Jax knew the answer to his question before Jerry responded. And by way of response Jerry said not a word, but merely opened the slim briefcase he carried (along with his small bag of luggage), then pulled out a file folder and handed it to Jax.
“I took that from a safe in Helena Cassadine’s yacht,” was all that Jerry said by way of explanation. Then he watched his little brother carefully, apprehensively… as Jax, alerted by a sense of foreboding and therefore already sensing what he would find within, stoically went through the papers contained in the file.
Jax pored over the documents slowly and meticulously, his emotions masked behind eyes of cool detachment. He lingered when his eyes rested upon the adoption papers and then lingered even more upon the birth certificate. Jerry saw a flash of something in his brother’s eyes that came and went - far too quickly for Jerry to discern what the emotion had been. Pain? Shock? Revulsion? Sorrow? Fury? Jerry assumed the kid had momentarily had the breath knocked out of him seeing the document - the damning proof - and seeing the name he had been born with - a name that was not his own - a name that meant nothing to him. The name Alexi Maximus Cassadine.
The silence dragged on interminably, and Jerry’s agitation grew and grew as he watched his brother.
“Jax,” Jerry finally said quietly, when he could stand the silence no more, “what are you thinking?”
More silence ensued. Just a moment or two. Then Jax finally spoke.
“I’m thinking,” Jax said in a very hushed voice, “how can this be? I’m thinking, how the hell can any of this possibly be? Because I am nothing like them, Jerry. Nothing.”
“Damn right, you’re not!” Jerry said with a vehement nod.
“I’m thinking,” Jax continued, in that same calm, hushed voice, “how damn lucky I am that they didn’t want me. That, for whatever reasons, I was unacceptable to them, and so they gave me away and I was raised by Mum and Dad and a brother who means more to me than I could ever say.”
Jerry swallowed convulsively. Yes! Jax was reacting to this shocking revelation like a true Jacks would! He was a Jacks, damn his Cassadine blood, he was a Jacks.
“Did you know, Jerry?” Before you found this? Did you know I was adopted?” Jax asked him.
Jerry shook his head. “No.”
Jax nodded slowly. “These people are not my family,” Jax said, shoving the papers aside with some disgust and raking his fingers wildly through his hair. At last, the anger was seeping through, Jerry realized. “Their damned blood may run through my veins, but that means nothing to me - less than nothing! You are my family, Jerry. You and Bobbie, Mum and Dad, my beautiful wife, my beautiful son, my baby on the way…”
Jerry wanted to protect Jax from all things - to soothe away his anger at the unfairness of his biology. But at the same time he wanted to shout with triumph! This news had not devastated Jax, had not destroyed him, had not sent him inward into silent isolation or running, unable to cope with the truth. No, it had empowered him, by God! He was mad as hell.
Jerry gave his kid brother a fierce hug. “What do you want to do?” he asked.
Jax thought about that. “First,” he said, “I want to tell Brenda. Then, I want to talk to Mum and Dad. I want to assure them of how I feel. I won’t have them feeling guilty or afraid that I know the truth and that this somehow changes things.” Jax paused a moment. “And I want to find him, Jerry,” he added quietly.
“Who?” Jerry asked, perplexed.
“Him,” Jax repeated. “This Maximus Cassadine person.”
Ah, his father. Jerry nodded. “All right.”
“Not for the reasons you think,” Jax added quickly. “I want to find him because all of the answers for why they’re salivating over my son lies with this man. I am going to find him to get him to tell me everything I need to know. And then I am going to get those people - that family - out of my life any way I have to.”
Even as Jerry nodded, he cautioned: “We still have to be extremely careful in our quest, Jax. These people are still after your son. Perhaps even you. We risk a lot by taking you out of hiding here to go search the globe for this man.”
Jax stroked his chin. “Justin will be all right,” he said.
Jerry nodded in understanding. “You’re leaving him here, then? With Brenda?”
“Are you kidding? Brenda would fight me to the death if I tried to convince her to stay here without me.” A faint smile graced his lips. “Wherever I go, she goes. And Justin goes. And baby Jacks goes,” he said, echoing his wife’s words prior to their having left Port Charles. “But I intend to keep them all safe - and as happy as I can manage, under the circumstances. No matter where we go, no matter where this search takes us, I will protect them.” His voice dropped an octave - soft and low: “I will protect them with my life.”
“And I will protect you with mine,” Jerry responded.
Justin was thrilled to see his Uncle Jerry, who came bearing gifts for his nephew. While Jerry was down by the beach enjoying his nephew’s company, Jax was upstairs with his wife, watching her.
“I don’t believe this,” Brenda gasped, as she stared at the birth certificate and the adoption papers contained in the file Jax had handed to her. “I just… I don’t believe this,” she repeated.
Jax said nothing for a moment. “Still love me?” he then asked her quietly, a vulnerability in his voice that he tried to mask in nonchalance; but there was nothing he could mask from this woman who was his heart and who was his soul and who was his life.
Brenda’s eyes shot to his. “Jax, if you ever ask me anything that ridiculous again, I’m going to smack you. Hard!” she informed him hotly.
Her furious response warmed his heart.
“Why, Miss Barrett, I think that’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever said to me,” Jax told her with a boyish smile.
Brenda shook her hand at him, but she was smiling, too. “My name is Mrs. Jacks, thank you very much.” She tossed the file folder aside on the bed, then got up off the bed, still dressed in only her robe from her recent shower, and went over to where Jax sat in the plush chair by the window. She sat on his lap facing him.
He inhaled her beautiful scent, closed his eyes.
“Okay, tell me how you’re really dealing with this,” she insisted. “Because I cannot, for the life of me, believe these people are your family. I can only imagine how you must have reacted to this.”
Jax opened his eyes. “They’re not,” Jax said, resting his hands on her hips. “They may be related to me, but they are not my family, Brenda.” One hand rose to brush the exquisite softness of her cheek. “You are.”
She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. “Yes, I am. Jax, please don’t act like this is not freaking you out for my benefit. I love you. I want you to trust that - to trust me.”
“I do,” came his soft reply
“Then tell me how you’re really feeling about this.”
Jax cast his eyes down momentarily, allowing her to gaze at those thick, dark blonde lashes of his that always made him look like some magnificent archangel when he was sleeping.
“I never expected anything like this,” Jax confessed to her. “Not in my worst nightmare would I have expected anything like this.”
Delicate fingers stroked his hair. “I know,” she whispered.
“Brenda, I would do anything in my power to change this. I don’t want any of this to even be true. But I can’t change it, can I? And it is true, isn’t it? So, what can I do?” he said logically, his eyes alight with that splendid intellect she so adored. “I can thank God that I was rescued from a life with those people, from being raised as one of those people - from becoming one of those people. And I do. I do thank God for that with every fiber of my being. If anything, learning what I have learned today makes me love my parents all the more for adopting me. They saved me, Brenda. And I’m not angry with anyone about this - with whom should I be angry? The Cassadines for tossing me away? They did me a favor. My parents for keeping the truth from me all my life? They were protecting me - they did nothing wrong.” He shook his head. “No, I’m not angry with anyone. But I just wish… I wish it weren’t true,” he finished.
Brenda gazed into those beautiful blue eyes of his that she loved so much, and she knew Jax was being completely honest with her.
She leaned forward so that their foreheads were touching. “You are such an amazing person, Jax. You truly are.” Her lips found his in a kiss so sweet he could not find words to describe it. It filled him with such deep warmth and sizzling sparks of lightning at the same time. His Brenda. His beautiful Brenda. “So, tell me what we’re going to do now that we know all of this?” she was asking him softly. “Can we confront them with what we know? Can we get them to leave us alone?”
Jax kissed her forehead. “I want to find my… the man who…”
“Maximus Cassadine?” Brenda supplied, stroking the back of his hair now.
Jax nodded. “Yes. We have to find this man, Brenda. Just because I had the misfortune to be biologically born into that family, just because, by extension, my son is also, to their way of thinking, their property, does not explain the insane lengths to which they are going to lay claim to him. There’s something missing here. Something vital that we don’t know about and that we need to discover in order to understand the motivation behind the madness of these people and put an end to it.”
“And you think Maximus Cassadine has all the answers?”
“He’s as good a place to start as any. According to Jerry, Mum and Dad say this man okayed the adoption without hesitation. I can’t see any Cassadine willingly giving away one of their own. There has to be a reason for it.”
A hopeful glint lit up Brenda’s pretty brown eyes. “Maybe he’s not like the other Cassadines?”
Jax shrugged, as if none of this really significant anyway. “Maybe.”
“Is he a cousin? A sibling? What?” Brenda queried.
“Jerry says he managed to get Alexis to tell him that Maximus Cassadine is her uncle. The brother of her father,” Jax provided.
“So, then he’d be a second son. Like Stefan Cassadine,” she said.
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Then he’d have no power really in the family. Neither would his children or his children’s children. I mean, that’s the way that stuff usually works, I think. So, then why do they want Justin so badly?” Brenda pondered, mystified.
“That’s exactly what we’re going to find out,” Jax responded. “Obviously they know something we don’t.”
Brenda’s soft lips kissed his mouth lightly. “Hey, is the weirdness of all of this wearing off of you yet? Maybe just a little bit?” she asked, flashing him a dimpled smile.
“No, not really,” he confessed with a wistful little smile of his own. “I wish it would. I don’t like this stuff cluttering up my mind like this,” he said softly.
Her lips brushed his mouth again. “Their blood may run through your veins, Jax. But nothing could ever change the man you are. My husband, my heart. The man that I love.” She cradled his face, looking into his eyes, lowering her voice to a whisper. “You don’t belong to them, Jax,” she told him. “You belong to me.”
His eyes, smoldering with some emotion, captivated her. “And you to me.”
Emerald blue eyes locked with lovely brown ones in a gaze of amusing mutual possessiveness. And then with a musical laugh, soft, slender arms wrapped around him; soft, sweet, succulent lips covered his own, stealing his breath away in a kiss of blissful passion.
When no one else can understand me
When everything I do is wrong
You give me hope and consolation
You give me strength to carry on
And you’re always there to lend a hand
That’s the wonder
The wonder of you
And when you smile the world is brighter
You touch my hand and I’m a king
Your kiss to me is worth a fortune
Your love for me is everything
I guess I’ll never know the reason why
You love me as you do
That’s the wonder
The wonder of you
Jax slipped her robe from her shoulders, watching as the soft silky material slid down to her waist, baring her lovely breasts to his eyes and his hands. His hands covered them causing their peaks to harden in a rush.
Brenda’s soft, breathy moan of pleasure stirred Jax’s already heated blood, as she arched her back, pressing herself deeper into his caressing hands, even as her tongue swirled slowly around his, their kisses deep and hot and enthralling.
Then his lips were on her cheek, gliding with sweet titillation down her throat, and she tossed her head back to allow his amazing lips an all access pass to her body.
“Mmmmmm… do you know what I wish?” she asked him, her fingers swirling provocatively in tiny circles in the deep, soft gold of his hair.
Jax’s low, wicked little laugh delighted her. “That the bed wasn’t so damn far across the room?” he guessed, gliding his tongue sensually along the warm, silky softness of her graceful neck.
Now it was Brenda’s turn to let out a wicked little laugh. But all thoughts of a hot and sensual interlude were halted at the sound of little, four-year-old footsteps racing up the stairs.
Even as Jax slid her robe back onto her shoulders, he swirled his tongue deliciously along Brenda’s lips, sucking provocatively on her lower lip making her moan, making her melt. And then, reluctantly, he lifted his mouth from hers and shifted her so that she was now sitting sideways on his lap and strategically covering his arousal.
“I believe our progeny is coming to see us,” he murmured against her ear with a grin, kissing her there.
Brenda just sighed, unable to connect her thoughts, still lightheaded from their interrupted passion.
Their gorgeous little boy came barreling into the room a few moments later. “Daddy, Mommy,” he said, excitement in his voice and in the emerald-blue of his eyes, “Uncle Jerry says we’re gonna go on another adventure. Is that for real?” he asked hopefully.
Jax’s eyes met those of his brother, who had come into the room behind Justin. “It’s for real,” Jax said.
“Hi, Jerry,” Brenda said, smiling at her brother-in-law and wanting to laugh hysterically because she could tell by the sparkle in Jerry’s eyes that he had some notion that a passionate moment had been interrupted.
“Hello, Brenda,” Jerry returned the warm greeting and walked over to place a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t bother to get up,” he said wryly, gazing at her strategic placement on Jax’s lap.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Brenda said with a flash of mischievous dimples, so like her young son’s, as she patted her hand against Jax’s thigh.
Jax squeezed her, his soft laugh brushing her ear. “Not for another five minutes at least,” he said.
Justin was impatient with the adults’ silly conversation about getting up or sitting down. “Where are we goin’ this time, Daddy?” he asked, gazing up into his father’s eyes -mirror images of his own.
Jax gazed at Jerry. “I don’t think we know yet, Justin.”
But Jerry was nodding, already letting Jax know that he did know where to go. “We do now. Got a call from Mac while I was down at the beach with mini-Jax here, and it appears Helena and Stefan have both suddenly up and left Port Charles within days of each other.”
“Destination?” Jax queried.
“South Africa.”
As Jax met Brenda’s eyes and processed where this quest for the truth would take them all, the room was full of Justin’s excited babble, as he raced around the room shouting something about finally getting to ride his rhinoceros.
Helena Cassadine despised the heat of the Eastern Cape.
As her manservant furiously fanned her in the boat they were in, taking them away from yet another false lead as to the whereabouts of Maximus, she swatted the fan out of his hand, sending it plunging into the lagoon they were crossing. Far from cooling her, the fanning had merely been pushing the hot air into her face, increasing her discomfort and misery. All she wanted to do now was get back to the cool rooms of her air-conditioned hotel suite.
“He is here somewhere. We know that much, and therefore we shall find him, madam,” Andreas tried to reassure her, to better her mood so that it would not be taken out on him.
“Have our people located Jasper Jacks and his son yet?” Helena demanded, rejecting her manservant’s transparent attempts to lighten her foul mood.
“Errr… no… no, madam,” Andreas said, preparing for her tirade.
And it certainly came, with her blasting him and everyone who worked for her as incompetents of the worst order who were too stupid to live.
As Helena continued on her cruel tirade, shoving back her limp hair - damp with the perspiration from her face - in disgust and cursing the deplorable heat, a curtain drew back in the living room of the museum curator’s lush villa they had just left.
“Do you know her, my friend?” the curator asked the man gazing out of the window.
“The woman, I know,” he responded. “Did they tell you what they wanted?”
“Only that they were looking for you. That they heard you’d attended a dinner party here last night and if I had any idea of your whereabouts. They claimed to be family of yours and that an emergency had come up and they must find you. I take it that is not true, since you asked me to keep your presence here from them?”
“The family part is unfortunately true,” Maximus Cassadine said. “The rest I do not know. But her presence here cannot be a good thing,” he murmured. “I can think of nothing that would ever make that woman seek me out. She has never had any use for…” his voice trailed off; tension seemed to spring into his body.
“Max?” his friend called his name.
“There is one thing,” Maximus said gravely. “One thing that would send her seeking me thus. But it is something she cannot possibly know.” He shook his head. “She cannot possibly know…”
Or could she?
God above, he hoped not. After all he had done to protect his son all these years, he would not have it all be for naught, damn it all!
He let the curtains drop and looked away from the lagoon and the departing little boat. “Please excuse me, Gabriel,” Maximus said, “I must make a phone call immediately.”
Gabriel smiled. “To that lovely countess you met at dinner last night?”
Maximus shook his head. “To my residence in Greece. I’m afraid this could be serious.” He dialed the number of his home, hoping his servant and trusted friend, Yefgeni, would bring him good news. Would tell him that the extensive files on his son, secured in his vault, were still there, untouched, unseen.
Or else, Maximus knew very well the perilous repercussions of the truth about Alexi coming out. And what other truths it would in turn reveal.
Good god, all bloody hell was going to break loose.
Song credit: “The Wonder of You” written by Baker Knight