| Subject: Chapter 213 - Part 1 (16 and above) |
Author:
KatherineG.
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Date Posted: Monday, November 07, 06:51:47am
In reply to:
KatherineG.
's message, "Dreams in the Dark (203 > )" on Monday, October 03, 07:35:40am
Extra warning: There are a few mild curse words here. I'll rate it 16 and above, just to be safe.
Dreams in the Dark (213/?)
by Katherine Gilbert
The weeks counted down toward the day of Michael and Nikita's doom--or so many people firmly believed. Still, for some, those days didn't tick by quickly enough, their patience fraying. There was only so long any man could sanely wait to begin his life again.
Jamie was feeling rather disgruntled about this fact once more, the months which had passed since he had first been told about his sister's existence crawling by far too slowly. Still, little better could be expected when you were kept in a cell, under constant guard. Every man needed something to focus his attention on.
He wasn't at all grateful for the position he was in, saw no reason to be. To his mind, his father was unreasonably punishing him for a rather small mistake, keeping him someplace far worse than jail; his eyes only barely took in the discarded dishes from his pricey steak dinner. It had never occurred to him that there was anywhere worse than where he currently was.
Thoughts of his sister were the inevitable outlet for the boy these days, therefore, had been for sometime; he wasn't even aware of how frequently his feelings about her shifted. Some days, he was almost glad for the girl's presence--for one reason or another; others, he just wanted her gone. The only real constant was his insecurity about being the one to pull the trigger; a small smile bloomed. But that was what lackeys such as Hillinger had been created for.
His smile deepened, as he leaned back in the chair in his bedroom--distracted, for a while, from his constantly-guarded life. He had every intention of letting the gunman do the dirty work, had from the first; such tasks had never been his forte. He was good at managing, not at the smaller, bloodier details. His father certainly never pulled the trigger first-hand, knew how to delegate. That was all he was doing, was what he was good at; the contentment reigned. And soon his old man would have to recognize this fact in full.
He was savoring this inevitability, couldn't wait to be the golden boy once more. It was a role he was born for, the suitability in his genes. All he had to do was have patience for a little longer, and his father's business would finally be his.
There were several facts he was ignoring in these bright thoughts, but he wasn't capable of understanding them. First, his father *was* more than capable of killing on his own--certainly had many times before his original ascent. Still, the higher you climbed in any organization, the more servants you had to do the less-pleasant tasks for you. It was just that, in Jones's line of work, these tasks were more immediately lethal than most.
This was only the beginning of the boy's obliviousness, however. His second overlooked fact was that, whomever he might displace, his chances of getting out of his confinement were still terribly slim. But this was a truth Jamie couldn't see, his whole life's experience working against him. You had to be far more introspective than the businessman's son to understand such larger realities.
This was something the boy wouldn't be comprehending anytime soon, then--would probably never be able to, whatever his intentions. From the day he had been born, he had been destined to run a great empire. But he had lacked every skill necessary to realize that fate from the beginning.
It hadn't been too long after his creation before his father had realized this truth, but his son had yet to comprehend it. Instead, he had been set up in a line of work he *could* manage--the terrified women who inhabited brothels quite easy to intimidate. It would be a truly pathetic manager who couldn't keep them in line. But Jamie had only just managed this small task himself.
There were many reasons for his inabilities, some of them quite innate. Still, others came down more truthfully to an utter lack of focus, his interests often diverted. And the various drugs his father's group supplied--the ones he so enjoyed being able to dole out--were only one of his other concerns.
He had no way of knowing it--and certainly no skills to comprehend it, otherwise--but the end of his father's patience had actually come down to Jamie's enjoyment of this privilege, to his dealings with one woman. Even before the more public scandal which had landed the boy in his current, guarded existence, she alone had sounded the death knell of all the man's trust.
It was impossible for Jones's son to see this fact, but his--often drugged--seduction and marriage of Julie had been the end of his father's patience, the older man seeing its meaning far too clearly. While the businessman understood the need for companionship, especially for younger men, he was much like Bauer in his incomprehension of any man's need to focus on one woman alone for any length of time. True, he could understand a mistress--as Nikita's existence clearly proved--but to want a woman hard enough to marry her for less practical reasons was beyond him. Jamie's marriage to the actress, then--the waste of drugs he had pushed on her for free in order to get her to agree--had been the final insult the businessman was willing to accept.
His son knew none of this, would never fully understand. To him, Julie had always been a simple diversion, an amusing way to pass the time. He didn't understand how unusual it was to actually marry her--had no idea of the more political unions his father had been trying to arrange; he couldn't have even explained why he had wanted to go through with it. Still, there was something in the boy which demanded this woman's submission to him, which needed to feed off of it. But there had never been any conscious understanding of this need.
He was still clueless as to his motives, all these years later--was still unaware of the significance of his choices in his father's eyes. All he had known at the time was that he was having fun, Julie giving in so sweetly, once he had gotten her hooked. And she looked so damn good on screen--looked *great* on his arm, the whole town in awe of his catch. He had promised to make her a star, and he had damn well done it. All of it--he was sure--had been making him a bigger man about town.
None of these impressions were correct, but he wasn't the clear-thinking type. What the town--and his father--had seen, instead, was a little boy playing dress-up, pretending that he was a big, important mogul with a starlet in tow. The truth was quite different. He was just some idiot son of an important man who had found a semi-successful actress to shine in the spotlight of; it wasn't even a particularly bright sort of footlight. But a man playing Svengali rarely understood such facts.
Jamie still didn't, his days with Julie providing him with quite warm memories, the time when she was still taking orders without question some of his best. It had only been--to his mind--when she had tried to pull away that things had grown awkward. That was when everybody had seemed to want to question his judgment.
He still blamed this change on the actress, was disgusted with her ingratitude. There he had been--a man about town to be reckoned with, giving her all of the stardom and status she had claimed to want--and she had actually had the gall to pull away. He still didn't forgive her; there was a snort. It actually served her right to have had to take the paths she did.
He knew a little about her current life, was content with what had become of her. Her alliance with that foreign idiot Petrosian was a bit above her, but it had at least gotten her pregnant, had taken her down a peg or two. That she was now a second string at Columbia, with some wimpy idiot of a husband--one so effeminate that he was willing to accept another man's son as his own--served her right. She hadn't appreciated a real man, while she had had one. It was only fitting that she end up with some jerk like Jurgen.
He had no questions about her fate, then, didn't entirely miss her--her status far too diminished to do him any good, his interest in her body long behind him. But none of this was the real point, as far as his father was concerned. To that man, the day his son had begun to parade himself around town with a starlet, had started to actively seek out attention, had been the day any nascent sort of affection had died. Only a very foolish person in his line of work sought that sort of spotlight for long.
Jones's typical evaluations of Jamie's worth were businesslike as usual; he had always been a pragmatist, saw his veiled status around town as his greatest protection. That his son had never understood this fact had been his downfall. Now, Jamie was suffering for his foolishness--but he didn't even have the sense to know that he was.
The boy was none too bright, in all these ways, would never be the shrewd negotiator his father was. His own needs, not those of his organization, always came first. True, the older man had faltered in this path himself once or twice--indulging his desire for companionship or revenge--but he never endangered his lifelong work. And that was why he had mentally written off his son so long ago.
Jamie had no knowledge of this fact, still believed that it was possible to get back into his father's good graces--or, even if it weren't, that he would be the old man's choice to succeed him, nonetheless. There was no question of it; a frown did emerge. Or there wouldn't be, once he had disposed of his sister. Another sibling was the only roadblock he could imagine to his father's throne.
This was the cause of all his current plans, was why he was firmly on the path which would lead to his sister's destruction--having come to see the creepy Madeline's point. Or he was about 90% of the time. For the rest of it . . .
The boy wasn't insightful enough to notice his own mental vacillation, but it held true, all the same. For part of the time, he was absolutely determined to rid himself of his bastard sister, would do whatever it took not to be replaced--by some girl, yet. But, the rest of the time, he had his doubts. And they were starting to eat away somewhere in his mind ever more by the day.
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