Blown
Chapter Forty-Four
"House of Cards"
Las Vegas, Nevada
May 24, 2005
1:45PM
"Tell me Marcus is exaggerating," Gia says, plopping down on the sofa.
Charles doesn't sit. He stands by the fireplace, his elbow propped on the ledge. He casts a sideways glance at Marcus before he looks back at her, says, "Your brother has never been one for hyperbole, Bunny."
Marcus sits in the side chair, his right ankle propped atop his left knee. "Everything I told you is true."
She looks out over the suite, over Stefan's suite, the words impossible to her. But, then, everything that has happened lately seems impossible to her. She shakes her head. "I want to hear the whole thing this time," she proclaims, "Not just the main points. Tell me the entire story."
Charles sighs. "Okay..." He steps away, his hands slipping into the pockets of his slacks. "This morning, despite knowing you would disapprove, I went to the hospital in Henderson to see Stefan. Upon my arrival, I came across a man, whom was later identified to me as David Pedrosa, browbeating your husband--"
"Browbeating? Seriously?"
"I can't say it was a discussion or even an argument, Bunny. It was...difficult to listen to. I can't tell you the exact content of the conversation, but your husband was very clearly pleading with the man to leave him alone. Pedrosa persisted. I had to stop it. It was unconscionable."
Gia looks up at her father, her eyes wet.
He continues. "My conversation with Stefan amounted to nothing. I wanted to talk about Pace, he didn't. But, when I left, I couldn't quite shake the idea that this Pedrosa was up to something. I decided to look into it. What I didn't know then was that you had already dispatched your brother on a similar mission."
Marcus nods. "I called some contacts of mine in the FBI and they pulled Pedrosa's file. Pedrosa worked Narcotics for the LAPD for twelve years. He had a decent arrest record, a decent reputation. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary. He up and quit almost two years ago--with no notice--and moved to Nevada to run this hotel. He has a wife and one child, a daughter. That's his official record."
"That's it? He's just an ordinary guy? Someone you would have drinks with after work?"
"No, I don't think this guy and I would be friends, Gia," Marcus replies, "I mean, when he was on the force, he did decent work, but he just walked away. No one who was ever really on THE JOB, just walks away from it and doesn't look back. Shit happens and people are fired, or their wives threaten to leave, or they lose their nerve--and they have to find a new line of work. That's life. But no cop, no real cop, would trade in their badge to be Stefan Cassadine's errand boy."
"Not unless being an errand boy was just a stepping stone," Gia chimes in, "David doesn't want to work for Stefan. He wants to be Stefan. He wants power. He probably thought being a police officer, a detective, would quench that need, but it didn't. It wasn't enough."
"Exactly," Charles beams. "From what I can tell, Pedrosa has been very slowly maneuvering himself into a position of trust. Biding his time. Waiting for the perfect opportunity."
"And when Stefan had his breakdown, when he crashed my car..."
Marcus lowers his chin. "Pedrosa couldn't have planned it better. When you called him Sunday night, you gave him the head start he needed. He was on the scene of the accident, he talked to the police officers, and made sure they noted the lack of skid marks in their report. Then, he arranged for the car to be taken to Selby & Sons. "
Gia frowns. "What does the auto garage have to do with anything?"
"If they were just housing your car until after the adjuster's made his determination, then it wouldn't have anything to do with it," Marcus explains, "But, Pedrosa knows the elder Selby personally, and the night your car was towed in, he went with it. He and Selby went over your car together--and when he finally left there and went to the hospital to talk to you, he knew the truth. He knew that the accident, was indeed, an accident."
"What?"
"Did you know there was a recall out on your car, Bunny?" Charles asks, perching on the arm of the sofa.
"A recall?"
"For a defect involving the brake lines."
She covers her mouth with a shaking hand.
Marcus says, "The recall went out in January for all '05 Cadillac XLRs. It seems everyone, but you, took their car in to be serviced so that the defect could be fixed."
"That doesn't make any sense. There wasn't anything wrong with my brakes! Stefan and I just drove five hundred miles across the desert and everything was fine!"
Charles looks at Marcus, then back at Gia, says, "Yes, well, you have the distinction of owning a car where one of the rear brake hydraulic lines was situated too closely to the left engine exhaust manifold and the left exhaust pipe. The proximity of the line to these elements allowed the brake fluid to be heated to elevated levels, to boil, and--Sunday night, the brake fluid grew so hot it ate through the line and leaked. Enough fluid leaked that the brake pedal application could no longer build pressure to the rear brakes."
Gia stares at them both blankly. She understands what he's saying, understands the actual words--but the fact that it's happened is incomprehensible to her. She should be relieved to find out that Stefan didn't try to commit suicide. She should feel vindicated, for she has never been able to convince herself that Stefan was that far gone, that she had been living with him and not spotted it. She should be both of these things, but she still can't process the information. She stands to her feet, hoping to clear her head, to shake some of the fog away. "So, what you're telling me is that David knew this from the beginning? That the brakes failed?"
"Yes," Marcus replies, nodding.
"How did you find all this out?"
"I met Selby yesterday, when we all went down there and talked to the adjuster. I went back to see him today after I read the police report. I may have misrepresented myself. I may have made him think I was a Fed instead of a precinct captain out of his jurisdiction. The more questions I asked, the more nervous he became. I leaned on him and he spilled his guts. He told me he knew Pedrosa from the casino, that he had lost his shirt on the Roulette wheel a few months ago. He owed more money than he could pay back. Sunday night, Pedrosa called him at home, told him he would wipe his debt if he helped him with a little situation. At first, Selby said, David really thought the collision was intentional. But, when Selby got under the car, he knew what had happened. He pulled the recall up in his database and it seemed evident to both of them that it was a defective brake line. That's when Pedrosa asked him to switch out the defective brake line with a different one before anyone else looked at the car. He wasn't sure if the claims adjuster was going to bring his own mechanic and he wanted to cover his bases. Selby did as Pedrosa demanded, right there, while the man watched. The entire time he told me this, he was scared--scared I was about to arrest him. I was sorry I didn't have the authority to do it."
Gia walks over to the terrace, pushes open the door. Outside, it is warm and sunny. Las Vegas continues to gleam brightly, to bulge and strain with its streams of people, with its spectacle. She is not sure how everything is able to remain the same, how it is only her life that is crashing down around her knees. She thinks of Selby, of an over-weight, balding man in a grease-covered jumpsuit. He smiled at her, shook her hand. He was nice. How was she to know, then, that he was being used by David to help bury Stefan? How was she to know?
Charles says, "I had been making some calls of my own, trying to pin down some things. I have a few friends in the California State Attorney General's office, the same ones who tipped me off when the warrant was issued for Pace. They told me that Stefan's emissary, the liaison who brokered Pace's arrest is a west coast attorney named Harlow Rittenour." He takes a breath before he says, "Harlow and I went to law school together. So, I called him. We shot the breeze for about twenty minutes, and then I started asking him about Stefan. Don't worry. I was cautious. I didn't reveal his identity. Which turned out to be a good thing because he only knows Stefan as Han Odin. I asked if he had met Pedrosa. He said that he had, but that he thought the guy was...'an abrasive jerk' and that he doesn't represent him. He said David runs all of his business through a washed-up mob lawyer, named Sal Ciccone. So, around eleven, I tracked Ciccone down to a bar inside of the Mandalay Bay. He has no ethics, and so, in exchange for a very cushy Associate position at my law firm, Ciccone gave up Pedrosa and his secrets. "
She asks, "What about Attorney-Client privilege?"
"I told you, he has no ethics. Ciccone doesn't care as along as he is compensated. And, he will be. I'm the hiring partner and Markum, the managing partner, doesn't care what I do. The man's half-senile." Charles adjusts his silk tie, fixes his cuff, before he continues, "Ciccone said that Pedrosa came to him nearly two years ago and laid out a very interesting scenario. Monday morning, Pedrosa came back, said that scenario was finally about to unfold."
"What scenario? David couldn't have anticipated the car accident two years ago."
"No, but he did anticipate that the day would come when Stefan would be on the verge of another breakdown, on the verge of another hospital stay. Pedrosa told Ciccone that, on file with Rittenour, is a document that gives him Power of Attorney over all of Stefan's affairs. The document is contingent on the event that Stefan should be declared legally incompetent. Pedrosa has been working the past two years, since the document was drafted, to find a way to bring it into effect. The car accident was just the catalyst that he needed. If he can convince all parties that Stefan is suicidal, he can push to get him committed. I'm not sure how far he's willing to go, whether or not he has an actual doctor on his payroll, but it is foreseeable that with his machinations, he could, within a short period of time, have Stefan declared incompetent."
She thought David was pushing Tim's agenda, but it could be the other way around. Tim could be playing to David's tune and not even know it. Or they could just be in collusion--both of them working together to push Stefan into another psychotic break, with Tim at the ready to commit him. Gia swears under her breath. "The Power of Attorney would supersede my rights as Stefan's wife to act on his behalf.”
Charles shakes his head, his tone grave when he responds, "It's worse than that, Bunny. Ciccone says that once Pedrosa is in control, his first order of business is to annul your marriage to Stefan."
Marcus' head snaps around. "He can't do that, can he? He can't just END someone else's marriage."
"He can," Gia breathes, walking back over to the sofa and sitting down. "If they declare Stefan incompetent, David will have grounds. What with our age difference, it won't take much for a good lawyer, or even someone like Ciccone, to make me look like some grasping gold-digger who tricked a sick man into marriage. No one is going to ask Stefan and no one is going to believe me. Power of Attorney is all he needs. It'll all be over. Stefan will be locked away and I'll have no legal rights to him."
"Come now, you're making it sound like you're defeated. It's not that dire," Charles tells her. "We just need to keep Stefan out of the hospital, which shouldn't be that hard, given how adamant he was this morning about not going. He's not Pedrosa's puppet, Bunny. He's still looking out for himself."
Gia drops her head into her hands.
"What?" Charles asks, looking at Marcus.
"Yeah, Charlie...well, it's a little more dire than you think. When I was at the hospital, I overheard Gia's little pow-wow with Pedrosa and the doctors. For whatever reason, Cassadine has decided to sign himself in somewhere. They're not dragging him kicking and screaming. He wants to go. He thinks he needs to."
"Oh...that's not...that's not good."
"No, it's not," Marcus agrees, running a hand over his bald head. "And, like I told Gia, I don't see a way out of this. If Stefan goes inside the loony bin, Pedrosa is going to do whatever he has to do--buy, blackmail, intimidate--whatever it is, to make sure he never comes back out. Then, he's going to get rid of Gia. After that, there won't be anyone to stop him from taking everything. The money. The hotel. The power. Stefan Cassadine will be finished--and by some nobody. What Helena Cassadine couldn't do, what Luke Spencer couldn't do, what the police couldn't do, this man can and will..."
Gia thinks she might cry. The situation is bleak and even her brother, who hates her husband, recognizes that it is a travesty that Stefan would be felled by some wanna-be. By someone with no power, no skill, no strategy of his own. Just a poor facsimile--a copy of a copy. She slides forward on the cushion, braces on the edge of the coffee table. She is about to push herself to her feet when something catches her eye. She sees it, glittering gold, coiled around the base of a carved candlestick. The Cassadine Medallion. She freezes and her focus settles there. She pulled it out of her suitcase a few days ago and showed it to her brother, used it as proof of what she had gotten herself into. She'd married a Cassadine and she'd used their symbol of family as her evidence.
Loyalty, Stefan had told her it meant, duty, honor, protection.
Charles throws a worried glance at Gia, before telling Marcus, "It's worse than I thought, Kiddo, it is, but we can still stop this."
"How, Charlie? Once Selby learns I'm not a Fed, he will recant his story about the brake line. We can't have Pedrosa arrested, because we can't prove he did anything illegal. What exactly are we supposed to do?"
"Maybe we don't do anything," Charles proposes, "We send Gia back to the hospital. She tells Stefan what Pedrosa is up to and Stefan saves himself. Fires Pedrosa. Has Rittenour destroy the papers. End of story. "
"Telling Stefan is out of the question," Gia snaps, standing to her feet. She reaches over, grabs the Cassadine medallion from the table. She lets her fingers glide over the gold and onyx crest before she opens up the chain and drops the medallion down over her head. She breathes in, says, "I won't do it."
"But, he has a right to know!" Marcus exclaims. "This is his life we're talking about."
"That's true. He does have that right, and Lord knows when he does find out I kept it from him, he won't be happy with me. But, I just don't think he's in any condition to hear the truth. If you had seen him today, when he told me he had decided to go back into the hospital--he's so fragile, right now. Finding out that his best friend is systematically dismantling his life so that said 'friend' can feast on the spoils? That might be the straw that breaks the camel's back, Marcus. It could push him into another psychotic break. I just...I won't do it. I won't give David grounds to have Stefan committed."
"At the very least, you have to get Stefan to change his mind about going into the hospital," her father says. "I'll file a Writ of Habeas Corpus and force a hearing before a judge--see if I can get him released immediately."
"Why would you do that, Daddy? Why would you even be willing to help Stefan? You and Marcus both hate him."
Charles shrugs. "He's your husband and that makes him my family. I don't have to like him. I just have to make sure that I don't fail you again, Bunny. I know this is my last chance with you..."
Gia pauses. Her father has done more for her today than he has in the previous ten years. She can't explain why, or what he hopes to gain, but she is grateful. Softly, she remarks, "You're right. This IS your last chance, Daddy. Your very last one...So don't blow it."
Her father lifts his eyes to meet hers. "I'll file the Writ."
"No," she proclaims, squaring her shoulders. "Don't."
"Why not?"
"If we file the Writ, we'll tip our hand."
Marcus smirks. "I didn't realize we had a hand to tip."
"If the two of you don't mind pitching in, then we do..." Gia says, looking between her brother and her father. Her family--and Stefan's, if only by default. "I have a plan and I need all the help I can get."
Henderson, Nevada
1:45PM
Christine says, "I think we got off on the wrong foot." She slides into the chair beside Stefan's, extends one bony arm out across the table beside his lunch tray. Her skin looks thin and white like paper. "I mean, I'm not a bully. I like all kinds of people. Even hags like Janine. We usually get along really great."
"Is that so?" Stefan asks absently, poking at the shriveled mound of corn on his plate.
"We could be friends, Andy," she purrs. She ducks her head, her lackluster brown hair falling down around her face. She slides her chair closer. "I think you should touch my breasts."
He turns her way, specifically keeps his eyes above her neck. "No, thank you."
"Come on...you know you want to..."
"I'm married," he replies, sliding his chair away from her. "My wife wouldn't approve of such things--"
She reaches down, tugs the hem of her T-shirt up over her abdomen to reveal white skin. She is not wearing a bra. "Touch them, Andy." She looks at his face pointedly, adds, "Or, if scratching is what you're into...I'll try anything twice..."
"What's going on over here?" Almost instantly, there is a nurse there, pulling Christine's shirt down, hauling her out of the chair. "You're out of control, Christine!" the nurse scolds her. "What is Felice going to say about you half naked during free time? This is not good--"
"Felice is a prude, Sophie," Christine states, "She doesn't understand the needs and wants of a liberated, modern woman."
"I don't?" Another nurse joins the group. Stefan recognizes the new comer. She is the nurse from earlier, the one who refused to correct Janine about his name being Andy. She folds her arms over her chest. "I'm a prude, Christine? Did I hear you right?"
The other nurse, Sophie, shakes her head and shifts, ever so subtly, closer to Felice.
Christine rolls her shoulders forward, her eyes wide. "Well..." she starts, fearful, "that's what I said, but it's not...by any means, what I meant to say, Ma'am, because you know I love you. Everything about you. And if anyone knows about being modern and liberated--"
"Cut the crap!" Felice orders, "I don't want to hear you suck up. I don't want to hear you, at all. Get back over there and finish your puzzle, before I stick your anorexic butt in isolation for the rest of the day."
Christine slinks away, glaring at Stefan as she does so. "It was Andy's fault," she mutters.
Felice also glares at Stefan, but it's only for a moment, then she and Sophie disappear across the room, barely glancing at the patients.
Stefan lowers his eyes back down to his plate. The rubbery chicken seems too daunting a task and so he picks up his plastic fork and spears a broccoli floret. He intends to eat it, but it never makes it off the plate, it never makes it into his mouth. He is simply not hungry. This fact, however, will make no difference to the nursing staff.
He missed his scheduled lunchtime, was too busy having a panic attack. He had thought that, perhaps, for that reason alone, they would just let him slide.
But, it wasn't to be.
Sophie had tracked him down, brought him a tray, said, "You must be starving..."
Said, "Please, just try to eat something..."
Said, "We don't want to have to get Felice involved, do we?"
There was something about the way she made the last comment, something about the way she said Felice, that made him think that he should just comply. Now that he's put a face to the name, he thinks his instincts were probably correct. From his limited run-ins with her, Felice does not seem like a woman who tolerates dissension. She likes to be obeyed.
But, even so, he is not eating this food.
It's just not going to happen.
"Hey, Andy...did you...did you look?"
Stefan looks up, finds the boy from group therapy addressing him. Nate. "Look?"
Nate licks his lips, leans in from his spot across the round table. He lowers his voice, clarifies, "When Christine lifted her shirt--did you look?"
He shakes his head. "No, I didn't..."
That answer seems to distress the boy and he drops his head, tugs anxiously at the zipper of his hooded sweatshirt. "You said you're married. Is that why you didn't look?"
"That's part of it, yes." Stefan frowns. "Why?"
"I...I looked," Nate replies, crestfallen.
Stefan realizes the boy is upset, although he's not sure why. When he was nineteen, looking at breasts--touching breasts--was his favorite pastime. That, and doing coke. He pushes his tray away, says, "Christine wanted the attention. No one can fault you for looking, when she made such a spectacle of herself."
"But my girlfriend...she wouldn't see it that way. I mean, it's like cheating, right? That's why you didn't look...'Cuz your wife would want to know why you were looking at random breasts, right? It's wrong."
"My wife," Stefan starts, "would understand that I cannot control other people's actions. I am sure your girlfriend would also understand. Neither of us asked Christine to disrobe. It's just what happened. No one is at fault."
Nate is not listening. He's shaking his head. "I should have closed my eyes...or got up and walked out. I mean, I was just sitting there, looking. And Tiffany--that's my girlfriend--she is a really sweet girl. Pretty. Smart. My mom says she doesn't know how I managed to get a girl like Tiff to talk to me, let alone date me. She's right, you know? I don't deserve Tiff. She's too good for me. I mean, what am I thinking? Wanting to be with her? Wanting to marry her? Once she finds out what kind of a scumbag I am--what kind of sleaze…cheating on her...I mean, I do the dumbest thing ever. I end up here and even here, I can't keep out of trouble..."
For a moment, Stefan says nothing. He just stares at Nate, finds himself thinking that this boy is nowhere near ready to be released from this facility. He is filled with anxiety and the sort of insidious self-loathing that Stefan understands intrinsically. He blames himself for everything and though he does not admit it, he has a vicious, emasculating mother that he hates. The boy is an absolute train wreck.
A train wreck.
Stefan pities him, pities him as he pities himself.
He reaches out, grabs one of the boy's bandaged wrist. He looks him in the eye, his expression intent. He tells him some things he wishes someone had told him. He says, "You cannot please your mother. You will never please her. There isn’t anything you can do. She withholds her favor from you on purpose, so that she can control you. You have to accept this as a fact. If you do not, you will find yourself back in this place--time and time again--until you finally succeed in killing yourself, or until you lose your mind completely and they lock you up forever."
The boy yanks his arm away. He begins to tremble, his eyes grown huge. The look on his face can only be categorized as devastation.
Stefan says, "Save yourself, Nate--before your mother destroys you."
Nate's head drops to the table with a soft thud and he begins to weep uncontrollably. He pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his hair and face to hide his tears. He makes next to no noise, draws no attention from staff, but Stefan knows the boy is breaking.
Stefan watches the shuddering of Nate's shoulders with an odd and unsettling grief. Finally, when he can stand no more, he gets up and walks over to the other side of the room to stare out the window.
Las Vegas, Nevada
3:07PM
Gia scribbles one last instruction down on the legal pad before she thrusts it back at her father.
He doesn't look at it, he just says, "You do realize that if anything goes wrong, you're going to take the brunt of the fallout, right? It's not going to be your brother or me--even if we are in this up to our eyeballs. It's going to be you. And, I'm not just talking about some of the iffy legal stuff, Bunny. Your husband's future mental stability is riding on the choices you make here today. By not telling Stefan about Pedrosa's intentions, by making unilateral decisions of this magnitude, you are assuming full responsibility for what happens to him."
She lifts her head, meets her father's gaze.
"It could backfire," he says, his tone grave. "You could lose everything."
"I know, Daddy," Gia replies finally, crossing her arms over her chest. "I know it's risky. I know it's a house of cards. But, it's MY house of cards and I'll do whatever necessary to keep it from toppling."
Charles lets his head fall back against the chair. He stretches his long legs out in front of him, kicks off his shiny brown Italian loafers. "I'm afraid you're the worst of your mother and me. You're too smart, too headstrong, too impulsive--for your own good. I don't think you even know what caution is."
"Come now, just because I never use any doesn't mean I don't know what it IS," she remarks.
"Bunny, please, I am being serious."
"So am I."
He shakes his head as if he doesn't believe her.
She snickers, says, "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing--"
"Oh, there we go. Just what I've been waiting to hear, "Marcus interrupts, popping out of the foyer, cell phone still in hand. “No need to worry, right? Gia always knows exactly what she's doing."
"Did you get a flight?" she asks, ignoring his comment and his tone.
Her brother nods. "I'm booked on the 6:10PM out of McCarran." He pauses a moment, before he asks, "Are you sure this is what you want? I don't know how much help I'm really going to be to you if I'm back in Oregon. I mean, what if Pedrosa catches wind of what you're planning? What if he comes after you? I should stay in case you need someone to have your back."
"I'll be here, Kiddo," Charles reminds his former stepson, "I'll have her back."
Marcus clears his throat. "I don't want to ruin this whole 'team vibe' we've got going by stating the obvious, but you have a pitiful track record, Charlie. You haven't come through for Gia--or for me--once in the last twenty years. So, you know, excuse me if I'm hesitant to just leave town, knowing there is a very good possibility that your new wife or your new daughter might snap their fingers and you'll bail on Gia when she really needs you."
Charles opens his mouth to speak, but Gia intercedes. "I need you in Oregon, Marcus. The plan doesn't work if you're here. It only works if you're there, okay? Let's not start second guessing the plan."
"And if your father bails on you?"
She turns, looks Charles in the eye. "He won't," she declares, wondering if she sounds like the seven-year-old she is on the inside every time her father is around. "Not this time."
Marcus sighs, his shoulders held stiff as if he were physically preparing himself for some great disaster. "Whatever," he responds finally, "I'm going to go pack my bags. When I'm finished, one of you can drive me to the airport."
Henderson, Nevada
4:23PM
They took the boy from the room hours ago.
Nate.
Felice and an orderly took him from the room, his body limp between the two of them, tears still flowing from his face.
They sedated him.
He heard Dr. Bianchi talking to Sophie about it in passing.
He's had a setback...
His discharge for tomorrow is in jeopardy...
No one knows what triggered this...
Stefan's guilt is suffocating.
He knows, better than anyone does, why people lie.
Because the truth is worse.
Because the truth will decimate you faster than any falsehood. A lie must be palatable to be accepted, to be believed--but there are no such restrictions on truth.
Las Vegas, Nevada
4:50PM
Marcus stands on the curb, his eyes covered by dark glasses, a black leather duffle bag in hand. He looks broad and impenetrable, the steel and glass of the airport gleaming like a fortress behind him. He says to her, "You know he's not worth it, don't you? Everything you're doing...everything we're doing. Cassadine is not worth it."
She leans against the trunk of Stefan's Mercedes, raises her hand to shield her naked eyes from the sun. She says, "I'm not worth the effort either, Marcus, but you still come running in every time I need you. That's just part of the deal. When you love a person, that person doesn’t have to be worth it. That person doesn't have to deserve it. "
The expression on his face is one of pure indulgence. He steps down off the curb, envelopes his sister in a one-armed hug. "You're wrong," he says, pulling back. "You are worth it, Gia. You may be the only one I know who still is."
She bows her head, her hair falling into her face. "You know I love you, right?"
His mouth twitches at the corner and he rubs a hand over his head. "Yeah, I know," he replies. Then, he turns and walks away. He doesn't look back.
Henderson, Nevada
5:00PM
David says, "I told you that if we want Bianca Starr to headline the new show, we're going to have to pay for the pleasure. I went back to her people, upped the signing bonus to half a million dollars and they bit. It's as good as done. The lawyers--hers and ours--are going to go over the contracts again on Friday, but it's mostly a formality. She's going to sign next week."
Stefan doesn't bother to fake interest in anything David is saying. He stares past him, out the window the other man has strategically placed himself in front of, trying in vain to capture Stefan's attention. He knows this is important--to the hotel, to David. It should be important to him. He's sunk millions of dollars into this expansion--the atrium, the new block of rooms, the massive entertainment complex. He should care about the money; he should care about the woman that David has found that is going to make the investment worthwhile. This Bianca Starr--some ex-Disney Channel ingénue who wants to change her image, wants to go from home town good-girl to Las Vegas bad-girl in a flurry of strobe lights and glittery body paint--is supposed to be a big enough draw to recoup the expense and put the name Valhalla on everyone's lips. This is big. Very big.
Even so...
Stefan could not care less.
David says, "There are just some things I need your signature on and then I can take it from there." He pulls several folders from his briefcase and a gold pen. "Rittenour's boys tweaked the wording on the last two clauses, but other than that, Bianca's contract is exactly the same--so you don't have to bother reading it. They tagged all the places you need to sign and initial."
The younger man offers him the files, the pen. Stefan takes them from his hands, but he does not look at them.
David says, "I had Ryan draft the check for Bianca's signing bonus. I need a signature on that and one on the check for the Mancusos. I also included a couple of blank authorization forms for hotel business and a few blank checks off of the corporate account for you to sign in case there is an emergency or something comes up while you're out of commission. That way, I won't have to bother you every ten seconds while you're trying to recuperate."
Stefan shakes his head.
David clears his throat, slides forward on his chair, his shoulders folding in. He says, "Stefan, I don't think it's a good idea to put this off. I think we should get this all done and squared away so that you can focus on getting better. We can just get this all signed now, and there won't be anything for you to worry about. You know I'll take good care of the hotel and if there is anything Gia needs while you're gone, I'll take care of that, too. "
Annoyed, he gives David his full attention. The man is watching him expectantly, his dark eyes discerning. Stefan replies, "I don't have my glasses, David. They took them when they took the rest of my personal effects. It'll have to wait. "
"You don't need your glasses. You've already poured over the contract a dozen times. You know it by heart. You can just sign where indicated--"
Stefan detects the note of impatience in the other man's voice and he cuts him off, snaps, “I am NOT signing anything I haven't read in fine detail, David." He shoves the stack of files and the pen back at him, "and I am NOT so far gone that I'm signing my name to a BLANK anything.”
He glares at David, and then turns his head to gaze out the window.
David seethes quietly for several long, pained seconds before he relents. "I'm sorry, Jefe. I overstepped," he says. "I should have known now wasn't the time to push you. You've more important things to think about..."
Stefan says nothing.
David leans forward, deposits the folders back into his briefcase. "Let me know when you're ready to deal with it... "
"Later."
"Later," David echoes.
5:47PM
Gia sits in a small, windowless conference room. Dr. Fitzhugh sits opposite her, files and folders stacked in front of him. David sits to Gia's right, his large leather chair pulled closer to her own than she would like. He leans toward her, asks, "Is there anything I can get you? Coffee? Juice?"
"Uh, no thank you, David," she replies absently, fumbling with her vibrating cell phone. She shoves it into her purse and places her purse on the ground.
"Is that your father?" David inquires.
His tone is nonchalant, but Gia can read the interest in his eyes. She replies, "Probably."
"I met him today. He's a very impressive man, but I'm afraid we had a bit of a run in."
"Your father?" Tim interjects. "He lives in Las Vegas?"
"He's just visiting," she tells Tim, then turns to David and says, "Yes, he told me about your run in. You left a similar impression, though. Formidable, I believe he said."
David nods, licks his lips. "No hard feelings, I hope. I'm just stretched a little thin today."
Gia appraises him quietly. "Yes, I suppose we all are. My father understands that."
"Good. Good...I checked, saw that he's staying at the Valhalla. I went ahead and comped his room." He pauses a moment, then leans forward, his voice dropping when he says, "And your brother's room, too. It's all taken care of."
"Your brother?" Tim inquires.
"Also visiting," Gia answers. She tempers her voice, her face, to conceal the little pocket of panic that arises when David mentions Marcus--that he knows he was here, that he knows their connection to each other. If David knows about Marcus, he could know about everything else. Selby could have run to him the moment Marcus left and spilled the entire story. This could be the end, the unraveling of the plan before it has even officially started. She shrugs her shoulders, says, "Thank you, David. I appreciate the gesture."
Tim tilts his head, his eyes boring into her. "You didn't mention your family was in town."
"It hasn't exactly been high on my list of priorities. All of my focus has been on Stefan."
"Is that why they're here? To offer support?"
She rolls her eyes. "Uh...no, I wouldn't say that. Neither my father nor my older brother were pleased to find out I had wed a man twenty-five years my senior. They were shocked and they each wanted to share that shock loudly, and in person. They're both trying to run my life and, honestly, I'll be glad when they're gone. "
Tim and David nod in unison, as if this makes sense to them.
Gia clears her throat. "So, Tim, did you make any progress finding a facility?"
"Oh, yes...yes," Tim declares, scratching his forehead. "That is why I called this little meeting...." He slides two brochures out from underneath a stack of papers and hands one to each of them.
Gia picks up her copy of the shiny red brochure. Coral Vistas Behavioral Health Facility, it reads across the top in clean white letters. Beneath it is a picture of a lovely brick building, set on a manicured lawn with a beautiful red canyon stretched out behind it as a backdrop. "It looks like some sort of a resort," she remarks.
"Only it's going to cost twice as much," David adds, flipping open his copy and perusing the bullet points. He stops all of a sudden, his head snapping up. "This place isn't in Las Vegas, Tim."
Gia looks at Tim and then back at the brochure. She sees it at the bottom. "St. George, Utah?" she demands.
Tim holds his hands out in front of him. "It's a compromise," he tells Gia.
"A compromise?"
"Coral is the only private hospital in this region that has the resources and the staff to meet Stefan's needs. Now, it's not in Las Vegas, but it is still relatively close. The drive to St. George is only two hours and, compared to St. Clair's, I don't think that's an unreasonable distance--"
Tim moves to continue, but David stops him with a look and a wave of his hand. He turns to Gia, says, "I know I've been a bastard. I've been stepping on your toes, voicing my opinions and my concerns--without any regard for yours. And, I'm sorry about that. Truly sorry, Gia. You're Stefan's wife and this is up to you, not me. Not Tim. It's your decision and I'm promising you right now, whatever you decide, I'll back it."
She looks deep into his eyes and wonders if, she didn't know what she knows about David's intentions, if she would have mistaken these words for truth, if she would have seen sincerity where there is nothing but a conniving determination. She doesn't think so, but there's no way to know for sure--not with a man like David. She releases a breath, says, "I can do a two hour drive. If this...if this is the best place for Stefan, then I'm agreeable."
Relieved, Tim sits back in his chair. "I've arranged a tour of the facility and a meeting with the staff for tomorrow morning. I thought we could all drive up together. You, me, David. I thought it would give us a chance to talk, to mend fences."
Inwardly, Gia groans. She would rather dig both of her eyes out of her skull with a rusty spoon than spend hours trapped in a car with David and Tim.
It's more punishment than she deserves.
She purses her lips, nods. "I'll drive," she says.
6:19PM
She says, "You need to get him to eat something."
She is young and blonde and almost as tall as Gia is in heels. Her name is Sophie.
Gia pauses at the nurse's words, then replies, "I'll see what I can do."
Sophie nods, retreats back to the side of the room.
Gia keeps walking, picks her way across the spacious room. When she was here last, the Activities Room was almost empty. Now, it is bustling with patients--playing board games, talking, laughing, some visiting with relatives or friends. She takes the long way around a cluster of tables, turns her head to avoid making eye contact with an anorexic-looking brunette who seems to be trying to stare a hole through her.
She finds Stefan in the same place, standing near the big window, looking out. His back is held rigid, his arms crossed over his chest. Whatever reservations she had about keeping the truth from him begin to fade. He may have fought off the psychosis, may have regained his restraint and his composure, but he is not better. He grows more and more despondent as the day wears on and she fears the path he is on, fears where it will lead.
He says, "I didn't know if I would see you again today."
"I wouldn't leave for the day without telling you," she replies, sliding in beside him, placing her left hand against the small of his back. "I wouldn't leave without kissing you goodbye. You know that."
Her words trigger something, and he remembers, remembers his world hazy and dim--her face floating above him, her fingers feather-soft against his skin, her words gentle..."You're so sleepy, now. You can't even keep your eyes open. Rest, Stefan."
Her kissing him.
He thinks it's something that actually happened, but he can't place it, isn't sure he even wants to.
What good would come from knowing the exact circumstances that compelled his wife to coo him to sleep as if he were a small child? Why would he want to add to his humiliation?
He stands very still, his attention trained on whatever it is he sees when stares out the window. Gia stares for a moment, too, but sees nothing so interesting, nothing so enthralling that it would eat away her day as it has Stefan's. She steps closer, her other hand coming to rest on his bicep. "Baby," she tells him, "Tim found a very good hospital, not too far from here, and, in the morning, I'm going to go take a look around."
Her words are met with silence.
She says, "Is there anything you want me to ask the doctors, anything you want me to check on for you?"
He watches her reflection in the glass, notices the small glint of a chain at her neck. Most of it is concealed, tucked against her skin, under the yoke of her dress, but even so, he knows, without asking, that she is wearing the Cassadine medallion. He finds it comforting that she has it on, although he is not certain why. He pauses a moment more, before he crisply replies, "No, there's nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"I don't care, Gia," he breathes out, "Not about hospitals. Not about doctors. Not about anything. I have lost that capacity. You're my wife--just make the decision."
Carte blanche, she thinks. She is free to do as she sees best. He's given her permission. Even so, she wishes he hadn't. She wishes he cared about his own welfare. She wishes he were fighting, instead of whatever the hell this is. She pulls at his arm, manipulates him into shifting so that he is looking at her and not out the window. "You don't mean that, Stefan. I know you don't. You still care. You're just tired..."
His arms fall down to his sides and he leans back against the window. The coolness of the glass bleeds through the thin fabric of his polo shirt. He wonders what would happen if it all gave way, if the glass caved and he went with it--if he fell headlong out into nothing. In his mind's eye, he sees Gia leaning over the edge, reaching for him as he plummets away from her.
Would he reach back or would he be ready to meet his fate?
"Stefan?"
He doesn't know.
"Stefan?"
Why doesn't he know?
"Answer me!" Gia demands, her voice hushed, yet urgent. "Are you all right?"
He looks up at her--looks up at her from where he's sprawled on the floor. He is no longer standing.
A few seconds ago, he was standing.
Gia drops down to her knees in front of him. She wiggles in between his bent legs, leans in, touches his face, the side of his neck. "What happened? You just sort of...slid down onto the carpet. Do you feel faint? Do you need a doctor?"
He stares at her, his eyes wide. "I don't...I didn't..."
Her hand stills against his cheek. The expression on his face tells her that he has no answers for her. He doesn't know what he's doing from one moment to the next--or why he's doing it. He is, she thinks, losing his confidence, losing his sense of self. He's losing it or they're stripping him of it. All of them--David, Tim, Dr. Kraft, and Gia--making him doubt himself, casting him as the victim, as weak-willed and fractured.
Convincing him he tried to kill himself.
Lies. David with his lies that have spread like a contagion, that have infected them all, made them all complicit in this attempted assassination.
She sees the pain in Stefan's eyes and she wants nothing more than to tell him the whole truth. About David's plotting, about Selby and the defective brake line, but she's concocted a plan, she's dragged her father and her brother into it. She has to see it through-- and seeing it through means Stefan can't know the details until the threat of David has been neutralized. While she thinks the truth would bolster him, would give him the strength to rise from this malaise and crush the opposition, she has to consider the ramifications if it does not. If the truth were to drag him deeper, were to upset his footing and propel him head long into the psychotic break Tim feared was looming, all would be lost. There would be no way to stop the commitment, no way to stop David from gaining complete control over Stefan and his finances.
And Stefan would, once again, be a prisoner of another man's whims.
She can't allow that scenario any more than she can condone the lies.
Gia swallows the lump that has formed in her throat, wills her hands not to shake. She says, "I know...I know you think you're losing your grip...that you're sinking. But, you're not. You're just as strong as you've ever been, Stefan. Just as solid."
"After what I did to your car," he demands of her, his voice low and scratchy, "how can you possibly say that with a straight face?"
"Because I know it's true, that's how. I know that you haven't done anything wrong. I know you haven't done anything that warrants Tim locking you away in a hospital. What happened with my car--that was an accident. It was an accident," she replies adamantly, her hand trailing down to rest on his shoulder. "Even if you don't know it to be true, I do and if my certainty offers you the least bit of solace, then take it, Stefan. Don't think about it, just take it..."
Solace? What constitutes solace for a man like him? He doesn't know, can't begin to comprehend. He leans back, rounds his shoulders. His eyes drop from her face, down to the floor. He looks at the fraying carpet with glazed, blood-shot eyes.
There is no solace.
Gia waits a few seconds. He doesn't reply, makes no indication that he's even heard her words. Finally, she sighs, says, "It's been a very long day, Baby. Very long--and I know you must be drained...I'm going to get a nurse and together, we're going to take you back to your room..."
He doesn't want to go back to his room. He hates it there.
"Then, you're going to eat some dinner for me, okay? It doesn't have to be everything. Just eat a little bit, enough to keep your strength up. It's important to keep your strength up..."
He doesn't want to eat their food. It tastes awful.
"Then, maybe it would be a good idea if Tim gave you a little something to take the edge off, to help you sleep. Do you want something to help you sleep?"
He nods, then, nods again. He thinks a sedative is a good idea--thinks the oblivion it offers is a good idea.
"Good," she says, starting to climb to her feet.
She doesn't get far. Stefan clamps onto her arm, pulls her back down. "Will you..." For a second his words falter, but then his eyes flash to Gia's face and he asks, “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"
"House of Cards"
Las Vegas, Nevada
May 24, 2005
1:45PM
"Tell me Marcus is exaggerating," Gia says, plopping down on the sofa.
Charles doesn't sit. He stands by the fireplace, his elbow propped on the ledge. He casts a sideways glance at Marcus before he looks back at her, says, "Your brother has never been one for hyperbole, Bunny."
Marcus sits in the side chair, his right ankle propped atop his left knee. "Everything I told you is true."
She looks out over the suite, over Stefan's suite, the words impossible to her. But, then, everything that has happened lately seems impossible to her. She shakes her head. "I want to hear the whole thing this time," she proclaims, "Not just the main points. Tell me the entire story."
Charles sighs. "Okay..." He steps away, his hands slipping into the pockets of his slacks. "This morning, despite knowing you would disapprove, I went to the hospital in Henderson to see Stefan. Upon my arrival, I came across a man, whom was later identified to me as David Pedrosa, browbeating your husband--"
"Browbeating? Seriously?"
"I can't say it was a discussion or even an argument, Bunny. It was...difficult to listen to. I can't tell you the exact content of the conversation, but your husband was very clearly pleading with the man to leave him alone. Pedrosa persisted. I had to stop it. It was unconscionable."
Gia looks up at her father, her eyes wet.
He continues. "My conversation with Stefan amounted to nothing. I wanted to talk about Pace, he didn't. But, when I left, I couldn't quite shake the idea that this Pedrosa was up to something. I decided to look into it. What I didn't know then was that you had already dispatched your brother on a similar mission."
Marcus nods. "I called some contacts of mine in the FBI and they pulled Pedrosa's file. Pedrosa worked Narcotics for the LAPD for twelve years. He had a decent arrest record, a decent reputation. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary. He up and quit almost two years ago--with no notice--and moved to Nevada to run this hotel. He has a wife and one child, a daughter. That's his official record."
"That's it? He's just an ordinary guy? Someone you would have drinks with after work?"
"No, I don't think this guy and I would be friends, Gia," Marcus replies, "I mean, when he was on the force, he did decent work, but he just walked away. No one who was ever really on THE JOB, just walks away from it and doesn't look back. Shit happens and people are fired, or their wives threaten to leave, or they lose their nerve--and they have to find a new line of work. That's life. But no cop, no real cop, would trade in their badge to be Stefan Cassadine's errand boy."
"Not unless being an errand boy was just a stepping stone," Gia chimes in, "David doesn't want to work for Stefan. He wants to be Stefan. He wants power. He probably thought being a police officer, a detective, would quench that need, but it didn't. It wasn't enough."
"Exactly," Charles beams. "From what I can tell, Pedrosa has been very slowly maneuvering himself into a position of trust. Biding his time. Waiting for the perfect opportunity."
"And when Stefan had his breakdown, when he crashed my car..."
Marcus lowers his chin. "Pedrosa couldn't have planned it better. When you called him Sunday night, you gave him the head start he needed. He was on the scene of the accident, he talked to the police officers, and made sure they noted the lack of skid marks in their report. Then, he arranged for the car to be taken to Selby & Sons. "
Gia frowns. "What does the auto garage have to do with anything?"
"If they were just housing your car until after the adjuster's made his determination, then it wouldn't have anything to do with it," Marcus explains, "But, Pedrosa knows the elder Selby personally, and the night your car was towed in, he went with it. He and Selby went over your car together--and when he finally left there and went to the hospital to talk to you, he knew the truth. He knew that the accident, was indeed, an accident."
"What?"
"Did you know there was a recall out on your car, Bunny?" Charles asks, perching on the arm of the sofa.
"A recall?"
"For a defect involving the brake lines."
She covers her mouth with a shaking hand.
Marcus says, "The recall went out in January for all '05 Cadillac XLRs. It seems everyone, but you, took their car in to be serviced so that the defect could be fixed."
"That doesn't make any sense. There wasn't anything wrong with my brakes! Stefan and I just drove five hundred miles across the desert and everything was fine!"
Charles looks at Marcus, then back at Gia, says, "Yes, well, you have the distinction of owning a car where one of the rear brake hydraulic lines was situated too closely to the left engine exhaust manifold and the left exhaust pipe. The proximity of the line to these elements allowed the brake fluid to be heated to elevated levels, to boil, and--Sunday night, the brake fluid grew so hot it ate through the line and leaked. Enough fluid leaked that the brake pedal application could no longer build pressure to the rear brakes."
Gia stares at them both blankly. She understands what he's saying, understands the actual words--but the fact that it's happened is incomprehensible to her. She should be relieved to find out that Stefan didn't try to commit suicide. She should feel vindicated, for she has never been able to convince herself that Stefan was that far gone, that she had been living with him and not spotted it. She should be both of these things, but she still can't process the information. She stands to her feet, hoping to clear her head, to shake some of the fog away. "So, what you're telling me is that David knew this from the beginning? That the brakes failed?"
"Yes," Marcus replies, nodding.
"How did you find all this out?"
"I met Selby yesterday, when we all went down there and talked to the adjuster. I went back to see him today after I read the police report. I may have misrepresented myself. I may have made him think I was a Fed instead of a precinct captain out of his jurisdiction. The more questions I asked, the more nervous he became. I leaned on him and he spilled his guts. He told me he knew Pedrosa from the casino, that he had lost his shirt on the Roulette wheel a few months ago. He owed more money than he could pay back. Sunday night, Pedrosa called him at home, told him he would wipe his debt if he helped him with a little situation. At first, Selby said, David really thought the collision was intentional. But, when Selby got under the car, he knew what had happened. He pulled the recall up in his database and it seemed evident to both of them that it was a defective brake line. That's when Pedrosa asked him to switch out the defective brake line with a different one before anyone else looked at the car. He wasn't sure if the claims adjuster was going to bring his own mechanic and he wanted to cover his bases. Selby did as Pedrosa demanded, right there, while the man watched. The entire time he told me this, he was scared--scared I was about to arrest him. I was sorry I didn't have the authority to do it."
Gia walks over to the terrace, pushes open the door. Outside, it is warm and sunny. Las Vegas continues to gleam brightly, to bulge and strain with its streams of people, with its spectacle. She is not sure how everything is able to remain the same, how it is only her life that is crashing down around her knees. She thinks of Selby, of an over-weight, balding man in a grease-covered jumpsuit. He smiled at her, shook her hand. He was nice. How was she to know, then, that he was being used by David to help bury Stefan? How was she to know?
Charles says, "I had been making some calls of my own, trying to pin down some things. I have a few friends in the California State Attorney General's office, the same ones who tipped me off when the warrant was issued for Pace. They told me that Stefan's emissary, the liaison who brokered Pace's arrest is a west coast attorney named Harlow Rittenour." He takes a breath before he says, "Harlow and I went to law school together. So, I called him. We shot the breeze for about twenty minutes, and then I started asking him about Stefan. Don't worry. I was cautious. I didn't reveal his identity. Which turned out to be a good thing because he only knows Stefan as Han Odin. I asked if he had met Pedrosa. He said that he had, but that he thought the guy was...'an abrasive jerk' and that he doesn't represent him. He said David runs all of his business through a washed-up mob lawyer, named Sal Ciccone. So, around eleven, I tracked Ciccone down to a bar inside of the Mandalay Bay. He has no ethics, and so, in exchange for a very cushy Associate position at my law firm, Ciccone gave up Pedrosa and his secrets. "
She asks, "What about Attorney-Client privilege?"
"I told you, he has no ethics. Ciccone doesn't care as along as he is compensated. And, he will be. I'm the hiring partner and Markum, the managing partner, doesn't care what I do. The man's half-senile." Charles adjusts his silk tie, fixes his cuff, before he continues, "Ciccone said that Pedrosa came to him nearly two years ago and laid out a very interesting scenario. Monday morning, Pedrosa came back, said that scenario was finally about to unfold."
"What scenario? David couldn't have anticipated the car accident two years ago."
"No, but he did anticipate that the day would come when Stefan would be on the verge of another breakdown, on the verge of another hospital stay. Pedrosa told Ciccone that, on file with Rittenour, is a document that gives him Power of Attorney over all of Stefan's affairs. The document is contingent on the event that Stefan should be declared legally incompetent. Pedrosa has been working the past two years, since the document was drafted, to find a way to bring it into effect. The car accident was just the catalyst that he needed. If he can convince all parties that Stefan is suicidal, he can push to get him committed. I'm not sure how far he's willing to go, whether or not he has an actual doctor on his payroll, but it is foreseeable that with his machinations, he could, within a short period of time, have Stefan declared incompetent."
She thought David was pushing Tim's agenda, but it could be the other way around. Tim could be playing to David's tune and not even know it. Or they could just be in collusion--both of them working together to push Stefan into another psychotic break, with Tim at the ready to commit him. Gia swears under her breath. "The Power of Attorney would supersede my rights as Stefan's wife to act on his behalf.”
Charles shakes his head, his tone grave when he responds, "It's worse than that, Bunny. Ciccone says that once Pedrosa is in control, his first order of business is to annul your marriage to Stefan."
Marcus' head snaps around. "He can't do that, can he? He can't just END someone else's marriage."
"He can," Gia breathes, walking back over to the sofa and sitting down. "If they declare Stefan incompetent, David will have grounds. What with our age difference, it won't take much for a good lawyer, or even someone like Ciccone, to make me look like some grasping gold-digger who tricked a sick man into marriage. No one is going to ask Stefan and no one is going to believe me. Power of Attorney is all he needs. It'll all be over. Stefan will be locked away and I'll have no legal rights to him."
"Come now, you're making it sound like you're defeated. It's not that dire," Charles tells her. "We just need to keep Stefan out of the hospital, which shouldn't be that hard, given how adamant he was this morning about not going. He's not Pedrosa's puppet, Bunny. He's still looking out for himself."
Gia drops her head into her hands.
"What?" Charles asks, looking at Marcus.
"Yeah, Charlie...well, it's a little more dire than you think. When I was at the hospital, I overheard Gia's little pow-wow with Pedrosa and the doctors. For whatever reason, Cassadine has decided to sign himself in somewhere. They're not dragging him kicking and screaming. He wants to go. He thinks he needs to."
"Oh...that's not...that's not good."
"No, it's not," Marcus agrees, running a hand over his bald head. "And, like I told Gia, I don't see a way out of this. If Stefan goes inside the loony bin, Pedrosa is going to do whatever he has to do--buy, blackmail, intimidate--whatever it is, to make sure he never comes back out. Then, he's going to get rid of Gia. After that, there won't be anyone to stop him from taking everything. The money. The hotel. The power. Stefan Cassadine will be finished--and by some nobody. What Helena Cassadine couldn't do, what Luke Spencer couldn't do, what the police couldn't do, this man can and will..."
Gia thinks she might cry. The situation is bleak and even her brother, who hates her husband, recognizes that it is a travesty that Stefan would be felled by some wanna-be. By someone with no power, no skill, no strategy of his own. Just a poor facsimile--a copy of a copy. She slides forward on the cushion, braces on the edge of the coffee table. She is about to push herself to her feet when something catches her eye. She sees it, glittering gold, coiled around the base of a carved candlestick. The Cassadine Medallion. She freezes and her focus settles there. She pulled it out of her suitcase a few days ago and showed it to her brother, used it as proof of what she had gotten herself into. She'd married a Cassadine and she'd used their symbol of family as her evidence.
Loyalty, Stefan had told her it meant, duty, honor, protection.
Charles throws a worried glance at Gia, before telling Marcus, "It's worse than I thought, Kiddo, it is, but we can still stop this."
"How, Charlie? Once Selby learns I'm not a Fed, he will recant his story about the brake line. We can't have Pedrosa arrested, because we can't prove he did anything illegal. What exactly are we supposed to do?"
"Maybe we don't do anything," Charles proposes, "We send Gia back to the hospital. She tells Stefan what Pedrosa is up to and Stefan saves himself. Fires Pedrosa. Has Rittenour destroy the papers. End of story. "
"Telling Stefan is out of the question," Gia snaps, standing to her feet. She reaches over, grabs the Cassadine medallion from the table. She lets her fingers glide over the gold and onyx crest before she opens up the chain and drops the medallion down over her head. She breathes in, says, "I won't do it."
"But, he has a right to know!" Marcus exclaims. "This is his life we're talking about."
"That's true. He does have that right, and Lord knows when he does find out I kept it from him, he won't be happy with me. But, I just don't think he's in any condition to hear the truth. If you had seen him today, when he told me he had decided to go back into the hospital--he's so fragile, right now. Finding out that his best friend is systematically dismantling his life so that said 'friend' can feast on the spoils? That might be the straw that breaks the camel's back, Marcus. It could push him into another psychotic break. I just...I won't do it. I won't give David grounds to have Stefan committed."
"At the very least, you have to get Stefan to change his mind about going into the hospital," her father says. "I'll file a Writ of Habeas Corpus and force a hearing before a judge--see if I can get him released immediately."
"Why would you do that, Daddy? Why would you even be willing to help Stefan? You and Marcus both hate him."
Charles shrugs. "He's your husband and that makes him my family. I don't have to like him. I just have to make sure that I don't fail you again, Bunny. I know this is my last chance with you..."
Gia pauses. Her father has done more for her today than he has in the previous ten years. She can't explain why, or what he hopes to gain, but she is grateful. Softly, she remarks, "You're right. This IS your last chance, Daddy. Your very last one...So don't blow it."
Her father lifts his eyes to meet hers. "I'll file the Writ."
"No," she proclaims, squaring her shoulders. "Don't."
"Why not?"
"If we file the Writ, we'll tip our hand."
Marcus smirks. "I didn't realize we had a hand to tip."
"If the two of you don't mind pitching in, then we do..." Gia says, looking between her brother and her father. Her family--and Stefan's, if only by default. "I have a plan and I need all the help I can get."
Henderson, Nevada
1:45PM
Christine says, "I think we got off on the wrong foot." She slides into the chair beside Stefan's, extends one bony arm out across the table beside his lunch tray. Her skin looks thin and white like paper. "I mean, I'm not a bully. I like all kinds of people. Even hags like Janine. We usually get along really great."
"Is that so?" Stefan asks absently, poking at the shriveled mound of corn on his plate.
"We could be friends, Andy," she purrs. She ducks her head, her lackluster brown hair falling down around her face. She slides her chair closer. "I think you should touch my breasts."
He turns her way, specifically keeps his eyes above her neck. "No, thank you."
"Come on...you know you want to..."
"I'm married," he replies, sliding his chair away from her. "My wife wouldn't approve of such things--"
She reaches down, tugs the hem of her T-shirt up over her abdomen to reveal white skin. She is not wearing a bra. "Touch them, Andy." She looks at his face pointedly, adds, "Or, if scratching is what you're into...I'll try anything twice..."
"What's going on over here?" Almost instantly, there is a nurse there, pulling Christine's shirt down, hauling her out of the chair. "You're out of control, Christine!" the nurse scolds her. "What is Felice going to say about you half naked during free time? This is not good--"
"Felice is a prude, Sophie," Christine states, "She doesn't understand the needs and wants of a liberated, modern woman."
"I don't?" Another nurse joins the group. Stefan recognizes the new comer. She is the nurse from earlier, the one who refused to correct Janine about his name being Andy. She folds her arms over her chest. "I'm a prude, Christine? Did I hear you right?"
The other nurse, Sophie, shakes her head and shifts, ever so subtly, closer to Felice.
Christine rolls her shoulders forward, her eyes wide. "Well..." she starts, fearful, "that's what I said, but it's not...by any means, what I meant to say, Ma'am, because you know I love you. Everything about you. And if anyone knows about being modern and liberated--"
"Cut the crap!" Felice orders, "I don't want to hear you suck up. I don't want to hear you, at all. Get back over there and finish your puzzle, before I stick your anorexic butt in isolation for the rest of the day."
Christine slinks away, glaring at Stefan as she does so. "It was Andy's fault," she mutters.
Felice also glares at Stefan, but it's only for a moment, then she and Sophie disappear across the room, barely glancing at the patients.
Stefan lowers his eyes back down to his plate. The rubbery chicken seems too daunting a task and so he picks up his plastic fork and spears a broccoli floret. He intends to eat it, but it never makes it off the plate, it never makes it into his mouth. He is simply not hungry. This fact, however, will make no difference to the nursing staff.
He missed his scheduled lunchtime, was too busy having a panic attack. He had thought that, perhaps, for that reason alone, they would just let him slide.
But, it wasn't to be.
Sophie had tracked him down, brought him a tray, said, "You must be starving..."
Said, "Please, just try to eat something..."
Said, "We don't want to have to get Felice involved, do we?"
There was something about the way she made the last comment, something about the way she said Felice, that made him think that he should just comply. Now that he's put a face to the name, he thinks his instincts were probably correct. From his limited run-ins with her, Felice does not seem like a woman who tolerates dissension. She likes to be obeyed.
But, even so, he is not eating this food.
It's just not going to happen.
"Hey, Andy...did you...did you look?"
Stefan looks up, finds the boy from group therapy addressing him. Nate. "Look?"
Nate licks his lips, leans in from his spot across the round table. He lowers his voice, clarifies, "When Christine lifted her shirt--did you look?"
He shakes his head. "No, I didn't..."
That answer seems to distress the boy and he drops his head, tugs anxiously at the zipper of his hooded sweatshirt. "You said you're married. Is that why you didn't look?"
"That's part of it, yes." Stefan frowns. "Why?"
"I...I looked," Nate replies, crestfallen.
Stefan realizes the boy is upset, although he's not sure why. When he was nineteen, looking at breasts--touching breasts--was his favorite pastime. That, and doing coke. He pushes his tray away, says, "Christine wanted the attention. No one can fault you for looking, when she made such a spectacle of herself."
"But my girlfriend...she wouldn't see it that way. I mean, it's like cheating, right? That's why you didn't look...'Cuz your wife would want to know why you were looking at random breasts, right? It's wrong."
"My wife," Stefan starts, "would understand that I cannot control other people's actions. I am sure your girlfriend would also understand. Neither of us asked Christine to disrobe. It's just what happened. No one is at fault."
Nate is not listening. He's shaking his head. "I should have closed my eyes...or got up and walked out. I mean, I was just sitting there, looking. And Tiffany--that's my girlfriend--she is a really sweet girl. Pretty. Smart. My mom says she doesn't know how I managed to get a girl like Tiff to talk to me, let alone date me. She's right, you know? I don't deserve Tiff. She's too good for me. I mean, what am I thinking? Wanting to be with her? Wanting to marry her? Once she finds out what kind of a scumbag I am--what kind of sleaze…cheating on her...I mean, I do the dumbest thing ever. I end up here and even here, I can't keep out of trouble..."
For a moment, Stefan says nothing. He just stares at Nate, finds himself thinking that this boy is nowhere near ready to be released from this facility. He is filled with anxiety and the sort of insidious self-loathing that Stefan understands intrinsically. He blames himself for everything and though he does not admit it, he has a vicious, emasculating mother that he hates. The boy is an absolute train wreck.
A train wreck.
Stefan pities him, pities him as he pities himself.
He reaches out, grabs one of the boy's bandaged wrist. He looks him in the eye, his expression intent. He tells him some things he wishes someone had told him. He says, "You cannot please your mother. You will never please her. There isn’t anything you can do. She withholds her favor from you on purpose, so that she can control you. You have to accept this as a fact. If you do not, you will find yourself back in this place--time and time again--until you finally succeed in killing yourself, or until you lose your mind completely and they lock you up forever."
The boy yanks his arm away. He begins to tremble, his eyes grown huge. The look on his face can only be categorized as devastation.
Stefan says, "Save yourself, Nate--before your mother destroys you."
Nate's head drops to the table with a soft thud and he begins to weep uncontrollably. He pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his hair and face to hide his tears. He makes next to no noise, draws no attention from staff, but Stefan knows the boy is breaking.
Stefan watches the shuddering of Nate's shoulders with an odd and unsettling grief. Finally, when he can stand no more, he gets up and walks over to the other side of the room to stare out the window.
Las Vegas, Nevada
3:07PM
Gia scribbles one last instruction down on the legal pad before she thrusts it back at her father.
He doesn't look at it, he just says, "You do realize that if anything goes wrong, you're going to take the brunt of the fallout, right? It's not going to be your brother or me--even if we are in this up to our eyeballs. It's going to be you. And, I'm not just talking about some of the iffy legal stuff, Bunny. Your husband's future mental stability is riding on the choices you make here today. By not telling Stefan about Pedrosa's intentions, by making unilateral decisions of this magnitude, you are assuming full responsibility for what happens to him."
She lifts her head, meets her father's gaze.
"It could backfire," he says, his tone grave. "You could lose everything."
"I know, Daddy," Gia replies finally, crossing her arms over her chest. "I know it's risky. I know it's a house of cards. But, it's MY house of cards and I'll do whatever necessary to keep it from toppling."
Charles lets his head fall back against the chair. He stretches his long legs out in front of him, kicks off his shiny brown Italian loafers. "I'm afraid you're the worst of your mother and me. You're too smart, too headstrong, too impulsive--for your own good. I don't think you even know what caution is."
"Come now, just because I never use any doesn't mean I don't know what it IS," she remarks.
"Bunny, please, I am being serious."
"So am I."
He shakes his head as if he doesn't believe her.
She snickers, says, "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing--"
"Oh, there we go. Just what I've been waiting to hear, "Marcus interrupts, popping out of the foyer, cell phone still in hand. “No need to worry, right? Gia always knows exactly what she's doing."
"Did you get a flight?" she asks, ignoring his comment and his tone.
Her brother nods. "I'm booked on the 6:10PM out of McCarran." He pauses a moment, before he asks, "Are you sure this is what you want? I don't know how much help I'm really going to be to you if I'm back in Oregon. I mean, what if Pedrosa catches wind of what you're planning? What if he comes after you? I should stay in case you need someone to have your back."
"I'll be here, Kiddo," Charles reminds his former stepson, "I'll have her back."
Marcus clears his throat. "I don't want to ruin this whole 'team vibe' we've got going by stating the obvious, but you have a pitiful track record, Charlie. You haven't come through for Gia--or for me--once in the last twenty years. So, you know, excuse me if I'm hesitant to just leave town, knowing there is a very good possibility that your new wife or your new daughter might snap their fingers and you'll bail on Gia when she really needs you."
Charles opens his mouth to speak, but Gia intercedes. "I need you in Oregon, Marcus. The plan doesn't work if you're here. It only works if you're there, okay? Let's not start second guessing the plan."
"And if your father bails on you?"
She turns, looks Charles in the eye. "He won't," she declares, wondering if she sounds like the seven-year-old she is on the inside every time her father is around. "Not this time."
Marcus sighs, his shoulders held stiff as if he were physically preparing himself for some great disaster. "Whatever," he responds finally, "I'm going to go pack my bags. When I'm finished, one of you can drive me to the airport."
Henderson, Nevada
4:23PM
They took the boy from the room hours ago.
Nate.
Felice and an orderly took him from the room, his body limp between the two of them, tears still flowing from his face.
They sedated him.
He heard Dr. Bianchi talking to Sophie about it in passing.
He's had a setback...
His discharge for tomorrow is in jeopardy...
No one knows what triggered this...
Stefan's guilt is suffocating.
He knows, better than anyone does, why people lie.
Because the truth is worse.
Because the truth will decimate you faster than any falsehood. A lie must be palatable to be accepted, to be believed--but there are no such restrictions on truth.
Las Vegas, Nevada
4:50PM
Marcus stands on the curb, his eyes covered by dark glasses, a black leather duffle bag in hand. He looks broad and impenetrable, the steel and glass of the airport gleaming like a fortress behind him. He says to her, "You know he's not worth it, don't you? Everything you're doing...everything we're doing. Cassadine is not worth it."
She leans against the trunk of Stefan's Mercedes, raises her hand to shield her naked eyes from the sun. She says, "I'm not worth the effort either, Marcus, but you still come running in every time I need you. That's just part of the deal. When you love a person, that person doesn’t have to be worth it. That person doesn't have to deserve it. "
The expression on his face is one of pure indulgence. He steps down off the curb, envelopes his sister in a one-armed hug. "You're wrong," he says, pulling back. "You are worth it, Gia. You may be the only one I know who still is."
She bows her head, her hair falling into her face. "You know I love you, right?"
His mouth twitches at the corner and he rubs a hand over his head. "Yeah, I know," he replies. Then, he turns and walks away. He doesn't look back.
Henderson, Nevada
5:00PM
David says, "I told you that if we want Bianca Starr to headline the new show, we're going to have to pay for the pleasure. I went back to her people, upped the signing bonus to half a million dollars and they bit. It's as good as done. The lawyers--hers and ours--are going to go over the contracts again on Friday, but it's mostly a formality. She's going to sign next week."
Stefan doesn't bother to fake interest in anything David is saying. He stares past him, out the window the other man has strategically placed himself in front of, trying in vain to capture Stefan's attention. He knows this is important--to the hotel, to David. It should be important to him. He's sunk millions of dollars into this expansion--the atrium, the new block of rooms, the massive entertainment complex. He should care about the money; he should care about the woman that David has found that is going to make the investment worthwhile. This Bianca Starr--some ex-Disney Channel ingénue who wants to change her image, wants to go from home town good-girl to Las Vegas bad-girl in a flurry of strobe lights and glittery body paint--is supposed to be a big enough draw to recoup the expense and put the name Valhalla on everyone's lips. This is big. Very big.
Even so...
Stefan could not care less.
David says, "There are just some things I need your signature on and then I can take it from there." He pulls several folders from his briefcase and a gold pen. "Rittenour's boys tweaked the wording on the last two clauses, but other than that, Bianca's contract is exactly the same--so you don't have to bother reading it. They tagged all the places you need to sign and initial."
The younger man offers him the files, the pen. Stefan takes them from his hands, but he does not look at them.
David says, "I had Ryan draft the check for Bianca's signing bonus. I need a signature on that and one on the check for the Mancusos. I also included a couple of blank authorization forms for hotel business and a few blank checks off of the corporate account for you to sign in case there is an emergency or something comes up while you're out of commission. That way, I won't have to bother you every ten seconds while you're trying to recuperate."
Stefan shakes his head.
David clears his throat, slides forward on his chair, his shoulders folding in. He says, "Stefan, I don't think it's a good idea to put this off. I think we should get this all done and squared away so that you can focus on getting better. We can just get this all signed now, and there won't be anything for you to worry about. You know I'll take good care of the hotel and if there is anything Gia needs while you're gone, I'll take care of that, too. "
Annoyed, he gives David his full attention. The man is watching him expectantly, his dark eyes discerning. Stefan replies, "I don't have my glasses, David. They took them when they took the rest of my personal effects. It'll have to wait. "
"You don't need your glasses. You've already poured over the contract a dozen times. You know it by heart. You can just sign where indicated--"
Stefan detects the note of impatience in the other man's voice and he cuts him off, snaps, “I am NOT signing anything I haven't read in fine detail, David." He shoves the stack of files and the pen back at him, "and I am NOT so far gone that I'm signing my name to a BLANK anything.”
He glares at David, and then turns his head to gaze out the window.
David seethes quietly for several long, pained seconds before he relents. "I'm sorry, Jefe. I overstepped," he says. "I should have known now wasn't the time to push you. You've more important things to think about..."
Stefan says nothing.
David leans forward, deposits the folders back into his briefcase. "Let me know when you're ready to deal with it... "
"Later."
"Later," David echoes.
5:47PM
Gia sits in a small, windowless conference room. Dr. Fitzhugh sits opposite her, files and folders stacked in front of him. David sits to Gia's right, his large leather chair pulled closer to her own than she would like. He leans toward her, asks, "Is there anything I can get you? Coffee? Juice?"
"Uh, no thank you, David," she replies absently, fumbling with her vibrating cell phone. She shoves it into her purse and places her purse on the ground.
"Is that your father?" David inquires.
His tone is nonchalant, but Gia can read the interest in his eyes. She replies, "Probably."
"I met him today. He's a very impressive man, but I'm afraid we had a bit of a run in."
"Your father?" Tim interjects. "He lives in Las Vegas?"
"He's just visiting," she tells Tim, then turns to David and says, "Yes, he told me about your run in. You left a similar impression, though. Formidable, I believe he said."
David nods, licks his lips. "No hard feelings, I hope. I'm just stretched a little thin today."
Gia appraises him quietly. "Yes, I suppose we all are. My father understands that."
"Good. Good...I checked, saw that he's staying at the Valhalla. I went ahead and comped his room." He pauses a moment, then leans forward, his voice dropping when he says, "And your brother's room, too. It's all taken care of."
"Your brother?" Tim inquires.
"Also visiting," Gia answers. She tempers her voice, her face, to conceal the little pocket of panic that arises when David mentions Marcus--that he knows he was here, that he knows their connection to each other. If David knows about Marcus, he could know about everything else. Selby could have run to him the moment Marcus left and spilled the entire story. This could be the end, the unraveling of the plan before it has even officially started. She shrugs her shoulders, says, "Thank you, David. I appreciate the gesture."
Tim tilts his head, his eyes boring into her. "You didn't mention your family was in town."
"It hasn't exactly been high on my list of priorities. All of my focus has been on Stefan."
"Is that why they're here? To offer support?"
She rolls her eyes. "Uh...no, I wouldn't say that. Neither my father nor my older brother were pleased to find out I had wed a man twenty-five years my senior. They were shocked and they each wanted to share that shock loudly, and in person. They're both trying to run my life and, honestly, I'll be glad when they're gone. "
Tim and David nod in unison, as if this makes sense to them.
Gia clears her throat. "So, Tim, did you make any progress finding a facility?"
"Oh, yes...yes," Tim declares, scratching his forehead. "That is why I called this little meeting...." He slides two brochures out from underneath a stack of papers and hands one to each of them.
Gia picks up her copy of the shiny red brochure. Coral Vistas Behavioral Health Facility, it reads across the top in clean white letters. Beneath it is a picture of a lovely brick building, set on a manicured lawn with a beautiful red canyon stretched out behind it as a backdrop. "It looks like some sort of a resort," she remarks.
"Only it's going to cost twice as much," David adds, flipping open his copy and perusing the bullet points. He stops all of a sudden, his head snapping up. "This place isn't in Las Vegas, Tim."
Gia looks at Tim and then back at the brochure. She sees it at the bottom. "St. George, Utah?" she demands.
Tim holds his hands out in front of him. "It's a compromise," he tells Gia.
"A compromise?"
"Coral is the only private hospital in this region that has the resources and the staff to meet Stefan's needs. Now, it's not in Las Vegas, but it is still relatively close. The drive to St. George is only two hours and, compared to St. Clair's, I don't think that's an unreasonable distance--"
Tim moves to continue, but David stops him with a look and a wave of his hand. He turns to Gia, says, "I know I've been a bastard. I've been stepping on your toes, voicing my opinions and my concerns--without any regard for yours. And, I'm sorry about that. Truly sorry, Gia. You're Stefan's wife and this is up to you, not me. Not Tim. It's your decision and I'm promising you right now, whatever you decide, I'll back it."
She looks deep into his eyes and wonders if, she didn't know what she knows about David's intentions, if she would have mistaken these words for truth, if she would have seen sincerity where there is nothing but a conniving determination. She doesn't think so, but there's no way to know for sure--not with a man like David. She releases a breath, says, "I can do a two hour drive. If this...if this is the best place for Stefan, then I'm agreeable."
Relieved, Tim sits back in his chair. "I've arranged a tour of the facility and a meeting with the staff for tomorrow morning. I thought we could all drive up together. You, me, David. I thought it would give us a chance to talk, to mend fences."
Inwardly, Gia groans. She would rather dig both of her eyes out of her skull with a rusty spoon than spend hours trapped in a car with David and Tim.
It's more punishment than she deserves.
She purses her lips, nods. "I'll drive," she says.
6:19PM
She says, "You need to get him to eat something."
She is young and blonde and almost as tall as Gia is in heels. Her name is Sophie.
Gia pauses at the nurse's words, then replies, "I'll see what I can do."
Sophie nods, retreats back to the side of the room.
Gia keeps walking, picks her way across the spacious room. When she was here last, the Activities Room was almost empty. Now, it is bustling with patients--playing board games, talking, laughing, some visiting with relatives or friends. She takes the long way around a cluster of tables, turns her head to avoid making eye contact with an anorexic-looking brunette who seems to be trying to stare a hole through her.
She finds Stefan in the same place, standing near the big window, looking out. His back is held rigid, his arms crossed over his chest. Whatever reservations she had about keeping the truth from him begin to fade. He may have fought off the psychosis, may have regained his restraint and his composure, but he is not better. He grows more and more despondent as the day wears on and she fears the path he is on, fears where it will lead.
He says, "I didn't know if I would see you again today."
"I wouldn't leave for the day without telling you," she replies, sliding in beside him, placing her left hand against the small of his back. "I wouldn't leave without kissing you goodbye. You know that."
Her words trigger something, and he remembers, remembers his world hazy and dim--her face floating above him, her fingers feather-soft against his skin, her words gentle..."You're so sleepy, now. You can't even keep your eyes open. Rest, Stefan."
Her kissing him.
He thinks it's something that actually happened, but he can't place it, isn't sure he even wants to.
What good would come from knowing the exact circumstances that compelled his wife to coo him to sleep as if he were a small child? Why would he want to add to his humiliation?
He stands very still, his attention trained on whatever it is he sees when stares out the window. Gia stares for a moment, too, but sees nothing so interesting, nothing so enthralling that it would eat away her day as it has Stefan's. She steps closer, her other hand coming to rest on his bicep. "Baby," she tells him, "Tim found a very good hospital, not too far from here, and, in the morning, I'm going to go take a look around."
Her words are met with silence.
She says, "Is there anything you want me to ask the doctors, anything you want me to check on for you?"
He watches her reflection in the glass, notices the small glint of a chain at her neck. Most of it is concealed, tucked against her skin, under the yoke of her dress, but even so, he knows, without asking, that she is wearing the Cassadine medallion. He finds it comforting that she has it on, although he is not certain why. He pauses a moment more, before he crisply replies, "No, there's nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"I don't care, Gia," he breathes out, "Not about hospitals. Not about doctors. Not about anything. I have lost that capacity. You're my wife--just make the decision."
Carte blanche, she thinks. She is free to do as she sees best. He's given her permission. Even so, she wishes he hadn't. She wishes he cared about his own welfare. She wishes he were fighting, instead of whatever the hell this is. She pulls at his arm, manipulates him into shifting so that he is looking at her and not out the window. "You don't mean that, Stefan. I know you don't. You still care. You're just tired..."
His arms fall down to his sides and he leans back against the window. The coolness of the glass bleeds through the thin fabric of his polo shirt. He wonders what would happen if it all gave way, if the glass caved and he went with it--if he fell headlong out into nothing. In his mind's eye, he sees Gia leaning over the edge, reaching for him as he plummets away from her.
Would he reach back or would he be ready to meet his fate?
"Stefan?"
He doesn't know.
"Stefan?"
Why doesn't he know?
"Answer me!" Gia demands, her voice hushed, yet urgent. "Are you all right?"
He looks up at her--looks up at her from where he's sprawled on the floor. He is no longer standing.
A few seconds ago, he was standing.
Gia drops down to her knees in front of him. She wiggles in between his bent legs, leans in, touches his face, the side of his neck. "What happened? You just sort of...slid down onto the carpet. Do you feel faint? Do you need a doctor?"
He stares at her, his eyes wide. "I don't...I didn't..."
Her hand stills against his cheek. The expression on his face tells her that he has no answers for her. He doesn't know what he's doing from one moment to the next--or why he's doing it. He is, she thinks, losing his confidence, losing his sense of self. He's losing it or they're stripping him of it. All of them--David, Tim, Dr. Kraft, and Gia--making him doubt himself, casting him as the victim, as weak-willed and fractured.
Convincing him he tried to kill himself.
Lies. David with his lies that have spread like a contagion, that have infected them all, made them all complicit in this attempted assassination.
She sees the pain in Stefan's eyes and she wants nothing more than to tell him the whole truth. About David's plotting, about Selby and the defective brake line, but she's concocted a plan, she's dragged her father and her brother into it. She has to see it through-- and seeing it through means Stefan can't know the details until the threat of David has been neutralized. While she thinks the truth would bolster him, would give him the strength to rise from this malaise and crush the opposition, she has to consider the ramifications if it does not. If the truth were to drag him deeper, were to upset his footing and propel him head long into the psychotic break Tim feared was looming, all would be lost. There would be no way to stop the commitment, no way to stop David from gaining complete control over Stefan and his finances.
And Stefan would, once again, be a prisoner of another man's whims.
She can't allow that scenario any more than she can condone the lies.
Gia swallows the lump that has formed in her throat, wills her hands not to shake. She says, "I know...I know you think you're losing your grip...that you're sinking. But, you're not. You're just as strong as you've ever been, Stefan. Just as solid."
"After what I did to your car," he demands of her, his voice low and scratchy, "how can you possibly say that with a straight face?"
"Because I know it's true, that's how. I know that you haven't done anything wrong. I know you haven't done anything that warrants Tim locking you away in a hospital. What happened with my car--that was an accident. It was an accident," she replies adamantly, her hand trailing down to rest on his shoulder. "Even if you don't know it to be true, I do and if my certainty offers you the least bit of solace, then take it, Stefan. Don't think about it, just take it..."
Solace? What constitutes solace for a man like him? He doesn't know, can't begin to comprehend. He leans back, rounds his shoulders. His eyes drop from her face, down to the floor. He looks at the fraying carpet with glazed, blood-shot eyes.
There is no solace.
Gia waits a few seconds. He doesn't reply, makes no indication that he's even heard her words. Finally, she sighs, says, "It's been a very long day, Baby. Very long--and I know you must be drained...I'm going to get a nurse and together, we're going to take you back to your room..."
He doesn't want to go back to his room. He hates it there.
"Then, you're going to eat some dinner for me, okay? It doesn't have to be everything. Just eat a little bit, enough to keep your strength up. It's important to keep your strength up..."
He doesn't want to eat their food. It tastes awful.
"Then, maybe it would be a good idea if Tim gave you a little something to take the edge off, to help you sleep. Do you want something to help you sleep?"
He nods, then, nods again. He thinks a sedative is a good idea--thinks the oblivion it offers is a good idea.
"Good," she says, starting to climb to her feet.
She doesn't get far. Stefan clamps onto her arm, pulls her back down. "Will you..." For a second his words falter, but then his eyes flash to Gia's face and he asks, “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"