IN THE SECRET PASSAGEWAY AT MAISON BLANCHE:

“Just what do you think you are going to accomplish by keeping me and my daughter prisoner here, Antony?” Celeste asked angrily as Tony ushered her down the secret passage hallway toward Stefano’s bedside.

“Prisoner? Well, I hardly think that’s the right term to use for Lexie given that she has decided on her own to stay here, but I suppose that will work for you, Celeste,” Tony said sarcastically.

“I just don’t understand it,” Celeste huffed as they stood outside the curtain that hid Stefano resting in his hospital bed. “I thought for sure the cards meant that Lexie had been kidnapped and forced into taking care of her father.”

“And yet your own daughter told you she wanted to stay here of her own free will,” Tony said with a laugh. “Well, truth be told, it appears for once your vibrations may be good in that she was originally kidnapped. By E.J. But Lexie came to relish her responsibilities caring for our father – as you well know he can be quite the charming man – and she was especially needed after E.J. had his memory erased…

“You erased your own brother’s memory?” Celeste asked in horror.

“Well, actually,” Tony said sighing, “That was Rolf’s own idea. But for the most part it seems to have worked out quite well.”

Celeste made no effort to hide her disgust.

“Oh save me the sanctimony,” Tony said. “He was going to sacrifice my father’s health and betray the family for that bimbo. Don’t you see that? You cared about my father once. Wouldn’t you do anything to save him? I know Stefano and I have had our differences, but my father is all I have left. His legacy is all I have left.”

“Unbelievable,” Celeste said rolling her eyes. “Whatever feelings I may have had for Stefano DiMera in the past are just that, in that past. And you need to put him in your past too if you ever want any happiness for your life. How can one man destroy all that he creates, ruin all that he loves and spawn so much evil and so much greed in everyone he touches? If only you knew what that monster told Lexie about his legacy…”

“Shhhhhh,” Tony said interrupting her without listening to what she said. “I think I hear something.”

“Your conscience, finally, Antony?” Celeste said.

“Oh be quiet, gypsy,” Tony said in panic. “It sounds like a car. Damn. Someone must have followed you here. I can’t let anyone find out we’re here. That Sami’s here.”

“And how do you think you’re going to accomplish that?” Celeste laughed.

“I’ll have to shut off the power so they don’t know anyone is here,” Tony said walking toward the fuse box to shut off electricity to the entire mansion.

“But your father’s machines,” Celeste said pointing at the blinking monitors behind the curtain.

Tony laughed.

“I thought your feelings for my father were in the past,” Tony said. “Well don’t worry, we have a generator for those.”

“Silence,” Tony said pulling out his cell phone. “Hello, Rolf, this is Tony. I need you and Lexie to keep everyone locked up in that attic and keep them quiet. I think we’re going to be having some visitors soon and we can’t let them know anyone is in there. But don’t let them suspect anything either. We can’t have E.J. trying to be the hero again.”

IN THE ATTIC AT MAISON BLANCHE:

Sami screamed as the lights went out and E.J. instinctively clung to her to protect her from the unseen danger.

Lucas raged at the sight.

“Get your damn hands off her!” Lucas yelled as he lunged at E.J. before Rolf yelled at him to be quiet.

“Shut up! All of you! I need to take this call,” Rolf said waving the gun around like a mad man.

Sami’s face disappeared in E.J.’s chest while they all waited for Rolf to tell them what was going on.

While Rolf was distracted and Lexie huddled around his phone call to see if she could hear what was going on, Lucas took the opportunity to angrily whisper his disgust at Sami for forgiving E.J. and taking comfort in his embrace.

“How can you forgive that bastard after what he did to you?” Lucas judged.

“Just leave her alone, all right,” E.J. grumbled, but Sami brushed off E.J.’s protection.

“Thanks E.J. but I think I’ve got this one,” Sami said glaring at Lucas and walking toward him with her arms folded across her chest. “The truth is Lucas I forgave him the same way that I forgave YOU after you tortured me, after you framed me for a murder you committed and after you and your crazy mom tried to KILL me. I did it for my child and for myself because I fell in love. And you don’t have to understand that, because I know I don’t entirely understand it. But I am not going to let you say anything bad about this man any more. Because I love him.”

Before Lucas could respond, Rolf got off the phone. After a quick whisper in Lexie’s ear, he informed them all that there was an electrical malfunction in the house and it wasn’t safe to leave the attic until it was fixed.

“Make yourselves comfortable, we are going to be here for a while,” Rolf said.

“Samantha, I’m so sorry,” E.J. said falling to his knees and holding Sami’s waist as he looked up at her face. “For everything. Words can’t do justice to what I feel right now. I… I… I don’t know how you can even stand to look at me. To be in the same room with me.”

“Well, E.J., that’s so sweet. But I hate to break it to you, I am no angel myself,” Sami said with a smile as she petted the side of his head.

“I find that hard to believe,” E.J. said beaming at her. “I mean to have the capacity for compassion that you have. That you would care for me, say you love me after all this.”

“Believe it,” Lucas snarled as the two of them talked. “She’s no angel.”

“Don’t say that about her,” E.J. snarled. “Don’t say anything about her.”

Lucas laughed walked over to a pile of boxes and kicked them in frustration but was surprised when he stubbed his toe and heard the sound of glass clinking. He opened the box and discovered it contained several bottles of Stefano’s prized brandy.

Meanwhile, Lexie began looking through a desk drawer to try and find some matches to light some of the old candles around the room.

“You said we’re going to be here for a while, didn’t you Rolf?” Lucas said picking up one of the brandy bottles and opening it.

Rolf thought about scolding Lucas, but decided maybe it would help pacify him and keep him quiet while the search went on so he didn’t stop him. Lexie and Rolf moved toward the door to discuss it and other matters privately leaving Lucas, Sami and E.J. at the other end of the attic.

“Lucas you’re drinking?” Sami squealed as she saw Lucas down a huge gulp straight from the bottle and wife his face with the back of his hand.

“Listen, Sami, if I’m not allowed to say anything about your friend, E.J., then you’re not allowed to say anything about my friend, Brandy,” Lucas said as he swilled more liquor.

Sami rolled her eyes and turned back to E.J. as her smile turned to a nervous frown. She stepped down to kneel and face him and clasp his hands.

“Lucas IS right,” Sami said whispering. “I’m definitely no angel. In fact, I’ve often been somewhat of a witch.”

“Or something that rhymes with that,” Lucas volunteered.

“No one asked you!” Sami shouted at Lucas as she turned her attention back to E.J. “Anyway, as I was saying, I have done some pretty bad things to you, too, that I’m not very proud of.”

“Like what?” E.J. said trying to appear cool but getting concerned.

“Well, you see, last summer when you came to Salem… right away we hit things off,” Sami said.

“Not surprising,” E.J. smiled.

Sami nervously chuckled.

“And uhhhh you were a very good friend to me… I mean we spent all this time together and you kept all my secrets and you were just the best friend I’ve ever had… well sort of a good friend to me…” Sami said as she raced through a confusing explanation of her misdeeds. “I mean you did send me these notes making me think that I was being blackmailed and I needed to tell my fiancé that I had lied about him not being able to have kids with my sister or horrible things would happen to my family, but really you were just trying to get me to tell the truth because you wanted me and Austin to break up so you could date me…”

“OK,” E.J. said cautiously as Sami paused for air. “But I don’t see how that was YOU hurting ME.”

“Well, yes, but after that, you see, we did start dating. And there were always these crazy things that happened to break us up. I mean, my dad and Lucas and Will and Kate… you slept with Kate… I still can’t believe that bitch monograms her bras…” Sami said muttering to herself.

“I’m… sorry?” E.J. offered.

“Get to the point, Sami,” Lucas yelled.

“Is it that difficult to use an inside voice, Lucas?” Lexie asked as Rolf shook as gun at Lucas for emphasis and they turned their attention back to each other.

Sami glared at Lucas before continuing.

“OK, well, anyway,” Sami said, still whispering, and trying to get to the point. “I got mad at you and after we broke up I led you on into thinking I wanted to get back together with you, but really I was just trying to help the police search your apartment.”

“You did?” E.J. said.

“Yes. I did. And then when I found out you were a DiMera even though you had just given me this really great job at your company, I had gotten back together with Lucas and I helped lure you to this boathouse where John was shot,” Sami told him self-consciously. “You thought you were meeting me to run away together but it was setup.”

“I see,” E.J. said, his heart sinking.

“Oh that’s nothing compared to the other stuff, E.J.!” Lucas said laughing. “Why you leaving out the good stuff, Sami? You haven’t known true hell on earth until you’ve fallen in love with Sami Brady. Wait ‘til she gets to the part about the cabin.”

“Cabin?” E.J. asked.

“Well you see, the night John was shot, Lucas and I were at this cabin and a beam fell on him and…”

“No, Sami, tell him the OTHER cabin incident,” Lucas snickered.

Sami looked at Lucas and then back at E.J. and winced. E.J. mouthed the words “It’s OK” back at her and she gave him a half-smile in return.

“Well, even after everything I had done to you and everything that had happened, you still wanted me and you wanted us to raise this baby together,” Sami said rubbing her stomach. “And I was with Lucas and I was just so frightened of you and your family that some day you would stop loving me and take my baby away from me forever that first I filled out a fake amnio report saying the baby wasn’t yours.”

E.J. tried to project indifference to her words but his heart was breaking.

“But you see, you were so smart, you saw right through me,” Sami said with a teary smile.

E.J. gave her back a half-hearted smile.

“And I didn’t know what to do and Celeste started coming to me with this crazy idea that I should kill you and all my stress and all the drama would stop not just for me, but for this baby. And that all my problems would go away for good… if you did.”

“I guess your attempt wasn’t successful then,” E.J. sighed.

“No, E.J. it wasn’t. I couldn’t do it,” Sami said. “I mean… I did try… I guess. I made you think that the baby was yours and that I wanted to be with you, truly be with you and that we were getting married in Vegas.”

“Vegas?” E.J. shook his head and made a face.

“Hey, that was your idea,” Sami laughed before the conversation again turned serious. “You wanted me to meet you at this cabin and we would run away together, but Celeste had this plan where I wore this lipstick that when I kissed you it would put you to sleep and we’d douse the place in gasoline and burn you alive.”

“Sami, how could you?” E.J. could no longer hide his disgust. “Burned alive?”

Sami paused for a moment to soak in the hurt in E.J.’s eyes as he had called her Sami instead of Samantha.

“But don’t you see, E.J.?” Sami said with desperation as she clutched E.J.’s face with her hands and tears streamed down her face. “The thing was I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you. I loved you too much to kill you.”

E.J. laughed.

“Loved me too much not to kill me?” E.J. asked. “Well that’s comforting. So tell me, Samantha, this whole time… this whole time that we’ve been building this…”

E.J. paused for several moments to try to pick the right word for their relationship. He couldn’t find it so he settled for another word.

“…friendship… While we’ve built this friendship that seemed like there could be something more… have your feelings been genuine with me? Or have you just been seducing me to get my help in getting out of this place? Seducing me to get what you wanted... like all those times before?”