CHAPTER 27

"Is everything set, Cesar?" Helena asked her accomplice while she brushed her white and unruly hair.

"Almost," Faison agreed, before taking the brush from her hand to brush her hair himself. "Although, I have been thinking and I need to run something by you."

"Don't tell me the almighty Cesar Faison is feeling guilt," she teased, patting the hand on her shoulder.

"Please!" Cesar snorted, tugging a little hard at a knot. "I have nothing to feel guilty about. But there is something you did not consider, my dearest Helena. I did hire the kamikaze pilot for the jet's return to Port Charles, and I made sure he knew exactly where to crash his plane."

"Then what is the problem?" Helena asked, aggravated. Faison had the bad habit to go on and on about everything.

"Your marriage is legal here, but it is not recognized by the United States laws, if both of you return, it will be invalidated and --"

"You little fool," Helena hissed, "I know that, but what difference does it make since Lucky will never make it to Port Charles?"

"What if your child is a girl, Helena?" Faison finally dropped the bomb. "Did you think about that? Apparently not. Girls are nothing to the Cassadine Legacy. If you are carrying a girl and you kill the Prince, the only one who can give you a male heir, then all your plans go down the drain forever since Stefan will be dead before we get to Port Charles. "

"You mean I am stuck here until the brat is born?" Helena asked, throwing something on her vanity with force. "You couldn't think about that before?"

"You are the one who cooked up this great plan, Helena!" Cesar said, insulted at her insinuation that he was dumb. "You should've thought about it."

"I have been pregnant 3 times, and I never had a girl. Why would this time be any different?"

"Are you willing to take that chance?" Cesar taunted. He liked having her merciless like that, even if was only for a few moments before she thought of an alternative. "We can always freeze Lucky's sperm, but if he is dead, he can't acknowledge the child as his own."

"I know that, you idiot!" Helena said, as she got up. She had forgotten Cesar was brushing her hair and she winced in pain as the patch it was in didn't follow her head for a while, before he let the brush go. "If that stubborn child would open its leg at the sonograms I've been having, I would be fixed!"

"Lucky's the child's father. It is already showing its father's stubbornness," Cesar tried to joke.

"This is not funny, Cesar. It's a miracle that after all this time, Luke Spencer or worst, my stupid youngest son didn't find us! Lucky has left Port Charles for 5 months now, and although we keep moving him around, the longer I wait before I kill him, more the chances we will be caught on and brought back to Port Charles."

"They can't force him to come back, if he doesn't want to. He is legal, he can do what he pleases."

"If you really believe that, then you are a bigger fool than I thought!" She snapped. "I don't have any power over him now. Granted he doesn't want to leave the child behind, but if Stefan or Luke shows up here, they will be able to convince him to leave with them until the child is born, which won't be for at least another month. He has been quite gentle and calm with just us, knowing it's his only alternative if he doesn't want us to make his life a living hell, but if he saw a glimpse of his old life, he will become difficult again. "

"He seemed to like it when we took him on an European tour, visiting all those old castles, maybe we should take him to Russia now, for him to learn about this family's history there."

"And you think I'm in shape to travel?" Helena hissed, showing her big and round stomach. "You know I can't walk more than 10 feet before the child starts to agitate and make my body feel like a battle field!"

"I am only trying to help here, Helena. No need to get mad at me. We'll find a solution before anyone gets to him, this I promise you. No one will take our boy toy away before we are ready to see him leave."

"Which will never happen until I have a male heir to keep over the family's head as the new prince."

"And before you do that, you have to let the Cassadines know the truth about Stefan, or everything we are doing here will be in vain."

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

"Just one more and you'll be done," Ari said to a sweating Lucky, who was pushing weights up and down his chest.

Over the months since he married Helena, Lucky and Ari became quite close. Ari had found Lucky working out alone in the house gym, and the man had told him it wasn't safe for someone to work out alone. If Lucky felt dizzy all of a sudden, and the weight fell on him, it could kill him. They decided to work out at the same time, each watching the other's back while doing it. After a few days of silent work outs, they had started talking, realizing they had a lot in common. Ari had then taken the place as Lucky's confident, a place that had always been reserved to Luke.

"I need some water!" Lucky stood up, wiping the sweat off of his chest with the towel Ari handed him. Taking a big gulp of the cold water from the bottle, he smiled, before he threw a little at his friend. "Your turn to suffer, man."

"Do I have to?" Ari teased, before he took the place Lucky had just vacated. "You know," Ari continued as Lucky helped get down the weights to Ari's chest, "the date's getting closer, are you feeling a little nervous?"

Ari didn't have to identify what date he was talking about. They both knew he was talking about Helena's date to deliver. Over the months, they had started to read each other's thoughts, without guilt or shyness. At first, Lucky had thought Ari was just spying for Helena, before he found out that Ari hated her probably as much as Lucky did. Ari wasn't working for her out of choice, but he was doing it to pay his father's debt to the Cassadine family.

Back before Ari and his twin brother Andreas were born, Hector, the boy's father, had been very sick. Being Mikkos' childhood friend did not soften the heart of the man, and for him to pay for Hector's medical bills, Hector had to promise Mikkos that his first son would be at the Cassadines service as soon as he was old enough, meaning around the age of 10. Hector had agreed, knowing he was too ugly to ever marry. But Erica had loved him, and they had gotten married. The twins were born, and Hector lived in fear of seeing the day when the man Mikkos had become would come to him, demanding the payback of the medical bills with the life of Hector's first born son. When Mikkos died, Hector was glad, thinking that Ari would never have to pay off his debt, but Helena had come knocking at his door after she caught a glimpse of the young men the twins were becoming, around the age of 16. At first, Hector refused to honor the debt, saying his arrangement was with Mikkos, and not his widow. That same night, Erica nearly died from a mugging that occurred in the village. The warning was clear. Either he paid up, or Helena would take his family away one by one. Ari had been told what he had to do that night, and the young man had taken his place as Helena's bus boy the very next morning. To this day, Hector still didn't know the horrors Helena had Ari do for her, and Ari knew he would bring this secret to the grave him with, for it would surely kill his father to know what kind of deal he had struck with the devil.

"Nervous, not really. I am anxious, though. I've been talking to Helena's doctor, and he assured me that the chances she would survive childbirth were slim to none, and I know that, if she does survive, she will be too weak to fight me when I bring the child back with me to Port Charles." Lucky answered, watching as his friends took his frustrations out on the weights he was lifting.

"What will you do with Cesar Faison?" Ari asked, meeting his new best friend's eyes.

"I don't know," Lucky sighed. "I think I'll ask Luke to take care of him as soon as I reach Port Charles. That way, my son or daughter will be safe to live the life he or she has the right to live."

"You know, though, that you will never have peace when the truth comes out about the baby's mother, don't you?" Ari asked softly.

"Yes, I do, but I don't really care. By then, Helena will be nothing but a bad memory. People do forget, Ari. I just hope you will come visit me when you are finally a free man again."

"I'll move next door to you," Ari promised with a laugh. "Then you'll have an around the clock baby sitter!"

"Not to mention a drinking AND working out buddy!" Lucky said helping Ari to put the weight up on the stand again. "So, what's next?"

"Half an hour of bicycle and then we are done for the day. Wanna do it around the island, instead of in here with the machines?"

"Think Helena will let us?" Lucky asked hopefully. His visits on the outside were small and always monitored, so he didn't want to get his hopes up only to be denied afterwards.

"I don't see why not, I mean, she thinks I'm on her side, so she knows I'll be an adequate guard to make sure you don't try to do anything stupid so I think she'll let us."

"I'm not a prisoner here!" Lucky said, getting mad. "I came here from my own free will. Why am I treated like I could escape?"

"I think it's not that. I think she's just scared that your father or step father will show up to take you away before she has a chance to think of something. That's all." Ari answered reassuringly.

"Well, it's still insulting. Come on, let's go ask her Highness' permission to go out on the Island."

Before they had time to reach the door, though, Cesar came in the gym, his face and neck sweating like he had been running the marathon. "Lucky, I've been looking everywhere for you! Helena's in labor!"