AT MAISON BLANCHE:

"I'm so sorry for this, Samantha," E.J. said as the two of them headed into the mysterious room with him holding her hand. "I promise I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Sami stared at E.J. fearfully but said nothing.

Behind them, Tony was shoving them forward in the darkness warning of rustling upstairs.

Sami gasped as she heard the fireplace door close behind them and then started to scream.

"LUCAS! LUCAS I'm in... hgurhghgh!" Sami's speech was garbled by the hairy tan hand covering her mouth.

"Now, Sami, Lucas cannot hear you through this wall. It's best if you cooperate with us, but it's your choice. We can do this the hard way or the easy way," Tony warned. "Which do you prefer?"

A protective instinct overcame E.J. as he ripped his brother's arm off Sami and put his large hands on her shoulders and bent his tall frame downward to face her eye to eye.

"Samantha, listen to me." E.J. said. "No one is going to harm you. Just keep quiet for now and you will be fine. I will see to it that nothing happens to you or our child."

Sami nodded as the three of them walked through a dark brick passageway yellowed with the light from a candle carried by Tony in his left hand. His other hand was pressed against his coat pocket waiting to remove his gun should the weapon again become necessary.

"Now, brother, it's not really fair to Sami here to make promises you don't know you can keep, is it? Don't want to be giving her any false hope." Tony laughed.

"Don't listen to him, Samantha, darling. When I have a chance to speak to my father I'll..." E.J. said before Tony interrupted.

"You'll what?" Tony asked. "Father finally got fed up with your incompetence and placed me in charge of the family. And now YOU will know what it's like to rot in captivity the way I toiled behind bars for years without my brother lifting a finger to help."

"Tony... you can't," E.J. pleaded. "There is so much to be done with Steve and Mythic and well everything Father has planned."

Sami's eyes darted between the two men as she tried to make sense of their schemes.

"You have had your chance to take care of all that, brother. And you failed." Tony said. "I will take over those matters when I return to Salem. But don't worry. I am leaving you in the best care possible."

Tony sneered as he said those last words and the three of them walked toward a closed door that opened to reveal a short, stupid-looking fool, and a balding old man in a white lab coat.

"Hello, Bart. Hello, Rolfe. I am placing these two in your custody until Samantha's baby is born," Tony said. "I assume you know what to do with them."

Tony had assumed too much as Bart did not even know if he was supposed to tie his shoes without someone telling him.

"Hey boss, if you don't mind me asking, what's E.J. doing here? I thought you said we were just supposed to keep an eye on Blondie, not your brother." Bart questioned with a curiosity that annoyed Tony.

"Yes, well that was the plan, initally," Tony said before turning to glare at E.J., "until E.J. decided he had another plan in mind for Samantha."

Sami turned to stare at E.J. to see if it was true. Her instincts told her it was.

"Father is not going to approve of this, Tony," E.J. insisted. " Bart, Rolfe, you know that's true. Tony has gone power-hungry since he's been back. Just stop this nonsense and let Samantha and I go and everyone will get what they want."

"Everyone will get what they want? HA!" Tony snickered. 'What I want is for you to suffer."

Tony motioned with his gun while Bart and Rolfe gathered some rope and the three of them pushed Sami and EJ together back-to-back and tied them together.

"Now, I have some business to attend to so I hope you don't mind me leaving," Tony said with a smile before exiting the room.

The fate that had befallen Sami suddenly rushed over her at once and she was filled with questions.

"Wait! Tony! What will we do for food? Where will we sleep? You can't keep us locked up forever, can you?" Sami asked.

"No, Sami, I can't keep you locked up in this room forever," Tony smiled walking across the room. "But for tonight this is where you'll stay."

Tony took his candle and lit a candleabra revealing a wash basin and twin bed in the corner of the room that had previously been hidden by the darkness. He walked back toward the doorway.

" Bart, I am trusting you to stand guard outside this room. Don't fail me. And Rolfe, I hope you will walk with me out to the car so we can talk over these medical reports," Tony said, ignoring his prisoners, before turning back to get another look at the two of them helpless and struggling against each other.

Tony laughed.

"Now I think I'll leave you two alone. Don't thank me too profusely, little brother," Tony said before exiting, slamming the door shut behind him and turning the lock.

*click*

.............................

IN CAR:

Lucas held back tears as he drove away from Maison Blanche in search of a watering hole where he could drown his sorrows.

"How could she do this?" he said to himself, pounding the top of the steering wheel with his hands. "After everything we've been through! She just threw it all away for that limey bastard."

Lucas shook his head in disgust.

"Well, that's it, Sami. You chose E.J. so Will and I are going to make a good life for ourselves without you. Never again will I give you the chance to hurt me like this. It's finally, truly over."

Just then Lucas's cell phone rang.

"Oh, just what I need..." he said as he looked down at the phone's caller ID and let it ring several times before finally giving in to the caller's pestering.

"Listen, Mom. I don't really feel like talking right now," he said after picking up the phone. "If you're calling to nag me about Sami then just save your breath because it's over between us. We're over."

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