Risk

Chapter LXV

Monday Breaking Out All Over

Laura is the first one in Monday morning even beating Elton into the office. She strides into her office in her company. Starts the coffee made the way she likes it. Elton is next in the office looking both ways as he steps off the elevator. One never knew when one might be leveled by a furious blonde. Coast clear. He stealthily moves to his desk and begins his routines of the day, keeping his head down. Precisely at 9am, Nik comes out of the elevator and goes directly to his office carrying a coffee from Kelly's.

At a quarter after nine, Laura is in Nik's office. "Well? Do you see what I mean? Unreliable! She's a menace!"

Nik doesn't look up from the midwest marketing reports. "When I talked to her yesterday she said she'd be in at noon. She's working on an outside project."

"Outside project?!" What do you mean an outside project?!"

"Mother, do you really want to know Carly's business?"

"Well no, of course not." Laura retreats back to her office.

Michael races down the stairs in his stocking feet. Stavros is sitting at the breakfast nook with a cup of coffee and the Port charles Herald before him. "Hey Stavros. Watcha doing?"

"Reading the local news." Stavros answers. "I am not impressed. There is a rather large write up on Natasha's wedding."

"And that's not good?"

"Considering there was no press at the function. Yes, rather distressing. I believe they make it up as they go along. Is your mother still sleeping?" she didn't come to my bed last night

"Yeah, she must have stayed up really late last night. Were you playing Risk?"

"Your mother was updating my game with all the information from ELQ. You did very well not letting her in on the secret."

"She was really surprised, hunh?!" Michael says mischieviously. "Mama likes surprises. But maybe not..." He recalls the fight with Stavros and frowns.

"Your mother loves you very much, Michael, and worries about your safety."

"But I'm okay!"

"Yes, I know. But I think we have to remind her of that more often." Stavros decides to drop it there. "Well we need to plan another surprise for your mother. Today is her big day. Her first day back to work at Deception. What do you think we should do to immortalize this moment?"

"Immortalize?"

"Make it so that she remembers it forever."

Michael takes a seat across from Stavros and frowns stewing on the problem. Mama is tough to surprise. Then he gets a glint in his eyes. "I know! Mama needs new crayons for her pictures. She's used them all up drawing since she and Nikolas had meetings in Milan."

"Crayons."

"Yeah," Michael jumps up from the breakfast table and runs out to the living room he grabs a cardboard box that had been set on the floor next to the desk where the laptop is set up. He drags the box back to the breakfast nook and heaves it up on the table. "See." He reaches in and grabs Carly's art supplies which are buried under sketches with future ideas. He opens up the tin of pastels to show Stavros. Sure enough there are some that are worn down to nubs.

An idea occurs to Stavros that would compliment Michael's. "Go get dressed. I will find your shoes. You need to go shopping."

Stefan is already in his office at General Hospital when an expected call comes through.

"Has Stavros left yet?" Ned asks with no preamble.

"No, if anything my brother has... entrenched himself in Port Charles." Stefan replies with a sigh. "How is my sister?"

"Ticked and ready to bolt."

Stefan strokes his beard and tries to find a way to make this work but doesn't see one. "My brother has had a change in agenda."

"I'm not going to like this."

"Stavros and Michael watched the wedding from... The Quartermaine Mansion with your grandmother. I found out yesterday... Stavros now holds controlling interest in ELQ."

"WHAT?! That's impossible!" Ned protests.

"Not if it was part of a negotiation with Jax."

Ned groans. "He gave up ELQ to get Alexis back."

"It would appear so."

"We're on our way back." Ned says grimly. "My family has got to be going crazy."

"The situation is unchanged where Kristina is concerned." Stefan worries.

"Yeah, and it doesn't appear that taking off is making things any better. We're on our way back. Damn Jax. A little warning would have been nice."

"There was no reason to believe that Stavros would target ELQ."

"Yeah, other than bringing Carly back to town." Ned swears and hangs up.

Emily comes in from the french doors to the living room where Edward is down in the dumps and Lila is sipping tea. "Gawd I love New York."

"While I appreciate the sentiment, darling, what makes you say that?"

"I was keeping track of the weather here from rehab, all that stuff is online. Last week it was freezing. You guys even had some snow. Today I swear it's going to get up to eighty out there! The birds are back from down south. The trees are budding! It's a beautiful day." Emily uses the tail of her shirt to wipe sweat from her brow.

"I hope you didn't over do, darling."

"Just walked a couple of miles." Em replies. "If I don't keep moving I'll stiffen up and it's just so wonderful to be out and seeing everything."

Edward rises to his feet and grumps. "I'm going to my study." He stalks out of the room.

"What is wrong with Grandfather?" Emily picks a croissant off the breakfast bar and takes a seat next to Lila.

Lila sighs and reaches over to pat Em's hand. "It's business. You know that Stavros Cassadine brought Michael over to watch the wedding with me."

"Yeah, Dad and Grandfather just about had collective coronaries."

"Yesterday... Mr Cassadine... dropped the hammer on your grandfather. He's obtained controlling interest in ELQ."

Emily's jaw drops. "But... how... why..."

"He obtained Jax's shares of the company. I knew something was coming." Lila muses. "Stavros warned me in his own cypheristic way. He is attempting to box in the Quartermaines to protect Carly. I should call Alan at the hospital. It wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't something... unpleasant waiting for him there."

Emily worries her bottom lip and shakes her head. "Grandmother, I'm getting a lot of pressure.. from Lucky, Jason, Nikolas Cassadine to not live in the mansion because of Stavros. Not leave Port Charles but just to be away from the mansion. They're worried too."

"I don't like it, darling." Lila says flatly. "I would prefer everyone be here now. The Cassadines thrive on isolation. Being on your own is just an invitation from the wolf at the door. That's how Stavros got his hooks in Carly. If Jason had been home, If Sonny had been more supportive, if only Carly and AJ didn't fight all the time..."

"If, if, if, Grandmother. I have no intention of being used by Stavros Cassadine against my family. And I have to figure out a way to make that happen."

"What are you thinking, my dear?"

"Well it's way too late to try to make peace with Carly." Em grimaces. One thing she knew about Carly was Michael's mother had a long memory... and one of those would surely be her bridal shower before marrying AJ. "And I'm not going to isolate, just the opposite. The plan that Jason has come up with kinda puts me in Stavros' camp." Lila starts shaking her head. She hates it already. "He wants me to move into the Harborview Towers with Gia. Stavros isn't going to mess with Gia. He wants Gia and Nikolas back together. And if I'm in the Harborview, then Jason is right upstairs."

Kris and Michael jaunt into the ELQ building as if they own it, walking directly past the receptionist and onto the elevators to the management floor. Kris points out a door and Michael knocks on it. A female voice from within calls out to enter. Michael twists the door open using both hands. The first person that Skye sees is Kris. He'd been the Cassadine representative the day before with all the warmth of a hatchet man. "What now?"

"Do you have a secure computer here?" Kris asks.

"Why?"

"'Cause we have business." Michael says importantly.

Skye notices him for the first time. "Michael?"

"Yeah?" Michael looks at her suspiciously. "Do I know you?"

"No, not really. I'm your Aunt Skye. I came to Port Charles about the same time you and your mother left."

"Is there a computer?" Kris demands again.

"Sure, use mine." Skye backs away from her desk. "I'll just go out and get us something to drink."

"No." Kris says flatly. "You aren't leaving this room, or making any phone calls until after our business is complete. Michael." Kris orders.

Michael goes over to the computer and sees the CD-Rom drive and drops in a disk and starts running it. Soon a map of the world is put up on the monitor. "You call this business?" Skye demands ticked that she hadn't been able to go call AJ and let him know that Michael is here. "A kid's game."

"It's a good game!" Michael protests. "See, in this game..." He tugs at Skye to get her attention. "...The yellow armies are Stavros and the blue ones are ELQ. Now that you're all on the same team, you have to consolidate armies. That way you can control more territory and defend better against anyone rolling against you."

Skye sags back into her chair gracelessly. Ohmygawd, Grandfather would be in heaven, right up until he started running scared of this little boy. "Show me what you mean."

Using the mouse on the computer, Michael clicks on one of the yellow armies and opens up a screen with all the company assets and value. Then he clicks on the blue one right next to it and hits one of the function keys. Where there had been two armies there is now one, a yellow one, that lists the combined assets of both of the companies. "See it's yellow cause it's Stavros' now but the company name is still blue when you make the list cause the ELQ army was stronger there."

"Michael, we have other appointments this morning." Kris reminds. They are only here on their way to the art supply store to buy a gift for Carly. He comes over to the computer and with a key stroke, all the blue armies disappear and are replaced with yellow ones. "Now it is Ms Chandler-Quartermaines' turn. She is assigned to make the necessary troop movements to make each army the most efficient. Consolidate and eliminate, Ms Chandler-Quartermaine. There will be a messenger here at the end of the day, to pick up your recommendations."

"The end of the day?" Skye protests. The merging of assets of even one of those subsideraries would take weeks.

"It's really easy." Michael tells her earnestly wanting her to like his game. "See on this one we looked at before... you don't need two generals. You only need one. So one stays and one goes into reserve... you might need him in a different company."

"And if one of the generals doesn't want to move to a different company?"

"Then he doesn't get to play anymore." Michael shrugs. "Someone else will play. Are you an attorney?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"Cause normally Stavros just has the Estate Attorney's do the consolidating. Do you want me to ask him to have them help you?"

Skye gets an instant picture of guys in suits ripping and tearing on ELQ with no input from anyone in the family. "No. I think I got it now." She says grimly.

Kris can see that she does. "Then we'll leave you to plan the next move. Michael?"

Michael waves at Skye as he joins Kris next to the door. "Bye!" Then he puts his hand in Kris' and they walk out the way they came in.

Skye picks up the phone and calls AJ over at the hotel. "Michael was just here."

Carly stretches and then opens her eyes. This wasn't where she'd gone to bed the night, no, it was about dawn when she'd finally crashed out in Michael's room. She looks over to the other side of the bed. Stavros had noticed the moment she woke. "Good morning, little cat." He says quietly.

Carly sits up. "I'm still mad at you." She states firmly.

"Yes, I know."

"And putting me in your bed is not going to make me less mad at you."

"Our bed." Stavros corrects. "And just because you are mad at me, you will not attempt to... punish me by sleeping in another room."

"Punish you?!" Carly snorts. "It was either sleep in Michael's room or smother you with a pillow! You're just lucky I was too tired when I finally went to bed to have the energy for homicide. And having Jason and Nikolas here to back you up was dirty pool."

"I believe they were actually here to back you up."

"It didn't feel that way. Where is Michael?"

"He is out with Kris buying you a present for your first day back at Deception."

Carly glances over to the bedside clock and swears. "I gotta get ready." She tries to jump up from the bed. Stavros grabs her by the waist and pulls her back down cuddling her next to him. "Stavros!"

"I know you have to get ready but I want to be clear..."

Carly shakes her head. "Clear is when I make decisions regarding my son. I'm his mother."

"And nobody will ever interfere with that bond. Not as long as there is breath in me."

"Oh so now you're trying to get me to not smother you in your sleep. Great. You really mean that nobody is going to interfere but you." Carly says bitterly. "When are the people around me going to start trusting that I know what is best for Michael?"

"Do not compare me with your... husbands." Stavros warns starting to get pissed.

"Husbands, mother, Jason.... you." Carly wrenches away from Stavros and puts the bed between them. "I get it. Everybody knows what's good for Michael and what I want doesn't mean dick." She turns away and starts into the bathroom but Stavros is right behind her. "Leave me alone. I have to get ready for work."

"No, we will settle this now." Stavros demands.

"Fine." Carly hops onto the long marble counter and waves in Stavros direction. "Have your say-- then get out."

Stavros slides in closer standing between Carly's parted thighs and resting his hands on the counter behind her. Their faces are only inches apart. "You love Michael. Nothing is better for Michael then your presence in his life. You nurture and protect him. And it infuriates me that it is necessary."

"Excuse me? Of course it's necessary. I'm his mother."

"Not that. The reporters in Gstaad."

Carly runs a hand up Stavros arm and rests it there, feeling how tense he is. "I handled it."

"Yes, you did and very well. But it shouldn't have been necessary. I should have seen the threat. And do not think that I don't know you were protecting me as well. You put yourself in harms way to lead the reporters away from both Michael and me. If you would have totally had your way in the matter you would never have told me of the threat."

"Do not compare dealing with a bunch of reporters to you making a deal behind my back with AJ." Carly warns.

"There is an old saying. Hold your friends close and your enemies closer."

"Yeah, right! I'm sure that's what Cleopatra was thinking about the asp right up until it killed her. AJ is a snake. He's poison."

"And he will have to go thru me, go thru Jason before he ever comes near you or Michael. I do not trust him to keep our agreement but the agreement will be enforced. If he comes near you, near Michael. If he has any contact that is not relayed thru Jason or me, I want to know about it. You will not keep it from me."

"Let's play pretend then. What happens if... when AJ does break the agreement he has with you. What are you going to do then?!"

Stavros quirks a brow. "As you already know, I do have interests at a scientific station at the South Pole." He can tell by the curve of Carly's lips that she is contemplating that outcome with some glee and already forming a plan to make it happen. "Caroline, AJ is Michael's father. Even if he is never permitted any contact with his son, that has to mean something... for Michael, not for AJ."

Carly bites her lip. "What Nik said."

Stavros nods. "As much as I would prefer to blame his difficulties with Gia on Elizabeth Webber and her interference-- Nikolas does not believe he deserves happiness because he is Cassadine, because he is my son. That is something I had no input on but was instead instilled by the people around him... including his mother."

Carly winces and then blows out a long sigh. "I don't want Michael to ever think it's safe to go anywhere with his father. 'Cause it's not and never can be because AJ is an alcoholic and that's forever."

Stavros nods his agreement. "How do you plan on dealing with those two issues-- Michael's safety and his father's alcoholism without damaging Michael?"

"Ask the tough questions why don't ya?" Carly says with some frustration. "I need to think about it. But Stavros, do you get that I can protect my son without interference from you, from Jason... any of you."

Stavros is silent for a long moment and rocks back on his heels straightening. He can see that Carly needs this reassurance. "I enjoy your son and regard him affectionately. He is bright, inquisitive and charming. A credit to his mother. And yes, I get that you can protect your son. Do you get that I will protect you?"

ELQ offices. AJ enters Skye's office on the run. "Michael was here?"

"Oh and was he!" Skye brushes her hair back. "The Cassadine Hatchet Man brought him."

"The hatchet man?"

"Yeah, the guy that was here with Cassadine yesterday. He dropped this off... no, he had Michael drop it off and explain it to me." Skye indicates the computer terminal.

AJ comes around and looks at the computer screen. "A computer version of Risk?"

"Oh yeah, but look at this." Skye clicks onto one of the armies. "I got a brief little lecture on hostile takeovers from your son. Grandfather would be so proud. Hell Adam would be proud." Skye refers to her adoptive father. "Get them young and train them right. I guess Hitler was right on that score. Michael thinks it's a game. That these are just computer armies. And if they won't play the game his way then they don't play. Hatchet man wants me to elimate all the waste by the end of day and if I don't then Michael said that the Cassadine Estate lawyers would help me. If I don't play the game their way then I don't get to play. Loud and clear."

"I need to sit down." AJ says. Skye moves out of her chair to let AJ take it. And sits down on the edge of her desk. "Did you call Grandfather?"

Skye shakes her head. "I called you first."

"Don't tell him about Michael. Hatchet man, yes, but not Michael."

"Why?"

"Because if you think Edward is fixated on Michael now wait and see what happens when he finds out that Michael is already being groomed to take over the world."

"Oh yeah, he'd be pleased as punch right up until he had his final coronary cause Michael is taking over the world for Stavros Cassadine and not for the Quartermaines."

At precisely 12 noon Carly strides off the elevator at Deception. "Hello Elton!"

"Mrs Corinthos!" Elton leaps to his feet. "Welcome back!"

"I guess that means Laura is out to lunch?"

"Prince Nikolas took his mother to lunch at the Grille. They left about fifteen minutes ago."

Carly laughs and shakes her head. "Whatever." She walks into the office she'll share with Nikolas and sets her brand new artist style leather portfolio on the coffee table and goes over ot the desk to see what Nikolas is working on. Midwest marketing reports. Carly starts scanning thru them until she catches on to Nik's system of paperclips and highlights.

Elton comes in bringing pot of tea and a large bouquet of flowers. "Well aren't you the popular miss!"

"I wonder who they're from." Carly goes over to check the card.

"Would they be from..." Elton drops his voice low. "Prince Cassadine?"

"Stavros? No, I don't think so. He bought me this." Carly refers to the leather portfolio as she runs her hand over it. "And Nik isn't feeling like sending me flowers about now." Carly takes the envelope and opens it. "Oh they're from Mrs Pappas' son. That is so sweet. He wants to go out for a drink after work."

"Honey, I really don't think that's a good idea." Elton warns.

"Oh?"

"That poor man is smitten. I don't know what you whammied him with in Europe but bottle it and we'll make a fortune! It's all Carly this and Carly that. Honey, he is sending your mother flowers!"

"Are you saying he's got some kind of creepy stalker thing going on?" Carly winces.

"Smitten." Elton says again.

Carly sighs. "I really like his mother. She reminds me of Ms Lila. And Stavros knows his father."

"I'll call him." Elton snatches the card out of Carly's hand. "Tell him you have no idea when you'll be off. Oh and how about... You and The Prince will take him out to dinner later this week?"

"You're a genius. Hopefully that'll work."

"Consider it done! Now what do you need?"

Carly opens up the portfolio. "I need to get on the computer and enter this." She holds up a CD-Rom. "And Nik is looking at the midwest marketing reports... so what I really need are the marketing reports for Enchantment."

"But we don't make Enchantment." Carly just looks at Elton until he gets it. "Oh. Oh! I'll get right on it. I live for cloak and dagger."

"After all the hard work you put in on Jax wedding, I'm sure Nik wouldn't mind if you took some time off... say in Pine valley?"

"Are you sure about this, Mrs Corinthos?"

"Absolutely." Carly flatters. "I want our best man on it."

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