Scenes from Book 2. 

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Heat seared into his skin, burning through the tattered remains of his white shirt and dark pants. From the top of his disheveled dark hair to the tips of his toes, still tucked, oddly enough, inside waterlogged Italian loafers.

He lay nearly dead on the sand, his cheek pressed against the ground, arms spread at his sides, the dull roar of the Aegean and the brightness of the sun piercing his head with sharp pain—

It would be easier, simpler for all if he stayed where he was, waiting for the inevitable end when the tide rose and washed him back out to sea just as it washed him ashore.

Except…

He was a Cassadine.

Death was only the beginning, and simple was for the peasants they’d ruled for centuries. Who cared that the Russian Revolution had ripped away that aristocratic privilege? Or if society’s laws tried to reign in their desire for power and wealth?

It wasn’t even the first time this year that death had pursued him. It would take more than a gunshot to the chest and a plunge into the sea below to destroy most Cassadines.

And he was no mere Cassadine, as his grandmother had been fond of telling him, though when Helena spoke those words, they always sounded more ominous than proud.

You, my darling grandson, have the blood of czars in your veins. Of warlords and Cossacks. The world should tremble before you.

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“Because you don’t want it—” Sam’s voice broke. “You don’t want me. You’re angry because I’m trying to get Jason out of our lives. I’m just trying to make it all go away so we can be happy again—”

“I don’t know if I want it to go away. You think you need Jason gone, and I respect that. But—” Drew swallowed. “I’d have to give him up, too, wouldn’t I? I don’t know if we can be brothers, but you’d have me cut that off before—”

“You don’t need him! You’ve gone your whole life without him—and Jason’s not so damn special that you have to destroy everything you have to keep him.” Sam scoffed. “Believe me, I should know.”

“I’m not destroying anything, Sam. I’m telling you I want that door to stay open. And I can’t do anything that’s going to close it. If I stay with you, if I come back right now, I’m co-signing everything you’re asking to do in those papers.” Drew shook his head, sadly. “I can’t do it, Sam. I’m sorry.”

Sam brushed away a tear, nodding. “Okay. Okay. Then that’s where we are. Because it’s a deal breaker for me. I want him gone from my life the way he was supposed to be—”

“He wasn’t gone, Sam. These last few years, he was me. I was him. Or did you never truly accept that?”

She drew in a sharp breath, then stared at the ground. “I don’t know. Maybe not. I just—I know that it has to be this way. I want it this way. And you don’t. So this is where we leave each other.”

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Jason paused. “I just—it took me back. To Russia.” He flexed his hand, stared at it.  “I woke up in that clinic eight months ago. Almost a year now,” he murmured, more to himself than to her, and now she focused on him, not thinking about her own silliness. “I woke up, and I couldn’t move. I spent months trying to get my strength back. Every waking moment, I only thought about one thing. Home. I had to get home.”

“Jason—”

“Survival mode, you know what that’s like. You’ve been through it. You keep moving forward, but you can’t look down because it’ll just paralyze you. You just focus on the goal. On waking up. On moving a finger. You can’t think about how it shouldn’t be that hard just to move one damned finger.”

He still held one of her hands, so she raised the other, touched his chest, her fingertips brushing against his heart, comforted by its beat. “I do know what it’s like. Not to that extent, but I do.”

“I focused on getting here. On coming home. But home wasn’t there anymore. I’m not talking about Sam,” he added, and she grimaced, hating that he’d guessed what she’d been thinking. “I’m talking about the penthouse, which was mine. I’d never lived anywhere else as long. Ten years, Elizabeth. Almost all of the life I remember, that was home. My pool table. The view of the harbor, the travel books. My bike in the parking garage. I just wanted to come home. But it wasn’t there. Not because Sam didn’t want me to be there or because she’d remarried. But it was the wrong colors, and there was a dining table now—she said she put it all into storage, but it was gone. A broken pipe in the basement, they said—”

“You never told me that,” Elizabeth said, her chest aching.

“It’s been better the last few months. I don’t think about any of it much, and I haven’t needed to worry about survival. Jake’s alive, which was a miracle I never could have dreamed. He’s here, and I get to be a part of his life.” His gaze held hers, those beautiful eyes glimmering with his own unshed tears. Jason swallowed hard. “I don’t think about it—I wasn’t thinking about it,” he corrected. “I wanted answers, sure, and there were difficult moments. It hasn’t been easy. But I had you. And the boys,” he added, “but it started with you. And with Sonny knowing me the second he saw me. And Carly, as crazy as it sounds, pulling her crap. I got to feel like myself again.”

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“Yeah—maybe.” Drew nodded. “I’m gonna go get coffee. You want one?” Without waiting for Jason to answer, he crossed the street and went inside the café. At the counter, he ordered in flawless Turkish, then seeing that Jason had followed, doubled the order. He went over to the window and sat at a table.

“Do I get to ask?”

“Uh, no. I just—I knew this place had the best coffee in the district.” He stared down at the dark liquid. “And I take it black. I do. Not because of you. But Drew Cain. I always drink it black.” His throat felt oddly thick, and he couldn’t look up.

“It was after the shooting at Luke’s for me. The first time I felt connected to who I’d been before.”

Drew looked up, blinked at Jason. “What?”

“Nikolas was shot in the throat. Choking on his own blood. I knew he needed an airway. I knew how to do it. Later I found out I’d seen it in medical school. It was the first time I really felt like Jason Quartermaine and Jason Morgan were the same person. And that I was him.”

“Yeah. Everything has mostly been…I figure it’s been you. I eat pastrami on rye from Kelly’s because I remembered ordering it. But this—” Drew looked around the cafe. “I must have been stationed here or something. Because I know for a fact that I’ve sat at this table before, drinking coffee.”

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No. Going after Damien Spinelli or anyone else that the brothers had brought into their circle—it was too risky, and Valentin still had to consider his own bottom line. He’d lost his half-brother as a source, but—

His eye caught a photograph of Nina on the desk, her sultry smile beckoning him like a moth to a flame. There were other ways to ensure Jason and Drew were miserable, of course. His revenge had to be subtle. Untraceable.

And he had his mother’s memories to mine. Valentin would just have to readjust Klein’s goals. He’d unlock Helena’s vast memories, glean the information he needed, and eliminate every last living Cassadine to ensure his own branch was all that remained.

He looked at the photo next to Nina, at his bright smiling princess as Charlotte beamed out at him from her fall picture. Oh, Valentin knew exactly how he’d make Jason and Drew pay for their crime.

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Elizabeth rested her chin on his shoulder. “But what’s keeping you up right now isn’t whether or not you should keep asking questions. You already know the answer.”

“Yeah. I know. I just—it took a long time to look at Monica and see her as my mother. But if she did this—” Jason exhaled slowly. “If she did this, how do I look at her again? How do any of us?”

“And maybe she didn’t. How can you go on without knowing?” She pressed her lips to his skin. “Pandora’s box is open, Jason. We can’t go back.”