In the Shadow of the Twilight Kingdom
By Christa
They took his medallion from him. It hung there, a glistening gold weight, leaving his neck bare. He cringed in spite of himself, feeling as if he had committed a great sin by relinquishing it. But there was no one to scold him, or shoot him sternly disapproving looks. His guardians were gone.
His rings were next. The signet ring his uncle had given him on his eighteenth birthday, which had left its mark on his finger. The wedding ring Emily slipped on his finger several days earlier, which had not. His grandfather's watch. His custom tailored clothes traded for orange coveralls made of inferior cloth.
Layer by layer, they stripped him of every item that distinguished him from the rest of the rabble in this cage.
His family could trace its line back into the dim pages of history for close to a thousand years. Generation after generation, the stories of their lives and deeds recorded and passed down to their descendants. He didn't remember a great deal about the time he spent in his grandmother's care before his uncle took control of the family, but he remembered the hall lined with portraits of his ancestors and even further back the family crests and shields. Tangible reminders that his family had left their mark on the world for centuries and would do so for centuries to come. Or so she told him.
His wife told him he was different. He wasn't a Cassadine like the rest of them. But he wondered if she truly understood how hard they tried to mark him as their own. Perhaps it was uniquely American, this ability to create and shed identities in the blink of an eye.
For a time, he'd believed he could win because his uncle had won. Like them, just a fierce in defense of the line, but with a fierceness tempered by his love for him, for his sister. His uncle had raised him to be a different sort of Cassadine. To transform the authority his ancestors wielded so ruthlessly with a lighter hand.
Then his uncle fell.
He hadn't wanted to believe it. Hadn't wanted to know Stefan was as helpless against the call of blood as the rest, betraying what he had taught him because how could he do otherwise, as a Cassadine?
Nikolas had vowed to walk away. He'd had his fill of the twisted web of betrayals, revenge and the relentless drive to conquer that spurred the rest of them on. He would keep his distance from the family, take his refuge in this new world.
It was easier to fight them here, when he lived every moment in the shadow of his family's failures, the memories smothering the stone walls. He found and lost all his parents in this place. His mother. The father he wanted and the father he didn't. And the victims piled up in the wreckage along the way. Katherine. Chloe. Lucky, who managed to survive. Gia. Summer. Lydia. They were the talisman he used to ward off the ghosts that pulled him towards them.
In the end they had won. He'd let the madness take him and she was gone. But how much could they expect from the heir and son of men and women with so much blood on their hands?
He'd surprised her, he knew that. She hadn't expected him to lunge for her as the knife fell away. He could see it now, her hand reaching out in a desperate attempt to save herself. The choked cry as she went over the edge should have haunted him, but it was the look in her eyes that stayed with him. Dawning approval and respect as her lips curved up in a smile at the man he'd never wanted to be.
He went to the police the next day, despite his attorney's pleas. Reasonable doubt, they cried. What did he have to lose from a trial? They didn't understand. The rest of them flaunted the law with impunity, hiding behind their lawyers, secure in the knowledge they could escape the fumbling embrace of justice. Not him. He would confess. He would do what no Cassadine in his right mind would do - offer to stand before a court and let them decide if he was guilty or innocent. Whether he deserved to pay for his crime. Whatever the decision, he would acquiesce. And then he would be free. She was done toying with his life.
Do you love your uncle, dear boy?
Then watch as I take away the foundation on which he built his life… the belief that you were his son.
Watch me bring the Cassadine Empire to its knees, twisting him into knots over the fate of the legacy he guarded for so many years.
What next… what else is there to take away to make you bend to my will?
Your sanity? Your freedom? Your wife?
He'd sat in the solitary cell, waiting for transport to the prison, and the stillness and the silence washed over him like a gift. Somehow he had reached the point where he was so accustomed to relentless crisis, one after another like clockwork, that there was something freeing about being in a place where he had no responsibility to anyone but himself.
Then the gates of the prison clicked shut behind him. The guards walked him down the aisle towards his cell, and he felt the eyes on him. Cool. Assessing. Probing for weakness. The thought swam in the back of his brain… This is a mistake.
Twenty four hours later, he had survived his first day in prison, eating food Mrs. Landsbury wouldn't have bothered to throw to the dogs, sleeping in a cell smaller than his closet at home on a mattress that was most likely infested with creatures he did not care to contemplate. The only comforting discovery of the day was that the prison was blessed with a library, as pitiful as its holdings were.
His cellmate, Tony, who claimed to have killed a man in a bar brawl, treated his arrival with bored indifference, warning him quietly to trust no one. Later that evening, he overheard someone else say Tony was in for auto theft, not murder. No escape from the lies, even in this place.
He supposed the confrontation was inevitable, the testing everyone in this place endured from the guards and their fellows. He hadn't expected it to come so soon. Or so brutally.
On his way back from the laundry room, he ran into two men who didn't care that he could buy and sell them a thousand times over or that members of his family had sat on thrones in seven countries in Europe. All they saw was a new face. And he was in their way.
He tried to avoid their taunts, but one of them moved in front of him, blocking his path.
"You think I'm scared of you kid, because you killed a little old lady?"
He shouldn't have laughed. But the idea of Helena Cassadine as a helpless victim was so absurd, he couldn't help it.
The other man's face darkened and he had only a moment to realize how completely the rules had changed before a fist smashed into his gut. He gasped for air, stunned as the wind was knocked out of him, but more stunned by the blow itself. He couldn't remember the last time someone had dared to lay a hand on him in anger.
He didn't have the luxury to dwell on his shock for long, as the fist came back towards him, aiming for his head. Long-buried reflexes had him parrying the next blow. His eyes darted around, looking for rescue, but there was none. No bodyguards rushing to his aid. He was alone.
The next blow had him tasting blood. He dodged again, scrambling back and landed a lucky blow, but was shoved across the room and lost his footing. He rolled to dodge another hit, but there was little room for evasion. Fear, pain and anger mingled together and his jaw clenched.
The smart thing to do would have been to back down, submit before the man who outweighed him by a good 20 kilos, and play for time. But there was too much of his ancestors' blood left in him to permit surrender. He let the anger take him and he lashed out, striking blindly, and paying the price for his attempt.
Then his opponent made a mistake, a simple mistake, but he knew exactly how to counter it and he struck, as he had been taught. Suddenly his uncle's admonishments about letting anger cloud his judgments clicked into place. He allowed himself a breath to clear his head, then fought as he had been trained, with cold calculation, letting the other man's anger goad him into mistakes he shouldn't have made. Then he pounced, relentlessly hammering home his advantage until the other man lay broken and bleeding on the floor, his friend crouched by his side with a look of fear.
He should have felt something as he stared down at the body and the guards finally rushed in. But the emotions he had ruthlessly purged from his head during the fight refused to return. Instead, he found himself answering the questions put to him with a cool detachment that only inflamed the guards more.
"Arrogant little punk," one of them muttered. "You won't be so cocky when his other friends get their hands on you."
They held a hurried consultation with their supervisor. Nikolas thought he heard the word attorney and he felt his lips twist up in grim amusement that even in this place, he was not free from ties from his old life.
"Solitary confinement for you, Cassadine," one of the guards snapped finally. "Let's see how you like being alone in the dark."
This time he held back the laughter that threatened to spill out from his battered lips. They thought they could threaten him with a lack of light, like they would a child, afraid of the dark. Did they have any idea of what he'd already survived? Were they truly that ignorant?
They threw him in the cell, with only a glimmer of light shining through the slit in the doorway connecting him to the outside world. Others might have sought shelter in the pool of light streaming into the cell. Not him. He backed away, towards the darkest part of the room and looked away, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, focusing on his breath. Ground and center. One breath after another. Then exhaustion took over and he surrendered to sleep.
When he woke it was night. The pools of darkness were broken by fainter shadows, and he groped blindly around the cell, searching for his bearings. His knuckles scraped the brick wall and he swore. There was a small mattress bed in the corner, and he wrapped the thin blanket around his body, shivering.
This wasn't supposed to be his life. He could remember Alexis and Stefan's impassioned debate over whether he would benefit more from an education at Harvard or Oxford. Neither of them had bothered to solicit the opinion of the eight year old child whose future they were determining. After his schooling, he was to begin to take over the day-to-day running of the estate, under his uncle's tutelage, making the rounds to visit Cassadine relatives ensconced in various European capitals. They had no doubt imagined he would take a wife from among the aristocracy, further ennobling the Cassadine name by association.
He had chosen to walk away from that life, willingly and gladly. But this was hardly the new future he'd imagined for himself, however, stuck in this dismal cell, wondering if his best hope for companionship in would be a bug or a rat. He shook his head in wonderment. How had he come to this place?
"Unpleasant, isn't it?"
He froze, eyes darting around in the darkness. He was alone. He was certain he was alone.
"Now you've only been here a few hours. Imagine surviving for twenty years like this."
The voice was impossibly familiar.
"This isn't real," he whispered to himself. The hunger, the exhaustion; it was simply his mind playing tricks on him.
"If you believe my mother capable of laying a curse on your wife, why should my presence give you pause?"
"Maybe I'm going mad," Nikolas said slowly, weighing the idea carefully.
"Well, you wouldn't be the first of us," the voice replied unsympathetically.
"I don't suppose you would be willing to go away?"
"But you summoned me, Nikolas."
"No I didn't."
"Ah, but you did."
His father appeared before him, his frame shrouded in darkness, but lounging against the wall with the easy arrogance he remembered all too well. "How else could I be here?"
Nikolas closed his eyes, hoping sheer force of will could banish him. If he had summoned him, which was impossible, surely he had the power to banish him. He opened his eyes to find his father gazing at him sardonically.
"At least my captors were more attentive to my welfare than yours appear to be."
"What do you want with me?"
Stavros lifted a brow. "Shouldn't that be my question to you?"
"I don't want you here," Nikolas said forcefully, hoping his subconscious would take the hint and start cooperating. "I hate you."
"You've mentioned that before. And yet, here I am."
Perhaps this was his grandmother's idea of revenge, sending the father he hated to haunt him. But as soon as he considered the idea, he discarded it. If his grandmother wanted to haunt him, she would do it herself. It was one task he felt certain she would refuse to delegate. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep for several minutes, occupying his mind with Russian and Greek verb conjugations his tutors used to force him to recite. But it was no use. His father remained.
"Are you sure you can't you just go away? I have nothing to say to you. We have nothing in common…" His voice trailed off and his father's eyes gleamed.
"Pray, continue," Stavros prompted, his voice deceptively soft. "You were saying we had nothing in common. You hated me for hurting your mother, how should I feel now that you've killed mine?"
"She was trying to kill my wife."
"And so you eliminated her. An eye for an eye."
His tone was faintly approving, and Nikolas flinched. "I thought you cared for her."
"I loved her," Stavros said flatly. "And she adored me. But I would have killed her without hesitation should the situation have required it. She would have expected nothing less."
"Forgive me for not matching your ease with matricide."
"I would forgive you the murder before I would forgive you your confession," Stavros said acidly. "What were you thinking?"
"There were witnesses," Nikolas retorted. "Unlike with your crimes."
"And that's supposed to be a point in your favor?"
"I was guilty. I admitted it. What else would you have me do?"
"What would I have you do?" Stavros demanded incredulously. "You think I would have you, the Cassadine prince, submit to the judgment of lesser men? That you would give them freely an admission they should not have been able to wring from you, no matter how desperately they tried? Have you learned Nothing?"
His voice rose, crackling with fury. "Do you have the vaguest idea of what it means to rule? The law is an instrument to be bent to our will, not us to its."
"Don't you understand?" Nikolas cried. "I will never be your prince. Never."
For a moment his father looked angry enough to strike him, and Nikolas almost took a step back before caught himself. He was not a child, he told himself sternly, flinching at shadows in the dark. But this shadow was imbued with all the power of his nightmares. Even though his mind knew he had to be dead, his instincts were still screaming loudly for him to walk with care around this ghost. Particularly when he was watching him in such a cold, calculating manner.
"So...," Stavros said thoughtfully. "Not stupidity but revenge." He shook his head and chuckled softly. "And you claim you're not a Cassadine."
"No. It wasn't like that…" Nikolas began in reflexive denial then trailed off as his father smiled knowingly.
"So tell me, my boy. Who is left to gaze in horror on your magnificent revenge?"
His head throbbed, and even as the justifications and excuses swirled around on the surface, underneath the doubt crept in. Slowly. Insidiously. Planted there as only a Cassadine could.
"If you think she would hate to see you penned in this cage like an animal, you're correct," Stavros allowed. "But the price seems rather high to prove a point to someone who is beyond your reach."
Nikolas wrapped his arms around his chest, trying to shut out his words. Who was his father to pretend like he understood what motivated him? His father was a monster, whatever good he had in him had been twisted past all hope of redemption. They were nothing alike. He could still feel guilt. Remorse. There was no doubt in his mind Stavros Cassadine had never been acquainted with either of those emotions. So what happened earlier, a voice in the back of his head prompted slyly. Where was your guilt when you beat that man to a bloody pulp? It was different, he protested. The man attacked him. He wasn't like his father. He was nothing like him.
"Nothing like you," he muttered under his breath. "Nothing."
"Say it as many times as you like," Stavros told him in a bored tone. "But I wasn't the one who blackmailed Summer, or left your wife's ex to die in a fire, shot Mary or killed my mother."
"It was self-defense," Nikolas whispered. "I didn't have a choice."
"But you did, didn't you?"
Nikolas closed his eyes. He had tried to forget. But the same image that reappeared in his dreams flashed before his eyes. Emily was lying on the ground, hurt. His grandmother, slipping over the edge of the cliff, her hand reaching out towards him. His own hand lifting towards her then falling back down to his side. He told himself he wouldn't have been able to reach her in time. The truth was he never even tried.
"She smiled at me like she was proud," he said, his voice choked with self-loathing. "She knew she was going to die, but she looked so damn happy. Like she finally won. Like I was truly a Cassadine."
"And you think allowing yourself to be locked away will somehow remove the taint?" Stavros sneered. "You think choosing weakness will make you something other than what you are? Weak or strong, you're still one of us."
"I'm not a Cassadine," Nikolas cried brokenly. "I won't be."
"You have no choice," Stavros told him coldly. "It's in your blood. If you think feigning weakness will protect you, you're a fool. I tolerated the weak ones, the hangers-on, as my father did before me for one simple reason. They could be used."
His smile became vicious and Nikolas recoiled from the venom in his tone. He shut his eyes, trying to conjure up the image of his life outside these bars. Emily, in all her innocence, but she simply smiled sadly at him and her image slipped away from him, dispelled by his father's relentless words.
"The weak ones didn't bother to hide their vulnerabilities. Were too frightened to present a real challenge to a true Cassadine," Stavros gaze flicked to him, his eyes boring into him mercilessly and he closed his eyes to try and escape that awful gaze. "I used them and discarded them as I chose for my ends. Never for theirs. Walking away from power will not free you from its grasp."
"Leave him alone."
The command rang out in a voice so fiercely protective, it shattered him as nothing else could.
He lifted his gaze, blinking back tears at the sight of the figure who placed himself between him and his father. "Uncle."
"Nikolas."
His smile was gentle and loving, his eyes free from the worried shadows that always seemed to lurk at the corners. For a moment, Nikolas allowed himself to bask in the warmth of his regard like a child.
"You would defend him," Stavros muttered, seemingly more annoyed than angry. "Your coddling has brought us to this place."
"I tried to protect him."
"You protected him from the truth about who he is."
Stefan ignored him, his attention focused on his nephew as he took in the bruised face, the bloodied lip and the sterile emptiness of the cell. Sorrow transformed his features in a heartbreakingly familiar way. "Nikolas, you did what was necessary. It cannot change who you are if you refuse to allow it to do so."
"I could have let them arrest her," Nikolas protested half-heartedly, even as he yearned for absolution. "With my testimony and Emily's, she would be behind bars."
"Bars that have never held her for long. You did what you needed to protect your family. Better to end it, and end your suffering."
"Much better," Stavros purred, circling around to stand at his brother's side. "It's what any one of us would have done."
The truth of it chilled him, as the two figures turned to confront each other, the air between them crackling.
"He is, after all, the justification you use for every crime," Stavros added softly.
Stefan's eyes blazed. "I wanted more for him."
"For him?" Stavros said softly. "Or for yourself? What was it he told you… he was an instrument for your ambitions, a pawn for you to pressure and manipulate in the furtherance of your own ends."
His smile thinned and Nikolas winced at the harshness of his stolen words as his uncle appeared to wither and fade under the onslaught.
Stefan was silent, and Nikolas could feel his gaze turn to him, heavy with expectation. The blanket slipped slightly, and he moved his hand as if to reach out to him, but then stopped, wary. Which Stefan had he conjured? The man who raised him, guarding him from all the dangers lurking outside their haven on the island, or the man who cold-bloodedly ordered his wife's death?
"Why did you bring him here, Nikolas?" Stavros asked quietly. "What use to you is he, a man who almost destroyed you?"
"I don't know," Nikolas whispered, searching the man's face for answers to the questions that he couldn't hide from anymore. But as much as he loved his uncle, the man had always been a mystery to him, always buried everything he was feeling under layer upon layers. "Maybe because he loved me."
"I loved you," Stavros said roughly. "Helena loved you. All of us loved you."
"You loved the prince," Nikolas whispered. "He loved me. He chose to stay with me."
"With you or with the Cassadine legacy?"
The softly voiced question fed the tendrils of doubt planted earlier, as they began to twist and twine around his heart. Stefan's figure grew fainter, yet still he remained silent.
"He showed you his true face before. You owe him nothing. After all, how does he differ from the rest of the monsters in this family?"
Nikolas gazed at the man he loved like a father, remembering long walks along the beach as a child picking up seashells, evenings spent pouring over his Greek lessons, a lesson in table manners, when Alexis moved the marble bust of Sophocles to one of the elaborately set places and declared Cassadines only dined with the most erudite men and women.
I loved you because you were Nikolas, not because you were mine.
You are life to me....sun, moon, and sea, blood and breath.
All that is good in me comes from you.
You were the only light in my otherwise miserable life.
Even as he remembered, he could see Summer's body, crumpled on the ground. Lydia stood beside her, bound and bruised. Then Summer's head lolled to the side, and the lifeless eyes staring back him were Emily's. He closed his eyes and forced himself to turn away and face his father.
"Illusion," he whispered finally, his voice thick with emotion. "He always painted the most beautiful illusions because he loved me."
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Stefan disappear as if released by his words and he fought back the urge to cry out and call him back.
"So why did you call me?"
Nikolas sighed and rested his head wearily on the stone wall, contemplating the man that gave him life. There was fear and hate, but they were tepid emotions compared to the whirlwind Stefan evoked. And then it came to him. "With you, there is nothing left to betray. I have no hopes. No illusions."
Stavros' lips curved up in satisfaction, then his shadow too began to fade. "Then I wish you well in your new life, my son. You'll find no illusions here."
Alone in the dark, Nikolas began to tremble. Tears welled in his eyes as he fought to choke back the sobs, but it was no use. Alone in the dark and empty cell, he wept for the life he left behind, for the people he had lost.
Finally, his tears exhausted, he curled up on the bed. It was better this way, he consoled himself. If he remained in Port Charles, he would only bring more destruction in his wake, hurting those he loved even more. He had been a fool to think marriage would bind Emily to him, for what woman would want to remain married to a man trapped behind bars. It would have been far kinder to let her go, but her infectious optimism about their future beguiled him. He exhaled deeply, and let go of that illusion as well. His sister, his brother and mother would go on without him. Perhaps with him gone they would find a way to become the family they would have been, if not for his choice to remain in Port Charles. With Helena gone, the last obstacle was removed from the path.
The stars were fading away at the first light of dawn when he finally fell into a restless sleep. He dreamt of the island where he was born, men frozen in ice, and his grandmother, in all her beautiful and deadly glory. And he watched her fall, time and time again. Not once did he move to save her. His father stood on the bluff beside him, like a predator, hovering for the kill. And though he looked around for his uncle, he could not find him anywhere.
The sound of the key turning in the lock woke him. A guard came in with a tray and set it down on the floor near him, his movements wary.
Nikolas stared at him, bemused by his caution. Then he paused, as the events of the previous day came back to him.
"Did he survive?" he asked abruptly, wondering if they would bother to charge him with another count of murder if the man hadn't.
The guard gave him a suspicious glance. "They both should have made it, but one of them got up in the middle of the night when the nurse left the room and managed to break his neck. Someone got careless and left a vial of morphine lying around and the other OD'd. Probably an accident too, but the warden ordered an investigation."
Nikolas felt the color drain from his face. Two accidents, the night they'd attacked him. The probability it was a coincidence was terrifyingly low. But the guard wasn't finished with his story.
"Funny thing is, they were both close to two guys in Block H. Those same two guys happened to hang themselves with their own sheets last night."
The man went on talking, promising him he would be let out soon, but he barely heard him. He sat on the ground, mechanically eating the food he'd been brought, as his mind fought its way to one inescapable conclusion.
There was a soft noise behind him, like the shuffle of a foot on the ground, and when he turned he was unsurprised to see his father lounging on the bed, the same hateful smile on his face.
"She's alive, isn't she?"
The smirk deepened. "I thought you would be happy. It's what you wanted, isn't it? A witness for your revenge."
He pushed the plate away, unable to eat another bite. The food tasted like ash in his mouth. "She played me for a fool."
"It was a trap and you ran to it," Stavros said unsympathetically. "Eagerly, I might add."
He yearned to deny him, but he couldn't, and it only added to his despair. How delighted she must have been when she learned of his decision to confess the truth. How she must have chortled the day he was sentenced. Had she had her hand in the verdict? "She's destroyed my life."
"Only because you let her," Stavros retorted. "She won the first battle, and you surrendered the war. A true Cassadine would fight."
He opened his mouth, but the denial caught in his throat. A true Cassadine. He had never wanted to be a true Cassadine. But even as he formulated the denial, his mind was skipping ahead, considering how best to weave a trap that would catch his foe. His training was rusty, but his uncle had schooled him well in strategy and tactics. Unbidden the thought came, I want no part of your legacy.
"Think of what she's capable of doing to those you've left unguarded. Your wife, the rest of your mongrel family is at her mercy."
"Why do you care?" Nikolas asked in a low voice. "Why aren't you cheering her on, if you think I'm so weak and worthless?"
"She has chosen to wield her power for her own selfish ends, without any regard for the consequences to our family's legacy. I want her stopped. To do that, I need you. And you need me."
It was strange to hear words his uncle might have spoken emerging from his father's mouth. Perhaps he truly had gone mad.
"It's your choice," Stavros told him dispassionately. "You can resign yourself to life as her pawn, or you can take your place as the prince."
Nikolas closed his eyes. Was it hubris to imagine he could succeed where so many others had tried and failed? The woman was like a cat with nine lives… every time they thought they had her in their grasp, she eluded them. She was manipulative, ruthless. She had no weaknesses…except for him. His mind shied away from the thought, but it was an emotional reaction. The part of his mind capable of cold calculation roused itself, considering the possibilities.
"I can't…" he protested half-heartedly. "I can't."
His father was implacable.
"Prince or a puppet," Stavros repeated harshly. "There is no other way. No other way to save those you love. Even Stefan knew the truth."
All his denials and evasions began to crumble in the wake of his father's iron certainty. His uncle had tried to spare him this choice. But he was gone and lives lay in the balance… Emily, Kristina, Alexis, his mother and Lulu. He had left his grandmother a veritable garden of victims from which to choose.
Beneath the despair, anger smoldered. It built slowly to fury, feeding on all the disappointment, betrayals and pain accumulated in his short life until the fire was raging. The sunlight pierced through the bars, bathing him in its bright red glow. Nikolas gazed into his father's eyes and let it consume him.
Epilogue
Sergei Lunev stood in the common area, wondering who they would send to him this time. Cousin, girlfriend, neighbor, it didn't matter. He would transmit the messages to his boss, and another intermediary would let him know what the reply should be. It was one way the organization kept its leaders inside informed.
To pass the time, he allowed his gaze to travel around the room with idle curiosity. The man with tattoos talking with a harassed looking young woman with a briefcase had to be a client with his lawyer. The woman didn't look like she'd be putting up with him if she wasn't getting paid. Another couple sat close together, the wife or girlfriend weeping quietly.
Bored, he wandered towards the other side of the room, where the young man who always seemed to be alone was talking to an older man, with white hair and a suit. His ears pricked up as he heard the snatches of conversation that sounded like Russian. He frowned. Could the man be one of theirs? No one in his cell block seemed to know what his story was, but they had all warned him to keep his distance. He was dangerous.
Sergei's frown deepened as he studied the man who had caught his eye. He didn't appear to be dangerous. He was not a large man, but well-muscled enough, he supposed. But the largest man on their cell block walked lightly around him. He inched closer, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"I think it should serve, but perhaps for my wife's protection, the documents should remain unsigned."
"As you wish. I will see to it."
They rose, the older man inclining his head respectfully. He straightened and Sergei found himself wondering if he had been in the military. He had the posture for it. And he seemed too self-possessed to be a mere servant.
Then he caught a glimpse of his eyes, and he felt a chill go down his spine. The eyes pierced through him with a deadly coldness he knew all too well. He'd seen it in the eyes of his first trainer. The man manipulated his charges with all the ruthless efficiency and necessary cruelty the KGB required of him.
The man brushed past him, and after a few deep breaths, he had control of himself again, His curiosity was raging though. He ran an assessing gaze over the young man sitting with self-possessed calm, waiting for the guards to remove him from the visiting area. He didn't seem frightening, and so he ventured another few steps forward.
"Pardon me, but you seem familiar to me. Have we met?"
The man lifted his eyes to his face and Sergei felt his breath catch in his throat. How could someone so young have the older man's eyes?
"I doubt it."
The amount of arrogance injected into three simple words was impressive, as was the underlying command. But Sergei had not achieved his current position without developing a fascination with power, in all its deadly forms. So he chose to stand his ground.
"Are you sure? I am Sergei Lunev."
"And I am Nikolai Stavrossovich Kassadin."
Nikolas smiled thinly as the other man paled and backed away without another word. The guards arrived moments later. He stretched out his hands to be bound, vowing this charade would come to an end soon. Already they were closing in on Helena. His men had their orders… she was to be apprehended, alive if possible. But if not, he would make allowances. Either way, he would be free. The guards secured the cuffs around his wrists, with as much deference as they could muster towards one who was in their keeping. One man made as if to touch him and he cowed him with a glance, his hand falling away, as Nikolas rose. He walked down the corridor, the guards trailing him like an entourage, and he could feel the ghost of his father hovering around his shoulders, finally satisfied.
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