,” Max interrupted them, “Yelling at each other isn’t going to achieve anything.”

There was silence in the room for a moment, and Maria slid gracefully to the marble surface of the terrace beside the window, mindless that her silk of her dress was catching against the rough brick.

“I think it’s best we don’t tell her you got these pictures in the mail,” Sean said, his voice lowering to a normal tone. “The less she knows, the better.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” Max questioned. “Surely she would be able to better protect herself if she knew everything that was going on.”

“No, Sean’s right,” Michael answered. “If she is still intent on going out on missions, thinking this guy is out there, stalking her, would only distract her, and that’s when the shit hits the fan.”

Maria was shocked! Shocked they would keep something this important from her. Admittedly, she didn’t know everything that was happening, but she knew it involved her, Michael, and the monster who killed her parents. Over the years, she tried hard not to think about what he did to her, and instead focused on what he did to her parents, as it seemed the only way to stay sane in this fucked up messed.

“Well, I think you’re both wrong on this, but I will respect your wishes,” Max said, and Maria could detect the uneasiness in his voice.

“I’ll show these pictures to my dad,” Sean offered, and there was a slight sound of papers being gathered together.

“The originals are with the L.A.P.D.,” Michael informed him. “Since they are connected to an ongoing homicide case, I had no choice.”

“Ok,” Sean returned, and Maria heard movement and then a door opening and closing.

“I’m gonna say it again, Michael. I don’t think keeping this from Maria is wise,” Max said. “She has an innate ability to know when things are out of balance, and you are gonna be on edge. She’ll know something is wrong.”

Michael sighed deeply. “I hear what you’re saying, Max, and I understand. I just want… I just need…”

“You want to keep her safe,” Max replied softly, “I get that, Michael, but Maria is hardly the girl you can place on a pedestal and expect her to stay there. She’s been alone for a long time, not physically alone, because, let’s face it, living here, that’s not gonna happen. And her grandfather, uncles, and Sean would never let that happen, either, but in here,” and Maria imagined him placing his hand over his heart, “in here, she’s been alone for the last eight years. He didn’t only take her parents, he took a part of her, too, and she been searching for something to fill that hole within her.”

Max paused before continuing, and Maria strained her ears, interested in hearing whatever Max would say next. “She’s found that in you, Michael, and she won’t just sit by and let you take care of her, or allow the slightest chance that you could be taken from her. She’s a fighter, and she will fight to her last breath for you; for the both of you.”

“I don’t want her to have to fight,” Michael returned, his voice low, but his emotions were open for all to hear. “I want her to be free from all this, to not have those memories locked inside her.”

“That’s not gonna happen. You can’t magic away what happened. If it was that easy, it would have been done years ago.”

There was silence for a moment.

“But I think she will be free. You both will find this man, together, and then he will be gone, and you will grow old together, sitting here in matching rockers with a multitude of little Bender’s running around.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Michael sniffled, and Maria lifted a hand to her face, surprised to feel tears running down her face, too.

Max’s words resounded in her heart, and she knew what he was saying was true. She only wished, no, hoped, that what he said would come to pass.

She rubbed at her wet cheeks with her fingers, wiping the tears away, the tender moment passing as her anger built again.

They intended to keep this from her, treating her like a simpering woman who couldn’t defend herself.

That pissed her off.

********************************

Hello to everyone out there. I hope this last week has treated you well.

Carolyn : There certainly are a lot of twisted people out in the world. Thank you for your kind words.

Chapter 29

Maria stormed back through the vast house, and as she passed the door to the room where Michael and Max were still inside, probably talking about her and plotting to keep more things from her, her eyes narrowed accusingly.

She trusted Michael, trusted him more than any other person in this world. And it was more than trusting him with her body; her heart was something she didn’t give over as easily.

And she thought he understood that, but obviously not if he was going to make the decision to keep this from her.

She took the stairs two at a time, which was not easy in her heels and dress, and she stalked down the hallway to their room.

Her briefcase and laptop were lying neatly in the middle of the large bed, and she knew Carmen also would have hung her blazer in her huge, walk-in closet.

She quickly stripped out of her silk dress, finally noting the pulled threads in the fabric on the back and cursed as she threw it in the trash instead of her hamper, angry at the fact that Michael and Sean’s secrets destroyed one of her favorite dresses, even if she was the one who was to blame for the physical ruin of the dress and chose to sit and lean against the wall while listening to their conversation, knowing that the rough texture could potentially damage the fabric. She didn’t even bother with a shower, and she simply grabbed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, pulling them on hastily. She paused by the mirror before reaching into a drawer to snatch an elastic hairband, pulling her hair into a messy ponytail as she slipped her feet into a pair of worn sneakers.

The whole process took less than five minutes, and then she was out of the door again, heading back toward the stairs. She paused at the top, hearing Michael’s voice drift up from the hallway beneath her.

She turned quickly, knowing he knew she was home, just as she knew he was and headed for the east wing of the house instead. For the first time since she met Michael, she didn’t want to see him yet, and that bothered her… though it bothered her even more that he was choosing to keep information from her.

She continued in the direction of the east wing. It seemed like it had been ages since she had been in this area of the great house, and she paused briefly outside her parents’ room, placing her hand tenderly on the wood of the door and closing her eyes, remembering her happy, carefree parents for just a moment.

After a few seconds, she removed her hand and continued down the hallway, ignoring her old room completely. She rounded a corner and ran down a set of stairs that the older family members called ‘the back stairs.’ She wasn’t even sure some members of The Company knew about these plain, oak wooden stairs that led down and into the back of the kitchen’s vast pantry, and she was all for taking advantage of it tonight, wanting to avoid Michael at all costs for the first time since their meeting and get her head on straight before she did see him.

She moved from the pantry, grabbing a box of crackers on her way, and she entered into the bustling kitchen, peeking into a simmering pot as she passed. She froze when Greg, The Company’s chef, noticed her and crossed the kitchen in a flash, his eyes narrowing as he crossed his arms over his broad chest.

His hand gripped her arm, and he tugged her toward the door leading out of his domain and into the hallway.

“How many times do I have to tell you, Maria?” he bellowed. “Stay out of my kitchen!”

“What are you making for dinner?” she asked, twisting her head back to watch his assistants chopping, stirring, sautéing and doing over things at various stages of the cooking process.

“Join us in the dining room and find out,” was his terse reply as he attempted to maneuver her out of his space.

“Is it spaghetti? I hope it is. I’ve had a shit awful day,” she moaned.

Greg deposited her out in the hallway, “Go find your girls or your boyfriend and cheer up, Maria,” he told her before turning her around, patting her on her ass to send her on her way.

“And don’t spoil your dinner with those crackers,” he added as she headed in the direction he had started her on.

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Maria mumbled to herself as she walked down the corridor, shaking her head at the way some of the workers in this house still treated her like a child. She opened the box and pulling a few crackers out, munching happily as she wandered past a couple of rooms, smiling at few of her fellow agents before continuing on her search for her friends.

She finally found Tess in a moderate-sized room with big squishy couches and a large TV. Tess was snuggled up beside Kyle as they watched a program on the flat-screen, looking perfectly content together. She vaguely wondered if any other members of The Company were aware of their relationship, which was obviously becoming something more than the occasional grope fest and sneaky visits to each other’s rooms. Romantic relationships between agents were not completely frowned upon but weren’t encouraged either, especially if the two involved were partners in the field as well. Luckily for both Maria and Tess, their lovers were not their Company partners. Michael being Max’s partner and Tess’ was the tall, brown hair man, Ryan, who frequently joined the group in their activities.

Maria burst into the room and flopped onto the couch beside Kyle.

“Hey, Ria,” Tess greeted her friend cheerfully, peering up with big blue eyes from the other side of Kyle.

Maria mumbled a response, nibbling on a cracker before turning to Kyle. “Hey Kyle, you wouldn’t keep a secret from Tess, right?”

“A secret?” Kyle queried looking to his girlfriend, then back to Maria. He saw the blaze in her eyes and immediately answered, “No. Of course not.”

“I’m not talking about a little secret here, like the way her laughter can be really annoying at times,” Maria explained, waving her hand in front of her body in animation.

“What?” Tess exclaimed loudly, sounding offended by Maria’s observation.

“I’m talking about a huge secret, something you know would cause her pain and dredge up memories best forgotten,” Maria continued, ignoring Tess’ outrage at her previous statement and the shocked expression the shorter girl was shooting her.

“Well, yeah, I guess I would if…” he stopped, balking at the cold look Maria gave him. “I mean, no, I would tell her everything.”

“Men,” Maria huffed, knowing his first answer was the more truthful of the two. “Testosterone filled, stinking, good for nothing Neanderthals. All of the male gender is the same.”

Kyle swung his head to Tess, whispering. “And at those words, I think I’d better leave before she hands me my balls on a platter.”

“I think that might be wise,” Tess grinned, winking at the man.

“I’ll find you later,” Kyle said before placing a kiss on her cheek and rising to his feet to scamper from the room before Maria directed her anger toward another man at him.

“Sure,” she answered, though her eyes were on Maria, watching as the younger girl snacked angrily on a handful of crackers, seemingly unaware that Kyle was making his exit.

Once Kyle left, Tess scooted closer to Maria. “Ok, babe. What’s up?”

Maria exhaled slowly, finally putting the box of crackers down on the coffee table in front of the couch, leaning back and staring at her friend before uttering, “Michael lied to me.”

“I don’t believe that!” Tess exclaimed immediately, her eyes wide.

“Well, he hasn’t yet, but he will,” Maria returned.

Tess sighed at Maria’s overly dramatic statement. “Maria, you can’t dwell on things that might happen in your relationship. Of course, he’s gonna lie to you! You don’t really want to know if you’re getting fat, do you?”

“Yes, I do,” Maria said quietly, “but that’s not what I mean. He’s going to lie to me the next time I see him.”

“Have you had some bad tequila, babe?” Tess asked, confused. “Are you getting a fever?”

“No,” Maria replied gruffly, swatting Tess’s hand away when the other girl lifted it to test her forehead.

“Then tell me what’s actually wrong,” Tess whined.

Maria nervously nibbled on a nail, something she hadn’t done for years, and Tess was mildly worried at her friend’s behavior. Maria hadn’t been this jittery since her pregnancy scare just after she started her training for The Company. During that time, Tess was a new agent who had bonded with Maria during her training, and the entire experience was unnerving.

“I overheard a conversation I shouldn’t have,” she finally admitted, her green eyes meeting Tess’ clear blue.

“Oh. No good comes from eavesdropping, Maria,” Tess warned before her eyes darted to the door, and she leaned in a little closer. “What did you hear?”

“Apparently, Michael had some pictures delivered at work, and he’s not gonna tell me about them,” Maria confessed.

Tess moved back, her eyes wide. “Are these, ya know, porn pictures? Because Maria, all guys do that. You know this.”

“No, Tess,” Maria answered with a roll of her eyes.

“Then…”

“I think these pictures were of me.”

“You had naked pictures taken?”

“Tess, will you stop dwelling on the porn?” Maria cried. “This is serious.”

Tess closed her mouth and nodded to Maria, indicating she was ready to hear whatever the girl had to say.

“I think someone has been taking pictures of me, and one was of Michael and me together.”

Tess opened her mouth to say something, and Maria shook her head. “No, not that together. Together when we were at the beach, having fun, doing beach stuff.”

“Oh,” Tess finally understood. “Why?”

Maria swallowed nervously. “There was also one from before, ya know? When I was at home, just after my folks died.”

Tess looked confused for a minute, then finally caught on. “Oh, and the psycho sent these to Michael?”

“Yeah, and he and Sean have decided its ‘best’ not to tell me,” Maria finished.

“So he’s gonna lie because he’s not gonna tell you something you already know,” Tess clarified, her brows furrowing in concentration.

“But he doesn’t know I know, and he should tell me,” Maria whined.

“Who should tell who what?” a new voice asked, and the girls turned to see Isabel enter the room.

Maria quickly retold her tale to Isabel while the taller girl helped herself to some crackers from Maria’s discarded box, pausing slightly when Liz entered the room before starting from the beginning once again to catch the doctor up on what was happening.

“So they don’t want you to see that horrid picture. I don’t see the problem,” Isabel finally surmised when Maria finished.

“They wanna put me in this little box and keep me safe,” Maria moaned.

“What’s wrong with that?” Isabel asked with a shrug of one shoulder.

“What’s wrong with that?” Maria exclaimed loudly. “I can do more damage than the three of them put
together. That’s what’s wrong with that.”

“But they are guys,” Tess observed, like it was obvious. “They have this inherent thing where they have to protect the woman. It’s a thing, a real thing. Right, Liz?”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Liz laughed, “but yeah, if you really care about a person, you would do all you can to protect them.”

“I don’t need protecting,” Maria mumbled, folding her arms across her chest, a pout forming on her lips.

“Maria, there is a crazed person out there who is intent on killing or something worse,” Liz continued.
“Michael loves you. Why can’t you see that and acknowledge the fact he’s gonna want to keep you safe and out of harm’s way? He knows what this guy did the last time he got his hands on you. He doesn’t want that to happen again; none of us do, and I’m sorry, but…”

“But what…?”

“If it came down to a choice of siding with Michael and keeping you safe, or siding with you and watching you die, Michael will win every time.”

“That goes for me, too,” Tess added.

“And me,” Isabel said with a nod. “This death wish of yours has got to end.”

“I… I… I don’t want to die,” Maria admitted softly.

“And we have Michael to thank for that. You have to be honest with yourself, Maria. Your lifestyle isn’t exactly the most wholesome or safest,” Tess informed her seriously.

“Occupational hazards,” Maria huffed half-heartedly.

“You take crazy risks when out on missions,” Tess provided as evidence.

“That’s my job,” Maria reasoned.

“You drink alcohol like it’s water,” Liz added. “It’s a wonder your liver still functions.”

“Only because my body refuses to be effected,” Maria countered.

“You pick men up like they’re gonna suddenly disappear,” Isabel finished.

“That’s not having a death wish. It’s called living… Being young and enjoying life,” Maria returned.

“Until it kills you,” Liz whispered.

“Hey, when did this turn into a Maria bashing?” Maria moaned. “Michael is gonna lie to me about receiving these photos. This concerns me, like majorly concerns me, and I think I have a right to know.”

The other three girls looked at each other, each with their own opinion on the matter.

Tess felt he should tell Maria. How could she protect herself if not?

Liz thought Michael had every right to keep it to himself, knowing his only thought would be to keep Maria safe.

Isabel admired Michael and the strength of his feelings for her friend, but also recognized Maria needed to be aware that things were not completely safe for her.

Maria looked at her friends before sighing. “Fundamentally, I understand his reasoning for not telling me about the photos, but how can you build a relationship on lies?”

The three girls exchanged a glance before Isabel and Tess both encouraged Liz to ask the important question.

“Maria,” she started tentatively, “have you told Michael all of what happened to you, ya know? Everything.”

“Of course, he knows what happened,” Maria returned, though her eyes didn’t meet any of the girls in the room.

“No, I mean, does he know everything? More than you’ve told anybody, including Paul,” Liz clarified.

Maria turned her head, looking away and down onto the hardwood flooring. “He doesn’t need to know that.”

“Isn’t that lying?” Isabel ventured cautiously.

“No, he doesn’t need to know the details. What good would come of that?” Maria justified her inability to talk about her confinement with her boyfriend.

“Let’s just imagine that Michael feels exactly the same way about not telling you about the photos? What good would it do?”

“A hell of a lot,” Maria replied vehemently.

“And maybe Michael thinks the same thing. He may not want to know the details, but he needs to for your relationship to survive,” Liz theorized.

“Liz, I already have one shrink,” Maria sighed. “I don’t need another.”

“We just think you are both holding information back for the good of the other,” Tess entered the conversation, her eyes swinging to Liz and Isabel for confirmation, and the two other girls nodded their agreement.

“Lying by omission,” Isabel nodded.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” Maria huffed.

“So what are you gonna do?” Liz asked Maria gently.

Maria thought for a minute, think over what the girls had said.

“I’m gonna act like I don’t know until he tells me,” Maria said confidently.

“What if he doesn’t?” Isabel probed.

“He will,” Maria answered with a knowing grin.

“Ah, she’s gonna withhold sex,” Tess said knowledgeably.

“Now let’s not get crazy,” Maria laughed. “That would never work. I’d crack first.”

“So…” Liz asked again, her hand moving in an encouraging circle.

“Nothing, I’m just gonna wait. He’ll tell me,” Maria reassured them.

“How do you know?” Isabel questioned.

“I just know,” she paused before continuing.

****************************

Maria finally allowed Michael to find her not long after, and true to her word, she acted like nothing was wrong as she and the girls continued a light conversation after their heavier-hitting one from earlier.

Maria’s friends chimed their greeting to Michael as he moved into the space easily, and they sat back, observing his interaction with their friend, who was sprawled out on one couch, eating a few more crackers.

“I thought you were home,” Michael grinned, flopping down on to the couch and pulling her into his lap.
“How did the meeting go?”

“Mr. Bertini is a bigoted shit who thinks all corporate bosses should have dicks,” she moaned, flashing back to her afternoon meeting with the insufferable Bertinis.

“I don’t think you should have a dick,” Michael grinned.

“Amen to that,” Maria grinned back, snuggling into him as Michael wrapped an arm around her.

She could sense Michael was holding something back. His body wasn’t exactly tense, but he was definitely on-edge. She guessed this would be a test for their relationship. And what if he did tell her? Would that mean she had to disclose the horrific things she had been through to him? Certainly the two weren’t the same.

“Maria?”

“Mmhm?” she answered distracted by her thoughts.

“I asked if you’re ready for dinner. Personally, I’m starved,” Michael smiled.

“Ooh, Spaghetti,” she grinned back. “Yeah, let’s go eat. I believe we started something earlier we need to finish.”

Michael laughed as she wriggled her eyebrows at him and lifted her from his lap.

“Yeah, she’d definitely crack first,” Tess smirked as she, Isabel and Liz led the group from the room.

“What’s she talking about?” Michael asked Maria, following behind the three girls.

“Who knows?” Maria returned with a shrug.

*********************

Maria smiled up at Michael when he finally lifted his head from her neck. Rivets of water were trickling down his body from the shower spray as he leaned completely into her, his legs shaking slightly, and he hoped his weight would keep her body upright, because he didn’t think he could anymore, and he would hate to see her fall to the tiled floor of the shower.

They breathed in tandem for several seconds before Michael rested his head against her shoulder again as Maria ran a hand through his wet hair.

“Maybe we should move into the bedroom,” she whispered.

“Can’t…move,” Michael returned, though she could feel his lips against her skin stretch into a smile.

“Come on, big boy. I’m getting cold,” she whined.

“I’ll warm you up, babe,” Michael said glibly.

Maria chuckled as she pushed gently on his shoulder, moving him back a little.

The movement separated them slightly, and Maria slipped against the wall. Her eyes opened wide in surprise as Michael quickly caught her, wrapping his arms around her and taking his weight on his own two feet again.

“Ok, maybe we’ll take this to the bedroom,” he laughed.

“Smart move, Spaceboy.”

Michael turned around and shut off the water, Maria still in his arms, before making his way to the glass door and out of the huge shower he had so easily become accustomed to. He paused briefly to collect two towels before carrying her into the bedroom.

“I think you can put me down now,” she whispered against his ear, finishing her sentence with a kiss just below his lobe.

He dropped one towel before allowing her to slowly lower her legs to the floor, wrapped the large fluffy towel around her once she had her balance.

Maria watched as he bent to retrieve the other towel, then he wrapped it around his waist, smirking at her pout.

She moved over and into her over large closet, seating herself at the vanity in the room and began combing out her hair.

Michael watched her from the door as he leaned against the frame until Maria caught his eyes in the mirror.

“I have something to tell you,” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

“What?” she asked, her hand stopping mid movement and her eyes showing concern.

Michael stepped further into the room, standing behind her and taking the comb from her hand.
Several seconds passed as he gently drew the comb through her hair, concentrating hard on his task. This was a whole new level of intimacy for him, and while it was unnerving, it felt natural.

Finally, he lifted his eyes to meet hers again in the large mirror before them. She was watching his every movement.

“I received some pictures in the mail at work today…”

Maria’s heart beat double time in her chest. He was telling her after everything she had overheard earlier about the boys not informing her of this new turn of events. He was going against his own wishes by telling her. It made her both exhilarated and terrified, as she knew if Michael was going against his initial reaction, she was going to have to do the same and eventually disclose all the details of her detainment so many years ago that still played a role in her life, whether she wanted to or not.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and they were… they were photographs of you.” There, he said it.

“Me?” Maria returned, her eyes wide as she watched him through the mirror.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, leaning forward to place the comb back on the vanity table.

She narrowed her eyes. “What kinda pictures?”

“A corporate portrait…”

‘Ok, that wasn’t too bad,’ she thought.

“…maybe a surveillance photo…”

Ok, that was a little creepy.

“…one of you and me together at the beach…”

More than a little creepy. She held her breath, knowing the worst was to come.

“And...one… one of…” his voice hitched.

“It’s ok, Michael,” Maria stopped him, standing from the vanity and turning to him. “I’m sorry, but I already know about the pictures.”

“What?”

“I was looking for you when I got home from work, and I accidentally overheard you talking to Sean and Max about them,” she told him nervously.

“Accidentally!” Michael looked at her with wide, amber eyes as she nodded.

“The window was open, and I was outside,” she explained weakly, her voice low.

“I thought I felt you,” Michael grinned. His smile soon disappeared. “You heard everything?”

Maria nodded again.

“I can’t believe you would do that.”

“I can’t believe you guys weren’t gonna tell me!” It was her turn to be outrages at his statement. “Only Max
felt I should know. You can’t keep these things from me.”

“You shouldn’t be listening through windows.”

“I wasn’t intentionally listening to anything! I was looking for you.”

“But when you found me, you didn’t let us know you were there. You just stood and listened in.”

“Because you were talking about me.”

“Because we want to keep you safe and alive.”

“I’m not a child, and you can’t treat me like one,” was her response.

“No, you not a child, and you haven’t been since this whackjob got his hands on you. You think I want that to happen again?” he shot back, his voice rising.

“You think I do?” she yelled back at him.

“Maria, I’m not arguing with you on this.”

“Well, it sure seems like you are.”

There was a moment of silence, and they both stared at each other for a few long moments.
Maria’s voice broke the silence. “I want to see them.”

“Absolutely not,” Michael returned, shaking his head.

“Why? They are of me, aren’t they?”

“Maria, there’s one he took after he shot you. I don’t think you should see it.”

“Why not?” she challenged, steeling herself at the thought that the creep took a photograph of her like that.
“I was there, I know what happened, and I know what to expect.”

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Michael,” she repeated softly, “please.”

Michael sighed. “Your uncle has them.”

“I know,” she returned with a smirk.

Michael shook his head again, a slight smile on his face. Of course, she knew, and she could have just gone and seen the photos herself. But she didn’t. She wanted to hear it from him and see them WITH him.

Fifteen minutes later, Michael and Maria entered into Mason’s office.

They had quickly dressed in comfy sweats and headed down to her uncle’s domain after no more discussion of the images, Maria having won out.

Maria wasn’t bothered by the fact that her uncle was out for the evening. She knew the images would have been placed in the safe he used specifically for information regarding The Company. And since she was a high ranking member, she had access to that safe.

She quickly entered the combination into the door of the wall safe found behind a large portrait of her great-grandfather and swung open the safe, fingering the documents lying on top of the various items in the space. Michael reached in past her and grabbed the manila envelope he knew contained the photographs, pulling it out and handing it to her.

She hesitated, second guessing herself for a moment, when she finally had the pictures in her hand, before turning with determination and sitting in her uncle’s chair behind the large mahogany desk.

She opened the beige folder and breathed easy when she saw her Deluca Group portrait first.

That wasn't so bad.

The surveillance image disturbed her more than she thought it would, and she fought a shiver. To know someone had been watching her for an unspecified amount of time and had gone undetected unnerved her.

She looked at Michael when she saw the one of the two of them, now understanding Sean’s words to him about needing protection himself, zeroing in on the crosshairs that were etched around Michael’s head in the image and feeling a sudden chill run through her body at the intended threat.

“Sean’s right,” she said. “We should up your security.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Michael returned tight-lipped.

Maria looked at him, her hand reaching out to stroke his cheek, his skin rough with stubble against her hand.
“But I do,” she whispered tenderly.

Michael turned his head and placed a kiss in her palm, knowing the worse photo was to come.

Maria’s fingers shook slightly as she reached out to turn the last image over, but she forced herself to look.

She inhaled sharply at the immortally captured image of herself, half naked and with a gunshot wound in her torso. She instantly lifted her hand to her side covering where the bullet would have been. Surprisingly, that was the only wound that hadn’t scarred her, her swift placement in a unit seeing to that.

She turned the picture back over, not wanting to look at it any longer, her mind wondering if the sicko had more images like this one and if he looked at them often.

A series of images flashed through her mind of times he could have taken photographs of her and none of them were pretty. She shook her head, dispelling her memories.

Michael watched as she looked at herself in the picture, her face expressionless, though he could image the emotions bubbling within her. He took the photographs back from her, returning them to the folder and placing them back in the safe, closing the door and replacing the painting without another word.

“You don’t need to see that anymore,” he told her quietly.

He turned back to see she hadn’t move from her uncle’s chair, her vision unfocused as her mind tried to comprehend why this photo in particular was now in their possession.

He studied her for a moment, wondering what she was thinking when a question came to his mind. He tried to push it down, but he needed to know. He needed to know to protect her and he needed to protect her.

“Maria,” he started slowly. “What’s his name?”

Maria shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut tight, and she was unable to talk for a minute as the image of herself was permanently etched into her brain even though Michael had put it away.

“This could help us. Don’t you understand that?” Michael tried again.

“I can’t say it,” she returned, her voice harsher than she meant it to be. “Can’t you understand that?”

Michael closed the space between them, not wanting to argue with her again, and he moved her from the large chair, wrapping his arms around her slim figure, pulling her into a hug in the middle of her uncle’s office.

“I understand, baby. I do,” he said gently into her ear.

Maria turned her face to his searching his eyes for any sign he didn’t understand. She didn’t find anything but acceptance there, and she leaned into him even more, relishing in the feel of his arms around her.
Without another word, they returned to their room, both subdued by the day and what it had brought for them. Michael stripped out of his sweats and climbed into the bed wearing only his boxers while Maria changed into one of his old t-shirts he brought from his apartment.

“I need to go by my apartment and collect my mail,” he told her as she followed him into the bed, feeling the need to fill the silence between them.

“I’ll come with you if you want,” she suggested, lying on her side to face him.

Michael mirrored her position. “Sure. Then maybe we can stop at the post office and change my address.”

Maria smiled, knowing that meant he had no plans of leaving her any time soon. They had survived their first argument, and she was sure if it hadn’t been for the disturbing picture of herself they had just seen, they would so be having make-up sex right now.

“Daniel,” she whispered low, so low Michael almost missed it.

“What?” he asked, holding his breath in anticipation, understanding the pain this was causing her.

“His name is Daniel,” she repeated, just as quietly. “He never told me his last name.”

“But we know it starts with a P,” Michael said, amazed she said it. “Maria, thank you. This could really help.”

Maria just nodded, tears forming in her eyes.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, hopeful.

Maria shook her head, unable to talk.

Michael let it go, knowing it must have been a big step her just saying his name. He reached out and drew her closer, settling her against his chest, hoping his arms would keep away the nightmares today’s events might conjure.

**************************

Hello to all out there today. Hope your weekend to going well, and for those in the states, I hope you all have a fantastic Fourth of July.

Carolyn: I’m glad your instincts were right


Chapter 30

Liz trudged wearily down the long corridor, coming back to the residential side of the mansion from the addition at the back of the huge house that housed the Medical Center. It had been an unexpectedly long night for her. Things started off slow, but then, the two agents working on a mission returned injured, one of them with a knife protruding from his thigh, but thankfully, the target had been eliminated.

Liz removed the knife with ease, and now Luke, the non-bender in the duo of Luke and David, was sleeping in a unit and would wake in a few hours.

Liz intended to be there when he awoke, but the need for nutrition pulled her from her office. She was one of the few people Greg would allow into his kitchen unattended, and she was grateful of that fact, as sometimes she skipped meals.

She passed one room and then stopped, the low lighting making her pause, and she peered in.

She looked around the room and seeing nothing out of place, she turned to leave. It was then she heard a small sniffle.

Liz cautiously moved deeper into the room, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness of the atmosphere.
She stopped short when she found Maria sitting on the floor, her back against the wall and her knees drawn up in front of her, her arms wrapped around her legs, hugging them to her body. In front of her was a bottle of Jack Daniels and a glass. Liz noted the bottle had yet to be opened.

“Maria?”

Maria sniffled again, wrinkling her nose slightly, though didn’t move to greet her friend. “I’m ok,” she said in a low voice.

Liz crouched down beside her. “Oh, honey. You’re not ok. Where’s Michael?”

“He’s asleep. I didn’t want to wake him.”

“Did you guys argue about those photographs?” Liz asked her gently, settling onto the floor next to her.

“A little,” Maria admitted. “He told me about them, and I told him I knew he had them.”

Liz smiled and nodded, proud of her friend. “Honesty is always the best policy.”

“I saw the photographs,” Maria informed the brunette after a moment’s hesitation.

“What? Why would you want to do that?”

“I needed to,” Maria replied her voice low.

“Why?” Liz practically pleaded.

Maria shrugged as she lifted one ankle and rotated it slowly as if to relieve cramp or tension.

“What are you doing now?” Liz asked.

“Thinking.”

“What are you thinking about?”

Again, Maria shrugged, and this time it was accompanied with another sniffle. Liz strained in the dim light to see if Maria was crying, but as far as she could tell, the blonde’s eyes were dry.

Liz’s eyes slowly moved over to the bottle, and Maria smiled slightly. “I haven’t opened it.”

“I can see that,” Liz said, her smile matching her friends.

“I’m trying to be responsible,” Maria offered.

“How’s that working for you?”

“I want a fucking drink,” Maria shot back, her eyes narrowing to Liz. “Have one with me?”

Liz was impressed Maria had yet to take a drink. It wasn’t like she was an alcoholic: she just had a high toleration for the stuff. When upset, she usually had no hesitation in reaching for the bottle to drown the memories, and it was obvious whatever those pictures portrayed had shaken Maria.

“One?” Liz smiled skeptically.

“Or two,” Maria grinned back.

“We’ll have one and then you can go back to bed. I’m surprised Michael hasn’t realized you aren’t there.”

“Liz, that man would probably sleep through an earthquake,” Maria informed her as she finally opened the bottle in front of her.

She poured a liberally amount into the glass and grinned as she lifted it to pass to Liz.

Liz shook her head. “No, Maria. You know that’s too much for me.” And she swiftly moved from the floor to open a cabinet by the window and retrieved another glass. She moved back to Maria, standing in front of her.

“Do you wanna move to the couch?” she asked, and when Maria shook her head, she returned to place on the floor beside her.

“Not too much, Ria,” she warned as Maria took the glass from her and started to tip the bottle. “I still have to work tonight.”

Maria poured her about half the measure she had, then quickly replaced the mouthful she had taken when Liz was looking for a glass.

“How’s Luke?” she asked as she placed the bottle back on the floor.

“He’s in a unit and will be fine,” Liz told her.

“Was it bad?”

“I’ve seen worse.”

They were both silent as they sipped on their whiskey for a moment.

“How are things going with Max?” Maria asked with a sly grin.

“Better,” Liz returned, her own smile dazzling.

“Better as in, you’re getting some?” Maria probed, nudging her shoulder against Liz’s.

Liz looked down as a blush colored her cheeks, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

“Well…” Maria encouraged with a circling motion of her hand.

“I wouldn’t say I’m getting what you are thinking I’m getting,” Liz revealed.

“Oh. Is he stalled on foreplay?” Maria asked her voice sympathetic.

“At my request,” Liz said.

“What?! Are you crazy, girl? You should be hitting that on a regular basis,” Maria exclaimed loudly.

“Hitting that!” Liz returned her eyebrows high on her forehead.

“Hitting, banging, fucking. It’s all the same,” Maria grinned, saucily winking at her shy friend.

Liz shook her head at her friend’s choice of words, a grin on her face again. “We are taking things slowly at my request.”

“Really?” Maria scrunched her nose at this news.

“Yes, Maria. I’m happy with the way things are progressing. I don’t want to rush into it.”

“Liz, it’s been two years since you and Max started down this road,” Maria groaned dramatically. “You go any slower, and I’ll be an old woman in my grave before you can regale me with the sordid details.”

Liz laughed out loud at her friend’s antics. “You do remember I’m older than you, right?”

Maria shrugged before taking a large drink from her glass.

Liz followed her, wincing as the liquid hit the back of her throat.

“Max has been hurt in the past,” she explained, “I want him to be truly sure of this relationship before we do the final deed.”

“Do the final deed,” Maria giggled. “And you think my choice of words is weird.”

“No, I just think you are weird,” Liz returned, bumping her shoulder against Maria’s.

“Because I love you, I’ll let that one slide,” Maria retorted, point a finger at her friend with the hand she was hold her almost empty glass.

“You’ll let that one slide because you know it’s true,” Liz shot back before taking another sip.

Maria smirked to her friend. “Being normal is boring and sucks.”

“Amen to that,” Liz beamed, and the two girl clinked glasses and finished their drinks.

“Ok,” Liz mumbled as she stood. “I really need to get something to eat. Do you want to join me?”

Maria stood, as well, bringing the bottle with her and placing it on the table.

“No, it’s ok. I think I’m just gonna go back to bed.”

“Ok,” Liz smiled before pulling Maria into a hug. When they pulled away, she asked. “You ok?”

“I am now. Thanks for distracting me, Liz,” Maria assured her.

“That’s what friends are for,” Liz reasoned as they moved from the room together.

“Well, you’re the best,” Maria grinned before hugging her once more and then headed back down the
corridor to the stairs, her bedroom and Michael, as Liz took off in the other direction and the kitchen.

*****************

The next day passed without any life-altering happenings, Luke finally waking in his tub healed and the other agents rallying around him, regaling him with tales of missions gone awry over dinner that evening, each comparing non-existence scars of wounds they had received in the line duty but which had healed without leaving a mark thanks to the medical units.

Mason Deluca requested a meeting with Max after dinner, and Max headed to his office anxiously, wondering what his boss had in mind and why he was called into his private domain.

He soon got his answer.

Max couldn’t believe what Mason was telling, and he was sure he had an idiotic look on his face as he reached out his hand and took the folder from his boss.

Mason smiled slightly to the man in front of him. “You understand you will only have one shot at this?” he asked.

Max nodded mutely.

“Michael will be with you, naturally, but if you want another team, as well, that can be arranged. You’ll have point on this mission, of course,” Mason said as he leaned back in his chair.

“How?” was all Max could ask, his vocabulary failing him for the moment.

“We’ve been tracking him for a while now, and he has made a few mistakes. It has to be now, Max.”

Max nodded again, finally looking up. “Thanks.”

Mason smiled as he watched Max strode purposely from the room.


Max walked with determination through the great house, the folder gripped tightly in his hand with one destination on his mind.

He took the stairs two at a time as he bounded up and then headed down the corridor, reaching the door at the end in no time.

He rapped sharply on the oak door and waited impatiently for it to be opened.

“Max!” Maria said with surprise when she opened to door to him. She noticed his agitated look immediately, and her eyebrows furrowed with concern. “Is everything ok?”

“Is Michael here?” he asked instead of answering her question.

“Sure,” she smiled and opened the door wider for him.

It was at this point he noticed Maria was dressed in a pair of short, gray, sweat shorts and a worn t-shirt bearing the words ‘Beer Pong Champion’ across her breasts.

He cautiously stepped over the threshold of their room, suddenly aware he had never been inside Maria’s room before.

Michael was relaxing on a large coach in what could be considered the sitting area of the room, a couch and two armchairs placed invitingly around a large marble fireplace, which was ready to light at any given moment.

“How come your room is three times the size of mine?” Max asked distractedly.

Maria raised a delicate eyebrow to him. “You expect me to answer that?” she smirked to him as she settled on the arm of the couch beside Michael.

Max grinned back. Of course, she would have a huge room. This was more her house than another’s, the building having been in her family for generations. “I guess not.”

“Is everything ok?” Michael asked, his arm wrapping around Maria’s waist, and he leaned against the couch arm.

Max shifted his weight between his feet before deciding to settle into one of the chairs.

“Remember when I told you about Vincent D’Angelo?” Max asked quietly.

Michael thought for a moment before recalling Max’s tale which had brought him to The Company: The death of his parents at the hands of the notorious crime boss D’Angelo in Las Vegas.

“I remember,” Michael replied, his expression unreadable.

“He’s here,” Max said and leaned forward to hand the folder with the details of D’Angelo’s itinerary for the next day.

“I have this one shot, and that’s it,” Max continued.

Michael looked to Maria, who was nibbling on her lip in thought, before turning back to Max, questioningly.

“I need my partner on this,” Max explained, looking hopefully to Michael.

“Of course, you don’t need to ask,” Michael returned quickly.

Maria nibbled her lip harder. Having Michael and Max go out against the boss of one of the biggest crime syndicates in Las Vegas was something she wasn’t too pleased about, but she would never stand in the way of a fellow agent taking down the one who killed his family.

She looked expectantly at Max, almost bouncing out of her seat.

“Maria, would you and Sean like to help on this?

“What?!” Michael piped up before stating, “No way.”

“Michael,” Maria warned.

“But, babe, remember the bad guy who is out there intent on killing you,” Michael reasoned.

Maria patted him soothingly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, honey. We’ll take care of him after this.”

She turned to Max. “Yes, Max. We would love to be on your team and help take this bastard down.”

“It will have to be tonight,” Max explained. “Do you think we can coordinate something in time?”

“Of course, we can,” Maria returned, standing from her seat on the arm of the couch and crossing the room as she spoke, heading for the closet. “Sean is in the gym, I think.”

She popped her head back out through the wide double doors that led to the closet. “Hey, we could try some of Alex’s new gadgets.”

“Good idea.” Max grinned, happy to have her onboard despite the bitching he would undoubtedly receive from Michael and Sean when it was just the three of them.

Max turned to Michael, the smile still on his face, which fell the instant he caught his partner’s expression.

“She’s the best,” Max said, by way of explanation to wanting Maria and Sean with him during this mission.

“I thought we had agreed it was best Maria didn’t go on any missions for the time being,” Michael hissed back, trying to keep his voice low so Maria couldn’t hear him.

“Yeah, and I think I told you trying to protect her by pushing her out was not the wisest decision,” Max shot back, his eyes darting to the closet.

“I can hear you,” Maria’s voice filtered through from the closet.

“I’ll meet you down in Alex’s lab,” Max said quickly, turning to leave the room, he paused by the door. “Do you want me to talk to Sean?”

Maria returned to the room, now wearing a dark pair of jeans and pulling a black t-shirt over her head. “No, it’s ok. We’ll let him know what’s happening.”

Max nodded once before pulling open the door, heading back to his own room so he could change into some more suitable mission clothes.

Maria moved closer to Michael, who was still in his position on the couch. She settled into his lap, her knees on either side of his thighs and her hands resting lightly on his shoulders.

“Michael,” she started, her expression serious as she looked him straight in the eye, “I’m only gonna say this once, so listen carefully. I love that you are all protective of me, maybe more than I should be, but you can’t stop me from doing my job. I’m an agent, a fucking good agent, at that, and to be able to do my job, there is always gonna be an element of danger. Now, you may think that element has increased recently with that murder and those sick photos, but Michael, that guy has been out there all this time. He could have re-emerged at any time during the past eight years. Why he has chosen to do so now is beyond me, but that threat has always been there, and I have lived with it and will continue to live with it until he is dead. I won’t alter my life because of him. He’s already taken so much from me. I won’t allow him to dictate how I live my life.”

Michael’s hand, which had settled against her hip, rose to cup her cheek. “You are incredible, ya know that, right?”
Maria gave a sly smile and a shrug of one shoulder as if to say ‘of course, I know that.’

“I just don’t want anything to happen to you,” Michael returned sincerely, his fingers brushing against her cheek.

“I’m not the same person I was eight years ago,” she replied, moving to rest her head against his shoulder, their bodies pressing together intimately. “I’m stronger than I was back then, he would never be able to… to… use me like he did.”

Michael swallowed hard. This was the closest she had been to actually telling him something of what happened.

“I know this goes beyond your natural instincts,” she continued, “but you have to trust I can take care of myself.”

“I trust you, babe, completely. It’s the fucker out there I don’t trust.”

“Forget about him,” Maria whispered, sitting back up to face him again.

“I can’t,” Michael returned his voice just as low as hers.

Maria gave him a sexy smile as she leaned closer, bring her lips to his and caressing his plumpness with her own. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders again, bringing their bodies closer as she deepened their kiss, demanding entrance into his mouth, which he gave instantly. She then let him lead the kiss as he brushed his tongue against hers, almost seductively, teasing her.

Maria reluctantly pulled away from him, her heart beating triple time, and her lungs demanding oxygen. She rested her forehead against his, her eyes closed, before she opened them slowly to gaze straight into his golden whiskey orbs.

“We’d better stop now,” she breathed out.

“Before we can’t stop,” Michael agreed.

Maria nodded twice before returning her lips to his, the impulse to do so too strong to ignore.

Michael chuckled a little under the pressure of her velvet lips, and he gripped her waist, lifting her from his lap so she was standing, the pout on her face making him smile.

“Spoil sport,” she grumbled.

“Tease,” he bantered goodheartedly. “We have work to do.”

Maria grinned at that. “Yes, we do.” She looked at his casual outfit of sweat bottoms and a T-shirt. “You’d better change,” she instructed.

He flashed her his lopsided grin as he bypassed her and crossed the room to enter into the closet.
Maria moved to a dresser and reached for a hairbrush in one of the top drawers.

“Can you find my black beanie, babe?” she called to him as she raked the brush through her blonde hair. She chose to ignore his mumbled response about not being able to find anything in the vast room she called a closet.


Twenty minutes later, and they entered into the large gym where Michael started his training. He had returned to this room multiple times since then to use the incredible equipment The Company housed to keep their agents and supporting staff in shape.

Sean was currently on a treadmill, running at a steady pace, his eyes fixed on the flatscreen TV that was mounted on the wall in front of the bank of exercise machines.

Maria moved over to him, Michael trailing behind.

When she stepped in front of Sean’s machine, her cousin looked slightly bewildered to see her, his eyes taking in her attire, and he slowed the machine down.

“Are we working?” he asked between taking haggard breaths.

Maria nodded and leaned over, tweaking with the machine’s control pad, and it began to wind down, slowing Sean more until he came to a stop.

Sean stepped from the machine and finally noticed Michael, his outfit almost matching Maria, the dark colors not lost on Sean.

“Are we double-teaming?” he asked, then laughed at his double entendre before stopping at Maria’s raised eyebrow. “Not that that would ever happen. You’re my cousin, for fuck’s sake, and Michael,” he turned to look at the taller man, the passive look on his face speaking volumes. “I don’t think Michael shares well.”

“C’mon, Curly,” Maria smiled grabbing his arm and dragging him from toward the door. “You need to change and meet us in Alex’s lab. Max needs our help tonight.”

“Max?” Sean looked expectantly at Michael.

“D’Angelo is in L.A. tonight,” was all she said, knowing Sean would understand.

Sean paused, looking at Maria and then back at Michael, a silent question in his eyes.

“Don’t even try,” Michael answered, knowing instantly Sean was querying about Maria’s presence during Max’s mission.

With that, Sean knew Michael had tried to keep his cousin out of this with no luck.

“Ok, I’ll meet you guys in Alex’s lab,” and he sprinted from the room.

Michael looked to Maria and raised his eyebrow. “Double team?’

“Not tonight, Spaceboy,” she grinned back to him, patting his cheek affectionally.

“Not ever,” Michael returned swiftly. “Sean’s right. I’m an only child, and I don’t share well.” He grabbed her hand, entwining his fingers with hers as they exited the room.

****************************

They all met up in Alex’s lab and workspace, and he outfitted the team with earwigs and wireless mic’s. The microphones were incorporated into leather wrist straps.

“They are voice activated,” Alex was saying as he fastened the last strap around Maria’s delicate wrist.

“And each hold a GPS device so we can monitor all your movements from here,” and he indicated to a large iMac on his desk.

“You will be in communication with each other and me here at all times. This way, you don’t have to carry cell phones with you or call for back up or cleanup. You just speak into the mic.”

He lifted Maria’s wrist to his mouth and whispered. “Does Michael know about your love of peanut butter, chocolate spread and banana sandwiches?”

“I do now,” Michael grinned from across the room, a digit fingering the earwig that was snug in his ear.

“These are awesome,” Maria grinned.

“What’s the chance of someone else picking up on the frequency?” Sean asked.

“Zilch,” Alex returned promptly. “I’ve calibrated a frequency above the normal. Not even dogs will here this.”

“Impressive,” Michael said with a nod. “Do you think you could let the L.A.P.D. have some of this equipment?”

“Not likely,” Alex laughed. “My work is for The Company only.”

Michael acknowledged his response with another tilt of his head.

Alex stood back from Maria and looked at the four agents arranged in a semi-circle around him with a goofy smile.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said. “Get out there and kick some butt.”

******************

The group stood in the garage waiting as a non-descript black car rolled to a stop in front of them.

“I’ll drive,” Sean volunteered and headed for the driver’s door before someone got there before him.

Michael opened the front passenger door, hoping Max would understand his legs were a lot longer than his partner’s, and he needed the extra space.

Before Maria could open the rear door, Max stopped her, pulling her from the car slightly.

“I haven’t told Isabel,” he said quickly.

“It’s a bit late now,” Maria returned with a small, sad smile.

“No, I didn’t tell her who we were going up against. I don’t want her to worry more than she usually does.”

“Ok,” Maria said, not sure what he was trying to say.

“If anything happens to me…”

“No, Max, don’t even think like that,” Maria stopped him, holding her hand up.

“But if…”

“I’m not listening,” Maria shot back stubbornly; turning and striding purposely back to the car.

Max stopped her again as she opened the open, his hand on her arm. “There’s a letter in the bottom drawer
of my dresser. Make sure she gets it.”

Maria looked into his eyes and saw fear, something she never saw in him. She wasn’t sure it was fear about what was about to happen or fear he wasn’t gonna come back from it.

She nodded, not trusting her voice in that moment.

“Thanks,” he smiled, then opened to door for her, waiting for her to slide in before following her.

“Let’s roll,” he said to Sean, and they moved off.

*************************