The welded glass shape imploded from the inside, turning partly into sand, with glass jutting out of the ends, from the burst of firepower. The monitor showed 97% target-acquired accuracy, and she smiled in sheer satisfaction, it was her highest percentile yet. Meanwhile, Philip, accompanying Nick on a surprise visit, was amazed at the activity in the J. Edgar Hoover building. Only secured personnel were allowed beyond a point, and he was curious what happened back in those offices, where Sari worked. Nick jerked him out of his gaping stance and said impatiently, "Come on, Philip, it’s not really that impressive, and we gotta get ahold of her in the archery range out back yet, before she leaves for the day." They watched from the glass, as the crazy girl in the soundproof room jumped around in excitement at her score. It was then that Philip had to pull Nick out of his gawk, as he muttered almost droolingly, "Wow...a MIDI gun. Those suckers pack a real punch. We were rarely allowed to use em in the SEALS." Sari turned to see Nick looking through the glass, and when she peeled off her safety goggles, they exchanged a look, so brief in time but an eternity to them, understanding each other without speaking. The bond they shared was more than that of cousins, they were twins to each other. Philip watched with envy as they smiled in unison.

"Well, what brings you here, Nick?" Sari asked him when she came out and closed the door behind her. "Just thought I’d surprise ya. Brought this idiot with me, too, wouldn’t stop bothering me so I gave in." he said jokingly, poking at Philip. "OK, well you obviously wanna have lunch, so let me clean this crap off my face and change. I smell like gunpowder, not really appealing in a cafe." she responded. After washing up and changing from sweats to loose khaki pants and a turtleneck with a blazer, she scrubbed out the grease from under her fingernails and put on some lotion to keep the skin from drying up. It was 12:30 when she stepped out of the locker room and met up with Nick and Philip again. "It’s good to see you two friends again." she spoke behind them, as both turned to her. Taking each by the arm, she led them out to a cafe around the corner, The Kitchen Korner. Something felt strange then, and Philip felt it as well as Sari. They looked at each other, then all around, as if being watched. Once inside, as they sat down in a booth, two shots rang out, and one hit Sari square in the left shoulder before she got down. "Sari!" Nick shouted, instinctively covering her before the sharpshooter had any more opportunity to strike. When he was sure she wasn’t in danger, he ran out into the street, searching but not seeing. Sari was still conscious, but felt a deep stab of pain and searing heat. She managed to get up and draw her gun from its clip, following Nick. Philip tried to grab her, but she was already out in the street, scanning the area. Her Sight kicked in without notice, and something pulled her to the right, and when she peered around an alley, she didn’t see anything, but she felt a presence. Her trained eyes detected movement behind some boxes, and she shot her transgressor mortally with one shot before falling to the ground herself, unconscious.

The lights moving above were like the stripes on a highway, shining at night from the headlights of a car’s glare. "...get 30cc’s, stat!" said some voice, a woman’s voice, but it was slow and sounded deeper to Sari, barely awake to open her eyes. When she woke up again, she was in a room, and Rachel immediately shouted to the nurses station. "Derek! Oh, thank god, she’s awake!" she cried. Opening her eyes, she saw Derek on one side and Rachel on the other side of her bed. Still under the effects of the meds, she smiled when her face fell on Rachel. "You’re...where am I?" she asked to the blurry face. "It’s Rachel, Sari. Try to focus your eyes, they put saline in them. You were shot, you’re in the hospital." she said. A flash of still images coursed in her mind, and she remembered. "Who the fuck was it? I killed em, but I wanna know who it was!" she said, angrily. Sitting up abruptly, her expression showed absolute hatred. "They didn’t find any identification, but they’re still looking." Derek said, trying to calm her down. "I’m not safe." she said, then scared. "Of course you are, sweet, I won’t let anything happen now, and the man is dead, by your own hand." he replied. She shook her head, saying, "No. That man’s purpose was to kill my child and hopefully me as well. Whoever hired him will strike again."

Released later that day, Rachel drove the girl home. She refused any help to get into the house. Derek sat down with her in her room holding her shoulders, and asked, "You know something and it could be fatal to keep secret, so tell me." Feeling dizzy, she slowly asked, "Do you remember when my mom was overseas while pregnant with me?" He nodded, and made the connection instantly. "Some people tried to kill Sabrina, and she still managed to make it back to the States to have you." She confirmed it, saying, "She later found out the Church had sabotaged her Legacy mission, when she was in the Rome house. Their purpose was to prevent my birth, thereby destroying her powers from continuing." He interrupted, saying, "And now you’re going to have a child." He understood that her life was in danger. "What is it that makes you so dangerous?" he asked quizzically. "I know too much." she said. He wasn’t convinced by that, and without a word, she turned her back on him and lifted her shirt high enough so he could see. At first, he wasn’t sure what she was doing, but then he drew back aghast. On the middle of her back, there was a design of a Celtic cross, with every delicate feature drawn in. "It’s not a tattoo, I’ve had it since I was four." she explained. He examined it closer, and felt it. Sure enough, it was a mark under the skin, and not a tattoo. Besides, no tattoo artist could have done that detailed, intricate handiwork. Pulling her shirt back down wincingly, a stab of pain from her wound hit, and turning to face him, she looked at him searching for either understanding or disbelief. "The mark of Christ." he said. "It happened to me when I was taken in ‘79, when I was four." The eyes in her head rolled back then and she was caught in a tailspin as her wooziness got the better of her.

Derek laid Sari down to sleep and headed downstairs. "I’m leaving now, but Nick, you’re going to stay. Sari is still in danger. I won’t risk the possibilities if someone is after her. Philip, you and Alex are going back with me. I need to know what happened, and how to deal with it now." he ordered. On the way back to the island, after telling what Sari had said and done, Derek addressed Philip while watching the road ahead. "Sari says the Church is out to kill her. I want to know why she thinks that, and why she has that mark I saw on her back." he said. Philip answered, "She spoke to the Bishop three weeks ago, that Sunday she decided to go with me to Mass. After Mass, he singled her out for some reason, and she was being very coy until he said something, when she just seemingly ran from him. I don’t know what they said, but at the end when she walked off, he said ‘you’re Derek Rayne’s daughter, aren’t you?’. She didn’t even stop to answer that. I thought it was strange, but not dangerous." Derek seemingly understood now, and muttered, "Sabrina never believed in the Catholic faith, it’s almost as if she avoided it. Maybe for good reason."

When Rachel and Sari were about to head off to sleep, Nick realized he had no extra clothes with him. He found Sari in the hall after tucking Kat in. "I don’t have any spare attire with me. Can I borrow some of yours?" he asked. She grinned at him and nodded. She rooted through her closet and pulled out some of her favorite sweat pants and T-shirts, saying, "Take your pick. These should do. I don’t think you’re my size in jeans, though, I’m an 8, or usually am, but not now obviously. And I know you hate most of my sweatshirts, ‘cept for maybe the SWAT Team one." He replied, "I’ll just wear what I have now for tomorrow. But I’ll take the sweats for tonight." She handed them over, along with her SFU T-shirt for a set. Once he had gone across the hall to a guest room, she set about getting some sleep.

Something blocked out the moonlight from the window, waking up a tense Nick. He squinted when he saw the figure, cloaked and hooded. The clock on the wall stopped ticking then, and before he knew it, the room was gone. A light blinded him, and he was no longer conscious. Sari, still awake, listened to the house, having a hard time sleeping. Something was missing, and she strained her right ear. Sure enough, she realized one of the clocks upstairs was not click-clacking as it should. She hated those kinds of clocks ever since she was a child, bitter memories of an acrid past. But the absence now scared her, and she moved without thinking. The silence, she realized, was in Nick’s room. Something was amiss. At the door to Nick’s room, she stopped, and drew her gun. Unlocking and loading took seconds, then she slowly turned the knob. Her flashlight held above her gun, she scanned the room as the door burst open with her kick. Nick was nowhere in sight. Without warning, every clock in the house chimed, loudly. Covering her ears, Sari made her way into the hall, screaming. Kat woke up at all the noise, cried out and headed to the hall, and it was then that Sari saw Rachel in the hallway, coming at her as if possessed. Her face distorted into an image of Jon Boyle. Kat ran out of her room, and watched the two in the hall. Rachel came at Kat, and slapped her. "Rachel! Rachel, stop it!" sari growled. Terror struck her and she was immobile. When Rachel saw Kat, she struck her down. Aghast, adrenaline poured through her veins, and Sari defended the little girl by twisting Rachel’s arm, turning her, and giving her a swift kick in the back so that she flew down the steps, landing in an unconscious heap at the bottom. The clocks got louder, and a hurricane of wind whipped up through the house, although no windows were open. As it rocked back and forth, Sari picked up a howling Kat and ran outside to her Blazer. She watched as the house made no sounds and quieted down again. Then she turned the engine and sped away.

Alex heard a door slam, abruptly waking her. A little girl crying in the distance, and a consoling voice as sounds of water running floated around. She came down the hall, and saw a light on in the farthest bathroom. In the doorway, she saw a cut on Kat’s face, and Sari’s back was turned away from the door. Before she could move, Sari turned around, eyes wild with fear. "Alex! Oh, jeezus." she cried. "What the hell happened to you?" Alex asked. "Nick is gone, someone took him. When I went to find him, Rachel attacked me, but it wasn’t Rachel in control. She started to attack Kat, so I threw her down the stairs and we got out." she explained breathlessly. Bending over to the girl, she held a cold compress to her cheek, and hugged the crying girl. Burying her face in Sari’s neck, she wailed, "I want my mom!" She closed her eyes, shuddering, and just hugged Kat tighter. Philip and Derek were behind Alex by then, all of them watching the two kneeling on the floor.

Kat, virtually inconsolable, refused to be anywhere without Sari, so she held the girl and rocked her to sleep in the library then explained what happened. "...She was him, possessed by my uncle, and when he attacked Kat, something just broke in me and I...defended her." she finished with a big breath. Her sallow eyes held no more emotion. Philip came and touched her shoulder, but she wriggled away, saying, "Don’t. I don’t need your sympathy. I just want Nick back, he’s never been in this much danger." But Philip didn’t give up and encircled her anyway. She closed her eyes and gave up fighting him. He embraced her tightly, instinctively knowing her pain, all these demons chasing her since her life had begun, culminating in number. "I’m tired." she whispered, and moved to get up, still holding Kat. They let her go, and Derek turned to look at Alex and Philip. "Alex, look into Sabrina’s past and find anything you can. I know there’s a correlation. Philip, help Alex and make sure nothing gets past security while I’m gone. I’m going to get Rachel and bring her here." he said.

The city was quiet and peaceful, as Derek grew more tense while driving along. When he reached the house and strode in, he saw Rachel still unconscious at the bottom of the stairs. Judging by the bruises on her arm, Sari had really attacked her viciously in defending Kat. He slowly placed her on a sofa, and she woke up. "Where am I? Kat?" she whispered. "She’s with Sari on the island. Rachel, do you remember anything?" he asked. She said, "No. I saw it, but I had no control. I... hit her!" Rachel realized she had hit her own child, and sat up. "They have Nick." she whispered, flashes of remembrance jamming her mind. "Come on, let’s get you to the island." Derek said, helping her up.

As Sari slept, the images reeled like a top spinning, sending her into oblivion on the dreamscape. Julia was staring at her from across a room. Nick was sitting at a table, a gun in his hand. A whirring sound came, at first quiet then louder, as Julia coaxed, "The game goes on! The game goes on!" Time became like wrinkled fabric, moving fast and slow. Dejected from reality, Nick fired, and Sari woke up gasping for air, as if she were ascending from water. Her mind still swam in pooled images of Nick calling out to her without opening his mouth, as she fell for eternity. When the floor hit her, slapping her awake, a lamp came down and broke, shattering into pieces of glass all around her. Realizing she was back, she rubbed her eyes and leaned against the bedpost as she struggled up. Kat still slept, amazingly. Knowing she wouldn’t get any more sleep, Sari showered and dressed at 3am. She joined Alex in the computer room with a pot of coffee. She didn’t even bother to get a mug, she just poured in some milk with it and headed back upstairs. "Morning?" Alex said, confused. "Alex, this is a demon conjured up by the SF clergy. It’s using Julia to get Nick to get me." the shaking girl said. "Rather indirect approach, why?" she asked. Sari looked at her and replied, "It’s a game to them, a game of cat and mouse. I’m the bait. To get the mouse, they have to use the dog to get the cat." The statement was so odd, Alex thought, dismissing it as gibberish, and turned back to her work. Sari sat down and logged herself in as well. "I’m ready to play." she muttered under her breath.

Sari set up what she called a ‘ghost in the machine’ to track down correlations between her and Sabrina’s pasts. The ‘ghost’ automatically cross-referenced the list with case facts from her shooting, which had been filed with the police. The program gave her the list, and she scanned it. "Copycat." she said. "What?" Alex asked in surprise. "It’s a copycat!" she screamed, and delved immediately into clergy records in the Bay area. Her sifting program continued, and came up with names. She printed it out and handed it to Alex. "How did you get this so quickly?" she queried. "I used a ‘ghost in the machine’ as I refer to it. A sifting program designed to correlate then cross-reference all pertinent records to key words. In this case, the word ‘game’." was Sari’s answer. "The Bishop I spoke to weeks ago is simply an informant. The man that tracked my mother down to kill taught classes in London, and a student of his there, now a priest, is here, in San Francisco, on ‘business’. But it doesn’t explain why I saw Julia controlling Nick in my dream." she pondered. "Another dream?" Alex asked, not at all surprised, she was ending up like Derek, finding puzzles and riddles in dreams then chasing them down on missions.

"Sweet girl, you’re up." said a voice. Spinning around, she faced Derek. She grinned at him and left the room. Alex watched her strangely then told Derek about her behavior. "It’s all normal, Alex. Her talent is raw and it’s even beyond my control." he said, dismissing the issue. Meanwhile, Sari tracked down Philip in a back room off of the library, looking at some old Legacy journals. "I need your help, Philly." she whispered in his ear, as he turned to her. "What?" he asked. "A protege of my mother’s killer is copycatting, and wants me dead now. He’s a member of the clergy, sweetie, and I need your help in finding him. Perhaps you even know him." she replied. "His name is Michael McMillan. He was actually in Chicago while I was there the past few years, and almost killed me there when our house had an internal strife with the London house." she concluded. Derek was behind the two and spoke up, "Don’t keep this from me, Sari. Tell me the whole story." She whirled about on the balls of her feet to face him. "I had two dreams last night. One was a flashback to our battle back in Chicago with the London house, the other of Nick and Julia, playing a game of Russian roulette with me at stake. For all indications, the plot against me has been conjured up for years and the chips are hitting the fan, now that I’m pregnant. But the force in my second dream, holding Nick captive, is something different, I feel it." she explained, rather baffled herself. Derek escorted them into the conference room, where Alex was helping Rachel treat her bruises. Sari, still distrustful, stayed across the room from Rachel as Derek revealed Sari’s dreams, what they meant, and began discussing their options.

"I think Sari, Philip and I will go into the city tonight, after we track down an exact locale of McMillan. Philip can get us access to his records, so Sari and I can track him and kill him for good. Alex, you stay here with Rachel." Derek said. Alex herself was tired of always being left behind on missions, but agreed, knowing that it wasn’t time to fight about it. Kat wandered in to the bright room then, rubbing her eyes awake. "Sari?" she asked. Before anyone responded, she saw Rachel, and screamed, running away. She almost fell down the stairs to the first floor, but Sari reacted with lightning speed and grabbed a fistful of the little girls nightgown before it happened. Kat was literally hanging by her gown, as Sari pulled her back up. Glaring up at Rachel, Sari carried the girl back to her room, and crooned her back to sleep. "Alex, watch her close." she instructed her. Then she loaded both her guns and strapped one in her boot, one in her waist holster.

Back in the conference room, she ignored Rachel and looked at Philip, pulling him in a back room. She pulled out her gun from her right boot, and handed it to him, along with two extra clips of bullets for reload. He pushed them away, but she insisted, "Take it, hon. You might need it." He took them hesitantly, saying, "I don’t know how to shoot." She replied, "Let’s have a quick lesson then." She tugged him outside, far away from the house, set up a pop can, and brought him back 100 yards. Then she stood behind him, directed his arms with hers, and said, "Hold it with the muscles in your wrists. Look just above the eyepiece, and square it away. Now, it’s gonna jump on you a little, don’t get scared. Pull the trigger, but not slowly." He sucked in his breath, looked back at her face, steely and determined, then turned and pulled the trigger. He hit the can on the right side, and it spun away to the left. The gun’s force pushed him backwards a little, and he almost fell back. "Whoa, there." Sari said soothingly. The adrenaline in him was pumping like crazy then, and he kissed her, long and hard as she gasped for air. "Oh god..." she whispered when he drew back. For the first time, she knew he wasn’t remorseful, and he wasn’t going to run from her. She softly smiled, hugged him tightly, and looked up to the sky saying, "Thank you."

Derek was waiting with the Range Rover already running at the front of the house. He gave Alex and Rachel last minute instructions, as Sari and Philip got in the back. As they pulled away and Sari logged on her laptop computer, she detected some static lines on a few of the screen’s pixels. "We’re being traced somehow. There’s’ a bug in this car." she wrote on a piece of paper to Philip, who then handed it to Derek while she scrambled over the seat, investigating the vehicle. Finally she wound up in front. "Move your leg." she ordered Derek. He watched her pull out the ignition wires. She moved in closer, and listened to a slight tick. "Oh shit, it’s a bomb!" she cried. Pulling out a collapsible circuit armed with C4 set with a Rolex for a timer, her eyes widened. "Don’t try to stop or it’ll go off!" she screamed as Derek took his foot off the gas pedal. A curve was coming up, to Philip’s horror. "We’re gonna have to jump!" he shouted. Sari looked back at her one true love, at his fear, and came back to him. "We’ll do it together, on the count of 5." a calm Derek said. "There’s probably a trip wire in the doorframes, break the window!" Sari said suddenly remembering her training. She jammed her arm through the back window, as Derek did the same. Sari got out, and slid along the side of the car, holding on for dear life while Philip got out beside her. Together, they jumped off into the ditch, and immediately Sari jumped up, flinching as her leg hurt, but determined to get to Derek. He finally managed to jump off himself, and they watched the car head off into the woods then blow high into the sky.

She reached Derek quickly and helped him limp over to Philip. "Let me have a look." she said, pulling up the pant leg. There was blood from a wound in the knee, and a fluid buildup was forming. "Come on, let’s get to that station down there by the pier." she said as she slipped his arm over her shoulder, assisting him down the hill followed by Philip. Sari called Alex, and told her to come get them with the Blazer, but to inspect it before coming. she took her through the inspection step by step, and when it was found to be clean, Alex came out to the pier. Derek was in pain pretty bad by then, and Sari deftly hoisted him in the back seat, propping up the knee. Alex stayed in the back seat, holding Derek, telling him to hold on while Sari drove to the hospital. She personally checked him in there, and insisted Alex keep him there while she and Philip went on ahead with the plan. "Dad...can you hear me?" she asked finally, smoothing back her father’s hair while he lay on a gurney. "Yes. You shouldn’t go without me. This is a serious task, it’s too risky. You’re too important." he meekly said as the morphine kicked in. "Hey, I can take care of myself. It’s gonna be fine, you just rest and wait, we’ll be back later, I promise." she whispered before leaving.

Philip drove over to the church archive building downtown, and Sari immediately scanned the area for any suspicious activity. "It’s staked out, there’s watchers up in the building across the way, Philip. I’ll cover you as we go in, shouldn’t take long to find out what we need to know. Ready?" she asked. He nodded slowly, then she backed against him, and did evasive maneuvers by covering his back as he strode into the storage building. No one shot them, but they were waiting to. He turned on the lights and used his keys to get in a back room. When it was unlocked, Sari stopped him and pushed him behind her. With a kick, she opened the door and her eyes befell a calm unemotional Nick, sitting at a desk. A shadow moved behind him, and she shouted, "Freeze! FBI! Stop where you are!!" The shadow stopped, and before she could do anything, Nick drew his own gun. "You won’t shoot me, Sari, you can’t. Put the gun down." he said, approaching her. "No, don’t do this, Nick." she whispered, shaking. He slapped the gun out of her hand and backed away from her. Philip came in and tried to shoot his own weapon, but to no avail. Nick shot him down before he had a chance. Realizing it was now or never, Sari played along. "Go ahead Nick, shoot me." she said nonchalant. The shadow appeared as Julia, and Sari stared at her coldly. As Nick moved towards her, a blinding light came and something stopped. Staring at her watch, Sari gasped. It was 9:03, and her watch had stopped.

Nick shot at the defiant Sari, but the bullet verged off in midair, and landed in the wall. It was as if there was a shield around her. The room became translucent, and everything appeared in waves. Finally the light enveloped the whole room, and the next thing she remembered, Sari was laying on the floor of the office. Turning, she saw Nick laying beside her. As he woke up and sat up, blood streamed down his nose. She handed him some Kleenex. The shadows were gone now, replaced by sunlight streaming in. Sari found Philip laying on the floor out in the main office, the bullet wound gone. There was a hole in his shirt, but no wound. He woke up as she hovered over him. When he stood, she went back to Nick, helping him up. He had been drugged, she could tell by his eyes. Staring back at her, Nick silently cried. Sari hugged him hard. After the moment had passed, she felt a wave signature coming off him, and released him to look. "You were taken." she said to him. She felt the bridge of his nose just below his forehead, and he moved back in pain. There was a metallic object within. "Hey, you’re OK. I’ll get it out later on for ya." she said reassuringly. "Let’s get back to the island, fellas." Sari said then, taking them by the arms out to the car. The sharpshooters were gone. The sun was peeking around the buildings as Philip drove them home.

Rachel had some morphine, and they doped Nick up before proceeding to take out whatever was stuck up there. With a sterilized medical tweezers, Rachel took out a very tiny metal object, with a shape similar to a Pentium chip. Sari examined it under the microscope while Philip put it up on the monitor in the computer room. Nick woke up with a huge headache, and when he stood he fell back. Rachel helped him to his room, advising him to sleep awhile before trying anything. He was too weak to argue. She returned to see Philip and Sari talking fervently about the situation. "He’s still alive. I can feel it. He’s somewhere close but I can’t tell you where that might be." she said. "Derek!" he thought aloud. Sari’s eyes widened, and they looked to see Rachel in the doorway. Without thinking, she grabbed her keys, ran down the stairs and out the door. Philip followed, shouting to Rachel to stay put until they called. Before he closed the passenger door, the Blazer was set in motion with Sari’s foot on the gas pedal.

At Mercy hospital, things were quiet on the sixth floor corridor. The duo skulked towards the room halfway down the hall. By the freight elevator, they saw the man striding in. A slight sound came within, as Alex was knocked away like a doll. Sari ran to the door, waited 3 seconds, took a breath and opened it. A man at her right side punched her square in the mouth. He drew back, realizing she wasn’t even affected. Philip, right behind her, attacked the man with utter viciousness for hurting his beloved. Seeing McMillan at her father’s bedside, Sari lunged at him. Once she had him against the wall, she pulled the trigger on her silencer gun and he was dead. Her adrenaline rush continued and she saw with horror that a lethal mix of arsenic and household chemicals had been injected in Derek’s IV. She immediately pulled out the needle. Seeing that some of it was already in his system, she managed to cut off the blood flow of his arm with her hand while she sucked out as much of the poison as possible. After having spit out what she had gotten out, the nurses came in and within the hour, Derek had been treated for the poisoning. Sari had no more emotion in her as she helped Alex.

Two days later, Sari told the whole story to the group and to Will Sloan on the monitor in the conference room. "Patrick McMillan was a protege of the man that tried to murder my mother in Rome in 1975. He was instructed to copycat kill me. But he did it differently, brought his own touch of occult knowledge to the mix. The demon he conjured was set with a purpose of killing me by affecting me indirectly. The dog that ate the cat that ate the rat type of thing. He used the demon to be Julia Walker, who took Nick who tried to take me. He had me trapped at that clergy office, but some benevolent force, the same that took me as a child I think, took over and next thing we knew everything was gone, including McMillan, who we later found at Mercy, trying to get Derek. I killed him and that’s it." she said straight to Sloan, focusing on his reaction to her. He hadn’t seen her face since she was in battle at Chicago three years prior. "From what I read in Derek’s report, it seems you went at things without thinking ahead at all, Sari." he said, nonplused at her success. "Then you can call me impulsive, eh?" she asked jokingly. He didn’t seem amused at this, and said, "Derek, I want to see you and Sari in your office, alone without the others." Surprised, Derek agreed and they transferred Sloan to his office while the others watched the duo head out of the room.

Once in his office, Sari turned on the monitor and waited. "My my my. Sabrina’s little girl has spunk. I hear you’re working for the FBI now Sari. My report also says you turned down the CIA in Washington to stay in San Francisco. Your financial status is rather curious too." he baited. Derek looked at Sloan, asking, "What?" The reply was, "Derek, don’t you know? Your daughter is a millionaire by her own ingenuity. Very wise investor you got for a daughter. Rather like her grandfather in that respect I must say." Sari almost choked and peered at the image of Sloan closely. Before she could speak he continued, "From this report, I see you’re still using the name Boyle. Nice to keep the name of your uncle, sure was a great man, Jon was. I hear he taught you well." Outraged, she hissed back, "My name is Boyle because it was my mother’s name." Sloan saw she took the bait well, and had quite an attitude, so he backed off. Sari left then. His next response to Derek was, "I’m coming out to San Francisco. There has been some internal battles in your ranks, Derek. Time to sort out the rules at this juncture. I know more than you’re telling me, and that scares me. We need better communication, so you’ll be seeing me in a few days." he said, logging off before Derek could respond. Now he was worried. He hadn’t let on about Sari and Philip’s affair, but understood this to be the business Sloan referred to. Sari was the sort who never backed down either. He saw trouble on the horizon, and knew it to be unavoidable.

to be continued ...

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