Sonny's hand stopped smoothing Brenda's hair momentarily as her words filtrated his mind. "Daddy did it. Daddy did it…." She kept saying those words over and over. Her father? Harlan Barrett? The SOB was dead, wasn't he? How could he be responsible for all of this? His hand went back to smoothing her hair as he took his other hand and slightly lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. He saw anger, rage, and fear in them, but not for him, (at least not right now, he chuckled slightly in his head.) but for the circumstances that had controlled their lives. "Brenda, isn't your father dead?" Sonny asked as Brenda nodded yes and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Then, I don't understand. How could he be the cause of…"

"The compilation of bad business deals that have turned deadly he made before his death. His business partners are out for blood if Julia and I don't comply with what they say."

"Which is what exactly?" Sonny asked as he let go of Brenda, walked around the couch, sat down, and pulled her back into his embrace. He could tell this might take awhile and standing on his feet for a long period of time didn't appeal to him. Anyways it felt so much better to have her whole body against him that just her head.

"What is what? The deals? The partners? What they make me do? What it is that they do? We'll be here all day."

"I have the rest of our lives if you need it. I want to know everything. I'm not letting go of you until you tell me."

Everything, Brenda thought.. He wants to know everything. Of course he did, and he had the right to know. He was more involved in this than he knew. It would take forever, but he was right they had the rest of their lives together. She wasn't going to let anyone break them apart again and the way he was tightly, but lovingly holding her against him told her he wasn't about to let anyone break them apart either.

Brenda took a deep breath before she began. "Everything started a little while before Daddy's death. He was involved in some drug cartel that was trying to take over the world. (I'm taking some liberties here since I don't remember the exact details and I want to fit it to the story) I think some of this is on public record since he tried to shoot Robert Scorpio, the police commissioner at the time in the process of trying to salvage what was left of the cartel when things started to deteriorate. Julia's boyfriend Bill Eckert got involved with the cartel in a attempt to bring it down. Somehow things got a little messy and Bill ended up killing Daddy and sending him down the PC River."

Brenda stopped momentarily as she realized that she was talking about her father rather coldly. She didn't have any remorse for him, nor did she feel guilty that she didn't have any. She just felt hatred. Hatred for everything he had done to her in her life. No matter how insignificant it had been to him to completely ignore her as a child, it had hurt her deeply. Even the damn mess he left behind had been unintentional, but it still hurt her, her family and friends, and his precious Julia. Don't be jealous of Julia, she reminded herself. She didn't cause this mess. She loves you more than you care to admit sometimes. Brenda must have been silent longer than she intended because Sonny slightly nudged her and asked, "Am I pushing you to remember stuff that's too painful?"

Brenda, whose back had been leaning against Sonny, turned so that she faced him, while still in his embrace. "No, you're not pushing, I just put into perspective some of my feelings about my father."

"Want to talk about it?" Sonny asked, looking at her concerned.

"Yeah, but later. I need to get this story out now, or I'm afraid I won't ever get it out."

"Go ahead, but if you need to stop, I'm here."

Brenda turned again so that she was snuggled against Sonny. She put her hands on his arms that were securely wrapped around her middle, and started into her story where she left off. "Daddy's partners that were smart enough not to get involved in ways that they couldn't be traced were ticked at him. One for botching up the deal and getting several members including himself killed or sent to jail, two, for being foolish enough to trust Bill Eckert in the first place, and last for leaving all his business dealings with Julia. They knew that she was too straight and narrow to continue with the illegal dealings that Daddy had. And they were right. She quickly dropped them cold-didn't even try to sell them off to the highest bidder, she didn't want anymore dirty money running through any of Daddy's businesses. She cleaned things up good and fast, further irritating the partners.

They wanted revenge for all the money they had invested in the take over the world drug cartel, so they decided to go after Julia. They did things real subtle for years: orchestrating ways to make Barrett industries fall, but at the same time they always underestimated Julia's business smarts. She was always one step ahead of them and always has been for all I know.

It probably helps that she somehow got Tom on her side long ago. He used to work for one of them and was sent to Barrett Industries as a spy. When he realized the mess he had been dragged into he confessed to Jules and has been helping us ever since. He recently told me he switched because he fell in love with Julia, but he never bothered to mention that fact to me. Actually he never bothered to mention a lot of facts to me, but I guess it doesn't really matter now since it's almost over.

As I said before they are always trying to orchestrate the fall of Barrett Industries so that they could humiliate Julia and all that daddy wanted his only legitimate business to stand for: hard work can get you to the top. They tried to kill Julia a couple of times once she moved to London but she kept herself heavily guarded. You're probably wondering how I got involved in all of this, huh?" Brenda knew he had some questions and was probably leery about where she was heading. She had felt him tense up a couple of times and sense he had something to say but he made himself relax, as she would go on.

"Yeah." Sonny answered. He had been sitting calmly and quietly throughout Brenda's story. There were a couple of times when he wanted to stop and question her, but he felt she needed to get it all out before he started in on his questions such as why he hadn't known about Harlan before? It seemed to him that she was in danger from her father long before she met him. Why hadn't there been any signs from Julia that she was in trouble before? This Tom guy was really beginning to irritate him more than he already did. What exactly had Julia done with the business dealings if she didn't sell them off? Who were these partners? Anyone he'd ever dealt with before? And first and foremost when, where, and how did Brenda fit into all of this?