She could feel her heart in her throat as she watched him approach. He was tall and darkly handsome, and his thin frame, dressed entirely in black from head to foot, made him appear almost a shadow in contrast to the all-white environment of the room. As he came closer, she gasped as she realized that this was the man from her dream. She suddenly felt dizzy and disoriented, unsure whether she was truly awake or if this was still a part of her nightmare. Please let me still be dreaming, she prayed silently; please let me wake up and be safe at home. But in an instant she knew that this was no dream, and she wondered if she’d ever see home and safety again…

“Ah, you’re finally awake,” Juan Carlos Sanchez observed, smiling as he slowly neared the bed. “I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to awaken, querida.”

But as he got closer and could see her more clearly, his own heart caught in his throat and the smile froze on his face. Since she had arrived at his compound nearly 12 hours before, the only glimpses Juan Carlos had had of Brenda Barrett had been by way of his surveillance monitors and the pictures that Jackson had taken and faxed to him earlier, but seeing her up close like this, he was momentarily unsettled by her eerie resemblance to his Maria. But only momentarily, as her likeness to Maria only served now to steel his resolve at what he planned to do.

“I know that it has been a difficult few days for you, but you have been sleeping for some time now, so I trust that you are sufficiently recovered from your ordeal, querida…” he continued smoothly, quickly covering his surprise.

Brenda’s Spanish was limited, but she knew enough to know what ‘querida’ meant, and his repeated use of that term of endearment for her and the way he smiled at her made her flesh crawl; she could feel the fear rising within her. But her instincts told her that to show this man fear was to give him exactly what he wanted, so she resolved to stay strong.

“Who are you?” she whispered hoarsely, her voice sounding strangely hollow as it echoed in her ears, sending a bolt of pain searing through her head. She fell back against the pillows, wincing as she grabbed her head with both hands and closed her eyes tightly against the pain, ignoring the sharp pinch she felt in her left arm as she moved.

He was at her side now. “You mustn’t try to speak yet, querida…” he crooned, his voice soft and low. “I’m afraid that there are some rather unpleasant side effects to the drug you were given to insure your safe transport here, and you have just experienced one of them. But I assure you that you will soon be able to speak and move again without discomfort… Also, you must keep your arm straight,” he added, as he pulled Brenda’s arms away from her face and back onto the bed. He was once again hit by her remarkable likeness to his Maria, but he quickly seized control of his tumbling emotions as he continued: “The doctor is giving you fluids to wash the drug from your system and also to restore the fluids in your body… It appears that Señor Jackson was a very bad host while you were in his care, was he not?… But I assure you that I will try to make your stay here in my home far less unpleasant…”

She kept her eyes tightly closed, trying unsuccessfully to block out both the pain that continued to ricochet through her head and the nightmare reality in which she’d awakened.

He stared at her as she kept her eyes closed. He guessed that she was attempting to fight against the pain that he knew was coursing through her head at this point. The image of Maria closing her eyes against the pain of her last few moments of life flashed through his head then, and his anger at JD Jacks for initiating the action that had forced him to hurt the only woman that he had ever loved came surging back to him full force. Jacks had caused his Maria to suffer and then die; now Jacks’s woman would know similar pain and suffering, as well. An eye for an eye, Juan Carlos reasoned.

Suddenly, he leaned in closer to her so that his face was mere inches from hers; his voice no longer soft and soothing, but, rather, laced with venom, as he whispered hoarsely: “Do you remember anything of the past few days or of that man, Jackson, who held you? … Do you remember what happened to him in the end, querida?”

Her eyes flew open at that, as her last memories once again came flooding back to her in vividly horrific detail: her failed attempt to escape from the man and then two other men breaking into the apartment and shooting him between the eyes, sending blood and brain matter everywhere, including all over her. Then, mercifully, she’d passed out. She looked at Sanchez, her eyes wide with the very fear she’d fought so hard to hide from him just moments before.

He watched as she paled at the memory of Jackson’s gruesome end. He had not wanted the man killed so soon, nor for her to witness it, but perhaps the man’s execution in front of her would work in his favor after all, especially if it served to keep her fearful of him. Evidently Jackson had been unable to control her; he’d been informed that it appeared that she was attempting an escape when his men had arrived. But she would find that he would be much harder to trick than Jackson - and impossible to escape from. When he was finished with her, he would decide when she would leave and how she would leave - and even if she would leave…

Brenda stared at him, trying hard to blink back the tears of fear and frustration that she felt stinging her eyes. She had known firsthand just how dangerous the man he called Jackson could be. Not only had he stalked her and then kidnapped her, but he’d also brutalized her years before, which had resulted in the death of her baby; she had feared and hated him - yet it was nothing compared to the fear and loathing that she felt pooling inside her for this man. There was something about this man that truly unsettled her, and she suddenly realized what it was - his eyes; they were cold and dark and empty.

As a photographer she routinely looked into the eyes of her subjects, as she tried to understand who they were in order to bring out their truest image on film. She had always believed that the eyes are the windows to the soul; but if that were true, then this man’s soul was dark and completely devoid of love or compassion, and that, she realized, frightened her more than anything.

His smile grew as he watched the fear growing inside her, slowly overtaking her. He liked that she feared him. Her fear gave him even more control over her, and control in any given situation was something that he always fought to maintain. He stood up then but remained close to her as he continued, “He was my partner, of sorts - this Jackson. But he was not very good at following orders, and he was greedy, as well - and I cannot tolerate anyone who takes more than is rightfully his - or anyone who does not do exactly what I expect of them… Do you understand that, querida?” He locked eyes with her then, reading clearly in her face that she understood his inference implicitly. Good - he had neither the time nor the patience to tolerate anything but cooperation from her.

“Now that we have an understanding, so to speak, allow me to introduce myself to you… I am Juan Carlos Sanchez, and you are here as payment on a debt owed me.”

“A debt?” she asked, momentarily forgetting the pain that her last attempt to speak had caused. But another sharp pain shot through her head, and she gasped and closed her eyes tightly once again.

“I warned you that you must not try to talk just yet,” he cautioned her, his voice cold and smooth as ice, as he’d long ago dropped any façade of politeness or caring about her welfare. “I had hoped that you were better at following instructions, querida, than Señor Jackson; otherwise, your stay here will be most unpleasant, indeed,” he added, his lips curling into a small smile.

She opened her eyes at his words and found him staring hungrily at her. Another wave of fear washed through her, and she shuddered involuntarily under his heated gaze.

His smile broadened then, traveling into his eyes, which up until then had been cold and hard. She was so like his Maria… He loved the fear in her eyes - relished it, in fact; it meant that he was in control - and more importantly, she knew it. It was the same fear he remembered seeing in his Maria’s eyes just before…

He closed his eyes briefly at that memory, savoring the look of fear and helplessness that had been in Maria’s eyes in those last seconds, yet hating what he’d done to put them there. But he had only done then what he’d been forced to do, just as he was only doing now what he’d been forced to do - and both actions had been precipitated by the same man: JD Jacks. He opened his eyes to once again look at Brenda, and he sighed softly. She looked so like his Maria - the same luminous, dark eyes; the same long, dark, silky hair; the same soft, olive skin; the same full, sensual lips… He could understand now Jacks’ drunken mistake that night so long ago - understand it, but still never forgive it. Pity that yet another beauty would likely die as payment for that mistake…

“You are so very beautiful, querida,” he finally said, cocking an eyebrow appreciatively as he gave her an appraising look from head to toe, which prompted her to pull the sheet up to cover herself more fully. That action made him chuckle. “Do you think that if I wanted to see you - all of you - that something as flimsy as that sheet could stop me?” he growled. “No, querida, it could not - nor could you stop me if I chose to take you now.” The remaining color drained from Brenda’s face at that. “But you needn’t worry about your virtue just now, as I have much bigger plans for you than that,” he added, smiling malevolently, as he ran the back of his hand down the length of her bare arm.

The man’s touch and the malice in both his eyes and his voice sent a shudder through her body, and Brenda suddenly felt ill, but she fought against it, knowing that he delighted in the fear he aroused in her.

Juan Carlos smiled at her bravado, sensing that she was likely more frightened now than she had ever been in her life, including during her time with Jackson. But he also liked her feistiness; it was yet another trait that she and Maria shared. “I sense you are spirited - I like that in a woman,” he said, leaning closer to her so that his warm breath tickled her ear. “It will make this time all the more pleasurable for the both of us,” he whispered, as he ran his hands slowly and suggestively down her arm toward her legs.

His touch infuriated her, and she slapped him hard across the face. “Keep your hands off me!” she hissed, spitting at him, her eyes blazing with anger, despite the pain that her words caused to resonate through her head.

He was momentarily stunned by her outburst, remaining silent for several seconds, as he gingerly rubbed his smarting cheek. Then he gave Brenda a cold glare, and she steeled herself for his return blow. But he didn’t hit her; instead he took a half-step back away from her and regarded her coolly, weighing his words carefully, choosing just the right ones for proper effect. “I am a charitable man, querida, so I will forgive your outburst this one time,” he finally said. “After all, you are still disoriented from the drugs and the trip… I will assume that your behavior was also brought on by a combination of fear and confusion, so I will let it pass this time.

“But -” His eyes darkened dangerously now, and he lowered his voice so that his words came out in a low, menacing grow, “ - do not think that I will ever allow anything like this again.” He suddenly grabbed her by the hair and jerked her up against him, twisting her hair tightly in his hands so that her head was pulled back and her eyes looked up into his; his face less than a hair’s breadth from hers.

She whimpered involuntarily at the painful position in which he now held her, as it intensified the pain in her head to the point of making it excruciating.

“And do not think that if I choose to take you to my bed that you would be able to stop me,” he continued, as he brushed his lips slowly across hers, then lightly licked his tongue against her clenched teeth. “I control you now - body and soul.”

Brenda closed her eyes and fought her urge to retch at the feel of his mouth so intimately against hers.

“Look at me!” he thundered, giving her hair another sound jerk, which elicited another whimper from Brenda but brought about her immediate compliance. “That is much better, querida,” he said, his tone softening as he let go of her hair, only to place his hands tightly on her shoulders instead, as he roughly pulled her body up off the bed and against his.

“But be warned that if you try to defy me again while you are here, I will not let you off so easily as I am now. Nor will I be as charitable with you as I was with Señor Jackson… His death was swift and sure, with no time to suffer… I would not be so merciful with you, querida… No, I would not kill you outright, as Jackson was killed; instead, I would do things to you that would only make you wish for death to finally come to your rescue,” he hissed, forcing her to look into his eyes, so that she could see that he was not one to make hollow threats. He was a man to be reckoned with, and she needed to understand this from the outset. Too bad JD Jacks had not understood that from the outset, as well…

“I brought you here for a specific purpose,” he continued, glaring viciously into her eyes to emphasize the gravity of his words. “And you can serve that purpose whether you are whole and untouched, as you are now… or used and half-dead… It is your choice…. But if you ever again cross me in any way, querida, there will be no more choices for you - only pain and begging for my mercy…”

Silence filled the room then, as his ominous words hung heavy between them. Brenda tried to glare defiantly at him, fighting hard to hide her escalating fear and the intense pain in her head, but a solitary tear betrayed her, trekking slowly down her cheek. Sanchez studied her face momentarily, then reached out to gently wipe away the tear. She stiffened slightly at his touch, but she made no move to resist him, which made him smile. “Good… you learn very quickly, querida… I also like that in a woman.”

The continued touch of his flesh against hers made Brenda’s skin crawl, and she wanted to spit in his face again and then run like hell, but she knew that she was too weak to get far and she had no doubt that he was a man of his word and that he would make her suffer horribly if she even made a move at this point. She had to be smart about this, which meant that she had to endure for the moment.

Besides, she didn’t even know where she was. At least when she’d tried to make her escape from Jackson, she had known exactly where she was and that safe haven - and home - had been literally a few hundred feet away. But now she had no idea where she was or what she was up against, and an escape attempt or even further defiance at this point would be both foolhardy and deadly. She wasn’t giving up, nor would she ever give into him, but she had to at least appear to have acquiesced while she gathered her strength, as well as her wits. She knew that she would need both if she were to have any chance of surviving this ordeal, let alone getting away untouched by this monster.

There was a rattling outside the door and the sound of a key being used in the lock, for which Brenda was grateful, as it drew his unwanted attention away from her.

The door opened immediately and in walked another man, similar in build and coloring to Juan Carlos, but much younger and more robust. He was carrying a syringe in one hand and a paper in the other. “What are you doing here?” he demanded brusquely of Juan Carlos, as his eyes fell to Juan Carlos’s hands, one of which lingered near Brenda’s cheek, while the other still grasped her right shoulder tightly. “I told you that I would let you know when she was ready for visitors, Juan. You promised that you would not approach her until then.”

Juan Carlos smiled and slowly let his hands fall from her cheek and her shoulder, purposely brushing them lightly across her breasts, enjoying the gasp that his touch elicited from Brenda. He had unnerved her, which had been his intention. As long as he kept her frightened of his every move, he would have no trouble controlling her completely. Of course, he had no doubt that he would be able to control her easily, no matter what, as he was leaving nothing to chance in this instance.

“She awoke and was alone, and I knew that you were busy elsewhere, so I came in simply to keep her company. I assure you, Miguel, that I have done nothing to harm your patient,” Juan Carlos said evenly, as he moved away from the bed to allow the second man access to Brenda. “The lovely señorita and I were merely getting to know one another, were we not, querida?” he said quietly, smirking as he saw the look of disgust mix with the fear and anger that were already in Brenda’s eyes.

The second man ignored Juan Carlos; instead, focusing his attention completely on Brenda. “Lie back,” he ordered softly, as he gently eased Brenda back down on the bed, glaring up at Juan when he saw the red marks the man’s grip had left on Brenda’s delicate skin. “Juan, I need to be alone with my patient now,” he said tersely.

Juan smiled and nodded. “Of course, Doctor Torres,” he replied, emphasizing the doctor’s last name, which Brenda found odd. “I trust that you will tell me when she is fully ready to receive visitors, and I trust that that will be very soon. I would like for Señorita Barrett to join me for dinner on my private terrace later. She and I have much that we need to discuss before my other guests arrive.” Then he turned and left, never bothering to wait for an answer from the doctor; knowing that here in his compound, his wishes always took precedence over that of all others, including the doctor’s.

Brenda watched as Juan Carlos exited the room, closing the door behind him. She had heard him mention “other guests,” and she wondered if they had been kidnapped, too, and why? It made no sense to her that he had said that he’d taken her as payment for a debt… Whose debt? JD’s? Did Sanchez and the doctor work for the same organization that JD did and had they taken her to control JD?

But hadn’t JD warned that his organization would simply kill her outright this time, not use her as leverage as they had in the past? … She needed answers, but she couldn’t even ask any questions without bolts of pain shooting through her skull. And even if she knew the answers, what good would they do her? She had no idea where she was, how long she had been here, or even whom she could trust to help her make her escape - if, indeed, escape was even possible.

Escape has to be possible, she assured herself; otherwise… But she couldn’t allow herself to even think about that possibility.

She turned her attention back to the doctor, remembering how angry he had been at Sanchez for treating her as he had. Perhaps he would be the key to helping her find out all that she needed to know, including how to get out of this alive and untouched by that animal, Sanchez. The man looked Hispanic, like Sanchez - in fact, he and Sanchez looked enough alike to be related - but he had a different last name than Sanchez and he spoke with no trace of the heavy accent that Sanchez had. In fact, he sounded American. She wondered what his connection to Juan Carlos Sanchez was?

Her musings about the young doctor stopped as she realized that he was about to inject the clear liquid in the syringe into the IV in her arm.

The doctor noticed the anxious look on her face. “It won’t hurt you, I promise. It’s something to ease the pain - nothing more,” he assured her, his voice soft and soothing, in stark contrast to the angry tone he’d used just moments before with Sanchez. “You were severely dehydrated, which is why you have this IV. I will remove it as soon as this liter of fluids is empty,” he said, as he added the contents of the syringe into the tubing of her IV.

Brenda knew she should be wary of the doctor’s actions, but something in his eyes told her that he was nothing like the other man. She had no doubt that the other man - Sanchez - meant her harm; she had seen that in his eyes. But this man’s dark eyes were kind and caring, though rather sad, she thought. She guessed that he was a good man, and she wondered how he had gotten involved with Sanchez and this organization in the first place? But then, JD was a good man, too, and he was tied into this organization. Maybe this man was in much the same situation that JD was; the organization had threatened someone the doctor loved in order to keep him in line and carrying out its mandates.

The sound of the doctor’s voice brought Brenda back from her musings. “The pain that you’ve been having should disappear shortly. I’ve sped up your IV and that will help also… It generally can be flushed out of the system in a matter of hours simply with the use of glucose IVs, but you’re so small - and dehydrated on top of that…” He glanced back at the paper he’d carried in and frowned slightly. “I… I will still need to do a series of blood tests later to make sure the drug is completely out of your system. Brenda’s eyes opened wide at the mention of more blood tests, but the doctor missed her anxious reaction, as the door to the room opened again just then, drawing both of their attentions to it.

A small Hispanic woman entered and immediately scurried to the doctor’s side, where she whispered into his ear. He nodded and whispered something back to her, to which she glanced nervously at Brenda, then nodded slowly and moved to sit in the chair that was furthest from the bed. The doctor looked to Brenda and smiled kindly as he said: “I’m needed elsewhere for the moment. Carmen will sit with you while I’m gone. Try to rest now. I’ll be back later to check on you and to remove the IV, and if you have no dizziness or weakness by then, Carmen will assist you to bathe and then dress for your dinner with Señor Sanchez.”

Brenda watched then as he turned and left the room. She hated that he was gone; for some reason she felt safe with him nearby. She then turned her attention to the woman the doctor had called Carmen. She appeared to be middle-aged, with salt-and-pepper hair that was coiled tightly on the top of her head. She was dressed in a pale gray uniform, and Brenda assumed she was a servant of Sanchez’s, rather than a nurse.

The woman had been watching Brenda nervously since the doctor had asked her to sit with her, and now, as Brenda stared back at her, studying her in return, the woman quickly crossed herself, then began rapidly muttering something to herself. It sounded to Brenda that she was repeating a prayer, but, from the way that the woman continued to stare at her with a mixture of fear and awe, Brenda wondered if the woman was offering the prayer for her recovery or for the woman’s own protection from her?

Strangely, it seemed the latter to Brenda…

“I still don’t understand…” Dee sputtered, looking from JD to Jax, both of whom wore expressions of fear and dread. Whoever had Brenda was definitely bad news, but who exactly was it? “How do you know who has her from this?” she asked, pointing to the paper Jax held in his hand. The note’s cryptic meaning was lost on her.

“Casino del Caribe was all I needed to hear,” Jerry answered, still not taking his eyes off Jax’s face. “And the man who has Brenda knew that…”

“Would you please stop talkin’ in circles?” Dee demanded, exasperated that she seemed to be the only one not grasping the entire situation here. That was a new experience for her; usually her insight gave her the edge over everyone else, but not this time. “Who has Brenda, and what does he mean by ‘an eye for an eye’?”

“It’s a long story, but the gist of it is that this man holds me responsible for the death of the woman he loved and now he plans to use Brenda to get back at me,” Jerry answered matter-of-factly.

“Oh, Lord!” Dee gasped, staggering back onto a chair. “Can this get any worse?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid it can,” Jerry replied, his voice wavering slightly as all the possible scenarios that Sanchez had in mind for Brenda flashed through his head, each one more horrific than the last.

Jax had remained silent as his brother had given Dee that brief rundown of the situation; the story Jerry had told him about Sanchez killing his own lover and blaming it on Jerry playing over and over in his head. An eye for an eye, Sanchez had warned… Jax suddenly felt sick and more frightened than he had been since this whole nightmare had begun. “When do we leave?” he asked, his voice sounding strangely hoarse and strangled. “I’ll call and get the jet ready.”

“We need to be in the air in less than two hours. I’ve already secured a private jet for us,” Jerry replied. “This trip is risky enough; I don’t want to risk the corporate jet as well,” he added quietly.

Dee looked up sharply at him. “You don’t expect to return.” It wasn’t a question; she suddenly knew that JD planned to sacrifice himself to secure Brenda and Jax’s safe return.

Jerry ignored her comment, instead turning to Jax and nodding toward Jax’s luggage, which was piled haphazardly in front of the door. “You won’t need all that where we’re going, but you will need evening clothes. You don’t happen to have a tux in there somewhere?” he asked, as he made his way over to the zippered garment bag that lay on the top of the pile.

“A tux?” Jax asked, not understanding why Jerry was asking about formalwear.

“Yeah - they won’t let you through the door of Casino del Caribe unless you’re dressed appropriately. It’s a very exclusive club, and it’s strictly formal attire,” Jerry replied, as he unzipped the garment bag to find Jax’s black Armani tux inside. “Looks like you were ready for anything on this trip,” Jerry quipped.

“I was originally scheduled to attend a benefit for the American Ballet, but my plans changed once I hit town,” Jax replied, zipping the bag back up and pulling it from his brother’s hands. “How the hell are we supposed to rescue Brenda in formalwear?”

“We don’t; I do,” Jerry answered curtly. “You’re merely along because Sanchez demanded it… If I had my way, you’d be cooling your heels here with Dee or back in LA with Mum and Dad. So, you’re to do nothing more than keep your eyes and ears open and keep yourself safe and out of trouble… I need you to get Brenda safely back here…”

Jerry didn’t finish the sentence; instead, he looked directly into Jax’s eyes, and Jax suddenly understood the very thing that Dee had also perceived: Jerry didn’t expect to return from this alive.

Sensing that Jax understood his inference, Jerry turned his attention back to Dee then. “I need for you to call Dad and let him and Mike know what’s going on, but I don’t want you to call them for several hours. I want us to be well on our way so that they can’t try to talk us out of this or try to come along. When you do call them, Dee, don’t give them any particulars, like the casino name and location. Just tell them that we have a solid lead, and we’re following it… Can you do that?” Dee nodded mutely. “Good! … And if Weygandt calls- Never mind; I’ll handle Weygandt myself,” Jerry continued, as he turned to head for the door, then stopped as his eyes landed on Brenda’s carryon, which remained in the center of the table where she had left it days before. He walked over to the bag and stared at it briefly, then looked back at Dee again. “Do you suppose you could check out of your hotel and move in here for the duration?”

Jax threw his brother a puzzled look, but said nothing, while Dee nodded and agreed. “I’d like that, actually… I can watch over the place for her and have things ready for when… when you all return.”

Jerry just stared at her oddly, then replied quietly: “Yeah… have things ready for Brenda’s return…” He then sighed heavily and grabbed Brenda’s carryon, flinging it over his shoulder as he headed toward the door. He paused briefly as he took one last look around the apartment, then grabbed the door to slide it open to leave. “Jax, can you grab a cab to Kennedy? I have some things I need to take care of and I need to handle them alone… I’ll meet you on the plane in exactly ninety minutes… The jet’s been secured under the name of James Barrington. Just go to the private lounge, and they’ll direct you to the proper gate. … Oh, I’ll need your passport to copy to make a fake one for you - You do have it, right?”

Jax nodded, walking to his carryon bag and pulling the passport out of an inside pocket, then handing it to his brother. “I carry it with me whenever I travel, just in case I need to make an unexpected trip out of the country.”

That elicited a chuckle from Jerry. “That’s my brother, the boy scout - always prepared!” he laughed, slipping Jax’s passport into his pocket.

“Well, I learned that from my obsessive-compulsive older brother, didn’t I?” Jax shot back, a grin momentarily touching his lips. Jerry returned the grin. It was the first time since their fight the previous day that he and Jerry had shared a smile, and it was the first time since then that Jax knew that he truly had his brother back. It was ironic that it had taken this situation to bring them back together; he just prayed that it wouldn’t also be the situation that would separate them permanently in the end.

Feeling that their warm and fuzzy moment had gone on long enough, Jerry cleared his throat. “Yeah… well, we have a tight schedule, so I need to be going… Don’t be late, Jax; the sooner we leave, the sooner we get to Brenda,” Jerry admonished, as he headed out into the hallway and toward the elevator.

“Wait!” Dee shouted, as she ran past Jax and out into the hall to grab Jerry, hugging him tightly. “I know that you and I didn’t get off to the best of starts,” Dee began, as she pulled away from Jerry and looked up into his startled face, “but I think that we’ve come to an understandin’ since then, and a mutual respect… I know that you believe now in what I have - my gift, or whatever you want to call it - so, I want you to believe me now when I tell you that this is not the time for you to be fatalistic about anythin’, let alone how this will end up. If anythin’, you need to stay positive - and keep in mind that not everythin’ is always as it seems - You know that more than most; just don’t go forgettin’ that now… It’s gonna take all three of you - fightin’ like you’ve never fought before and keepin’ your wits about you - to make it back here alive… And you will all make it back here alive if you remember to follow what your heart tells you, not what your eyes do… Trust me - but more importantly, trust in your love for Brenda and for your brother and for yourself… That’s what will carry you through this.”

Jerry remained silent, his face an unreadable mask while Dee talked, so when she finished she suddenly felt awkward - as if she had overstepped her bounds with him. They stood staring at one another for a moment, then the clank of the elevator interrupted the awkward silence. “Umm… I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have…” she stuttered, as she dropped her head and turned to go back into Brenda’s apartment. But she stopped when she felt Jerry’s hand on her arm.

“Thanks,” he said softly, then he turned and entered the elevator, allowing the doors to close behind him before he turned around so that neither Dee nor Jax could see the tears that were shining in his eyes. He appreciated Dee’s little pep talk; he only hoped that she was right about the outcome of this because, try as he might, he couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that not all of them would return from this alive.

Miguel stood outside the door that led to Juan Carlos’s private suite, poised to knock, yet hesitating, as he dreaded the exchange that was to come. He was given only a momentary respite, however, as the door was quickly opened from the other side by Roberto, one of Juan Carlos’s ubiquitous personal bodyguards.

“Miguelito, come in!” Juan Carlos called from across the office area of his suite, never bothering to look away from what he was doing. He knew it was Miguel, as he’d seen him on the monitor for the security cameras that were mounted in the hallway that led to his private suite.

Despite the fact that no one was allowed access to this area of the compound without special permission - and that included the maids who maintained the private wing - Juan Carlos still felt the need to have security cameras everywhere. In fact, the only area of the entire compound that was not constantly monitored was the actual bed and bath area of his private suite. All other areas of the compound, including the servants’ quarters and the guest suites, as well as the immediate grounds of the 100-acre estate, were monitored continuously. The perimeter of the grounds was also wired to detect any intruders to the grounds. Since the incident four years before, when JD Jacks, in the guise of James Barrington, had been able to easily undermine and then destroy his life both personally and professionally, Juan Carlos had become a fanatic about security. And when he had risen from the ashes of that experience to build yet another empire in yet another country, he had vowed that no man would ever again catch him unaware.

“Why must you continue to call me ‘Miguelito’? I’m nearly thirty-two years old and a doctor, for heaven’s sake!” Miguel grumbled, as he walked toward Juan Carlos’s desk, leaning against it as he gazed up at the wall of monitors that held his brother’s attention.

“Ah, but you will always be my little brother, no matter how old and distinguished you become. You have been Miguelito to me since the day you were born, and you will be Miguelito to me ‘til the day that I die. It is a fact of your life; accept it,” Juan Carlos chuckled, as he continued to scan the wall of security monitors that dominated the north wall of the office area of his suite, never bothering to look at his brother.

“You spend far too much time in here and watching those,” Miguel sighed, shaking his head as he watched Juan look anxiously from screen to screen.

“Perhaps by your standards, not by mine,” Juan Carlos answered, as he finally looked away from the monitors to face Miguel. “Roberto, privacy,” he instructed the hulking man who served as a personal bodyguard for him. The man nodded curtly, then exited the suite, posting himself just outside in the hallway. Juan Carlos checked the monitor for the hall to make certain that Roberto was indeed at his post before turning back to Miguel.

“You have an army of security personnel to handle such things as this,” Miguel replied, gesturing toward the wall that housed monitors for every part of the compound, both inside and out. “There are identical monitors in the security offices and manned constantly, yet you insist on overseeing everything yourself here nearly every waking hour. It’s not healthy, Juan. In fact, it’s become an obsession for you.”

“You, of all people, know why that is!” Juan Carlos answered, as he tore open his shirt to reveal the skin grafts that covered much of his torso. “This is what happened the last time I let my guard down, Miguelito!” he exploded, pointing to the ever-present and still painful reminders of what he regarded as that night of betrayal. “This and so much more - and all because I was not vigilant and I let a viper into my midst!”

“I know, Juan,” Miguel replied, his tone quiet and measured. “I was there with you in the hospital afterwards… I have been with you ever since… I know the pain you’ve suffered because of that night, but you had no way of knowing back then what would happen.”

“Then, to cover his brutal act, he killed her, and set the entire place on fire to cover that! I got these trying to rescue my beautiful Maria…” he continued, pointing again to the scars that covered his chest. “But I could not even get close to her body; the flames were so high and so hot they became her funeral pyre… My heart was consumed in those flames along with her… She was my everything… Now, all I have left of her are my memories and the portraits of her that hang in my room and in the great room above the fireplace - and they would have been destroyed, too, had they been completed at the time.

“He shot me and thought that he had killed me that night, too, but I survived, and I came back stronger and more powerful than before. My empire has grown far beyond what it was when he tried to destroy it, and I have grown stronger as well. And my increased strength was fueled by one thing and one thing alone: my desire for revenge against that man for what he took from me! … But now my thirst for revenge will finally be satisfied…”

“Juan, I understand your anger toward this man - this JD Jacks - but it’s wrong to hurt this woman simply to satisfy your lust for revenge against him! She’s… she’s innocent… Go after him, if you must, but keep her out of this!” Miguel pleaded.

“Do you think that my Maria was not an innocent, as well? Do you think that she was not shattered when he forced himself upon her in a drunken rage?” Juan Carlos exploded, pounding his fist on the desk between them.

“Any woman would be shattered by that,” Miguel answered quietly. “But that wasn’t what I meant… Maria was a part of all of this; she knew how you made your money - she lived the life and she loved it. This woman is different… You saw the files that Jackson had on her and this Jacks. She was young when they were involved, and her time with him was far removed from his work. He lied to her about who he was, just as he lied to you. She was betrayed also by him, and she may not even be aware of that betrayal. She may not yet know about who he really is or what he really does… Juan, it’s not too late to let her go. She has no idea where she is, so she could be freed without fearing that she would lead anyone back here to you.”

Juan Carlos turned to look at his brother. “I cannot do that, Miguel… For four, long years I have felt the pain of his bullet that is still lodged near my spine. And for four, long years my anger and hatred for this man has burned inside of me, scarring my soul as surely as the flames of that fire scarred my body… Every day of that time I searched for him, seeking relief from the pain of the anger inside me, but to no avail…

“I had known him only as James Barrington, but James Barrington was a lie - everything about him was a lie - an abomination. And his lies would have served to cloak him even now had fate not intervened, in the person of the American, Rick Jackson. It was Jackson’s greed and his hubris that led him to seek me out and offer me the woman as a means to Jacks. And after we had agreed upon a satisfactory sum, he faxed me photos and details on the man I had known as James Barrington. Of course, I have learned even more since inheriting Jackson’s extensive data about JD Jacks, after Jackson’s unfortunate death. So, fate really has offered this Jacks up to me on a silver platter, and I would be a fool to decline that most generous offer. - And I am no fool, Miguel.”

“No one would think you foolish if you were to simply send her back to the States the same way she arrived, Juan,” Miguel pleaded. “You still have the coffin. I can drug her again to make her appear dead once more and we’ll simply make a new death certificate for her, as well as a new set of identification papers. She has already served her purpose to lure Jacks here. He’s certainly on his way by now… You don’t need her anymore…”

Juan Carlos studied his brother’s face through narrowed eyes. “Are you having second thoughts about helping me now? Need I worry about you, Miguelito?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“Of course not, Juan!” Miguel sputtered. “I just… I just think that the woman’s death serves no purpose… Simply let Jacks think she’s dead - show him pictures of her in the coffin. That would be enough to convince him - to kill his soul, as he killed yours!”

“Juan, I am well aware -” Miguel began, but his brother interrupted, intent on reminding Miguel of all that he had given him over the years.

“You were just ten years old when Mama died; I had just turned 18,” Juan recalled, closing his eyes as he remembered that time, so many years before. “I had barely enough money for myself back then, and I knew that I couldn’t give you the kind of life you deserved.” He opened his eyes and looked at Miguel with intense brotherly pride. “You were smart, Miguelito - not simply street smart, like me; you had the intelligence to go far in this world - with the right opportunities. But I knew that you would never have those opportunities if you stayed with me. I knew that if you’d stayed with me that you would wind up a drug runner, like I was then, or possibly using drugs out of the frustration of wanting more than you could have with that life. And I couldn’t let that happen to my Miguelito - not when I had promised Mama that I would make certain that you followed your dreams…”

“I know all of this, Juan, and I am grateful,” Miguel answered quietly. “You sacrificed so much when you had so little, and you did it out of love for me.”

“Yes, I did it out of love for you!” Juan pointed out. “I sold my future to Hernando Vasquez so that your future would be assured! He arranged for your private adoption by Hector and Carmella Torres in San Diego and set up a trust for your care and education, and I paid for it all with my indentured servitude to the man! … But it did not work out so badly in the end, did it, Miguelito? After all, you had a good life and a good education, and I managed to inherit his entire empire upon his unfortunate and untimely death, did I not?”

Juan Carlos smiled wickedly, as he ran a hand through his dark, wavy hair. “Of course, that death came at my hands, but it worked out well for all concerned - except Vasquez, of course… The old man had reached the end of his usefulness anyway and his empire was beginning to crumble and would have likely done just that had I not stepped in when I did. Instead, I built it into the most powerful cartel in that part of the world - and it is even more powerful now, despite Jacks’s attempts to destroy it and me back then.

“Of course, I have had to make many adjustments in order to recoup my power, including moving out of my beloved Mexico to here, but even that has worked out well… The authorities here are even more corrupt than they were back home, which makes my work that much easier.”

He turned back to face the wall of monitors again. “I have my surveillance here and I have my network of spies in the outside world, and no one will ever be able to catch me unaware, as Jacks did before. My defenses are impenetrable now, and once I have gotten my revenge against JD Jacks, I will be able to once again enjoy the amenities that my power and wealth provide.”

Juan Carlos turned back to face his brother once again. “But in order for me to truly feel that I have avenged Maria’s death, I will need the woman - and you, as well…” Once again, his eyes narrowed, as he studied Miguel’s face for any sign of reluctance. “Can I count on you here, Miguelito?” He knew that his brother’s love for him was strong, but he also knew that Miguel was a healer, not a destroyer, and this went against the oath that Miguel had taken as a doctor.

“I love you, Juan,” Miguel answered without hesitation. “And anything that I do, I do out of that love for you - always remember that,” he added earnestly.

“Good!” Juan Carlos said, smiling broadly, as he had hoped that Miguel’s love and loyalty to him would win out. “You have already begun, right? That syringe you had with you in her room?” Miguel nodded stiffly. “And what did you tell her it was?”

Miguel sighed loudly. “I told her that it was to ease the pain in her head.”

“And did she accept that?” Juan Carlos asked, although he already knew the answer, as he had watched everything that had happened from here on the monitor of the woman’s room.

“You know that she did,” Miguel replied coolly.

Juan Carlos smiled again at that. “And when will we see the results?” he pressed. “I expect the Jacks brothers to arrive here within 24 hours… Will she be ready by then?”

“I will need to monitor her bloodwork to know when she has reached the optimum dosage, but I assume that she will need at least two or three more doses over the next 24 hours in order to achieve the desired effect,” Miguel replied.

“And will she fight this?” Juan asked conversationally. He did not care whether or not she tried to resist because her resistance to everything was futile while she was here, drug or no drug.

“She appears to trust me - I could see it in her eyes,” Miguel replied, glancing up at the wall of monitors to look at the one that showed Brenda’s room, where she appeared to be sleeping once again. “I already told her that I need to run several more blood tests to make sure the drug she was given when she was abducted has indeed left her system, and then I will tell her that the shots she is getting are to counteract that drug and prevent any lasting ill-effects. I can be quite persuasive; she will believe whatever I tell her.”

“You have quite the bedside manner, little brother,” Juan Carlos smiled. “It’s too bad that you have spent the last few years caring for me and working here, rather than caring for patients, as had been your dream.”

“True, that was my dream at one time, but dreams can change,” Miguel answered reflectively. “I also dreamed of being an actor - remember? I even did community theater in high school and briefly pursued that in college - until my medical studies became more demanding… Besides, this has worked out well for me… The lab here is a researcher’s dream - well-stocked and state-of-the-art - and this location has given me ready access to medicinal plants that would make my colleagues in the States green with envy. And I’ve made some interesting discoveries during my time here.”

“Such as this drug that you are using on the woman,” Juan Carlos supplied.

“Yes…” Miguel murmured quietly. “But it is still merely a prototype - highly experimental.”

“But it will bend her will to mine, right? She will be unable to resist what I tell her to do…” Juan asked, seeking clarification of the drug’s expected effects.

“The drug renders the patient completely compliant to outside commands, working much like hypnosis. If all goes as it should, she will be completely open to our manipulation; she will appear to be acting of her own volition and she will think that she is acting on her own, but she will be really doing what we have programmed her to do,” Miguel explained.

“Good!” Juan Carlos crowed, looking up at the monitor focused on Brenda’s room. “I will finally have the revenge that I have sought for so long. Not only will Jacks die a slow and painful death, but he will first experience the agonizing torture of watching the woman he loves betray him. Then the real fun will begin…” he added, his voice trailing off as he became lost in his fantasies of the torturous ends he had planned for JD Jacks, his brother, and the woman that they both loved.

So deeply was he entrenched in those fantasies that Juan Carlos never noticed when Miguel left the room, shaking his head and muttering sadly to himself: “I am only doing this because I love you, Juan…”

“What took you so long? We’re on a tight schedule here - you said so yourself!” Jax pressed, trying to contain both his fear and his anger as his brother finally boarded the leased jet, fifteen minutes past the time they were scheduled to take off.

“I had things to take care of,” Jerry replied tersely, as he slid into his seat across from Jax and buckled his seatbelt, then picked up the nearby phone. “We’re set. Get clearance immediately.” He hung the phone back up and glanced out the window, listening as the jet’s engines hummed and the Lear slowly backed away from the gate.

Jax stared at his brother, sensing that Jerry seemed to be intentionally keeping him in the dark about something. “Is that all you’re going to tell me?”

“It’s all you need to know,” Jerry answered brusquely, keeping his eyes glued to the slowly passing landscape and never bothering to look at his brother.

Jax sat quietly for a moment, then shook his head as he looked back to Jerry. “I thought we were past all of this… I know that we both said a lot of hurtful things yesterday, but can’t we just put our anger and jealousy aside and work together here?”

Jerry tore his eyes from the window to look at Jax. “Do you think I’m holding a grudge here, Jax - deliberately keeping things from you because of that fight?”

“Aren’t you?” Jax asked pointedly.

“No,” Jerry replied curtly, turning to look back out the window at the slowly passing horizon, as the jet was now in line and taxiing for takeoff.

Jax sat watching his brother, trying to figure out why he was being so deliberately taciturn. Was he trying to hide something from him or was this simply the way Jerry was at the outset of any mission?… Of course, this wasn’t just any mission now, was it? The very life of the woman they both loved was at stake here, and she was being held by a man with a very personal grudge against Jerry. Jax supposed that Jerry’s guilt about all of this was eating him alive. He wished now that he’d held his tongue yesterday, instead of blaming Jerry for all of this. He’d only added to his brother’s burden, and he hated himself now for that.

Jerry stared silently out the window, watching as the Lear quickly gained speed down the length of the runway and finally lifted off. He was lost in his own thoughts and oblivious to the fact that Jax was watching him intently.

Jax’s voice finally broke the silence. “Jer, I’m sorry for the things I said yesterday… especially about this being all your fault… I didn’t mean it.”

Jerry looked at Jax and sighed wearily, “Yes, you did - Besides, it’s true… This is all my fault, and we both know that now… Knowingly or not, I brought all of this down on Brenda, and I’m the only one that can save her - if that’s even possible now.”

Jax’s heart caught in his throat, as he considered the unthinkable. “What do you mean: If that’s even possible?… You think she’s already…” His voice trailed off, as he couldn’t even say the word.

“Already dead,” Jerry finished for him, his voice flat. “No, I have no doubt that she’s still alive,” he added, looking back out the window again, as he thought: Although, she probably wishes she were dead…

Jax had the uneasy feeling that his brother had more to say on that, but Jerry remained quiet, back to staring out the window. “So what’s the plan?” Jax finally asked, wanting to know the details of how they would rescue Brenda from Sanchez.

Jerry looked at Jax strangely, then he unbuckled his seatbelt and headed toward the back of the cabin as he replied, “The immediate plan, little brother, is to make myself a tall, stiff drink,”

“And then?” Jax pressed, expecting Jerry to at least give him a brief overview of his plan.

“And then -” he said, as he poured himself a double Scotch, “- I plan to down it as quickly as possible, then pour myself another one just like it,” he added, as he tipped his glass up and drank the entire contents in one long gulp, wincing slightly as the liquid burned its way down his throat. He slammed the glass down and poured himself another round. “Where are my manners? Care to join me, little brother?” he asked, as he grabbed a glass and poured the same for Jax before putting the bottle back into its slot on the shelf behind the bar. “It’s an excellent blend. Very smooth going down.”

“It’s a little early in the day for me,” Jax said, declining the proffered drink.

Jerry ignored him and shoved the glass into Jax’s hand. “Drink up, little brother - it’s later than you know…” he said, as he tipped his own glass up, prepared to finish it off in identical fashion to the first, but Jax stopped him.

“Jer, what’s going on here?” Jax asked, concerned that his brother was drinking so heavily so early in the day. The brother he knew rarely drank at all, and certainly not like this - or at least the brother he thought he knew… Over the past 48 hours he’d discovered that he’d never really known his brother at all, had he?

Jerry sighed heavily, setting his glass down on the bar. “I went to the Agency for help.”

“That’s why you were late getting here…” Jax surmised, as things began to make sense now.

Jerry merely nodded, saying nothing, instead, staring glassy-eyed into his full glass of Scotch.

“And -?” Jax pressed, anxious to find out what ammunition Jerry’s Agency had thrown into the mix to help them with Sanchez.

“And they turned me down,” Jerry replied flatly.

“What?!” Jax was incredulous. “Did you explain the circumstances - about Buxton and Jackson and what they had done to you and Brenda over the past four years? About Jackson possibly selling information about you and the Agency to Sanchez, which is how he knew to take Brenda?”

“They already knew about Buxton and his scheme to keep me in line using Brenda as bait, and they also knew about Jackson’s involvement in it all…” Jerry continued.

“So, it wasn’t just Buxton working on his own, like you thought… He was working under the Agency’s orders…” Jax murmured, shaking his head.

“No, it was Andrews’s operation alone; I’d actually found that out last night. But what I found out less than an hour ago was that the Agency caught onto Andrew’s scheme early on; they just never let Andrew know that they knew. They knew almost from the beginning…” Jerry replied, his voice flat and unemotional.

“Then why didn’t they call Buxton on it? Reprimand him for it - at least warn you about it?” Jax asked, once again wondering how his brother could stay with an organization that sanctioned criminal activities against the family of one of its own operatives.

“Because, despite it being Andrew’s idea and his rogue operation, the end result of his agenda was that I stayed with the Agency, and the Agency saw that as being in their best interest… To them the end justified the means - no matter how perverse and twisted those means were… even if it meant killing my baby and depriving me of a future with the only woman I will ever love…”

Jax shook his head as he tried to sort all of this out. “I don’t understand… Do they know that Jackson likely gave Sanchez information that could compromise its operations and potentially threaten its very existence?” Jax asked, and Jerry nodded in reply. “…And they still won’t help with Sanchez?”

Jerry shook his head as he lifted his glass to his lips once again, taking just a sip before answering; Jax didn’t try to stop him from drinking this time, understanding now why Jerry had needed the drinks. “I went directly to the top man in the New York office, Ted Simon, with that, thinking that he would be the one to appreciate the seriousness of Sanchez having inside information on me and possibly the Agency’s inner workings. I figured that he’d give us the help we’d need to get Brenda back, and the Agency would then take down Sanchez once and for all and do any cleanup necessary to make sure Sanchez’s inside information went no further than him.

“Instead, Simon said that he was well aware of the ‘potentially’ serious implications of this and that the Agency planned to handle Sanchez in their own way and in their own time, but that I needed to stay out of it completely, which meant that I was to go nowhere near Sanchez - or Brenda. He said that the biggest risk in all of this was if I allowed myself to be pulled into Sanchez’s trap and tried to play hero and rescue Brenda… Simon’s exact words to me were to ‘let this go’ - He said there was nothing I could do to help her now… that I couldn’t sacrifice myself for her when we both knew that she was as good as dead the minute Sanchez got his hands on her, whether I showed up or not… He said that it was for the ‘greater good’, and that I needed to understand that, in the overall scheme of things, my life was more important than hers…”

“He actually said that?” Jax asked, angry that anyone would view one life as more valuable than another’s, let alone view Brenda’s life as worthless. “That she was dispensable and that you should just leave her there because it was hopeless anyway?”

“Yeah, he did,” Jerry replied, his tone flat. “Simon’s a bureaucrat and nothing more - good at crunching numbers and watching the bottom line, but he never seems to grasp that those numbers represent human lives… But I actually thought he would help me…”

“How did you respond?” Jax asked, picking up the glass of Scotch Jerry had poured for him earlier, as he suddenly felt the need for a stiff drink after all.

“Before or after I decked him?” Jerry responded, a hint of a smile on his face.

“You actually hit the guy?” Jax laughed, surprised that his brother had reacted like that to his boss, but glad that he had. “Hope it was a good punch!” he added, clinking his glass against his brother’s.

“Laid him flat out on the floor, actually…” Jerry replied. “… Just after I told him that he could take that as my formal resignation from the Agency and also where he could stick his precious bottom line.”

“Wow! I’m surprised the guy let you out of his office, let alone out of the building. He didn’t try to stop you from leaving - or have you arrested for assault?” Jax wondered.

“Well, he may very well have sent a goon squad after me eventually, but he wasn’t exactly conscious when I left his office. That’s how I made it out of the building in one piece,” Jerry explained, a smirk on his face.

“So, you may be facing arrest when you return to the States?” Jax pressed, worried that was a very real possibility.

“Possibly - if I return - and that’s a very big if,” Jerry pointed out, taking a long swallow of his drink. “Simon is right: Sanchez is using Brenda as bait to trap me. I knew that from the moment I got his note. And Simon’s also right in that it’s likely that I won’t make it out alive, but at least I’ll die making sure that you and Brenda do survive this.”

“I can take care of myself, Jer,” Jax responded quietly.

“Normally, I’d agree with you, Jax, but this is unlike anything you’ve ever faced before. In this particular instance you’re not an asset to me; you’re a liability.”

“Me - a liability?” Jax was incensed. “Listen, I’m not some idiot you just pulled off the street! I’m your brother, and I know you better than anyone else in this world - or at least I thought I knew you! At any rate, I do know how you think most of the time. And you know that I’m quick and agile and that I have a pretty good head on my shoulders -”

“And that’s exactly where I’d like your head to stay!” Jerry interrupted hotly. “But I can’t promise that - not as long as you’re with me! Don’t you understand that? It has nothing to do with what you are or aren’t capable of - Hell, I know that you can be the best at just about anything you set your mind to. But that’s not what will get you killed here, Jax! Just being my brother will likely get you killed! And I can’t handle that! …

“I love you, Jax, and Sanchez knows that now,” Jerry pointed out, his voice quieter but still impassioned. “That’s the only reason he made you a part of any of this. He’s raised the stakes for me by adding you to the equation... He could’ve simply sent the note to me, because I’m the one that he truly wants - but he didn’t… That would have been too clean and simple for him… He needed to stir up the emotional waters between him and me even more by laying both your life and Brenda’s on the line… That ‘eye for an eye’ in his note was very clear. Maria was the one person that he truly loved more than life itself; you and Brenda are the two people that I love that way. He evidently knows that, and by now he probably also knows that we’re both in love with Brenda, and it’s a safe bet that he’s going to use that against both of us - and Brenda, as well.”

He started to take another sip of the Scotch, decided against it, then set his glass down on the bar, sighing heavily as he looked Jax in the eyes. “Listen, I was never crazy about you coming with me on this trip, and if I’d been given a choice I would’ve simply headed for Argentina without bothering to even tell you what I was doing or where I was going. But Sanchez addressed the note to both of us, so I knew I couldn’t show up without you. He’s a man who doesn’t like to be crossed - or ignored - and I’ve seen him drop a man to his knees for an inadvertent slight, so you can imagine what he would do for an outright snub, such as me showing up alone after he’d summoned the both of us. And he wouldn’t have punished me for that insult either; I could have handled that. Instead, he would have taken it out on Brenda, and I knew that I would have had no chance whatsoever to bargain for her release after that.

“So, I figured I had to bring you along,” Jerry continued. “But I thought for sure that I’d have the Agency backing us up once we got wherever it is that we’re going, so it wouldn’t be so risky for you. But that’s not happening now… We’re working without a net here, little brother, with only each other to depend on, and it’s likely that none of us - especially Brenda - will get out of this unscathed - if any of us get out at all… I’ve already accepted that I won’t make it out of this alive, but I want you to know that I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that you and Brenda do get out alive - I want you to help her heal from this and maybe one day she can even forgive me for everything that I’ve done to her…”

Jax studied his brother’s face through narrowed eyes. “Let me get this straight: you’re basically accepting that this is a death march for you, so you’re bowing away from Brenda and leaving the field open for me?”

Jerry nodded, but said nothing.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Jax exploded, slamming his fist down on the bar’s surface hard enough to rattle the glasses sitting there. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the rest of my life wondering if I won Brenda by default simply because you sacrificed yourself for us out of some misguided notion of nobility! … I have no doubt that I’ll win Brenda in the end, but I want a fair fight with you there, which means you can’t willingly sacrifice yourself trying to get Brenda from Sanchez! Allowing yourself to be killed isn’t any different than killing yourself, in my book, and suicide isn’t a noble act! What’s gotten into you, Jerry? How could you even consider…?”

“Do you think I want to die down there?” Jerry fired back.

“It sure as hell sounds that way to me!” Jax retorted angrily. “Is that so you can remain forever the fallen hero in Brenda’s eyes? Do you think that will erase the mistakes of your past with her and she’ll be more willing to forgive you for inadvertently making her life a living hell for the past four years?”

“Of course not!” Jerry shouted angrily. He paused and took a deep breath before continuing in a calmer tone: “I’m simply being realistic, here, Jax… I’m the one Sanchez is really after here, because he feels that I betrayed him and I’m responsible for Maria’s death. And there is only one atonement he’ll accept for that, and that’s my death - and likely in the most painful way possible… That doesn’t really scare me - I’ve had to go into every mission I’ve undertaken with the understanding that I might not survive… My biggest fear in all of this is that he’ll torture and kill you and Brenda before he finally does me in… Sort of his way of twisting the knife, the way he thinks I stabbed him in the back by taking Maria into my bed.”

“So, you’re simply going to go in there and throw yourself on Sanchez’s sword immediately, in order to save Brenda and me from being tortured and killed? Or are you planning to do that simply so you don’t have to witness what happens to us there?” Jax charged.

“Are you accusing me of being a coward?” Jerry shot back angrily.

“No!” Jax sputtered, realizing that his accusatory tone and words did seem like he was accusing his brother of that very thing. “But I want you to realize that you can’t go into this with the mindset that the final outcome has to be your death to satisfy Sanchez’s lust for revenge. I understand that you have to be prepared for that possibility, but you can’t just accept that as the inevitability! Because I can guarantee that if you sacrifice yourself in this, then neither Brenda nor I will ever get out alive!”

Jerry sobered at that. Jax was right… Even though Jax only had second-hand knowledge of Sanchez from Jerry’s accounts of his time with him, Jax understood that the only chance that any of them had to survive this was if Jerry went into this fighting tooth and nail to make it back out alive. “You’re right,” Jerry finally said. “I was going into this certain that I won’t be coming out of it, and that’s the surest way to get us all killed - you and Brenda included… I’ve gone into every mission over the past ten years knowing I could be killed, but I’d already accepted it as my destiny this time. That would have definitely gotten me killed - likely, you and Brenda, too…”

Jerry looked away from Jax momentarily, then turned back to him once again, embarrassment evident on his face and in his tone. “Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best - isn’t that what Dad always used to tell us when we were growing up?”

Jax nodded, a small smile on his lips as he recalled how many times their father had repeated that over the years.

“And that’s exactly what the Agency drilled into me time and again: be prepared for the worst case scenario, but never give up hope for the best possible outcome… Thanks for reminding me of that, Jax,” he added sheepishly, extending his hand out to Jax, then pulling his brother into a bear hug instead.

“Hey, I was just stating the obvious,” Jax grinned, slapping his brother on the back as he pulled away from him, glad that his brother finally seemed to be thinking rationally again. “And you would have remembered it sooner or later.”

“Yeah, but time is at a premium here, and we don’t have the luxury of wasting it on pessimism and self-pity,” Jerry replied, not ready to forgive himself just yet. “I have to be positive in my thinking here, but I also have to start thinking and acting rationally, not emotionally. I forgot my training when Jackson was playing cat-and-mouse with us. I should have gotten in that man’s head long before I did - it took Dee’s urging for me to do that, and that cost us precious time in locating where Jackson had her. And in the end that blunder on my part cost us Brenda… She’d be safe in her apartment now if I’d simply followed my training and instincts, instead of my fears. Instead, she’s with Sanchez… And it makes me sick to think of what he might do to her before we get there…” Jerry added, his voice trailing off, as he picked his drink back up and took another long swallow.

“You don’t think he’ll hurt her, do you?” Jax asked haltingly. “I mean, you’re the one he wants, not Brenda. And he probably knows that you were on your way the minute you got his message... What purpose would it serve for him to hurt Brenda when he has to know that you’re coming to him?”

“It would serve Sanchez’s sick and twisted sense of justice and honor,” Jerry explained. “Juan Carlos Sanchez can be extremely charming and generous to those he considers his friends; but make his enemies list, and the best you can hope for is a quick and easy death.”

“But Brenda hasn’t done anything to him,” Jax pointed out, desperation in his voice. “Why would he hate her so much?”

“In Sanchez’s twisted mind, she’s as guilty as I am of the crimes he feels I committed against him. He knows how I feel about her, and the fact that she looks remarkably like his dead lover will likely only serve to anger him more. After all, my Brenda is alive, while his Maria is dead… He’ll see her as my proxy until I get there.”

“You can’t mean that,” Jax whispered, his voice pleading, but he already knew that his brother was deadly serious.

“Unfortunately, I do,” Jerry replied, his voice slurring slightly, as he downed the rest of his drink, then set the empty glass down on the bar’s surface with a resounding thud.

“Jer, when was the last time you had something to eat?” Jax asked, hearing his brother’s garbled speech and realizing that Jerry was dangerously close to being drunk - and if ever there was a time that Jerry needed a clear head, this was it.

“What day is this?” Jerry laughed.

“Jer, I’m serious here… Have you eaten anything since that sandwich I fixed you the other night?” Jax asked, genuine concern for his brother and the situation fueling his anxiety. “I know that you never touched the juice or muffin Dee brought in yesterday morning, and I want to know if you’ve put anything more substantial than this in your body since then?” he asked, nodding toward the half-empty bottle of Scotch on the bar’s shelf.

“Whew…” Jerry sighed, wearily running a hand through his dark hair, “that’s a good question… I think I had coffee and half a donut around 6 this morning, when I was at the FBI offices, hounding Weygandt for any breaks in the case… Other than that, I don’t remember having anything at all to eat, though I’ve had several of these in the past twenty-four hours,” Jerry added, nodding his head toward the empty Scotch glass.

“I figured as much,” Jax sighed. “Did you happen to ask for a stocked refrigerator when you chartered this thing?” he asked, referring to the jet that Jerry had secured for this flight.

Jerry nodded.

“Good, then I’ll see what they’ve provided us. You go splash some cold water on your face and sober up,” Jax ordered, heading toward the jet’s small galley. “I’ll fix us something to eat and we can discuss our options and formulate a plan of action over dinner. And then I think we both should try to get some sleep because I have a feeling that it will be the last rest we’ll get until this thing is over.”

“You’re probably right,” Jerry answered, as he headed back to the bathroom to wash up, as Jax had suggested. But then, under his breath, he added: “I just hope that the next rest that we get isn’t 6-feet under - and permanent…”

Brenda shifted restlessly in her chair, uncomfortably aware of the unrelenting stares of the two armed security guards that were posted on either side of Juan Carlos Sanchez’s private garden terrace, where she sat waiting for the man himself to arrive. She had been here for the past several minutes; ever since Carmen, the maid whom the doctor had left with her in her room, had brought her here, then hurriedly excused herself, acting as if she couldn’t get away from Brenda fast enough.

And earlier Carmen had tried to bolt from the room the minute Dr. Torres had returned to check on Brenda and remove her IV. Evidently Carmen had hoped to get out of having to help Brenda bathe and dress for this dinner. But the doctor had been adamant about Carmen staying with her, so the woman had obeyed, although she’d avoided eye contact completely with Brenda and avoided touching her any more than was absolutely necessary. And she muttered an unending string of what Brenda assumed were prayers the entire time she was with Brenda. It seemed to Brenda that Carmen was afraid of her for some reason, and now, seeing the wary looks that the guards were giving her, they, too, appeared apprehensive at the very sight of her.

And just moments before, another maid had entered, carrying an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne chilling in it and two champagne flutes, which she’d nearly dropped when she’d gotten close to Brenda. She’d quickly set the tray down on the table, muttering “Madre de Dios!” and crossing herself as she hastily backed away from Brenda, visibly pale and shaken, then turned and ran out the way she had entered.

None of this made any sense to Brenda. After all, she was the one who should be fearful here. She was the one who’d been kidnapped and drugged and brought here against her will; and now she was the one who was being held at gunpoint and told what to do and when to speak. She was powerless, yet every one of Sanchez’s staff that she’d encountered thus far seemed to treat her with apprehension, as if she had some supernatural powers and she’d use them against them if they weren’t careful.

And Sanchez treated her with outright contempt, obviously hating her for some reason he had yet to explain, other than to say she was here as payment for some debt. Likely he was with the organization that had a stranglehold on JD and his comment about her being payment for a debt meant that they would hold her and kill her unless JD cooperated and stayed with them.

Only Dr. Torres seemed to treat her with any degree of kindness or respect. She figured that if she were to escape this situation - and she had every intention of surviving and escaping - then Dr. Torres would likely be the one person who would help her.

But at the moment she was in no condition to even contemplate an escape, let alone attempt one. She was still dizzy and slightly disoriented, and she was fighting yet another round of severe nausea, the second bout since she’d awakened here. Dr. Torres had suggested the queasiness was likely due to her lack of food in recent days and the effects of the drugs and dehydration on her system. He said that a small meal and something to drink would help. He’d given her some juice and crackers in her room a couple of hours before, and she’d felt remarkably better after that. He did warn that she would likely continue to experience brief episodes of nausea and dizziness until her body adjusted to the situation. She wondered what exactly he’d meant by that, but at the time she couldn’t ask, as talking caused more discomfort in her body than the nausea or dizziness combined. Thankfully, that was over now. She could deal with anything, including constant nausea and dizziness, as long as she never again experienced another of those blinding headaches.

She heard rustling in the large garden behind her, and she turned just in time to see a small flock of spectacularly colored birds take flight into the dusky horizon. They were breathtaking to behold and unlike any birds she had ever seen before, and it was only then that she began to appraise and appreciate the striking splendor of the setting she was in. Suddenly she longed for her camera to capture the magnificence of it all.

The lush garden area had a stunning array of diverse and unusual flowers and bushes, all of which were native only in tropical climates. She had smelled the scent of papaya and mangoes earlier, at first in her dream, but then also after awakening, and she assumed that the trees of those fruits were likely in the midst of the jungle that she saw looming in the distance.

“Well, Dorothy, you’re definitely not in Kansas anymore,” she murmured under her breath, as she surveyed the area around her, suddenly comprehending that not only was she not in New York City any longer, she was no longer even in the United States. Why hadn’t she realized that before, she wondered? The clues were all there: the open, hacienda-style house; the fact that everyone, including her “host” and the doctor, was Hispanic and conversed almost exclusively in Spanish; the heat and humidity that had hit her the minute she’d been led outside to this terrace; and now the lush tropical paradise all around.

Her hopes of escape rapidly dwindled, as she realized the obstacles she faced here: she was in a foreign country, where she couldn’t even understand the language, let alone speak it; she was still ill, probably from the drugs they’d pumped into her; and she was being held by a madman, who would not be so easily fooled as Jackson had been. She’d experienced firsthand that Sanchez was a volatile man, who could go from charming to deadly in the blink of an eye, and his erratic behavior made him all the more dangerous.

But, despite the fact that logic told her escape would be impossible, a small ember of hope still flickered in her heart. I’ll just have to watch my step - and my tongue - if it means staying alive and one step ahead of this man, she told herself, remembering the painful results of having been so openly defiant of Sanchez before. But there was no way she was going to remain here as his obedient prisoner, or simply allow him to hurt or kill her. She’d simply let him think that she’d given up and given in to him, as she gathered the information and the allies she’d need to get away from here and him. And if he thought she was being compliant, then he’d likely be more pleasant with her, possibly even let his guard down. That’s when she’d make her move.

Juan Carlos stood staring yet again at the wall of monitors in front of him, intently watching one screen in particular - the one for his private terrace, where the woman was waiting for him. He’d actually been watching her for hours; first, on the monitors for her suite as she slept and then got ready for this evening; then, as she’d walked with Carmen to his terrace, where she now sat, impatiently waiting for him to arrive. He’d been studying her movements, her facial expressions, even the timbre of her voice once she was able to talk again. Everything about her reminded him of his Maria…

Jackson had faxed him dozens of pictures of the woman over the previous few days, and Juan Carlos had studied several of the boxes of disks of pictures and files that his people had brought to him after Jackson had been killed, and he’d been struck then by her resemblance to Maria, but her likeness to his beloved Maria was even more remarkable in person. He’d been totally unprepared for that, and he hated the feelings this woman could stir in him. Watching her now, it was like watching his Maria again, alive and within his reach. He closed his eyes and raised his fingers up toward the monitor’s screen, picturing Maria in his mind’s eye. But she is not Maria, he reminded himself as he opened his eyes and looked back at the monitor; she is the whore of the man who killed Maria!

And that was what he had to remember. He could not allow himself to be aroused by her beauty or seduced by her charms. She was nothing more to him than a tool to be used against his enemy. For that matter, she, too, was his enemy. For, as he saw it, any friend of JD Jacks was no friend of his.

And she was much more than just a friend to JD Jacks - she was his love, his life, just as Maria had been Juan Carlos’s reason to be. Even the people that Jacks worked for had understood this woman’s importance to him. The files that he’d gotten from Jackson indicated that Jacks’s people had used the woman’s safety as leverage to bind Jacks to them for the past four years. They had even gone so far as to attack the woman while she was pregnant with Jacks’s child, for the sole purpose of having her lose that child, thus severing another possible pull to the woman and away from them and their “work”.

Ironically, had Jacks simply followed his heart in the beginning rather than his sense of duty, then he would likely be living happily now with the woman he loved and the child they had created together, and Juan Carlos would still have his Maria with him. And none of this would be necessary.

But it was necessary - and right, in his opinion. His Maria’s soul could not rest in peace until her death had been avenged, and that meant killing the man responsible for her death, JD Jacks. Then, perhaps he, too, could rest once again.

It had been so long since he had had a restful night of sleep; actually, it had been four, long years since he had slept well - since that horrific night when Maria had been despoiled and then died and his Mexican compound destroyed. He’d been both shot and burned that night, and the pain had been excruciating, but that pain had been nothing compared to the pain of losing his beloved Maria, and he’d experienced that loss over and over again in his endless nightmares whenever he closed his eyes to sleep. If it were not for the pain medication that he needed even after all this time, then he would get no rest at all. But that rest came at a price, as he found that he could no longer go very long without the drugs.

How ironic that a man who had made his fortune off the addictions of others could so easily succumb to such an addiction himself. It made no difference that his particular addiction was not to the illegal substances in which he dealt so lucratively, but rather to the prescription painkillers he’d been given so heavily as he’d undergone the countless operations and other painful procedures following the fire; addiction was addiction, no matter how one looked at it, and he saw any addiction as a weakness. And he hated weaknesses of any kind, especially in himself. Before the fire, he’d been a strong man, without any weakness; now he was a man weakened by both pain and addiction, and all because of one man’s actions - that of JD Jacks.

He turned his attention once again to the monitor for his private garden and smiled. “But you are not a man without weaknesses either, are you, Jacks?” he murmured aloud to the empty room. “And I know your greatest weakness of all - and I shall use her to destroy you, just as you once tried to destroy me.”

“I trust that you are feeling better now.”

Brenda turned quickly at the sound of Sanchez’s voice, startled because she had been so immersed in her own thoughts that she had not heard him enter the garden area. That’s certainly not the way to keep one step ahead of this man, she silently scolded herself. Keep focused!

She watched as Sanchez and another man, whom she assumed from his massive size and build was one of Sanchez’s personal bodyguards, entered the garden from the south wing of the villa.

The bodyguard positioned himself just beyond the doorway from which they had both entered. His eyes settled on Brenda, and she thought she saw a momentary look of recognition cross his face, but when she looked again he merely seemed to be regarding her warily, just as the security guards and the maids had done earlier. She glanced behind her to see that the two armed security guards remained at the outer perimeter of the terrace garden, but they now faced the horizon rather than her. She supposed that the mountain of a man that had followed Sanchez out was all the security he felt he needed against her, whereas the others could now watch for possible outside intruders.

What intruders? she wondered. The cavalry to the rescue?

… Don’t bet on it; it will be up to you to save yourself, her inner voice reminded her.

She turned her attention back to Juan Carlos now, watching as he slowly approached the table where she was seated. His gait was unusually slow, and he appeared to have a slight limp. She hadn’t noticed that earlier when she’d seen him. He was dressed once again entirely in black, and she wondered if the man had any other color in his wardrobe, as she had yet to see him in anything but black. She also wondered how he could tolerate being outside the cool, air-conditioned villa while wearing dark clothes - and long sleeves, no less! She was wearing a pale lavender, short, sleeveless cotton sheath, yet she felt like she was melting in the oppressive heat and humidity here on the terrace. Even the guards, all of whom wore identical, short-sleeved, khaki uniforms, were sweating as they stood at their posts. Yet Juan Carlos, as he continued slowly toward her, appeared completely unfazed by the uncomfortable conditions. Probably because he’s the devil and he feels right at home in these hellish temperatures, she thought wryly, as she wiped tiny beads of perspiration from her own brow with the back of her hand.

As he got closer, she studied his face and his form. He was a commanding figure; tall and lean - well over 6-feet tall, she guessed. And he was handsome, too, with his dark, brooding eyes, prominent cheekbones and angular jawline, and, had the circumstances been different, she probably would have felt compelled to do a series of shots of the man. She had a feeling the camera would love him, and her artist’s mind immediately visualized the camera angles and lighting she would use to try to best capture his mysterious aura for the camera. But he was her kidnapper, not her subject, she quickly reminded herself, and she needed to keep her focus on escaping the man, not immortalizing him on film.

“Did I startle you?” Juan Carlos inquired, as he finally reached her. While she had been scrutinizing him, he had been studying her. Now, as he stood across the table from her, he found her even more beautiful than the first time he’d seen her. She wore no makeup, yet her skin was golden and flawless; her dark eyes, fringed by those long, full, thick lashes, were beautiful and alluring; and her full lips were a tantalizing, natural rose color. Her dark hair streamed across her shoulders and down her back in a mass of soft, shiny curls, and he quashed the overwhelming urge he had to lean forward and run his fingers through its silkiness.

He once again felt momentarily flustered, as her resemblance to Maria now was startling, especially dressed as she was in the simple lavender dress that Carmen had selected for her for this dinner - a part of the wardrobe that he’d had designed and made especially for Maria, but that had arrived just weeks after Maria’s death. He had chosen to keep them all, despite the fact that Maria had never worn them, and he had just recently brought them out of storage and placed them in the large, walk-in closet of the very suite that now housed Brenda Barrett. Looking at Brenda and the way the dress fit her so perfectly, no one would have guessed that it had been made for another woman at another time.

Brenda found the possessive way he was looking at her to be particularly unsettling. She had told herself that she would be complacent no matter what, so as not to anger the man unnecessarily, but, unfortunately, quiet complacency was not in her nature, and she found herself unable to remain quiet under his intimate scrutiny. “Would that bother you if you had startled me?” she finally asked coolly, as she pulled her napkin from its ring and unfolded it fully, placing it across her lap, hiding her legs from further view of the man. “I was under the impression that my welfare was not a priority for you,” she added curtly.

To her surprise, that brought a smile to Juan Carlos’s face. “I see that you have regained both your voice and your fire,” he chuckled, as he slid into the chair across the glass-topped table from Brenda and proceeded to uncork the champagne and pour himself a glass of the bubbly drink.

Brenda gave Juan Carlos a puzzled look, wondering what he had planned for her now? Both his tone and demeanor were conciliatory and gentle now, in sharp contrast to the way he had treated her just hours before. What is his game? she wondered.

“I never lost my fire, only my voice,” she replied, jutting her chin out defiantly. She knew she was playing dangerously by being so openly contentious with him; she’d already painfully discovered how quickly his temper flared and his moods changed when she crossed him. Watch yourself, she reminded herself. You have to be in one piece if you’re to have any hope of escaping from here.

To her surprise, he merely chuckled and asked, “Champagne?”, as he moved to fill her empty glass.

“No,” she replied brusquely. “I only drink champagne with people I actually like.”

That elicited another chuckle from him and a nod, but no reply, as the maid who’d brought the champagne earlier appeared then with their dinners. She carefully set Juan Carlos’s plate in front of him, then shakily set Brenda’s down in front of her, before quickly backing away from the table. He dismissed her with a perfunctory wave of his hand and a “Gracias, Rosita,” and the maid beat a hasty retreat back inside the house, glancing briefly over her shoulder at Brenda and then once again crossing herself as she ran.

“Don’t mind Rosita - she is wary of Americans,” Juan Carlos offered, noticing Brenda’s questioning look at the maid’s nervousness around her. He had no plans to reveal the real reason for his staff’s uneasiness around the woman - her uncanny resemblance to his dead lover, whose portrait loomed, large as life, inside the villa.

He’s lying, she thought, but out loud to him she sarcastically replied: “I take it then that most of your staff is wary of Americans, as they all seem to be very suspicious of me and keep their distance.”

Juan Carlos gazed at her thoughtfully for several brief moments. “Perhaps they are simply in awe of your beauty… I rarely entertain and certainly no living creature as beautiful as you has ever graced this place,” he answered quietly.

It was the truth. He’d entertained very few women since building this villa, and none of those had come anywhere near the magnificence of this woman. Only Maria’s beauty could outshine this one. But the flesh-and-blood Maria never resided here; only her portrait did, and even it did not convey the true beauty that his Maria possessed.

Brenda studied his face carefully, thinking that she actually saw a flicker of sadness and remorse in his eyes. But just as quickly as they had appeared, they were gone. So, she thought, this man has a touch of humanity within him, after all. But what had caused that pain in his eyes? A woman, perhaps? She wanted desperately to find out, but she would have to be careful what she asked. Too probing a question about something that was evidently a painful subject for him might cause him to explode at her, as he had in her room. Perhaps if she massaged his ego instead…

“You’re a very handsome man, Señor Sanchez,” she replied, trying hard not to choke on the words, “I find it hard to believe that you don’t have beautiful women constantly seeking your company.” Or do you always resort to kidnapping for your female companionship?

“I did not say that I do not have women seeking my company, as you put it,” he replied evenly. “I simply do not choose to offer them the hospitality of my home - as I have you,” he added, smiling slyly, as he knew it would anger her.

It did. “Hospitality?!” she exploded, without regard to the possible consequences of her outburst. “You call kidnapping hospitable?”

“Ah, but kidnapping is such a harsh term, querida,” he replied, continuing to smile slyly as he idly ran his index finger around the rim of his glass as he spoke, watching as little droplets of condensation slid down the side of the glass. “I prefer to think that I rescued you from a very unpleasant situation and brought you here to a much more pleasant one.” He lifted the glass to his lips and took a long sip of the champagne.

“You think this is pleasant for me?” she hissed, leaning forward in her seat and glaring at him defiantly. “I was drugged and brought here against my will, and I’ve been poked and prodded and spied on since the moment I arrived! I hardly consider this a pleasant experience!”

Juan Carlos lowered his glass and locked his cold, dark eyes with Brenda’s. “More pleasant than I could make it, I assure you,” he replied coolly, his eyes completing the unmistakable inference of his words, so that she would not misunderstand his meaning.

She didn’t. She leaned back quietly in her chair, grabbing her glass of ice water and holding it tightly in her hands, willing the coolness of the glass to seep into her soul to stifle the overwhelming urge she had to pick up her fork and stab his eyes out.

“Good,” he replied, both his tone and his face softening in an instant. “Now that we have that settled, we can sit back and enjoy our meal… I hope you are not allergic to seafood. I had my chef prepare Langosta con Arroz, for us tonight - lobster with rice,” he added conversationally, as he unfurled his napkin and laid it in his lap. “Eat up before it gets cold,” he ordered, as he eagerly put a forkful of the food into his own mouth, then followed that with another swallow of champagne.

Brenda watched as Juan Carlos’s demeanor instantly changed again. He was once again acting as if this was a dinner party and that she was an invited guest, rather than his hostage that he had maliciously threatened just seconds before. She began to realize just how unpredictable this man was. One minute he could be utterly charming and infinitely attractive; the next, bitterly cruel and totally crass; then, in the blink of an eye he was back to charming once again. Was he simply doing this to confuse her, or was he truly crazy? She hoped for the former, as it was always easier to deal with a sane mind than an unbalanced one; but the niggling fear in the pit of her stomach told her that this man was far from rational, and his unpredictable volatility seemed to point to that fact.

Or was it simply her? Was she the reason for his erratic behavior? After all, everyone here seemed to act strangely toward her. Only Dr. Torres treated her as if she were normal. Even the servants and guards seemed unnaturally wary of her. And she certainly didn’t buy Juan Carlos’s explanations for their strange behavior.

And what about Juan Carlos himself? Why did he seem to show such ambivalence toward her? At times, in his unguarded moments, she sensed a genuine warmth from him, almost a creepy kind of affection toward her; then, in an instant, it would be replaced again by complete animosity toward her. He’s insane, her logical mind told her. Don’t try to figure out the reason for his actions; simply stay wary of him and try not to provoke him, she told herself.

She watched as Juan Carlos continued to eagerly enjoy the meal. It looked and smelled delicious. She looked down at her own plate, knowing she should eat because she was hungry and she needed her strength, yet fearing what this man - or his staff - might have done to her food. She glanced quickly around the terraced courtyard, then toward the doors that led back to her suite, hoping to see the doctor. If he were here, she could eat. For some reason she felt safe with him. She was sure that he would never allow anyone here to hurt her in any way.

Juan Carlos noticed that Brenda had yet to touch her food. “You need not worry that it is poisoned, querida,” he finally said, when Brenda made no move to eat. “Here, I will prove that you have nothing to fear from eating it.” He reached over and took a forkful off Brenda’s plate and put it in his mouthed and swallowed. “If it were tainted in any way, do you think that I would eat it so eagerly?… Querida, you need not fear that anything that you eat or drink here will hurt you.”

“I need only to fear that you’ll hurt me,” she shot back angrily.

He gave her a long and measured look. “Only if you displease me,” he replied matter-of-factly.

There was something in his tone just then that shook her to her very core, and she knew that now was not the time to test how far she could push this man. Besides, she really was hungry. Dr. Torres had brought her some juice and crackers earlier, but that had merely settled her rebellious stomach. It had done nothing to assuage the powerful hunger she felt now. Where did this sudden ravenous feeling come from? she wondered, as she took a small bite of the savory dish and then another and another, as she quickly ate nearly half the plateful of food. It felt as if she hadn’t eaten in days - then again, she hadn’t, had she?

“Ah, it is good to see a beautiful woman with a hearty appetite for food,” Juan Carlos laughed, raising his champagne glass to Brenda in mock salute before finishing off the glass, then quickly pouring himself another. He raised his eyebrows sensuously, as he raised his glass once more to her with the toast: “Here’s to you, querida - and to discovering just what other of your appetites are so hearty…”

Brenda stopped eating and stared at him, once again repressing her uncontrollable urge to stab the man’s eyes out with her fork. You’d be dead before you’d even reached him, she told herself, as she glanced surreptitiously at the armed bodyguard, who was scowling at her as if he knew what she was thinking. Besides, he’s baiting you; don’t fall for it.

Biting her tongue, she ignored his innuendo, deciding that a change of subject might be prudent and also an innocent way to learn a little more about this place, this man, and his plans for her… Although, he seemed to be making his plans for her fairly obvious. But that would be over her dead body!

“This garden is beautiful,” she finally said, as she tried to put the sickening inference of his words out of her mind completely. “The flowers and the birds are so unusual… I’ve never seen anything like them before… I wish that I had my camera now…”

A feline smile slowly spread across his face and a cunning glint appeared in his eyes at that, which surprised Brenda. She assumed he would have been puzzled by her non-reaction to his blatant sexual innuendo, but instead he appeared to have expected it. This man was totally confusing to her. How could she possibly get ahead of him in this game when she couldn’t even figure out what game he was playing with her?

“Ah, yes… you’re a photographer, aren’t you?” he replied, smiling broadly as he spoke. “I recall reading that in Jackson’s files… Of course, you’re also very photogenic yourself… A truly natural beauty - all over…” he added, openly leering at her then.

A feeling of revulsion swept through Brenda, as she remembered the intimate photographs that Jackson had plastered on the walls of the bedroom he’d held her in. Evidently he’d sent copies of those pictures to Sanchez. The disgust she felt for both this man and Jackson and what they had both done to her overwhelmed her then and she forgot completely about her earlier admonition to herself to remain calm and complacent, no matter how Sanchez provoked her, and she blurted out: “You and your entire organization can go to hell!”

Juan Carlos seemed amused by her outburst, and he threw his head back and chortled: “My organization? And just what organization might that be, querida?” he asked, despite knowing what she had wrongly assumed.

“Your organization - the one that controls JD! I know that you’ve taken me to hold me as leverage to keep JD under your thumb!”

“I assure you that I am not a part of any such organization, especially not one to which your JD is affiliated. I answer only to myself, not to some nameless, faceless organization,” Juan Carlos replied pointedly.

“But… but you said that I’m here as payment of a debt owed you…” she stuttered, confused since all of her assumptions were apparently wrong. “If you aren’t with the same organization that controls JD and you haven’t taken me to keep him working for you, then who are you - and why am I here?” she asked, suddenly more frightened than she had been before. “I… I don’t have any money - and I’m certainly not famous, so you can’t possibly be expecting any ransom money for me… Of what value am I to you?” Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know the answer to that.

“Ah, querida, do not sell yourself short…” he said, his voice low as he leaned across the table to shorten the distance between them. “You are quite valuable indeed; I would say priceless - especially to the right person… In fact, I am quite confident that a certain some one will be willing to pay dearly for your safe return - even if it means sacrificing his own life in the process.”

“This is about JD…” Brenda gasped, as she suddenly realized Sanchez’s true motives for taking her. “But you don’t want him to keep working - you simply want him… And I’m the bait to get him here…”

“Ah, so you are as bright as you are beautiful, querida,” Sanchez replied, the feline smile once again returning to his face. “You are a rare treasure, indeed…” Sanchez grinned as Brenda pieced together her part in all of this. “And I have no doubt that your JD realizes the treasure that he has in you, and that both he and his brother will gladly accept the invitation that I have issued for the two of them to join us here.”

“Jax? …” Brenda froze, as she realized that this man was intent on dragging Jax into this nightmare, too. “You want Jax, too?”

He nodded. “Actually, my debt is only owed by his brother, but it was a substantial debt, so it will unfortunately take more than one life to settle it,” he replied casually, as he took another sip of champagne.

Brenda pushed back away from the table, standing on suddenly shaky legs. She could feel the color draining from her face now, as any resolve she’d had to remain strong and calm quickly faded away. His intimation was clear this time; there was no room for doubt as to what he meant to do to JD and Jax once they were there. “You… you plan to kill them… … Why? … What did JD do to you to make you hate him so much?”

Juan Carlos stood then, too, leaning down until he was mere inches from Brenda’s face; his eyes suddenly dark and cold, his voice as hard as steel, as he viciously spit out: “He raped and killed the woman I loved!”

Brenda gasped as she listened in disbelief to Sanchez’s accusation against JD. “It can’t… It can’t be true…” she whispered, her voice strangled. “JD’s not that kind of man…”

But then it suddenly struck her that she’d never really known JD at all; she’d only known what he’d wanted her to know. He very well could be that kind of man…

She grabbed for the edge of the table then, just as her already shaky legs gave out completely.

“What did you do to her?” Miguel demanded, his tone accusatory, as he waited impatiently for his brother to explain things to him. He’d walked onto the terrace just in time to see Brenda crumble to the ground moments earlier. He’d carried her back to her room, where she’d come around, but she’d immediately become hysterical and he’d had to sedate her to quiet her. She was resting now in her room, with Carmen reluctantly watching over her until he returned from speaking with his brother. He now stood on his brother’s private terrace, awaiting Juan Carlos’s answer.

Juan Carlos took another bite of the mango sorbet he was having for dessert, then looked toward his personal bodyguard, Roberto, and nodded; Roberto immediately stepped inside the door to Juan Carlos’s suite. He then glanced out at the perimeter of the garden to see that Luis and Jose, two of the many security guards on duty tonight for this area of the compound, were well beyond earshot. Satisfied that no one could hear them now, he took another bite of his sorbet before calmly replying: “Do not worry, Miguelito. I have not poisoned her - I am leaving that up to you… No, I merely told her the truth. It is not my fault that she could not handle that truth.”

“And what truth is that?” Miguel asked impatiently, despite knowing what his brother had told likely her.

“The truth about her lover, JD Jacks - that he is a murderous, vicious man; not the paragon of virtue she believed him to be,” Juan Carlos replied, as he finished the last of the sorbet, then washed it down with a sip of ice water, before dabbing the crisp white linen napkin at the corners of his mouth. Then, leaning casually back in his chair, he finally looked up at his brother, who stood across the table from him at the very spot on which Brenda had collapsed, and added casually, “And I told her of my plans for him and his brother.”

“Juan, I asked you to go slowly with her…” Miguel reminded him tersely. “She didn’t need to be told all of that yet.”

“An opportunity presented itself for her to know; I could not let that pass,” Juan Carlos interrupted, a touch of impatience evident in his tone.

“There would have been other times to tell her!” Miguel argued. “She’s still in a very fragile state - can’t you see that?”

Juan Carlos rose then to face his brother, his face suddenly flushed with anger. “I see all that I need to see, Miguelito! … I see that she owns the beating heart of the man who is responsible for the death of my Maria, while my own heart died with Maria… I see that she has the face and the body of my Maria, but she is not my Maria… But most of all, I see that she is living and breathing, while my Maria is dead! … I owe her no favors! She needed to know!” he bellowed, his eyes flashing.

“She didn’t need to know all of that tonight!” Miguel shot back angrily. “That news could have waited another day… She needs more time…”

Juan Carlos’s eyes narrowed at that, as his doubts about his brother’s loyalty were again aroused. “More time for what, Miguel?”

Miguel saw the doubt in his brother’s eyes. “She needs more time to adjust to the drug,” he stuttered. When his brother continued to stare at him suspiciously, Miguel continued rapidly: “The drug is experimental, Juan, and I’m only guessing when she will be optimally dosed, but by tomorrow she would have had little or no reaction to that information. She was hysterical when she came to. I ended up sedating her for her own safety. Tomorrow would have been the better time to burden her with the details of Jacks’s crimes.”

“Burden her with the details?!” Juan Carlos was incensed at Miguel’s choice of words. “Is that what you think I’ve done? Have you forgotten why she’s here in the first place? I brought her here to destroy JD Jacks as thoroughly and as painfully as he tried to destroy me! And that starts with obliterating every trace of love she ever felt for the man! I want him to lose the heart of the woman he loves long before he loses her to death! I want him to know the pain of watching the woman he loves more than his own life turning her back on him, killing his heart long before his body dies… I want him to stand emotionally naked and alone as he faces his own death, knowing that the person that he held dearest to his heart has turned away from him in the end… I want to compress into a few short moments all the pain that I’ve experienced every minute of every day since he tore apart my life four years ago!” he roared, pounding his fist violently on the table and shattering its fragile surface, sending shards of glass crashing noisily onto the hard ceramic tile of the terrace floor.

All of the guards turned at the commotion, but immediately looked back away after warning glances from Juan Carlos. They were used to the man’s fits of rage and knew that any response on their part now would likely only anger the man more. If he needed their assistance, he would call for them. Besides, they were brothers, and the doctor was probably the only man on earth who could placate his brother when he got like this.

Miguel quickly stepped backwards to avoid being struck by the flying glass. His brother’s legendary anger had been triggered, and he knew he needed to tread carefully now or the woman would likely suffer the consequences. “I understand what your motivations are, Juan,” Miguel replied, his voice more subdued now. He hesitated, as he tried to choose his words more carefully so as not to further incense his brother. “I simply think you could have waited. She’s been through a lot.”

“Why do you care when I tell her or even what she’s been through, Miguel?” Juan Carlos asked, his eyes once again narrowed in suspicion, questioning his brother’s loyalties, as Miguel seemed to be putting the woman’s needs ahead of their agenda. Juan Carlos tolerated no disloyalty among his ranks, but especially not from his own blood. “Do you have feelings for this woman? Need I worry that you would put her needs - that of a stranger - above the needs of your own brother?”

“Of course not!… I only wondered about your timing - nothing more,” Miguel assured him, realizing that his brother’s paranoia had also been once again triggered by this exchange. He knew he needed to nip that in the bud now or his brother’s already fragile mental state would continue to spiral downward, taking him and everyone else down with him. “I am looking at this simply as a doctor - You want me to ready her for what you have planned for her, yet you jeopardize the final outcome by revealing too much to her too soon,” he pointed our defensively.

“Why do you continue to doubt me?” Miguel continued, suddenly turning the focus back on Juan Carlos. “I’ve been by your side nearly every day since that terrible night… I’ve seen what this anger and hatred for this man has done to you, and I certainly know how much you feel the need for revenge against him… I’ve even helped you in this plan of revenge, and you know that… I was the one who prepared the drug that Jackson used to kidnap this woman in the first place; it was I who supplied the drug that your men used to transport her here from America; and I’m the one who is drugging her now. I could lose my medical license simply for what I’ve done for you over the past 48 hours, let alone what I’ve done for you over the past four years! I have told you time and again that I will do whatever needs to be done! We are brothers - you know where my loyalty lies!”

Juan Carlos sighed wearily, as he leaned forward against the shell of the shattered table. “You’re right, Miguelito. I do know where your loyalty lies… You’ve proved it time and again. You are the one person on whom I can always depend, Miguelito.”

It was then that Miguel noticed the blood dripping from his brother’s hand. “You’re hurt!” Miguel exclaimed, quickly taking his brother’s left hand and turning it over to find a large gash and a shard of glass imbedded in the underside of the hand. He gently pulled the glass out, which brought no response of any kind from his brother, despite the fact that a cut like this had to hurt. “Didn’t you feel that you had cut your hand or that this -” He held up the bloody, 2-inch shard of glass he’d removed from Juan’s hand. “ - was in there?”

“The pain was inconsequential compared to the pain that I have suffered every day for the past four years,” Juan Carlos replied nonchalantly, as he attempted to pull his still bleeding hand out of his brother’s grasp. “And the wound itself is minor; I will live.”

Miguel would not let go of his brother’s hand, instead grabbing one of the linen napkins and wrapping it firmly around the wound to stop the bleeding. “You’ll need stitches, Juan. It’s deep…” He looked back toward the villa, where his brother’s personal bodyguard stood in the shadows, watching them. “Roberto,” he called, “get my medical bag from my room.”

Roberto looked to Juan Carlos for confirmation and only moved to comply with Miguel’s request after Juan Carlos gave him a slight nod of assent.

Miguel glanced over to the remaining security guards to make certain that they had their concentrations on the outer perimeter of the compound and could not hear the exchange between him and his brother before turning his attention back to Juan Carlos. He peered carefully into his brother’s eyes and realized immediately the reason for both his brother’s current emotional instability and his indifference to the painful gash in his hand. “This is a very bad cut. I know that compared to the pain of the burns and the bullet you still carry inside of you that this is minor, but you had no reaction whatsoever to this… Why is that, Juan?”

“I told you, my tolerance to pain has risen considerably since the shooting and the fire,” Juan Carlos answered coolly, trying to deflect his brother’s suspicions, though knowing that was impossible at this point. His brother was a doctor, after all; it was only a matter of time before Miguel realized the scope of Juan Carlos’s increased dependence on the pain medication.

“We both know that it’s more than that,” Miguel accused loudly, then, mindful of both the guards nearby and his brother’s especially volatile mood, he lowered his voice as he asked: “How many have you taken today, Juan?”

When his brother offered no reply, Miguel repeated the question again, his tone clipped: “Juan, it’s a simple question. I asked you how many pills you’ve taken today…”

Still no answer.

“Was it two… or four… or six… or more? How many have you taken today?” Miguel demanded.

“Only what was necessary,” Juan Carlos replied curtly.

That cryptic reply sent Miguel over the edge. “Necessary? - Necessary for what? To control the pain of your injuries - or to control your guilt over your plans for Jacks and the woman?” Miguel shot back, his eyes flashing with anger and frustration at his brother and this situation in which they were both now inexorably trapped.

That remark earned him an unexpected backhanded cuff across the face from his brother’s other hand, sending Miguel staggering backwards.

“Do not EVER speak to me in such a tone again, Miguelito!” Juan Carlos warned, his dark eyes made even darker by the fomenting rage within him. “I am your older brother, and, as such, I demand your respect!”

The remaining security guards turned to look briefly at the disturbance in the garden, then looked back toward the horizon once they’d ascertained that it was Juan Carlos who had assaulted Miguel, and not the other way around. The staff were well aware that Miguel was Juan Carlos’s brother, and, as such, afforded him respect, but it was Juan Carlos who paid them and who, therefore, garnered their complete loyalty and protection. This situation was obviously between the brothers and of no concern to them.

Miguel gingerly rubbed the side of his face as he stared at his brother, wondering what he could say that could calm him before things got really out of hand. Juan had always been volatile, but his behavior over the past few days had become particularly erratic. Miguel knew that part of that was the anxiety Juan felt over finally being able to confront the man he held responsible for Maria’s death. But it was also very apparent to Miguel now that his brother was abusing the pain pills upon which he depended for relief of his chronic pain, and that was magnifying both his paranoia and his anger.

Several moments passed as the brothers simply glared at one another. Finally, Miguel took a deep breath, then spoke in quiet, measured tones: “Juan, I do respect you, but, more importantly, I love you, which is why I’m so worried about you now… You’re out of control and we both know it… This is not the man you are - or at least, not the man you used to be… You need to step back and think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”

Juan Carlos was still seething with rage at his brother’s impudence. “You know exactly why I am doing this!” Juan Carlos roared, waving his injured hand in the air, the makeshift bandage waving crazily with his angry gyrations. “You, of all people, know the hell that my life has been since that man killed Maria and tried to kill me! … Do you think that I enjoy the pills I am forced to take simply so I can tolerate the pain that is with me day-in and day-out? … To know that I cannot face more than a few hours without the brief relief that I get from these pills?!… I was once a strong and proud man - the name Juan Carlos Sanchez summoned fear and respect in both my friends and enemies alike… Now, I can barely stand to look at myself in the mirror, knowing that I am no better than the junkie fools who clamor for the products I supply! … And it is all his fault! He made me what I am now - a broken man, filled with pain and rage, dependent upon little, white pills to simply make it through each day! And the outside world - the world that knew how strong I was before - would laugh to see the broken man I have become…

“But soon… soon I will be whole again… Soon the very thing I need to restore my soul and my manhood will be within my grasp, and then I will no longer need those pills. My revenge against the man who caused all of this will ease my pain and then I will be restored again, whole and once again invincible.”

“No man is ever invincible, Juan,” Miguel replied quietly, as he once again secured the makeshift dressing over the gash on his brother’s hand. He half expected another blow from Juan Carlos for that remark, but, instead, his brother’s agitation seemed to disappear as suddenly as it had appeared.

“Perhaps not, but one can at least try to maintain that façade,” Juan Carlos replied thoughtfully, his voice and demeanor now calm and controlled. “I built my reputation on meting out swift and sure punishment to any man who dared to cross me, yet that man betrayed me in the most despicable of ways and for years I was helpless to make him answer for that… But the time for retribution has finally come, and I plan to enjoy every moment of it… Jacks took away the one person who made my life worth living - and I plan to let him know how painful that can be by taking away the two people that he loves most in this world. He’ll lose one to death and the other to betrayal. I want Jacks to suffer the agony of watching his brother not only die, but die at the hands of the very woman they both love. And then I want him to watch in horror as she professes her love and loyalty to me, then turns and kills him, just as she had killed his brother.”

“And then what, Juan?” Miguel sighed, nodding a perfunctory “thank you” to Roberto, who had slipped quietly back onto the terrace with Miguel’s medical bag and had set it down on the chair beside Juan Carlos.

Juan Carlos glanced over to see Roberto standing beside him and nodded toward the door to his suite, indicating to Roberto that he wanted him to return to his post. He trusted Roberto more than anyone else on the staff and he knew the man had seen many things that not even Miguel knew about, but he had no desire to share this particular secret with the man also. Juan Carlos had been careful never to take pills in front of anyone, even when his pain was at its most excruciating. He felt there were certain things that no one else needed to know, especially not a profound weakness such as this. Of course, now Miguel knew of his addiction, but he was both his brother and his doctor and, as such, he trusted that Miguel would never use this particular knowledge against him in any way.

He waited until he was certain that Roberto was once again beyond earshot and then Juan Carlos replied: “After he is dead and gone, I will finally be able to rest again.”

“Do you really think that rest will come so easily after this?” Miguel asked, as he carefully removed the makeshift dressing from his brother’s hand.

“My need to avenge Maria’s murder has driven me, day and night, for the past four years. Soon I will finally have my satisfaction. Then I will be able to reclaim my life… Then I will know peace once again,” Juan Carlos asserted, proclaiming the future as he envisioned it in his mind’s eye.

“Juan, none of this will bring Maria back…” Miguel argued, as he rinsed the wound with antiseptic solution, then lifted his brother’s hand to examine it more closely.

“Perhaps it already has…” Juan Carlos murmured softly, as he looked toward the doors that led to Brenda’s suite.

His brother’s words caught him by surprise, and Miguel glanced up immediately to see the look of longing on his brother’s face. “What did you say?” he asked quietly.

Juan Carlos pulled his gaze from the doors to his brother, suddenly aware that he had uttered his private thoughts aloud. “Are you going to tend to my hand or not?” he demanded angrily, completely ignoring his brother’s question.

Miguel stared uneasily at him, but said nothing. He had hoped that he had misunderstood his brother’s words, but the momentary look of longing he’d just seen cross Juan’s face as he’d glanced toward those doors was all the clarification that Miguel needed: Juan saw this woman as the resurrected Maria.

He, more than anyone, knew the burden that Juan carried in his heart about Maria’s death. Miguel had been with him in those dark days following Maria’s death and Juan’s near-fatal injuries, when Juan had been delirious with grief and pain - and guilt. Miguel knew the terrible truth of that terrible night four years ago that had set all of this in motion, and he’d heard that truth from his brother’s own lips as Juan was delirious with pain from the extensive burns. He knew that Juan had no idea what he was saying at the time, and Miguel had at first not even believed him, as the truth was far more horrifying than the lies had been. But since then, he’d slowly begun to suspect that the words his brother had uttered in the deepest midst of his anguish and pain had been true.

He’d never revealed to his brother shocking words that Juan had muttered that night, and Juan evidently had no memory of it either. In fact, now Miguel realized that the lies that his brother had made up about Maria’s death had come to replace much of the truth of that night in Juan’s own mind. The thousand days and nights of unbelievable guilt and grief, as well as unrelenting physical pain that was barely controlled by the pain medication that his brother had been taking - and evidently abusing in recent weeks - had stripped his brother of his last shred of sanity. He was becoming delusional now. Miguel had seen the clues all along and he berated himself now for not recognizing the signs earlier.

“Juan, you know that she is not Maria,” Miguel said quietly.

“Of course, I know that!” Juan Carlos snapped. “I am not crazy!”

“I never meant to imply that you were crazy,” Miguel offered soothingly. “It’s just that sometimes a person’s… perception … can be altered by both pain and medication, not to mention the toll that the years can take… And she does look very similar…”

“There is nothing wrong with either my sanity or my perception!” Juan Carlos snapped. “I know that she is not Maria!” His voice softened as he added: “ … But there is something about her that is so like my Maria - even beyond the way she looks… It’s in the way that she moves… and the way that she holds her head when she listens… and the way that she purses her lips just before she begins to speak… and the way that her eyes sparkle with fire when she is angry… Having her here has brought back such strong memories of Maria and the life that we had together - the life we would still have together if it were not for…” his voice faded, as he closed his eyes momentarily, then, taking a deep breath, his voice was once again strong and full of venom as he added: “But all of that will be rectified very soon… And then I will once again know peace.”

“And how can you possibly know peace when you are purposely killing innocents?” Miguel pressed.

“JD Jacks is no innocent! He is nothing more than a cold-blooded killer!” Juan Carlos thundered.

“So you have said,” Miguel murmured quietly, as he cleansed the wound with antiseptic solution.

Juan Carlos was so into his anger and his rage that he didn’t even realize that his brother had spoken at all: “As for Jacks’s brother and the woman - they will simply be casualties of a war that Jacks started, but which I intend to end. An eye for an eye, Miguel… I am owed this! This is justice!”

Miguel started to reply, but decided against it, instead busying himself with tending to his brother’s hand. He pulled a packet out of his bag and opened it, retrieving the small strip of adhesive from it. He gently eased the sides of the cut together, then used the butterfly-shaped adhesive bandage to hold them together. He then covered that with a sterile gauze pad and tape. “This will do for now,” he sighed, releasing his brother’s hand then and gathering his supplies back into his bag and closing it. “Come to my lab later and I will stitch the wound there. The light is not good enough for me to do such delicate work here properly.”

“This will do,” Juan Carlos replied dismissively. “I have far more important things to attend to than something as inconsequential as a tiny cut. My informants tell me that the Jacks brothers took off from New York City in a private jet bound for Bocagrande, Argentina, at 2:00 p.m. this afternoon, EDT. They are scheduled to arrive there somewhere around 2:00 a.m. Argentinean time, 11:00 p.m. our time… It will be several more hours after that before they arrive here, but I want everything to be perfect for them when they do finally arrive. And I want her to be perfect.” He looked expectantly at Miguel then. “Will you have her ready in time for the final act?”

“I’m on my way inside to check on her now, then I will need to go into Alajuela for a few more things,” Miguel replied.

“It is late,” Juan Carlos pointed out. “What supplies can you get at this hour?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

“I’ve already called ahead for everything to be delivered to a friend’s office, a doctor there. I told him that I would not be able to get them until late tonight. He’s waiting for me now,” Miguel answered, picking his medical bag up and walking toward the doors leading to Brenda’s suite.

“I will send someone to get the supplies,” Juan Carlos called after him. “You need to be rested for tomorrow.”

“No,” Miguel replied sharply, stopping in his tracks. He softened his tone then as he added: “My friend will not release the supplies to anyone but me. These are medical supplies - syringes, IV supplies, and certain medications - that many on the black market would kill to have. He is getting them for me as a favor. I will not compromise him by sending someone else to pick them up… Besides, you forget that I am used to getting very little rest - I’m a doctor, am I not?” he added with a smile.

Juan Carlos stared at him for a long moment, then finally nodded as he murmured: “I understand… Go then… Just let me know when you have returned. I will need you to be here to tend to our other guests when they arrive.”

“I won’t be gone long - a few hours at the most,” Miguel promised, then hurriedly walked off the terrace and back into the villa.

Juan Carlos watched his brother leave through narrowed eyes, his doubts about him once again resurfacing. He needed his brother firmly beside him now, more than ever. Miguel’s cooperation and participation was crucial in all of this, if Jacks’s downfall was to come about as he had planned. He needed to know once and for all exactly where Miguel stood, and if he could truly trust him.

The fates of JD Jacks and his brother, as well as the woman they both loved, had already been decided. One way or another, they would all die, whether Miguel helped or not. He just hoped that he did not also have to kill his brother before this was all over.

“Ouch!” Brenda’s eyes shot open as she felt the sharp prick of a needle in the crook of her right arm. She struggled to focus her eyes in the glare of the bright lights of the room, finally able to adjust her eyes in time to see the doctor finish filling a vial with her blood, then withdraw the needle from her vein and place a bandage over the puncture site. Then, without comment, he grabbed a syringe and gave her a shot in her upper arm. “Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, as she tried to get her mind to focus on what was happening.

“My job,” Miguel replied tersely, tossing the used syringe into his medical bag, closing it. Then, grabbing both it and the vial of blood he’d just drawn, he headed to the door that led into the hallway, unlocking and opening it as he prepared to leave.

The cobwebs finally cleared from Brenda’s head then, and she remembered what had happened before she’d collapsed: Juan Carlos Sanchez had told her that JD had raped and killed Juan Carlos’s lover and that Juan Carlos intended to kill both JD and Jax to avenge her death. She had to do something to stop it. “Dr. Torres, please wait!” she called, stumbling out of bed after Miguel. She was dizzy from the sedative he’d given her earlier and she still felt slightly unsteady on her feet, but at least she could stand. Besides, she couldn’t just let him leave. He was the one chance she had of saving Jax and JD.

Miguel stopped and turned to face her. “What is it?” he asked, a touch of irritation in his voice. “You really should get back into bed. It’s late, and the sedative I gave you earlier is still in your system. You could hurt yourself.”

“Hurt myself?” Brenda laughed sarcastically, feeling strong enough and steady enough now that she was able to take a step toward the doctor. “As opposed to what Sanchez has planned for me? … Do you know why he brought me here?”

Miguel said nothing, but she thought she saw a flicker of remorse in his eyes; however, the sudden cold, austere expression on his face said she was mistaken. He’d been so kind and considerate to her before - almost sympathetic, in fact - so much so that she had been sure that he would be the one person she could trust to help her. But now… Now he seemed different… What had happened to the doctor since she’d last seen him?

“You know, then, that he kidnapped me in order to lure someone else here?” she asked, testing to see if perhaps the doctor might be an unwitting pawn, who was unaware of the extent of Sanchez’s plans.

“Yes, JD Jacks and his brother,” Miguel replied matter-of-factly.

Brenda was stunned. He did know, yet he seemed unperturbed by that. “Do you know why he’s bringing them here?”

Miguel stared at her placidly, saying nothing.

“He’s going to kill them!” she shouted, hoping to rouse him from this stupor. “You can’t let him to that! I don’t care what Juan Carlos claims JD did - If JD’s guilty, then turn him over to the police and let the courts take care of him, but you can’t just let Juan Carlos kill JD and his brother and call it justice!… Besides, Jax had nothing to do with whatever JD did or didn’t do to that woman!… ” She felt hot tears of fear and frustration sting her eyes now, as the doctor continued to appear unmoved by her words. “You’ve got to do something - anything - Just stop him!” she cried, unsure what more she could say or do to convince him to help her.

“I would not stop him even if I wanted to,” Miguel replied coolly. “Juan Carlos is my brother.”

Brenda felt her heart fall as her last hope of saving Jax and JD and escaping this place quickly disappeared. “Your… your brother?” she stammered.

“Yes, my brother,” Miguel nodded. “And I love him and I would do anything for him -even this… A long time ago, when I was very young, he sacrificed his own happiness in order to secure mine. He saved me from the streets after our mother died. It was not easy for him, but he did what he had to do to make sure that I had a good life. He sent me to America to be adopted and raised by good people. He paid for my education, made possible all that I have now… I owe him my life,” Miguel added resolutely.

“But do you owe him mine as well - or theirs?” she pleaded, hoping that as a healer he would know and show some compassion here. But she was wrong.

“It is out of my hands…” he replied coldly, turning again to leave.

She felt her strength return, along with her anger. “No, it’s not!” she cried, grabbing his arm to stop him. “You can stop this - stop him! You’re the only one who can! He loves you and respects you - he’ll listen to you!” she sobbed. “You know this isn’t right! He plans to murder them in cold blood! You’re a doctor, for god’s sake! A healer - someone sworn to ease pain and suffering, not cause more! But if you allow him to go through with this, you’ll be just as guilty of murder as he is! Is that what you want?!”

“We are blood. His enemies are my enemies,” he replied hotly, pulling his arm from her grasp and shoving her away from him with such force that she landed on the floor. “And I can assure you that there is nothing cold-blooded about any of this… It is about white-hot revenge, and my brother has earned the right to that!” he shouted, leans down toward her, as if to make certain she clearly understood everything. “This JD Jacks murdered Juan’s precious Maria, and he tried to kill Juan Carlos as well! And one of the bullets that your JD put into my brother’s body is still there, causing him unending pain - an ever-present reminder of your JD’s viciousness. And your JD killed many others besides Maria that night when he set the fire to hide his despicable crimes… He is the one who is the cold-blooded killer - not my brother - and he deserves to die in the most painful way possible!”

He straightened then, his face once again emotionless. “Besides, the ball is already in play - what is to be, will be,” he added quietly, turning and walking quickly out of the room, leaving a stunned Brenda alone and sobbing on the floor as she watched her last hope of stopping this madness disappear behind the locked door.

Standing in his office in front of the wall of monitors, Juan Carlos watched with interest the scene unfolding between his brother and Brenda Barrett. He had begun to doubt his brother’s loyalties, but those doubts were put to rest now, watching as Miguel so ardently defended him and his right to avenge Maria’s dishonor and death.

He smiled then; the first genuine smile he’d allowed himself since all of this had begun. Things were coming together nicely now. Soon Jacks and his brother would be landing and his people would be there to make sure they both were brought here as soon as possible. Then all of his chess pieces would finally be assembled on one board and the real game would begin. Then JD Jacks would be the one to know what it was like to not only fail to protect his own queen, but in the end to have her be the one responsible for his final checkmate.

Jax ran a hand through his damp hair and sighed as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He’d just showered and shaved and was in the process of putting on his new Armani tux when the absurdity of the situation hit him: he was getting dressed in formalwear, not to go out for an evening of fun and romance with the woman he loved, but for a night of fighting to save the life of that very woman - and likely his own life, as well. When he’d packed this tux 10 days before for his brief trip to New York, he never dreamed he’d be donning it for anything like this. This whole thing was just too bizarre.

He closed his eyes, remembering back to that fateful day, just over a week ago, when he’d first met Brenda in Central Park and his whole world had been forever changed. He’d give anything to be able to turn back time to that day… to relive their first words… their first kiss… their first time making love…

He’d been replaying every moment of their brief time together over and over in his mind nearly every waking minute since boarding this flight, and his heart ached now at the memories. There was so much he would have done differently - like the days they were apart - but just as much that he wouldn’t change for the world, especially not the moment when she’d finally admitted her love for him. That had been just a few night nights ago…

Had it really only been a few days since then? At this moment, it felt like years… So much had changed for him in that time, including the fact that he’d learned that his brother had been leading a secret life for the past 10 years, and one of his biggest secrets had been that he was the mystery man whom Brenda had met and fallen in love with 4 years before. And she still loved his brother. And his brother still loved Brenda, and he’d returned to her now to reaffirm that love. Unfortunately, his brother’s love came with hidden dangers, one of whom now held Brenda’s very life in his hands.

Which brought him back to where he was now: aboard a chartered jet, getting dressed in formalwear and preparing to spend what was left of the night at a world-class casino, nearly half a world away from where he’d started this trip. That really wasn’t all that unusual. After all, he had done that on a whim on more than one occasion. And Jerry’s lifestyle consisted of constantly traveling from one casino to the next in one country to the next. Actually, a lot of people in their particular sphere of affluence and influence jetted off to places like the Casino del Caribe on mere whims. But, unlike their wealthy peers who were intent on a few hours of socializing and playing the odds for fun as well as possible financial gain, he and Jerry were on their way there to rescue the woman they both loved, and they were well aware that the odds against getting her safely back were heavily stacked against them.

But he and Jerry had both beaten the odds time and again in their lives. He had to believe that this would be another of those times. And he could believe that if it weren’t for the fact that he’d had that dream again…

The same one he’d had the night before, at Brenda’s apartment…

The one in which he saw his brother and Brenda and a little girl playing on the beach…

The one where he was nowhere to be seen…

The one Dee had assured him was nothing more than bad food eaten too late at night…

So why did he dream it again? …

And why was it even more detailed this time? He’d seen his parents with them this time.

His entire family was together there…

Everyone but him…

… And, most of all, why did the dream feel so real and so right - like that was the way things were meant to be? …

“Don’t go there;” he murmured aloud to his reflection. He couldn’t afford to think about what, if anything, the dream meant. He was nervous enough about this night without adding to that a possible premonition of the future - a future that appeared not to include him.

Besides, it was only a dream - right? And he supposed that it made sense that he would dream about his brother and Brenda happily playing with a little girl since he’d seen Jerry looking at the album Brenda had made after her miscarriage and Jerry had told him the other night that he’d always imagined him and Brenda having a daughter together. That had to be the reason he’d dreamed that dream again, didn’t it? It didn’t necessarily mean that Brenda would ultimately choose Jerry over him once they were back in the States.

Or that you won’t come back at all, a little voice inside his head whispered.

Perhaps that was what had really inspired the dream this time - his fear and uncertainty about this whole situation. He was definitely way in over his head here, and he knew it. He had no idea what he was doing; he only knew that he couldn’t sit back and do nothing when Brenda’s life was at stake. And yet he knew that Jerry was right: his being along jeopardized everyone’s safety, including Brenda’s. He was out of his element here. This was Jerry’s milieu, not his. If this had been a straightforward negotiation for her release, he could have viewed this as a business deal and felt secure in the knowledge that he was rarely bested in any business deal.

Unfortunately, this was no mere business deal and there was no room for negotiation. Juan Carlos Sanchez, the man who had Brenda, had the upper hand here. As Jerry had said earlier, Sanchez was holding all the cards at the moment and the odds were stacked heavily against them. But their father had taught them that you play the hand you are dealt, and you play it the best you can, no matter what, and hope that you get the luck of the draw - and that was exactly what they planned to do. He only hoped that his brother had a secret agent ace or two hidden up his sleeve because Jax had the feeling they were going to need far more than simple luck to pull this off tonight.

He plucked his watch off the counter and slipped it onto his wrist, noting the time: 11:15 p.m. He needed to finish getting dressed and get back to his seat because they were scheduled to land at Bocagrande around midnight EDT, and Jerry said that he wanted to give him his new passport and go over a few last minute details before then.

He grabbed his jacket and slipped it on, then, giving one last glance in the mirror, he closed his eyes and prayed that he and Jerry could actually pull this off and that Brenda would be safe in the end.

Jerry sighed as he closed his phone, knowing that he had done what he’d needed to do, but hoping that it had been the right thing, just the same. He slipped the phone back into the inside pocket of his tux jacket, pulling out Jax’s passport as he did so. Then he plucked the new passport he’d made for his brother from the outside pocket of Brenda’s carryon and put Jax’s real passport in its place, first slipping a carefully folded piece of paper inside it. He then walked to the galley and poured himself another cup of coffee, grabbing a clean cup and filling it for Jax; then he set the empty carafe back onto its hotplate, making sure that it was off and secured for landing. He glanced at his watch again: 11:12 p.m. Exactly three minutes since the last time he’d checked. Still another 45 minutes or so until they were on the ground.

He walked back and settled into his seat, then glanced back toward the rear of the cabin, expecting to see Jax emerge from the bathroom, but there was no movement from that direction. It had been nearly 40 minutes since he’d awakened Jax, suggesting that he get a shower and dress for the casino. He’d heard the shower turn off at least a half-hour ago, and he’d expected to see Jax long before this, as his brother was not known to be one to dawdle. He supposed that Jax was using the extra time to mentally prepare himself for the night ahead, and he certainly understood that.

Their father had taught them from an early age to fully prepare themselves for any task they undertook, whether it was big or small, and this particular task definitely fell in the big category. In fact, it made all other tasks in their lives up until now look miniscule in comparison. This was the most important task either had ever undertaken - and definitely the most costly. True, it had thus far cost him and Jax a cool $5 million each, but that cost didn’t bother him. He was confident that the money could be recovered, and if it couldn’t be… Well, it was only money. Granted, a large sum of money, but only money, just the same. That was something else that their father had taught them: money was not the key to happiness; love was.

Love… Before he’d met Brenda, love had been just a word - a complete abstraction for him. All of his life he’d seen people who claimed to be in love, but he had never personally known love’s magic until Brenda had come into his life. Now he’d never be able to forget the power of that magic, as their love had truly been a force of supernatural proportions. It was that love for her that had driven him these past four years; everything he had done in that time had been because he loved her and wanted to keep her safe.

But all of that seemed wasted effort now, as his love had somehow led to this obscene place, with Brenda literally in the hands of a madman and his brother and he walking into a likely death trap along with her. Love was not supposed to bring pain; it was meant to bring pleasure. Yet he seemed to bring nothing but pain to all the ones he claimed to love.

He glanced at the table where the yellow memory book he’d found in Brenda’s bag still lay. He’d pulled it out earlier and looked through it, as he’d tried to focus on something other than his fear for a few minutes. The pictures of children playing and laughing had made him think of the daughter he had always imagined for them and yearn for what should have been. It still made him yearn for that… And what could still possibly be…

Carefully, he picked the book back up and opened it again to the inside cover, running his fingers lovingly over the inscription that Brenda had written there four years before: “For my sweet JJ…You were conceived in love and you will be raised in love…This is my promise to you… Mommy.” His eyes misted over as he imagined what a bittersweet moment that must have been for Brenda, as she declared in writing her love for their unborn child, all the while wondering where he was and how he could claim to love her, yet leave her as easily as he had?

Pain born of his love… His love had hurt her then and it continued to hurt her now.

Behind him, he heard a door open and close, and he quickly slipped the memory book back into Brenda’s bag, then stowed the bag beneath his seat. Then he inconspicuously dabbed at the tears in the corners of his eyes before Jax made it back to settle into the seat across from him.

“You’re finally back. I’d begun to wonder if I should send out a search party for you,” Jerry grinned, as he handed Jax the cup of coffee he’d poured him, then took a sip of his own.

“Yeah, well… I guess it took me a little longer than I thought it would to get myself together,” Jax admitted, as he wrapped his hand around the hot cup of coffee and simply stared down into the surface of the inky liquid.

“Understandable,” Jerry shrugged. “It’s not like you do this sort of thing everyday - I do, and I still had to take a lot of time to prepare myself tonight, too.”

“But you don’t do this everyday, Jer,” Jax disagreed. “I mean, you’ve never had so much on the line before, have you?”

Jerry let out a heavy sigh and shook his head no. “It’s always been just a job. Even these past four years when the Agency was holding Brenda’s welfare over my head, I still went into every mission knowing I could die, but still knowing that as long as I went, then Brenda would be safe, so each mission was just another job I had to do.”

Jax nodded his understanding, then took a drink of his coffee, as Jerry did the same. They sat and drank their coffees in silence for the next minute or so, then Jax finally spoke. “Would you think less of me if I told you I’m scared?” he asked, looking at his brother for assurance and support.

At that moment Jerry knew that he felt closer to Jax than he’d ever felt in his life. “I’d think you were a fool if you told me you weren’t scared - or a liar,” Jerry smiled, which brought a smile to Jax’s face, too. “I’m scared too, little brother,” he said, as he handed Jax his new passport with his new identity and travel history in it. “But we’ll get through this. I promise that I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that you and Brenda - and I - return from this alive. Trust me to do what needs to be done.”

Jax smiled warmly at Jerry then. “I do trust you, Jer,” he replied resolutely, as he glanced at his new identity - that of Peter Stiverson - then slipped it inside his tux jacket.

“And there’s one more thing I want you to remember - and it’s the most important thing I’m going to tell you tonight, Jax,” Jerry said, setting his coffee cup down and reaching across the aisle to put his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“What, Jer?” Jax asked, wondering what important detail Jerry had left until the last minute to discuss.

Then, for the second time in less than five minutes Jerry felt his eyes mist, but he made no attempt to hide his tears from his brother this time. “No matter what happens once we land and step off this plane, always remember that I love you, Jax…”

Dee poured herself another cup of coffee; her third in the last hour, she realized, although she’d lost actual count of how many this would make for the day. She just knew that she had so much caffeine in her system now that she probably wouldn’t be able to sleep for a week, although she knew that the caffeine wouldn’t be the only thing preventing her from sleeping tonight. Her anxiety over Brenda’s whereabouts, and Jax and JD’s as well, had her so wired that she wondered if she’d ever be able to rest again until they were all safely back here.

In the background, the grandfather clock chimed twelve times, and she whirled around to look at the clock, surprised to see that it really was midnight. That meant that it had been ten hours since the Jacks brothers’ plane had departed Kennedy, headed for this Casino del Caribe, in Bocagrande, Argentina, and Brenda.

She’d called the airport a few hours ago to find out the approximate flying time from JFK to Buenos Aires, and the clerk had told her it was a ten-hour nonstop flight commercially. Dee knew the chartered Lear would be faster, which would likely make it a 9-hour flight to Buenos Aires. But Bocagrande, which was their final destination, was just a little further southwest of there, so she figured 10 hours would easily get them on the ground there, which meant they were probably landing just about now. It would likely take them another hour or so to pass through customs and get to the Casino del Caribe. It would be the wee hours of the morning by then… This helluva long day was turning into a helluva long night for all of them.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket to make sure it was on and functioning and checked Brenda’s phone for service, as well. Both were in working order, as she knew they would be. After all, she’d neurotically checked them at least four times in the past two hours. She just wished they would ring!

She hadn’t heard from Jax or JD since they’d left, and that made her uneasy, though she tried to reassure herself that they both had better things to do than to check in with her. Still, she’d feel better if one of them would at least call to tell her where they were or what was going on. But she knew that they had plans to make and fences to mend, and she had no doubt that they had done both by now. Their success in rescuing Brenda depended upon those very things, and they both were well aware of that. And they likely wouldn’t be wasting time checking back in with her, unless something came up. So, for now, she tried to convince herself that no news was good news.

In the short time that she’d known the Jacks brothers, she’d seen firsthand that they were both intelligent, capable men, who could handle just about anything life threw their way. She just hoped that this situation fell within the parameters of those particular “anythings” they could handle. But she trusted that it did. Everything inside her told her that they were both up to the challenge. She only wished that something inside her would tell her how this would all turn out in the end, but, unfortunately, that was not an attribute of her particular “gift”.

She had spent much of evening trying to tweak her sixth sense to possibly give her a brief glimpse of how this would all turn out, but to no avail. She should have known that that would be the case. As she had told Brenda on the plane, life was fluid, not static, and every action changes what comes next, so it was impossible to accurately predict the future. But still, she could generally get a sense of what was possible, as she had on the plane when she’d first met Brenda and also after Brenda had been kidnapped the first time. But now it was as if a brick wall had suddenly gone up for her, blocking even her usual instincts, and that scared her.

She had spent much of the evening studying the many photographs that adorned the walls and sat here and there throughout Brenda’s expansive loft. While she had gotten a better sense of who Brenda was as a person, she had gotten no sense of where she was now or how she was doing - or if she was even still alive. And that truly scared her. She had never had that happen to her before, except when it came to events in her own life. Was she simply too close to this now to be useful, she wondered? Is that why she seemed to be flying blind? She hoped not, because that made her feel completely helpless, and that was a feeling that Dee was neither used to nor could tolerate. You’re just too tired now to get a clear sense of anythin’, she told herself. At least, she hoped that was all that it was…

Suddenly, a cold chill raced down her spine, as the possibility that no one - not Brenda or Jax or JD - would make it out alive hit her full force. “No!” she shouted, her voice echoing loudly through the empty loft. “Sheesh! I’m really losin’ it!” she murmured, shaking her head at her sudden outburst. She just hoped that none of the neighbors called the police now or came rushing up to the apartment door, especially that Mrs. Shapiro, who lived in an apartment on the floor below.

They had run into one another earlier in the day in the lobby of the building, just as Dee was arriving with her luggage and Mrs. Shapiro was leaving to walk her rat of a dog. Mrs. Shapiro had recognized her from their two previous encounters, and she guessed, upon seeing Dee struggling to carry her luggage through the building’s front doors, that she was on her way up to stay in Brenda’s apartment.

Then the woman had called about an hour ago, asking to speak to Brenda. Dee had made up a story about Brenda getting called away for a few days on an assignment and that Dee was staying there as a favor to Brenda because Brenda was awaiting an important delivery of photographic equipment that had to be signed for upon delivery. Mrs. Shapiro had seemed to accept that story without hesitation, and Dee was thankful for that. Jax had been the one who’d suggested that Dee keep a low profile while staying there and to have a cover story ready in case someone questioned where Brenda was. Dee was a terrible liar, which is why she rarely did it, but this particular lie had been necessary and she’d decided to simply view it as a work of fiction, like a plot line in one of her books, rather than an outright lie.

It had been several minutes since she’d had her unfortunate outburst and there had been no phone calls from concerned neighbors and no pounding on the door from weary policemen as of yet, so either no one had heard her or no one cared. She hoped it was the former, but she’d heard about New Yorkers’ legendary apathy toward anyone or anything outside their own personal realms of existence so she figured it could very well be the latter. She shook her head sadly at that realization. This certainly was a far cry from her native West Monroe, Louisiana, where everyone was like family and people were always there to offer help, whether you wanted it or not. Well, she’d take concerned meddling over mindless indifference any day, and when this was over and she went back to West Monroe for a visit, she’d never again complain about the number of people who dropped in there just to see how things were going for her!

When this was over… That sounded like a far-off concept at this point, but she knew for a fact that it would eventually be over - one way or another. She just wished she had an inkling as to how and when that would be…

She sighed and took a sip of the coffee she’d poured several minutes before, grimacing as it was cold and bitter now. She supposed it was just as well, as she’d had more than enough for one evening anyway. She strode over to the sink, emptying the contents of both her cup and the coffeepot into the sink, then rinsed the sink and the decanter, leaving the decanter in the sink just in case she changed her mind and decided to brew another pot later.

She walked to the living room, turning off lights as she went, set her cell phone on the coffee table, then plopped down on the couch, grabbing the throw from the nearby chair and covering herself with it, intent on getting some sleep. She hoped that even a short nap would refresh her enough that she’d be able to once again sense something about the present situation with Brenda and Jax and JD.

She closed her eyes tightly and willed her body to relax, but to no avail. It seemed the more she tried to sleep, the more awake she became. Her eyes popped open once again, and she found herself staring at the shadows cast by the streetlights below that shown through the translucent sheers covering the windows beside her and danced on the wall of bookshelves across the way. “Figures!” Dee grumbled, as she turned over, trying to block out all light while getting more comfortable amidst the oversized cushions of the couch. “If I had a deadline to meet this week and needed to be writin’ instead of sleepin’, I’d be sawin’ wood like a lumberjack!”

Suddenly her cell phone rang, startling her, and she jumped up quickly, nearly knocking over the small lamp on the nearby table as she fumbled to turn it on. She grabbed her phone from the coffee table and quickly opened it. “Hello, Jax? JD?” she answered excitedly.

“Umm… no, I’m afraid not…” Dee heard a female voice with a faint Australian accent reply after a brief moment of hesitation. “Ms. Hotchkiss? This is Jane Jacks. I’m Jax and Jerry’s mother…” Another brief hesitation. Pause. “Oh, dear, I didn’t realize the time there…” she continued, her tone apologetic, as she suddenly realized the late hour it was on the East Coast. “I hope that I didn’t awaken you…”

“It’s okay. Trust me, I wasn’t sleepin’,” Dee assured her quickly. “And, please, call me Dee… Has there been news? Is that why you called, Mrs. Jacks?” she asked anxiously.

“Call me Jane,” Jane Jacks replied. “…I’m afraid we haven’t heard anything on this end, and I take it that you haven’t heard anything either…” She hesitated again, then added: “I had hoped…” Her voice trailed off.

“You’d hoped that I’d heard from Jax or JD,” Dee supplied.

“Well… yes… or…” Jane hesitated again, as she tried to come up with a way to properly phrase what she planned to say next.

“… Or at least ‘felt’ somethin’ about them…” Dee finished for her. She heard Jane Jacks sigh and then clear her throat, but Jane said nothing and Dee sensed her embarrassment. “I take it that you’ve read the file that your husband has on me and my ‘gift’,” she concluded.

“Yes… I… I had no right to invade your privacy that way, but I hoped…” Jane stuttered, having second thoughts about having called Dee in the first place. “I’m sorry… I mean, we’ve never even met, and yet here I am seeking…” she paused, unsure of the words to describe what she’d been wanting from Dee when she’d placed this call. “I’m sorry to have called so late and bothered you like this… Please forgive me,” she apologized again.

“There’s no need to apologize,” Dee replied. “As for never havin’ met… well, that’s just a mere formality. I’ve talked with your husband several times on the phone and I feel like I know him pretty well now, and I feel like I know you, too, just from havin’ spent the past couple of days with your sons. They’re good men, so they had to come from good stock.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Jane replied, then hesitated again before continuing: “It’s just that I’ve never done anything like this before… or even really put much stock in it, but…”

“But you want to know what my ‘take’ on all of this is,” Dee finished for her.

“I’m sorry… This is a terrible imposition on my part…” Jane began again.

“It’s no imposition at all,” Dee interrupted. “I gave your husband this number so that he and you could get in touch with me if you needed to. And I’d say, from the sound of your voice, that you needed to… I know if they were my sons and you were the one with the ‘gift’, then I’d be the one callin’ you right now.”

“Then, you don’t think I’m a foolish, old woman?”

“Not at all! You’re just a worried mother, who wants to hear somethin’ - anythin’ - at this point,” Dee answered truthfully, because, despite never having been a mother, Dee found herself having distinctly maternal feelings for Brenda right now, and Jax and JD, too.

Jane sighed softly, then quickly said, “I’m not even sure how to ask this, so I’ll just come right out with it: How do you feel this will all end?”

She knew that Jane Jacks had called her seeking reassurances about all of this, but Dee couldn’t give that. Because Dee had no more insight into that at the moment than Jane Jacks did, and Dee could use some reassurance herself that everyone was okay and that they would remain that way.

And she wasn’t about to lie simply to ease Jane’s mind. She had already lied twice in the past twenty-four hours. The first lie had been to Jax, when she’d purposely hidden the true meaning of his dream, but that had been for Brenda’s sake. If the brothers had known what the likely outcome of this might be, then it could have affected how they worked together. And the second lie had been the one she’d told Brenda’s neighbor, Mrs. Shapiro, but that had been for Brenda’s sake also. Brenda certainly didn’t need her neighbors finding out about any of this and possibly alerting the media to it all. And she knew that it wouldn’t take long for a good reporter to sniff out Jax’s involvement with Brenda, then there would be a virtual circus of print and television journalists camped out there at the apartment building, as well as in LA at Jacks International, at Jax’s home, and at his parents’ home, too. Things were tense enough as it was, without adding those additional pressures to the mix.

Dee could justify the need for those lies. But to tell Jane Jacks that everything would turn out okay simply to put the woman’s mind temporarily at ease was something that Dee could not do. Because Dee knew that if their positions were reversed she wouldn’t want empty assurances and false hopes. She’d prefer the truth, no matter how cold and ugly it was, and she felt in her soul that Jane Jacks was the same.

There were several seconds of silence on her end as Dee contemplated how best to answer Jane’s question.

“Oh, no!” Jane gasped, mistaking Dee’s momentary hesitation as bad news. “You sense… they aren’t coming back…”

“No! No! No!” Dee exclaimed, upset with herself that she hadn’t anticipated Jane’s likely reaction to any hesitation on her part to answer her direct question. “That’s not it at all!”

“You don’t have to sugarcoat this for me,” Jane replied, her voice catching in her throat as she fought back the tears. “I’m not one who needs to be mollycoddled. I want and need to hear the truth, no matter what. I can handle anything, as long as it’s not a lie.”

“I sensed that about you, Mrs. Jacks - Jane - and I’m the same way,” Dee replied. “And I also don’t lie well, which is why I rarely do it, and I could certainly never do it in this instance… The truth is, at the moment, I don’t have any feelin’s, one way or the other, about this.”

“I don’t understand,” Jane sputtered.

“I’m not sure that I do either,” Dee answered truthfully. “I don’t always have feelin’s about people and things, but when I do, they’re strong, as they were with Brenda when I first met her, and then again with both Jax and JD when I met them. And I’ve never felt a stronger connection to anyone as I did with Brenda. She had such a strong life force that it just about knocked me over. I felt nearly the same things from Jax and JD. But now there’s nothin’.” She heard Jane’s sharp intake of breath at that, and Dee knew immediately what she assumed. “Now, that doesn’t mean anythin’ bad has happened to any of them…”

“Then what does it mean?” Jane asked anxiously.

“It likely means that it’s been a long coupla days and I’m just too tired to focus,” Dee replied, hoping to convince herself of that as well.

“And here I am keeping you from getting the rest you so desperately need,” Jane added apologetically. “I am so sorry for calling and bothering you like this and at this late hour, no less… I wasn’t thinking about the three-hour time difference when I called; I was only thinking about…” Her voice trailed off sadly.

“You were only thinkin’ about your sons, like any worried mother, and I can understand that completely,” Dee replied softly, her voice conveying the compassion she truly felt for the woman and her situation. “Actually, for as tired as I am, I wasn’t doin’ a very good job of fallin’ asleep. My brain’s racin’ like the dickens from too many cups of coffee over too few hours, so I knew it was foolish of me to even try to sleep now, even though I am tired. When I get like this I need to talk, but I knew I couldn’t call and talk about this with any of my friends ‘cause no one else is supposed to know what’s goin’ on. So it was good that you called when you did because you are one of the few people who knows about all of this…. Besides, I think you need to talk as much as I do, so this could be good for both of us.”

“You’re right, I do need someone to talk to,” Jane chuckled softly, then drew in a deep breath before continuing: “I’ve been beside myself with worry since John told me about the situation with the boys. But he and I haven’t had any time to talk since then because he’s been at the office with Mike Moriarity, our head of security at Jacks International, dealing with problems there and also hoping to help the boys somehow from this end… Though I’m not sure what any of us on this end can do, except pray…”

“Well, I’ve always been one to believe in the power of prayer,” Dee replied quietly. “And I’ve seen prayer work many a time when everythin’ else seemed to fail… Truth be told, I’ve been prayin’ almost from the moment I first met Brenda on the plane the other day. I sensed then that she had some powerful stuff comin’ her way even then, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine it would be anythin’ like this!”

“You knew this was coming?” Jane wondered.

“No, I just had a sense of what could happen, dependin’ on what other things came together in her life,” Dee answered.

“Other things?… I don’t understand…”

“Like I told Brenda, the future isn’t set in stone - it’s fluid, and our futures change as we choose our paths and also as those whose lives intersect ours choose theirs,” Dee explained. “Every decision we make influences what happens later, and even the most insignificant thing can end up havin’ a profound impact on what happens later in life. It’s the ripple effect. You know - like, when you throw a tiny pebble into a pond and it might make just a little splash where it lands, but it sends out lots and lots of ripples that can spread clear across the pond. We never know when we toss that pebble exactly where the ripples will go and what effects they’ll have further out; we just know that none of us lives in total isolation, so our actions, no matter how small, have far-reachin’ effects on those around us.

“It’s like with Brenda and your JD when they first met…” Dee continued. “JD tossed that first tiny pebble into the water when he made a point of meetin’ Brenda, and now that first meetin’ between them has gone on to spawn everythin’ we’re seein’ now. Same way when Brenda and Jax met in the park last week. Seemingly insignificant event at the time, but look how far-reachin’ its effects have been.”

“Yes, definitely,” Jane agreed, a sadness in her voice. “I had no idea what was happening with either of my sons - and I certainly would never have guessed about Jerry’s secret life,” she sighed. “- Or about Brenda and the baby,” she added wistfully. “Had we known, we would have welcomed that girl into our lives with open arms long ago. I just hope and pray that we’ll still get the chance to do that…”

“Well, I think prayin’ never hurts in any situation, and I believe it’s always helped me,” Dee replied softly. “Besides, I truly believe that you will get that chance to welcome Brenda into your life, Jane,” Dee said softly.

“Oh? Are you sensing something now?” Jane asked hopefully.

“No, not it’s somethin’ I sense so much as somethin’ I believe in my heart… I believe very strongly in God and I believe just as strongly that, despite the fact that He gave us the free will to throw our own pebbles willy-nilly in the waters of life, He still has a plan for the way things are meant to be. I think He hears our prayers and He answers those prayers, if we just listen to what He’s tellin’ us. And I also think He takes it upon Himself to specially guide those whose lives have been tossed all askew by someone else’s willy-nilly pebble-tossin’, like Brenda and your sons were… I didn’t mean to sound like some Bible-thumper here. I just truly believe that you’ll get your chance to welcome Brenda into your life when all this is over, ‘cause the good Lord’s been hearin’ from me nonstop since all this began, and I figure He’s gonna personally guide Brenda and your boys safely through all this just so I’ll finally shut up and stop buggin’ Him!”

On the other end of the line, Jane Jacks was smiling through her tears as she listened to this stranger, who suddenly felt dearer to her than her best friend ever had. “Thank you so much, Dee!” Jane sobbed.

“For what - talkin’ too much, yet nothin’ much at all?” Dee asked, smiling through her own tears now, as she felt a genuine connection to the woman on the other end of the line.

“No, Dee, for making me smile again and for giving me hope. Whether you know it or not, you said exactly what I needed to hear,” Jane told her. “I feel more at peace now than I have since this whole mess began.”

“So do I, Jane…” Dee replied. “And I have the feelin’ that everythin’s gonna end up just the way it’s supposed to…” She just prayed that the way it was supposed to end meant that Brenda, Jax, and JD would all come through this, alive and well…

The chartered jet carrying Jerry and Jax landed at the Bocagrande airport at 12:04 a.m. EDT, 2:04 local time, and “James Barrington” and “Peter Stiverson” deplaned several minutes later and ten minutes apart. Jerry explained to Jax that they should go through Customs separately then meet up outside the airport, at the limo stands, where they would both take the limo that Jerry had arranged to transport them to the casino.

Jerry, as James Barrington, went first and had no trouble clearing Customs. Several minutes later, however, Jax, as Peter Stiverson, was not so fortunate, and his passport was flagged as stolen and he was handcuffed and taken into custody immediately by airport authorities. As Jax tried in vain to talk his way out of the situation without blowing his brother’s cover, Jerry was nearby, inconspicuously watching the action.

“Sorry, little brother,” Jerry murmured aloud, as Jax was handcuffed and dragged away to the airport’s security offices, “but I’m doing this for your own good… I couldn’t let you come any further. You’ll be a lot safer where you’re going than where I’m going. You’ll have to cool your heels here for an hour or so, but then someone from the American consulate will be here to pick up and keep you safe until this is finished. In time you’ll understand and even thank me for this…”

With that he turned and quickly headed through the airport to the limo that was waiting to take him to the Casino del Caribe, all the while praying that he hadn't just saved his brother's life at the cost of Brenda's.