IN THE MAISON BLANCHE ATTIC:

“Lucas!” Sami said as she saw her husband standing in the open doorway.

“Sami?” Lucas said, his face a snarl of confusion as he saw the embrace E.J. and Sami shared. “What the hell is going on? What the hell did you to do to my wife, huh?”

Lucas rushed to come between them and started pushing E.J. back repeatedly in a display of insecure machismo.

“You wanna go?” Lucas asked. “Let’s have this out once and for all.”

E.J. chose to let Lucas get out his aggression and did not push him back, much as a dog being pestered by a fly might not care enough to bother to swat his tail at it.

“I thought you might have kidnapped her to keep her away for me, to keep her all to yourself, but you didn’t, did you?” Lucas accused. “So arrogant and stupid that you just kept her locked up here in this house. Just like your sick old man kept Sami’s mother locked up in Maison Blanche all those years ago. Well I’m not gonna let you do that any more. My wife and I are going back to Salem and you are NEVER going to come between us again.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” E.J. said matter of factly as he winced, not from the force of Lucas’s shoves but because of the unpleasant odor that emanated from Lucas’s breath as he shouted in E.J.’s face. “Honestly, I have no idea who you even…”

“Oh just stop it with your lies and your mind games,” Lucas interrupted. “You made her help you escape the police when they were trying to arrest you for shooting John Black and then you tortured and tormented her all these months that you threatened to say she was your accomplice. You ruined our wedding. You ruined our honeymoon.”

Lucas paused for a moment as let the rage in his heart wash over his entire body.

“And that’s not to mention how YOU RAPED HER that night when she let you have sex with her just so she could get your help saving my life! Well that’s two mistakes too many, buddy, because I’m about to take yours.”

It was then that Lucas slammed E.J. against the wall of the attic with such force that a nearby large framed picture of Stefano DiMera came crashing down and shattered splattering shards of glass everywhere.

“Stop it, Lucas!” Sami demanded through her crying.

“No, Sami,” Lucas said shouting at her but staring at E.J. “Because this is never going to stop until one of us is dead! And it’s not gonna be me!”

Lucas thrust his hands around E.J. in an attempt to choke him, but E.J. was much too strong for him and quickly pulled them off his neck and shoved him backward so he tripped and fell over a bench crashing into a stack of boxes.

E.J. looked over at Sami who was in a crying heap on the floor sitting leaned against the side of the bed with her face buried in her hands. His heart broke. The more he learned about his past the more pain he learned he had caused Sami. In this case, he learned of the way he had doomed her marriage. Fuzzy memories of times that he tormented her began to seep in his consciousness and E.J. was filled with shame for all the things that he didn’t even remember well enough to ask for her forgiveness about, yet she had forgiven him anyway. His family had tortured her and her family for decades, he had done many bad things to them himself, and yet Sami still cared enough about him to want to help him.

Sami looked up just then and she and E.J. locked eyes. As if Sami had cast some spell over him pulling him toward her, he ambled toward her with a lone tear streaming down his face mouthing “Samantha, I’m so sorry…”

But before E.J. could get to her Lucas jumped on his back from behind and pushed E.J. down to fall face forward on the ground.

The left side of E.J.’s face was suddenly filled with a strange warm sensation and as he pushed himself up to sit on his knees and wiped the oozing liquid from his temple with his left hand before holding it in front of his eyes. He watched as red streams poured out from between his fingers and across the creases of his palm and groaned as the tiny cuts on his face and arm burned with pain.

Lucas stopped for a moment and turned his head as the sight of blood had always made him somewhat squeamish.

Then Lucas gulped and shut his eyes as he started to make a move at rushing E.J. again for another confrontation but was halted by the sound of someone bursting in the attic door behind them.

“I don’t know what is going on up here, but you are all in big, big trouble,” Rolf said.

ON JOHN BLACK'S JET:

John emerged from the cockpit to tell the group that he just spoke with his pilot and his jet was finally ready to take off for New Orleans.

John settled in to his seat next to Marlena and put his arm around her as she held her head in her hands and sighed.

“It’ll be all right, Doc,” John said. “We’ll get through this together, just like we always do. Just like we did the last time we went to Maison Blanche.”

“Well hopefully we don’t have so quite a close call this time,” Marlena said wistfully. “I’ve always hated the fact that we never were able to fully resolve the secrets of your past because the mansion burned down. Not that I wanted to Stefano to rebuild it, of course.”

“Of course,” John laughed. “I wanted to find out the clues to my past too, but it’s just something I’ll have to live without ever knowing. If I still worried about that I’d drive myself crazy with the wondering.”

Marlena shook her head and looked out the window.

“I just can’t believe this whole cycle is happening again with the DiMeras and our family. Poor Sami. She was there right under our noses and we missed her,” Marlena said in frustration. “I just can’t imagine what it must have been like for Sami there. I mean it was bad enough when Stefano held us prisoner at Maison Blanche, John, but to be locked up and pregnant? I just feel so guilty I didn’t…”

“Shhhh, Doc,” John said. “Don’t blame yourself. You had no idea what was happening.”

“No, I didn’t. You’re right,” Marlena said nodding, as her voice changed to an angry whisper. “But Kate did. I can’t believe you agreed to let her come with us.”