Chapter Four

"I UNDERSTAND YOU paid our guest a midnight visit, last night." Alcazar brought up, as he and Brenda ate breakfast on the patio. "The guard reported it to me, this morning."

"I realized Sonny didn't have a blanket." She explained. "It's awfully cold and damp down there, and we hardly want him up and dying on us. So I took one down to him." She added as she sipped her coffee. "No big deal."

"My dear." He took her hand in his. "Sonny Corinthos dying is exactly what we want. Which is why I've ordered he be given no food or water." He took in her shocked expression. "Surely, you knew when I agreed to find him and bring him here so you could have your revenge on him, it would have to end with his death. Surely, you didn't think we would keep him as a pet for the rest of his natural life."

"I didn't really think about it." She replied, not liking this one bit. Making Sonny miserable was one thing, but killing him was out of the question. "All I thought about was getting him here and making him suffer."

"Well, I suggest you start thinking about it." Alcazar told her. "Enjoy torturing him and making him suffer until he takes his last breath by all means, my dear, but we will do nothing to help him prolong his survival. No food, no water and no blankets." He added. "In fact, I'd prefer if we put a time limit on this thing. His people are out looking for him, and there's a slim chance they might be able to find him. The longer this goes on, the greater that risk becomes. "

"What do you mean by a time limit?" This thing was spinning out of control before her very eyes.

"A deadline for how long this thing goes on with Corinthos." He replied. "A set time of how much time Mr. Corinthos has left on this earth."

"What happens if Sonny doesn't succumb to the cold, thirst or hunger by the end of this time limit." She already had a feeling that she knew the answer to that question.

"Then we help him along." He told her, as he calmly continued to eat his breakfast.

"You mean kill him!" She shrieked. "I won't allow it."

"Be careful, my dear." He warned her in a lethal purr. "Much more of that and I might start to think you're still in love with him."

"I don't love him, I loathe him." She spat. "I loathe the very ground that he walks on. I despise him with every fiber of my being. I live to see him suffer the way he made me suffer. Just because I don't want to murder him in cold blood, doesn't mean I'm still in love with him. I just want to make him suffer, not kill him." She added. "For Sonny living with what he's done and suffering because of it is far worse for him than death. Killing him would put him out of his misery. Killing him would be too easy."

"My dear." He tried to explain things to her. "You know that aside from marrying you, the reason I helped you get revenge on Corinthos was because I want to gain control of his operation. But if they find out I was behind his disappearance, I'll never be able to accomplish that. So Corinthos has to die before they connect it to me."

"How long?" She asked with a note of desperation in her voice.

"A week." He told her.

"A week!" She gasped. "That's not long enough. I need more time than that."

"You can't have it." He told her. "Jasper Jacks knows about you and me, and he could connect us to Corinthos' disappearance."

"Then kill him." Brenda retorted. "Then I can have the time I need with Sonny."

"You have a week." He reiterated. "I can't give you anymore time than that." He added. "I have business I need to take care of so I'll leave you alone with him for a week. Wreak whatever vengeance you can on him in that time. But when I get back, Corinthos dies." His tone told her the subject was closed.

Brenda got calmly up from the table and walked back into the house so Alcazar couldn't see her panic. What was she going to do? She couldn't allow him to kill Sonny. If he killed Sonny, he may as well kill her, as well. Ever since she had awakened in that hospital room after the accident the only thing she had lived for was the day she finally found him. If Sonny were dead, she would have no reason to go on living. Alcazar had just been a means to the ends and she had no feelings for him, at all.

Well, she had a week, she tried to comfort herself. A week to figure out what she wanted from Sonny. A week to find out why Sonny had married Carly Roberts and how he could have forgotten her so completely after all they had shared together. A week to find out if he still felt anything with her. She had a week to have him all to herself and to think of some way out of this mess.

With that thought in mind, she began to make plans. As soon as she was sure Alcazar was well on his way, she gathered all the servants together to tell them they had the next week off with pay. She would have none of Alcazar's paid eyes and ears watching her and Sonny in this upcoming week they had together. Then she ordered the guards guarding Sonny to bring him to her bedroom in an hour.

When she returned to her bedroom, she went over to the claw-footed bathtub that sat near the fireplace and began to fill it with water, then she stripped off her clothes and sunk into it. Afterwards, she climbed out of the tub and she sprayed her body with the perfume she knew Sonny loved and slid her most seductive nightgown over her head then waited for him to be brought to her.